"Because I am trying to remain civilized," he said.
Mezos gave Arik the report on Liam, and his gaze dared the prince to keep the idea of being civilized.
Arik accepted the slate.
The device woke beneath his thumb with a sealed Agaronian cipher that could be unlocked by either Arik's signature or Meros'. Mezos had stripped the file out of every network that might remember being touched. There was no administrative ghost left behind for Felix's people to sniff out later.
Liam's formal identification image appeared first.
The image was three years old, perhaps four. His hair was tied back, his red eyes narrowed at the camera with a look of profound boredom that bordered on open hostility. He wore a dark academic coat with the stiff collar of the Capital Registry, and his expression suggested that whoever had taken the photograph had been one comment away from becoming part of a cautionary report.
Arik looked at it for one moment too long.
Then he read.
