Chương 380: 169.Seitokai Vacancy

After that idiot walked out with her paper bags and her mouth full of nonsense, the Seitokai office went quiet again. Not the comfortable kind. The kind where paperwork reasserts authority over everything — paper, pen nibs, breathing, and the distant bell from somewhere outside all dropping half a register. The air that had been stirred up settled back down slowly, leaving nothing but the documents on the desk, quietly proliferating in the afternoon light like a civilizational disease.

I shoved the last bite of the bento into my mouth, looked at the summaries I'd just finished sorting, then looked at the pile across the desk — still fully qualified to apply for its own mountain range designation. Then I heard her voice from across the table.

"... Would you be willing to take on a role in the Seitokai?" I looked up.

"Huh?" Not playing dumb. Genuinely huh. I even glanced down at my own dark-blue uniform, just to confirm it hadn't secretly bleached itself white and grown a President's armband while I wasn't paying attention.

"I'm Lower House," I said, pointing at myself.

"That's actually allowed?"

"Nothing in the school code says it isn't." Fast answer. Fast enough that it had clearly been sitting there waiting for the right moment to be deployed. I stared at her for two seconds. That face was still perfectly calm — the kind of calm that wasn't real calm, but rather the President-grade gentle coercion of someone who had already thought it through, run the numbers, and even pre-estimated how I'd frown about it.

"I don't mind," I said, leaning back, turning the pen in my hand.

"But — wait. Why is it just you? Where's the General Affairs Officer? Where's Senpai Linde?"

"Third year," she said, still flipping through a file.

"On placement somewhere in the Pegasus sector, probably." I paused. Then understood.

"That far." No wonder. No wonder the Chair had arrived at the gate this morning looking like she wanted to fold the rulebook into a weapon. It hadn't been pure new-term energy. It was old feelings plus a new vacancy, layered over morning patrol duty and the bus incident — a perfect storm of someone who'd been primed to write people up since before she got out of bed. I couldn't help pulling one corner of my mouth up.

"I see," I said, dropping my voice with intent.

"So that's why she was in such a mood this morning. Turns out it's because she's been—" The person across from me looked up and gave me a flat stare before I could finish.

"Don't."

"I haven't said anything yet."

"I know what you were going to say."

"Which means I'm probably eighty percent right."

"..." Short pause. Very loaded. I nearly laughed, and raised a hand instead.

"Fine. Dropping it." I tapped the pen on the desk.

"But let's be clear upfront — I can hold the title, but I'm not promising I'll always be here. If you actually expect me to sit in this room and slowly die by paperwork every day, I'd rather run twenty laps on the field."

"You don't have to be here every day." She finally gave a little.

"Just fill the position for now."

"Then we're good." I thought for a moment, then added:"And obviously, a development this wonderful needs to be shared with close friends." The pen across the desk stopped.

"What are you planning."

"Solving the Seitokai's staffing crisis," I said, wearing my most earnest expression.

"Reporting to the President: I call this proactive resource coordination." She looked at me with an expression that said, very clearly: I can see exactly what you're about to do and I don't have time to stop it. Ten minutes later, the knock at the door was less polite than Jess's had been. This time the rhythm had an edge. I hadn't even said come in before the door was already open. Two people at the threshold.

Roy Hartmann, whose face said I knew I shouldn't have come, and Lan Weiss, who communicated I didn't want to come but the person next to me dragged me with quiet, complete precision. Roy saw me and his expression went through several stages before settling on something that looked like having his personal history of failures read aloud to him.

"Weren't we supposed to never bring up Pike Six?" he said. Excellent opening. I leaned back, all innocence.

"Did I say something?" His jaw tightened.

"You—" I continued, unhurried.

"That was your arrangement with the President, wasn't it? Not with me." The face at the door cycled through I want to strangle her and I cannot actually strangle her in the Seitokai office in rapid succession.

"You—!" He was practically biting the words out.

"Fine. What do you want." I pointed toward an empty desk at the far end of the office. It looked exactly like the kind of desk where someone would sell their soul.

"Alright. Man up. You're here anyway. The Council needs a Treasurer. I'm counting on you." He turned to look at the chair like it had just grown teeth, then turned back to me, his expression a textbook of being betrayed at a molecular level.

