Chapter 183: Preparation For the Ballroom Party

Chapter 183: Chapter 183: Preparation For the Ballroom Party

I shook my head.

"Not good. I’m not a fan of public spaces."

Draven laughed, the sound bright and entirely too pleased with itself.

"That’s great. You will be attending the ballroom party this evening."

Giselle turned toward him so quickly the motion almost looked involuntary.

Her face stayed indifferent, but the set of her shoulders had gone tight again.

"Why is he coming?"

"Your mother wanted to know how he’d hold up when he’s surrounded by people."

Draven’s yellow eyes flicked between us, amused.

"Also, she’ll meet him there."

Giselle’s voice dropped half a degree.

"Mom’s going to see him?"

"The Empress is coming to see me?"

I felt the words leave my mouth before I could stop them.

Draven spread his hands like the answer was obvious.

"Of course. You hurt her precious daughter. You get to answer to the person who actually matters. That’s how these things work."

I kept my tone even.

"What’s this party about?"

"My little niece passed the exam, didn’t she? Topper at that."

He said it lightly, almost proudly, and Giselle didn’t react at all.

The lack of response felt practiced, as if she had heard the same line in a dozen different rooms and had long ago decided it was not worth the energy.

Draven clapped once, already turning toward the exit.

"Anyway, don’t forget. Wear something nice. Smell good. No Overwatch blacks. They’ll see the other sector on you."

He walked out.

I stared after him.

"...That’s it?"

Draven paused in the doorway without looking back.

"What else? You thought I was going to train you for something? Nah. I’m busy. Raids, politics, keeping certain women from declaring blood feuds over pretty supports who don’t know when to keep their mouths to themselves."

He finally glanced over his shoulder, smile thinning into something sharper.

"Also... Revien. You are in no position to reject any of their advances tonight. Flirt with them. Enable them. Enjoy them if you want. But you should never make any of them mad. Whether you reject or go through with anything is entirely up to you, on paper. In practice, there will be a lot of women in that room. Powerful ones."

"How powerful?"

"The kind who have never heard the word no and don’t plan to start. If you refuse the wrong person in the wrong tone, I will have to punish you accordingly. And my punishments are less fun than collars and skipped meals."

"Am I supposed to say yes to everything?"

"You figure it out."

He gave a two-finger wave.

"Try not to die of social anxiety before the Empress even gets a look at you."

Then he was gone.

The lounge felt larger without him in it.

The floor-to-ceiling glass showed the same branded Sector 5 skyline, Draven’s face repeated across half the visible billboards like the sector itself was a sponsorship deal.

I turned to Giselle.

"What is this, fucking exhibition?"

"I don’t know."

She started walking after him, voice flat.

"Don’t care."

I caught her wrist before she reached the door.

She stopped.

The muscle under my fingers tensed once, then went still.

She looked down at the point of contact, then up at my face.

"You’ve been touching me a lot."

"I don’t have a dress."

"Go buy something."

"Accompany me."

The request hung between us.

Giselle’s red eyes narrowed a fraction, the same measuring look she had given the fragment of her own core when she first realised it was still inside me.

"You want me to take you shopping."

"I want someone who knows what ’Safe formal wear that won’t get me killed for looking like Sector 7’ actually means. And you’re the only person in this building who has a reason to keep me presentable instead of letting me walk into an Empress’s ballroom looking like a provocation."

She pulled her wrist free, but she didn’t leave.

"You’re very free with demands for someone who spent two days in a cell and just got thrown out of a moving vehicle."

"I’m practical. You’re the closest thing I have to a guide who isn’t actively hoping I embarrass myself in front of your mother."

Giselle studied me for a long moment.

The fragment under my ribs gave another quiet pulse, softer this time, almost like recognition.

"Fine," she said at last.

"But you don’t touch me in public unless I initiate. And if you try to turn a clothing store into another negotiation about midnight kisses, I will leave you in the fitting room and let the attendants decide what colour makes you look least like a scandal."

"Yes, boss."

She turned toward a different corridor, one that led away from Draven’s lounge and deeper into the guild’s private levels.

"There’s a Tailored atelier two floors down. They already have my measurements on file. They can approximate yours fast enough if you stand still and don’t talk more than necessary."

I followed.

The corridors grew quieter, the ambient music fading into something lower and more expensive.

We passed two Vanguards in formal training blacks who gave Giselle a short nod and me a longer, more complicated look.

One of them murmured something I didn’t catch.

Giselle ignored it completely.

"Your mother," I said after a stretch of silence.

"How much does she already know?"

"Enough."

Giselle didn’t slow down.

"She watched the exam feeds. She saw you smile afterward. The party is not a celebration with a side of interrogation. It is an interrogation with a side of celebration."

"And you? Are you supposed to be my handler for the evening or just the evidence?"

She stopped at a set of frosted glass doors etched with a subtle lattice.

For a second she looked like she might actually answer.

Then the doors slid open on a soft chime and the question became irrelevant.

The atelier beyond was all clean lines, and the quiet efficiency of people who dressed Empress-line families for a living.

A woman in her thirties with silver-threaded black hair and the calm of someone who had seen every possible political disaster walk through her doors looked up from a floating measurement slate.

"Lady Giselle. We weren’t expecting you until later."

"Change of schedule. He needs residual-safe formal wear for tonight’s function. Full suppression of external signatures. Nothing that reads as intimidation. He’ll be standing near... me."

The woman’s eyes moved to me, professional and thorough.

"Understood. Step onto the platform, please. Arms relaxed. Do not cycle energy while the scan runs."

I did as instructed.

Soft light swept over me from all directions.

The floating slate updated in real time.

Giselle stood to the side with her arms folded, watching the process like it was another reading she intended to memorise.

"You’re staring," I said quietly.

"If you want a kiss, just ask."

The women who measured me went still.

"..."

"..."