Liam didn't need to be a political strategist to read the room.
He was an engineer. He understood pressure.
And right now, the atmospheric weight of the reception hall was climbing toward critical failure.
From his place near the western colonnade, he watched the collision unfold beneath the gold-white hum of the ether lights. He saw Arik Oberon Lyon, the Prince of Ruin himself, if half the rumors were even remotely honest, stand before Felix Canmore with a stillness that made the rest of the hall look badly rehearsed. He saw Felix bow. Saw Arik not return it.
Then, for one terrifying second, Liam saw the mask of the Canmore patriarch slip.
Not crack.
Felix would never be so generous.
But something in his face shifted just enough for Liam to notice. The old monster did not look insulted. He did not look merely angered.
He looked haunted.
That was new and extremely inconvenient.
Arik moved on a moment later, sliding back into the role of dutiful crown prince with a terrifying, liquid grace, as if he had not just left Felix standing in the middle of the room with the emotional integrity of a man who had seen a corpse smile at him. Now King George had him near the royal platform, flanked by three omegas dressed in silks so delicate they were practically theoretical.
The king was performing hospitality.
Or, more accurately, the king was performing the traditional Wrohan ritual of pretending an offering was not an offering simply because everyone involved had been trained to smile over the ugliness.
All three omegas were beautiful. Blond. Softly arranged. Expensive in the way that aristocratic families preferred when attempting to make a person appear like destiny rather than strategy. George's eyes gleamed with the hope that Arik might take a fancy to one of Wrohan's carefully curated consorts and accidentally make the evening profitable.
Liam turned away, his stomach doing a slow, nauseated roll.
He did not care about Arik's taste in bed partners.
He did not care about George's desperate little power plays.
He cared very much about the fact that Felix was standing near the conservatory arch with his silver cane held too tightly in one hand, radiating a cold, violet malice that was already looking for somewhere to land.
In the Canmore family, anger was never dissipated.
It was redirected.
And Liam was the nearest viable lightning rod.
"Not tonight," Liam muttered.
He slipped behind one of the heavy velvet curtains before Felix's gaze could properly lock onto him.
The service passage beyond was dimmer, quieter, and several degrees more honest. The walls still held embedded ether strips, but here they glowed in narrow practical lines instead of the grand theatrical sweep of the reception hall. He moved through them with the ease of someone who had always preferred back corridors to official ones, dodging a confused waiter, a hovering security drone, and a junior attendant carrying a tray of crystal glasses with the expression of a man one vibration away from a career-ending accident.
Liam did not slow.
He took the left corridor near the auxiliary ward plate junction, passed beneath a camera he knew had an eight-degree blind spot because Wrohan's palace engineers were arrogant and underpaid, then pushed open a set of heavy glass doors.
The balcony was an island of cold air and relative honesty.
He stepped out and let the night hit his face. It hurt.
The bruising along his cheekbones throbbed beneath Colette's careful work, hidden well enough for society and badly enough for his pulse. The cut inside his mouth protested every breath. His jaw ached with the dull persistence of an insult that refused to become memory yet.
Liam leaned over the black stone railing and inhaled slowly.
The burgundy silk of his coat caught the night breeze, the cream lining shifting against his legs. Somewhere behind him, the reception continued glittering itself stupidly, but out here the sound dulled to a faint wash of music, voices, and the palace core humming beneath the marble like an enormous beast pretending to sleep.
Below, the palace gardens spread in a grid of manicured perfection, every hedge trimmed into obedience, every path lit by low ether lamps placed with military neatness. Beyond them, Alexandria opened into the night.
From this height, the capital looked less like a city and more like a sprawling engine of light.
Transit rails glowed in suspended lines between towers. Ether conduits pulsed blue-white beneath glass roads. Advertising projections shimmered against the sides of ministry buildings, fading whenever the royal wards cycled through their security pulse. Farther out, the industrial districts burned with deeper color, less elegant and more honest, where fuel cores, heat vents, and working grids kept the kingdom alive while men in the palace took credit for the architecture.
Liam rested both hands on the railing.
He could breathe here.
For a few minutes, Felix was inside, George was inside, the three curated omegas were inside, and Arik Oberon Lyon was someone else's imperial problem.
Liam closed his eyes.
"Ten minutes," he murmured to himself. "That's all I need."
Ten minutes until Mirelle and Ena arrived. Ten minutes until the Armstrong side of the family entered the room and made Felix remember that Liam was not standing alone just because he had been summoned under the Canmore name.
Behind him, the glass doors opened.
Liam did not turn.
"If you are here to discuss the Crown Prince's consort preferences," he said, voice flat, "I am going to throw myself over this railing and make the evening very difficult for everyone's paperwork."
A pause.
"I don't think I'm the one you thought." Mezos' voice sounded.
Liam turned sharply toward the stranger.
The man standing by the balcony doors was not Rex.
He was not Wrohan at all.
That was the first thing Liam registered, because after a lifetime of court survival, nationality had become more about posture than a passport. Wrohan nobles entered rooms as if the floor belonged to someone they wished to impress. This man entered as though ownership bored him and exits mattered more.
Red hair, styled in a long, modern cut that brushed elegantly his shoulders. Blue eyes. Expensive dark formalwear with Agaron's restrained insignia worked into the cuffs, not loud enough to announce status but precise enough to warn anyone paying attention that he stood close to power.
Liam's hand tightened slightly on the railing.
"You're not," he said.
The stranger inclined his head with a degree of courtesy that was perfect enough to be suspicious.
"Mezos of Aradia," he said. "I serve Crown Prince Arik."
"Congratulations."
The faintest curve touched Mezos's mouth. "It is more complicated than that."
"Most terrible life choices are."