"That's low."

"I'll take that as a compliment." I said it fast. Like I'd been ready. Because using someone's compromising history as labor currency was, in practice, the closest thing the Seitokai had to a functioning market economy. The Federation never assigns things to the people who want to do them. It assigns them to the people who are least positioned to say no. Some would call that efficiency. I shifted my eyes to the other person, who still hadn't said anything.

She'd been standing quietly since they came in — like a blade kept folded. Expression steady, but the moment my gaze landed on her, I caught a slight tension at the base of her ear. Not fear. The specific reflex of someone who'd already predicted I wasn't about to say anything sensible.

"Don't worry," I said.

"I'm not here to cause you trouble." Then I raised a hand and pointed at the other empty seat.

"General Affairs Officer. I'll leave it to you. You're already working alongside him anyway — easier handoffs, easier coordination." The steadiness in her expression shifted, just slightly. Roy exploded immediately.

"Wait — why is she being dragged into this—" I raised a hand.

"Because the Council is short-staffed."

"This is extortion!"

"No. This is resource integration." From behind the desk, Maki finally spoke.

"I'd lean more toward calling it human trafficking."

"That's a bit strong," I said, with great dignity.

"I'm supplementing your headcount." Neither of them at the door looked moved. I studied the face that had gone nearly red to the ears, thought for a second, and decided to add the final push. I leaned in slightly, dropping my voice to a measured, unhurried murmur:"That back room — available for occasional use... is not entirely off the table." The effect was immediate. The color that had been at his ears traveled across his entire face in under a second, shoulders locking up.

Beside him, Lan went rigid like she'd stepped into a live circuit.

"What are you even — what are you saying?!"

"I haven't said anything that specific."

"That was extremely specific!"

"Then it means you've been thinking about it in detail."

"I have not!" The silence the office had been holding finally shattered. I watched the two of them descend into chaos and felt my mood improve considerably. The Federation's future might still be stupid and out of reach, but in this moment, leveraging other people's adolescent emotional states as administrative reinforcement was genuinely effective. From behind the desk, Maki set down her pen and pressed two fingers to her brow.

"Shimo. You look like a corrupt merchant in a period drama right now." I looked over.

"Reporting to the President: I am coordinating human resources."

"You look more like you're running a coercion-based hiring fair."

"The outcome's good, isn't it." I tilted my chin toward the door.

"One Treasurer, one General Affairs Officer. Outstanding efficiency." The trembling, furious one finally snapped.

"Nobody agreed to anything!" I looked at him calmly.

"Pike Six." Two words. The room went quiet. Educational quiet. His expression cycled through several things before something in his shoulders gave way.

"... You're the worst."

"Thank you." Beside him, Lan — who'd been red-faced and clearly recalculating whether refusal cost more than acceptance — gave a small, resigned nod.

"If it's only... General Affairs..." I was on it immediately.

"Perfect. Done."

"Who said done?!" The Treasurer candidate erupted again.

"Look at that energy," I said.

"Very healthy." Behind the desk, Maki had clearly accepted that the situation had been maneuvered into a half-fait-accompli, and let out a sigh that sounded like it was directed at the concept of institutional governance itself.

"We'll log it provisionally," she said.

"Formal paperwork later." I added, very helpfully:"Hear that? The President just gave the nod."

"That is not a nod!"

"It's verbal authorization."

"It's damage control!"

"The Seitokai runs on damage control," I said, perfectly level.

"You're learning this now?" His face achieved a masterful expression of I want to leave but I genuinely cannot leave, which I found deeply relatable, given that I'd been dragged into this same room at noon. Watching someone else fall in did improve the experience. Once the two of them had been steered, with a combination of fury and resignation, toward their respective seats and handover materials, the office resettled into something that could charitably be called order. I looked down at the updated roster.

"Still one short." She wrote in the new names, not looking up.

"Secretary." My first thought was, naturally, the walking natural-disaster-grade information leak.

"Jess?"

"Rejected." No hesitation. I almost laughed.

"That fast?"

"The Seitokai is not a testing ground."

"As if your recruitment method just now was particularly principled." She didn't respond to that, just recapped her pen. I tilted my chair back, thinking. Then a face surfaced in my mind — the one that had been too steady all morning.

