System 427 was, of course, still hovering beside Heena—invisible to everyone else in the room. He looked at her terrified expression with undisguised glee. It wasn't every day you saw the Black Lotus herself trembling like a scolded child.
Heena hurriedly stood up, took five full steps away from the male dancers, and plastered on the brightest, most innocent smile she could manage.
"Aunt!" she greeted, voice pitched just a little too high. "I didn't know you were here!"
The Duchess raised one hand.
Her eyes were so strict, so cold, that even Heena—who had faced down emperors, assassins, and cosmic backlash—'trembled'.
The woman looked at Heena's bandaged wrist, then swept her gaze across the room once more: the dancers, the grapes, the incense, the sheer audacity of it all.
"I heard," she said, voice like ice, "that you were injured."
She paused.
