"Date with Patricia Bloom," Eira supplied, crystalline wings fluttering beside him as they stepped into the elevator. "Forty-five minutes. She's been ready since the evening—pacing, reapplying lip gloss, checking her reflection like it might run away."
Phei chuckled—low, dark, the sound rolling off the brushed-steel walls like distant thunder. He thumbed the button for floor 98.
"You know," he said, glancing at the tiny void-black eyes hovering at shoulder height, "you make a pretty good assistant."
Eira's wings froze mid-flutter.
Then she pouted.
For a ten-thousand-year-old crystalline entity bonded to the most dangerous bloodline in recorded history, the pout was theatrical enough to win awards.
Lower lip trembling, tiny fists balled, wings drooping like wet laundry.
"Assistant," she repeated, pronouncing the word as though it tasted of spoiled milk. "I am an ancient companion forged in the crucible of dying stars, and you have demoted me to… harem expansion manager."