"What about... asking the princess?" This time, Maki actually stopped.

"Are you serious."

"Half." I counted on my fingers.

"First, it's only one year. Second, Secretary is a position where the title looks better than the workload — exactly right for a high-profile figurehead. Third—" I paused, and smiled in a way I didn't bother making innocent. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"If she actually sits inside the Council, your public-facing image upgrades to Imperial standard overnight." She watched me. For a brief moment, her eyes ran the calculation: is this a joke, or has she actually spotted something worth using. Honestly, both. Because the Copernicus draft was still sitting at the corner of the desk. That so-called exchange program was obviously not going to be a simple matter of taking a group of second-years to look at rocks on the moon and take group photos.

Given that, letting Hedwig step into the Council's orbit earlier rather than later wasn't necessarily a bad move.

"Worth asking," she said finally. I raised an eyebrow.

"No objection."

"I said worth asking," she said, looking at me.

"That doesn't mean she'll say yes."

"That's not something you can say yes to on her behalf anyway."

"Neither can you."

"True. But I'm better at making it difficult for people to say no outright."

"I've noticed," she said. I laughed, not denying it. Outside the window, the light had started its slow lean toward afternoon. The document mountain that had looked like the end of civilization when I arrived seemed slightly less apocalyptic now that more unfortunate people had been drafted to share the weight. The Federation's administrative apparatus was still disgusting. The Copernicus draft was still suspicious. Hedwig would almost certainly not treat the Seitokai as any kind of honor society.

But one thing was certain: This afternoon, I was no longer the only one falling into this particular hole. I stood and collected the empty bento box.

"I'll find her this afternoon."

"Shimo. Don't sleep through class."

"That's an unreasonable demand."

"If you're actually pulling someone in, you should at least look like a Seitokai member yourself first."

"The nominal kind counts too?"

"It doesn't." I took two steps toward the door, then looked back. She was still at the desk, white uniform clean in the afternoon light in a way that felt slightly unreal, the updated roster beside her, the Copernicus draft pressed under it. It looked like ordinary school administration. I knew perfectly well it wasn't.

"I'm heading out." She looked up and gave one quiet sound.

"Mm." Short. But lighter than before. I opened the door and walked out of the Seitokai office. Before the first afternoon class, I walked back to the classroom carrying a thought that sounded, even in my own head, like a crime in progress. Should I recruit Hedwig into the Seitokai. Just running it as a complete sentence felt like a preemptive confession. Not the ordinary want to join a club?

kind — this was dragging an Imperial princess, who was about to give a speech at a lunar neutral city, into the position closest to the administrative core of a Federation military academy. Normal people don't think like this. Unfortunately, I'd spent my noon being pulled into the Council to file paperwork, and then being forced to read a draft that read like a coffin assembly manual. At this point, normal was no longer a useful metric.

What mattered was: if someone was going into this particular hole, it shouldn't be only me. The classroom atmosphere had dried out compared to morning. Ceremony, new-term briefings, queues, roll call, the performance of still believing in the future — enough to sand the edge off most people's consciousness. Everyone was back in their seats, but their souls were still somewhere on the way, dragging their feet. Someone in the front row was reading the course schedule with the expression of a person reviewing a will.

Two boys in the back were debating which instructor was most likely to blow the assembly whistle at midnight. A cluster of girls near the window had already drifted to Copernicus — from what does Copernicus actually look like all the way to do you think the desserts in the neutral zone are better — a thorough demonstration of the Federation's future intellectual range. I'd barely sat down when the familiar voice came from the diagonal behind.

"Welcome back, administrative sacrifice." I didn't turn around.

"Disappointed I survived?"

"A little." Jess scooted her chair forward, voice full of the particular pleasure of someone who'd eaten well and come specifically to watch.

"I had this image of you being detained until evening, and the Council releasing a report titled Investigative Record of One Individual's Progressive Loss of Personhood Through Clerical Labor." I dropped my pencil case on the desk.

"Page one should read: upon discovery of the body, the deceased was still complaining about the dining hall bento." Jess snorted.

"Speaking of which, it's already going around."

"What is."

"That if you'd actually walked into the dining hall at lunch, you'd have triggered a second clustering incident." She dropped her voice, doing the impression with full commitment.

