Max's gaze flicked to him, as if checking whether Adam really wanted the answer or was just collecting ammunition.
Then Max nodded once. "At the academy."
Adam blinked. "Of course it was the academy."
Max let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh if the memory weren't complicated. "Everyone interesting meets someone interesting at the academy," he said. "Everyone else meets consequences."
Adam's mouth twitched. "You're not even trying to make it sound less dramatic."
"It was dramatic," Max replied simply.
He took a small sip, then set the glass down carefully, like he didn't trust his own hands to stay casual through this.
"I wasn't raised in the capital," Max said. "My mother made sure of it."
He spoke the sentence like it was a fact he'd lived in rather than a story he'd chosen—flat, controlled, the way people spoke when they'd rehearsed the truth too many times to let it shake.
