For a second, the balcony held them in clean night air and distant city light. Behind Mezos, through the glass, the reception hall glittered on, filled with people pretending not to watch anything while watching everything. The palace ether lights made the stranger's red hair look darker at the edges, almost wine-bright, which Liam privately resented because it matched the evening far too well.
Mezos's gaze moved, assessing him once.
Liam hated being assessed almost as much as he hated being underestimated.
"If you are here on behalf of your prince," Liam said, "you can tell him I have no opinion on blond omega consorts, Wrohan's hospitality rituals, or whatever King George thinks counts as subtlety."
"I am not here about consorts."
"Good. I was about to become uncivil."
"You were already uncivil."
"Yes, but not creatively."
This time, Mezos grinned, very much entertained that the omega fated for Arik had teeth.
Then his attention shifted, not to Liam's clothes, not to the name he carried like an inherited inconvenience, but to the faint movement of Liam's jaw when he spoke.
The bruising.
Liam felt the moment he noticed it.
His expression went flat.
"Look somewhere else."
Mezos cracked and let out a disbelieving laugh; he raised a hand in mock peace. "I have eyes, Mister Canmore."
"Liam."
Mezos's hand remained raised for a beat longer, then lowered with exaggerated care.
"Liam," he corrected, the name settling smoothly into place. "I have eyes."
"Then discipline them."
That earned him another brief, disbelieving laugh, softer this time. Not mocking. More like Mezos had found something unexpectedly sharp in the middle of an already dangerous room and was deciding whether to admire it or keep both hands away.
"Noted," he said.
"Good."
"And since we are correcting terms," Mezos continued, "I am not here to ask about your face."
"How generous."
"I am here to ask about the brooches."
That did what courtesy had not.
It caught Liam's attention cleanly.
The irritation in his expression did not vanish, but it narrowed into something more precise. He turned his head just enough to look through the balcony glass back into the reception hall, where the ether-light washed over silk, jewels, false smiles, and silver owl brooches pinned near the throats and collarbones of Agaron's diplomatic corps like decorative restraints pretending to be protocol.
"What about them?" Liam asked.
Mezos's gaze followed his.
"They are behaving inconsistently."
Liam almost laughed again but remembered the cut inside his mouth in time and spared himself.
"That is a very polite way of saying someone over-tightened the suppression threshold and is now waiting for the devices to develop morals."
Mezos looked back at him.
"You noticed from here?"
"I noticed from inside the hall." Liam shifted his weight, the burgundy hem of his coat moving in the cold night air. "The feather lattice is mispulsing. That one near the south arch is cycling wrong every ten seconds. The one on your trade minister is worse. It is holding, releasing, then snapping shut again. If he has not developed a headache yet, he will."
Mezos's expression lost its amusement.
"Several members of the delegation already have."
"Of course they have."
"Can you confirm whether the brooches are dangerous?"
Liam turned back to him fully.
"They are suppression devices forced beyond their proper calibration, pinned to people from one of the most ether-saturated empires in the region, inside a palace with an active ward grid humming loudly enough to make the floor vibrate." His red eyes narrowed. "Dangerous is the polite baseline."
"That was my concern."
"No," Liam said. "That was your prince's concern. You were sent."
Mezos inclined his head, not denying it.
Liam exhaled through his nose and glanced back through the glass toward the hall. "Look, if you want help with the brooches, you need an order from either King George or…" His mouth tightened around the title. "The Grand Prince."
Mezos's expression changed just slightly. Troubled, which looked wrong on a man that composed. He lifted one hand and rubbed the back of his head, the gesture unexpectedly human. "Yes. That would be ideal. Unfortunately, they don't admit there is a problem." A pause. "We have Crown Prince Rex's support, if that helps."
"It doesn't."
Mezos lowered his hand.
Liam sighed, already irritated by the fact that the answer had to be practical instead of satisfying.
"I can't touch the brooches without the engineers behind them knowing. They will know. The lattice records interference, the palace grid logs diagnostic queries, and any recalibration would show up in the ministry's control chain within minutes." His red eyes narrowed. "And as much as I hate my grandfather, I do enjoy being alive and unmarried to some old, stinking bastard Felix chooses as punishment. Because Felix won't execute me for betrayal."
Mezos looked genuinely taken aback.
"No," Liam said dryly. "That would be crude. He'd ruin my life in a way everyone could toast at the wedding."
For a moment, Mezos said nothing.
Then, very carefully, "You think he would force a marriage over this."
"I think Felix would force a marriage over bad posture if it gave him leverage." Liam folded his arms, the burgundy sleeve shifting over cream silk. "Treason is simply more elegant material."
Mezos's mouth thinned.
"Understood."
"Do you?" Liam asked, looking at him properly now. "Because I don't think foreign delegations always understand the difference between a legal danger and a social one. If I break into Wrohan's suppression system to relieve Agaron's diplomats without authorization, Felix does not need to accuse me of espionage in public. He only needs to imply I acted recklessly, compromised national security, and require stabilizing under a stronger household."
Mezos's eyes cooled.
"A cage by another name."
"Usually with flowers."
The silence between them sharpened.
From inside the hall, a wave of laughter rose and fell, bright and artificial. The owl brooch on a diplomat near the south arch pulsed wrong again, a faint silver stutter in the feather lattice.
Liam saw it.
So did Mezos.
"But," Liam said after a beat, "there is a difference between altering the brooches and easing side effects."
Mezos went still.
Liam held up one finger. "Do not look relieved yet. I hate premature optimism."
"I'll try to contain myself."
Liam raised a brow.
"The only way to relieve the symptoms properly is to use more ether."
Hope flickered through Mezos' eyes.
Liam lifted his hand before he could interrupt. "Not Wrohan's palace grid ether. That is the problem with all of you looking at the city and assuming light means quality. The grid looks blue because that is how the conduits are treated, but the ether running through it is lower grade. The color of the light tells you what the engineers want you to see. The actual resonance tells you what it is."
Mezos narrowed his eyes, attention shifting inward for half a breath.
Then his mouth tightened.
"Yellow."