"Look, that's the one the first-years surrounded in the auditorium. She actually eats. What does she wash her hair with. That kind of thing." I turned around slowly.

"The Federation spends that much money on students, and their imaginations go straight to my hair and my lunch."

"What else?" She spread her hands like this was obvious.

"Young people in peacetime need something to entertain themselves."

"That's fine. When it's your turn to be buried in the Council's duty roster, I hope you maintain this philosophical outlook." She immediately leaned back.

"Hard pass. I survive on wit and good looks, not paperwork."

"Relax." I pulled out my notes, tone easy.

"The people who survive on paperwork — I already dragged two of them in at noon." Jess froze for two seconds. Then her eyes went bright.

"Seriously? What did you do?"

"Minor human resources optimization for the Seitokai."

"In plain language."

"Treasurer filled. General Affairs filled." She laughed hard enough to nearly hit the desk.

"You're genuinely terrible."

"Thank you."

"That was not a compliment."

"I'm treating it as one." Jess was still laughing as she naturally followed my gaze toward the front of the room. The window seat was quiet. Quiet in a way that didn't quite belong to the same timezone as the rest of the classroom. Hedwig sat there, back perfectly straight, flipping through the freshly distributed notes. The afternoon light fell across the desk beside her, giving that corner a too-clean outline.

She was wearing the same uniform, sitting in the same classroom, but she still produced that particular effect — like she hadn't come in to attend class so much as to serve as a reminder, placed here temporarily, that the world was considerably more complicated than any course schedule. Inconvenient. Conspicuous. And more inconvenient still: the princess address in the Copernicus draft was attached too closely to her name.

Closely enough that every time I looked at her now, I thought of the moon, the neutral city, the Federation-and-Empire performance of goodwill, and the way Maki's hand had moved just a little too fast over one particular page. Jess followed my gaze for two seconds, then turned back.

"So you're actually thinking about it." I frowned.

"About what."

"Don't play innocent." She dropped her voice further.

"Your face has two modes. Either you're thinking about how to eliminate someone, or you're thinking about how to drag someone in. Right now it's obviously the second one." I was quiet for a moment.

"... I'm calculating risk." Jess blinked.

"So it's real." I didn't bother denying it.

"Secretary's still open."

"And you've set your sights on Hedwig?"

"Rephrase that."

"Fine." She cleared her throat and delivered it again, perfectly straight-faced.

"And you've identified her administrative value."

"Much better." But Jess's expression was already escalating.

"Wow. This is scarier than I thought. You're not trying to recruit someone for the Council. You're trying to hang an Imperial princess inside the Federation's administrative structure as a decorative object slash live explosive."

"It's only one year."

"That sentence sounds exactly like a scam."

"Half the Seitokai's job is packaging scams as institutional procedure."

"What's the other half?"

"Cleaning up after the institutional procedure." She was still laughing when the front door finally opened. The first afternoon teacher had arrived. Not someone whose name I'd made any effort to memorize, but whose style I had a working read on. The type who, on day one of a new term, doesn't actually teach — mainly confirms the students are still functional, spends ten minutes compressing whatever optimism they'd brought in down to a realistic baseline, and calls it a lesson.

The class straightened up, more or less. Jess pulled herself back into a posture of approximate compliance. Hedwig, naturally, hadn't moved at all. She'd been sitting straighter than the desk since the beginning. The teacher ran the standard opening: syllabus, grading, attendance, conduct, the broad shape of the semester ahead, and that particular tone of gentle reminder that actually meant don't expect this to be easy.

I propped my chin on one hand, turned the pen with the other, and performed the expression of someone paying attention while my brain was still picking apart the noon draft. Copernicus. Lunar neutral city. Federation-Empire exchange. Student representatives. Princess address. And that field tucked into the appendix corner — words that looked like administrative jargon and smelled like something considerably more toxic. The worse I thought about it, the less it looked like anything good.

Up at the front, someone got cold-called and answered like they'd just been dragged out of a dream to sign a surrender document. The class obliged with two seconds of laughter. The air loosened slightly. And then, in the middle of all that half-alive, nominally educational atmosphere, the teacher said:"Also — second year will have an off-campus exchange program scheduled in the coming weeks. Detailed information will come through each class once the formal notice is issued."

