~Narrator’s~

“You ask me?” Blair mutters as she storms into the corridor with her tablet clutched to her chest. “Reo Cuss doesn’t care about anyone but Reo Cuss. He’s not a leader. He’s a spoiled tyrant in a Forde suit.”

Jennie stops at the corner, one hand gripping the stair rail. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. She was just heading to the kitchen to find tea—anything to help her throbbing head—but Blair’s words pull her still, cutting through her like cold air through a cracked window.

Blair’s voice drops lower, but it turns sharper as she leans in to whisper to a junior staffer, some intern with wide eyes and...