The Extra's Rise

Rose doesn't enter rooms. Rooms notice Rose. Tonight she wore black with a line of red at the throat—clean, sharp, not asking permission. Her hair was loose enough to be a choice, not a mistake. Paradox curled around her like a cat that was pretending not to be one.

"Zenith Blade," she said when she reached me, dry as always, and held out her hand. "Dance with the woman who had to watch the broadcast on a train with bad signal."

"I owe you better signal," I said.

"You owe me a dance where you don't get distracted by incoming eldritch nonsense," she said. "Practice now."

We moved. Rose cut across the expected patterns just to see if I would notice. I did. She smiled, small and pleased. She liked it when life noticed her tells and chose to love them anyway.

"You changed what 'Calamity' means," she said, like we were discussing the weather. "Expect headlines. Expect committees. Expect at least three old men to write angry essays about humility."

"I'm not asking to rename anything," I said.

"You never are," she said. "And yet."

She leaned in for a turn. The air around us bent for a breath, a quiet Paradox glitch that turned the beat into a friend. "Also," she added calmly, "stop making death look easy. You're going to give the kids the wrong idea."

"I don't intend to fight a demigod thing every week," I said.

"Intentions," she said, deadpan, "are adorable."

We ended with a spin that wasn't showy until you looked at it twice. She winked at Stella on the sidelines, making my kid glow like a lantern, then stepped away with a pat to my chest that was half affection, half warning. It said: I will love you even when you are impossible—do not make me practice that too often.

Two down became three. Stella's slate tapped my arm again. "Cecilia," she said.

Cecilia arrived like midnight. Crisp lines. Crimson eyes that missed nothing. She never overdressed, and somehow that made everything she wore look important. She stopped at an exact, polite distance and offered her hand without a word.

"Hi," I said.

"You're an idiot," she said, perfectly even. "Dance with me."

We did. Cecilia liked a pocket of space, not because she needed it, but because she had spent too many years without it. I gave it to her. She measured me for a full minute without blinking. That was her version of relief.

"You're going to get every government you've ever annoyed knocking on your door," she said. "They will call it cooperation. It will be leverage."

"I know," I said.

"Let Luna screen the requests before you give away your time for free," she said. "Let Reika say no even when it makes you look rude. Let Rachel talk when your words would make enemies. Let Seraphina read the traps. Let Rose burn the subtle threats. Let me deal with the unsubtle ones."

"And you?" I asked.

"I will dance with you when the room thinks it has you," she said. "And I will remind you to eat."

She did both. When the song ended, Cecilia's hand lingered for a breath longer than was safe for her calm image. Then she let go and returned to the edge like a shadow rejoining the wall.

The orchestra shifted to a brighter piece. Across the hall, the warder choir began to hum the bridge they'd practiced to smooth the applause. The crowd loosened around the edges in the good way.

Stella slid next to me again, proud and professional all at once. "You're doing great," she said. "You only looked like you wanted to run away twice."

"Only twice?" I said. "Improvement."

"Drink," she ordered, and I did.

I looked across the floor to where Tiamat stood like a quiet mountain, watching everything, interfering in nothing. Marcus and Lyralei were together near the dais, greeting unit leads and their families with real attention. Ian had been swallowed by a circle of Storm-Griffon riders demanding a terrible story from training; he was giving them one with both hands. Luna was three steps from the kids' corner, holding a toddler while a medic wrapped a knee. Erebus, somewhere deep in the city, was shepherding Redeemers back to the Necropolis with instructions about smiling.

"Next?" I asked Stella.

She pretended to read her slate even though I knew she had the order memorized. "Now comes the part where you survive people wanting to talk to you at the drink tables," she said. "Then you dance with me."

"Best part," I said.

"Obviously," she said, as if math had proven it.

We made it three steps before a cluster of foreign ministers intercepted with practiced smiles. They had the look of people used to being heard first. It took five minutes and two carefully phrased answers to move them along without starting an argument about borders. Stella tugged my sleeve again, saw my face, and performed a tiny pantomime of breathing. Inhale. Exhale. Pancakes.

"Arthur," a familiar voice called from the stairs. Seraphina had returned with a thin envelope. "A note from Mount Hua's elders. They wish to schedule a quiet meeting about what you did with the Violet Mist."

"Tomorrow," I said, and she nodded.

"After breakfast," she amended, because she knows me.

Rachel found me before I could prove either of them wrong. "Five minutes," she said, voice soft and absolute. She led me to the edge of the balcony where the hall's noise fell away. We stood in the wind that smelled of lantern oil and mountain night. She didn't make me talk. That was the gift.

When we went back in, the orchestra struck the waltz I had been waiting for since Stella made her schedule. My daughter was already standing at the edge of the floor, braid crooked, eyes bright, one hand held out like I'd taught her the first time she asked.

"May I?" she said, trying very hard to be formal.

"You may," I said, and bowed too deeply on purpose until she giggled.

We stepped out. The hall did what halls do when they see a child lead the hero—cleared a ring and pretended not to watch while watching very hard. Stella put her hand on my shoulder, set her other hand in mine, and counted the first steps under her breath even though she didn't need to.

"You're taller," I said.

"You're old," she answered, grinning.

We turned. She kept her frame clean because Seraphina had drilled her for fun yesterday. Halfway through, she switched steps for the challenge and watched to see if I would catch it. I did. She beamed. Numbers are her game, but this is her favorite math—one, two, three, together.

As the waltz drew to a close, the orchestra shifted the last bar into a brighter key. The floor clapped in time. Names still drifted on the walls. The kids' corner erupted again as Ember, the bronze drake from the reserve, made a surprise loop on the screen and pretended to sneeze sparks.

Stella squeezed my hand hard. "This is good," she said. "I like when the world is like this."

"Me too," I said.

The song ended. I lifted her hand and bowed to my daughter like she was a queen. She curtsied back, very serious, then immediately ruined the effect by bouncing on her toes.

"Break," she said briskly. "Then you owe Reika a dance or she'll sulk."

"Reika doesn't sulk," I said.

"She does," Stella said. "In her eyes."

I looked over at Reika. She wasn't sulking. She was measuring the room, exactly as she should. But when my gaze met hers, the corner of her mouth tilted, just a little. Stella wasn't wrong.

I took a step toward her.