Half the room's consciousness came back online in under a second. This kind of revival speed — faster than any medical record — was proof that humans don't need hope. They just need an excuse to temporarily escape the normal schedule. Exchange program. The back rows moved first. People in the front looked up. The girls who'd been speculating about lunar desserts all lit up at once. Behind me, Jess made a very quiet, very satisfied sound.

"There it is. Moon trip." I didn't turn around, just tapped the back of her desk with my pen cap.

"Right now it's called a trip. When you're dying on the itinerary, don't ask me for the body bag."

"You really can't say anything good, can you."

"Because this school rarely does anything good." The teacher didn't elaborate — clearly just planting the seed. But even that was enough to visibly change the room. People started guessing the destination. Guessing whether they'd actually encounter Imperial Academy students. Someone was already calculating whether lunar souvenirs could be resold to first-years at a premium. I didn't join in. I just looked toward the window. Hedwig hadn't moved with the ripple.

She glanced up at the teacher for one moment, then looked back down — like this was neither new nor surprising. That calm wasn't performed. It was the calm of someone who already knew. And I really didn't like that. Not because she knew. Because I was becoming increasingly certain that this trip was never going to be just a trip. Not entirely.

"That's all for today," the teacher said, pulling me back.

"Use the remaining time for independent study. Class rep, please hand out the materials." Independent study was, as always, one of the more dignified collective lies in the school's vocabulary. The class immediately entered Performing Attentiveness mode — books open, pens out, eyes aimed at approximately the right place. What the brain was doing was a separate matter entirely. Notes were being passed. Terminals were being checked.

Someone was already quietly researching whether exchange program could theoretically become a loophole for extended free time. And I was thinking about how to open a conversation that didn't make me sound like someone trying to install an Imperial princess as a decorative piece of live ordnance inside a Federation Seitokai. Jess, clearly, had not given up watching.

"You're actually going to ask, aren't you." I looked at the back in front of me, tapping the pen against my notes.

"Not sure."

"Liar."

"I'm calculating mortality rates."

"And the result?" I put the notes away and thought for a second.

"Slightly lower than asking Nikaido to try on a Free Dress Day outfit." She choked back a laugh hard enough to need both hands over her mouth.

"Then go," she said, voice low, eyes bright as someone selling front-row tickets.

"The longer you wait, the more it looks like you're nervous."

"I am nervous."

"Wow. You admitted it."

"Because what I'm about to do is roughly equivalent to wiring a bomb into the Council's membership list and telling everyone it's a decoration." Jess was about to fire back when the person in front stood up. Hedwig closed her notes. Clean motion — like even the paper didn't dare make unnecessary noise under her hands. She didn't leave immediately, just pushed her chair back in neatly, then turned. In that moment, I understood something I found deeply inconvenient.

Some people don't become conspicuous by walking into a crowd. They just have to turn around, and the crowd goes quiet for half a second on its own. Her gaze landed directly on me. Not a scan. Not a coincidence. A precise, deliberate look. Jess immediately leaned back and raised a hand in a go ahead gesture, wearing the face of someone whose entertainment had just delivered itself to the door. I cursed internally, kept my expression neutral. Hedwig walked to my desk and stopped.

"Hoshino." Good. Surname, no softening. Which meant this probably wasn't going to be a relaxed conversation. I looked up.

"Something you need?"

"Could we speak somewhere less public?" Flat voice. Polite on the surface. But underneath it, something that said very clearly: I know you have something to say. Behind me, Jess took a very quiet breath, suppressing what would have been an extremely punchable ohhh. I didn't need to turn around to know her face was currently broadcasting this is excellent.

"Sure." I stood and pushed my chair in. Hedwig didn't say anything else — just turned toward the side of the room near the windows. Fewer people there, but not so far off it looked like a conspiracy. Good positioning. Not close enough for easy eavesdropping, not isolated enough to look suspicious. As I followed, I caught Jess's voice, barely audible:"Come back alive." I didn't dignify that with a response. The afternoon light came through the windows in slanted bars across the floor.

Voices from the corridor outside were muffled by glass and wall, a little distant. Hedwig stopped by the window and turned back, expression as steady as ever. Steady enough to be mildly irritating. Because it usually meant the person who ended up off-balance was going to be someone else.

"Let's establish one thing first," I said, getting there before she could.

"If this is about apologizing for this morning's eye contact, the seating arrangement, or the fact that Federation students apparently lack adequate poise — I don't have that kind of moral high ground." She looked at me for two seconds. Then the corner of her mouth moved. Very slightly.

"It isn't." That reaction was more inconvenient than a cold stare. Because the moment she let even that much show, the whole thing started to feel like she'd found my opening line mildly interesting. I didn't like that feeling. It meant she hadn't been thrown off.

"Then what is it?" She didn't answer right away. She glanced once across the room — not obviously, but I knew it wasn't random. She was checking the surrounding space. Then she looked back.

"You've been looking over here for a while," she said.

"Could've been daydreaming."

"If it were only daydreaming, McCallow wouldn't have been smiling like that."... Right. So even Her Highness had noticed that face. I clicked my tongue.

"So, since you're already ahead, let's skip straight through it." She nodded once. And did.

"The Seitokai is short-staffed?" I nearly choked on air. The timing was too clean. Clean enough that, for a split second, I considered the possibility of a bug in the Council office. Or of Maki having sold me out earlier.

"How did you know," I managed.

"There aren't that many reasons you would pull me aside like this," she said.

"If it wasn't about Copernicus, it would be about the Council. Given that the President called you out at lunch, odds are they're the same thing." Infuriating woman. Not Jess-type infuriating. Jess jumps around, laughs, and kicks you in the knee. Hedwig stands still, tidy and calm, and uses three sentences to strip your script off the table.

"Fine," I said.

"We need a Secretary."

"I see."

"Don't see it like you're getting a diplomatic cable."

"What tone would you prefer?" she asked.

"At least the tone of someone who recognizes how ridiculous this is."

"This is ridiculous." She held my gaze, entirely composed.

"A Federation Seitokai wants an Imperial student as its Secretary — and right before a Copernicus exchange. If it were anyone else asking, I'd refuse outright."

"What about me." The question came out before I properly thought it through. Too smooth. Too easy. Like I'd been more invested in the answer than I'd admitted to myself. She didn't answer immediately. Just watched me, pale eyes shallow and cold, in a way that still made me feel like I'd shown too much, too fast. After half a beat, she said:"At least you're aware of how absurd the question is." I snorted.

"That supposed to be praise."

"Let's call it honesty."

"Honored." Her eyes flicked once toward the interior of the room, landing briefly somewhere behind me. I didn't need to turn to know who was there. Maki would not be looking this way now. Not directly. But just knowing she was there, plus the Copernicus draft, plus the way she'd yanked that appendix out of my hands, made it impossible to treat this like a simple club invite. Hedwig must've seen enough of that thought cross my face, because her next line was:"Was it her idea." Her needed no clarification.

I leaned a shoulder against the frame and thought about it.

"Half," I said.

"The other half."

"The other half is I don't want to watch her suffocate under paperwork." She went quiet. The pause hadn't been long, but it made me regret the phrasing anyway. That sentence laid the distance between me and Maki a little too bare. She didn't need to know everything to smell it. All she said was, "I see." No follow-up. No digging. No expression. Which, for some reason, was worse.

"So?" I dragged us back.

"You in or out." She didn't agree immediately, or refuse. Just shifted the handout from one arm to the other, the motion slow and precise.

"What does the Secretary actually do?"

"A lot, on paper," I said.

"In practice, depends. The important thing is that you're sitting there and it looks like something."

"I see." She nodded.

"So one of the core tasks is decorative presence."

"That sounds bad, but it's accurate."

"Why do you think I'd agree to being a decoration." That one landed dead center. With someone like her, trying to skate past with bullshit was a waste of everyone's time. She can tolerate your mouth. If you try to hide behind pretty phrasing, she'll simply clock out. So I shelved the jokes and answered straight.

"Because it's not only decor." She said nothing. I kept going.

"Copernicus isn't going to be a field trip," I said.

"You know that better than anyone in this room." Her lashes flicked once. Just once. Enough.

"Crying short-handed is real," I added.

"But there's another reason. Before we send a group to a place like that, getting you used to sitting at that Council table isn't a bad idea."

"For whose benefit," she asked.

"Not just the Federation's." And there it was — the line that skipped over from recruitment into something more like terms. Not a big line. Still a line. Because we both understood exactly the weight of the names stacked in that draft — Copernicus, exchange, princess's speech, friendly Federation–Empire ties. Nobody believes that's just a youth field trip. Her eyes went a shade darker.

"Are you inviting me," she asked, "or warning me?"

"Both."

"Greedy."

"Can't help it." I spread my hands.

"The Council's short-staffed. So is my patience." This time she really did smile. Not a ceremonial curve. A small, honest crack in the ice.

"If I say yes, what does the President say.""'We can try her,'" I said.

"Already discussed."

"I mentioned it," I admitted.

"Didn't answer on your behalf."

"That part, at least, is decent." I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. Talking to her is exhausting. Not because she's combative. Because the second you're dishonest, she catches it. I'd been playing fine in front of too many people all day. I had no energy left for performances. She glanced down at her handout like it contained a prompt, then gave a small nod.

"I can lend my name." My brows lifted. Faster than expected. Then she added:"But I have a condition." Of course.

"Shoot."

"Anything in the Council office related to Copernicus that I am allowed, by status, to see," she said.

"I want to see it first." I stared.

"Sounds like you've been sitting on that condition from the start."

"Because the Secretary isn't the point," she said, still maddeningly calm.

"The point is what the Federation plans to wrap in the label exchange." I stayed quiet for two seconds. She was more direct than I'd prepared for. And more dangerous. Which, unfortunately, didn't make her wrong.

"I can't guarantee everything," I said.

"I know." Her answer was immediate.

"That's not something you can decide." The line itself wasn't cruel. It was accurate. It still made me want to push back.

"Then why negotiate this with me."

"Because it's you standing here," she said.

"Not her."... Fine. Couldn't argue with that. I exhaled.

"I'll pass it on to the President." She nodded.

"Then I'll treat this as half-decided."

"You like getting out ahead of outcomes."

"You don't?" she countered. We held each other's eyes for a moment. In that half-second, I knew, with unpleasant clarity, that this had already become more than plugging a vacancy on a roster. It felt more like placing a piece on a board that nobody'd fully laid out yet. And I was the one who'd invited that piece in. Noise rose briefly from the back of the room — something knocked over, a brief stir. Hedwig glanced that way, then tucked her handout back into her arm.

"Class is about to start," she said.

"I noticed."

"We'll leave it there." She turned, then paused.

"One more thing." I lifted a brow.

"If we do end up going to Copernicus—" she didn't say the rest outright, just finished: "starting early on lunar history wouldn't be the worst idea." My mouth twitched. So the dignity I'd thrown away in the Council office had, naturally, found its way back.

"Did the President say that too?"

"She didn't need to." Her tone held, for once, a thread of something almost playful.

"It's obvious." She walked away. Left me standing by the window, staring out at the light and an entire room of people pretending to study, seriously considering a problem: Between the Federation, the Empire, the Council, Copernicus, and a woman who can strip you down to your working parts with one look — which was the bigger headache. Three seconds of thinking. Answer: all of the above. And I'd already stepped in up to the knee. Jess, of course, had been watching the whole time.

The second Hedwig returned to her seat, Jess leaned forward over her desk, face alive with confess it energy.

"Well?" I sat down, spread my notes open with a straight face.

"That expression," she said.

"The one you just had. Looked a lot like someone who just signed a service contract."

"Not far off."

"Oh?"

"Secretary slot's filled," I said. She blinked once. Then grinned so wide it nearly split her face.

"No way."

"Way."

"She said yes?"

"She's lending her name," I corrected.

"With conditions." Jess studied me for a couple of beats, then smiled in that particular Jess way.

"I'm starting to think this term might be fun." I gave her a sidelong look.

"Your definition of fun tends to overlap heavily with incident."

"Means the incidents are lively."

"It also means you're one step closer to the duty roster." She snapped back into her seat like she'd been shot. I turned back to my desk, the only very clear thought in my head being this — From this afternoon on, that Copernicus draft wasn't just a file on Maki's desk anymore. It had started growing people. And the first to get pulled in, aside from me, was exactly who I'd expected. Hedwig.