If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that you can prepare for many things.
Ambushes, shootouts, interrogations…
But not for a room with the Supreme Judge watching you from behind his wooden desk, with a gaze that feels like it can see straight through your soul.

Monsieur Neuvillette’s office is as solemn as the Tribunal itself: tall windows, stone columns, shelves filled with books and records… and a silence that weighs heavily.

“Clorinde. Navia,”
Neuvillette said in his measured tone, as if weighing each word on a golden scale.

“I have been informed of the incident in the underground tunnels. Do you have the details?”

I nodded.

“We managed to confiscate part of the shipment. Industrial explosives, clearly unregistered. Two suspects neutralized, two others escaped. Navia confirmed her connection to the smuggling network.”

He shifted his gaze slightly toward her. Navia, for her part, had her lips faintly pressed together. She looked annoyed with herself. But she said nothing—only toyed with the handle of her umbrella.

That gesture of hers was already familiar to me. Almost automatic. A small tic when she thought too much.

“The network has been alerted,”
I added.
“It’s likely they’ll try to change routes, or relocate.”

Neuvillette nodded slowly.

“That complicates matters…”

Silence reclaimed the room. And then it happened.

Navia twirled her umbrella again, not looking, lost in her own thoughts.

The tip snagged on the ceremonial rug in front of the desk. One small tug was enough.

“Ah!”

She slipped. Her body tilted sideways, losing balance. Before either of us could react, she was already falling—straight onto me.

“Navia?!”
was all I managed to say before the impact.

She landed on top of me, her arms awkwardly braced against my chest, her face only centimeters from mine. Her loose hair brushed my cheek. I felt the warmth of her breath against my skin.

The room fell into absolute silence.

We stared at each other.

I was far too stunned to react immediately.
She… was completely red.

“I–I’m sorry… I’m so sorry, really!”

She began to babble as she tried to get up.

I stood as well, and before either of us could say anything else—

“Ahem.”

Neuvillette cleared his throat, his calm sharper than a blade.

We both turned to him, like two students caught cheating on an exam.

“I remind you,”
he continued, his voice firm, though faintly resigned,
“that you are in an official hearing. If you wish to discuss such… intimate matters, there are private rooms for that.”

My cheeks burned. I don’t blush easily, but even I felt the heat creeping up my neck. Navia, on the other hand, looked seconds away from evaporating.

“It’s not what it looks like!”
she blurted out, waving her arms.
“It was an accident. The rug, the umbrella—this is all the rug’s fault!”

“And the umbrella,”
I muttered, almost without thinking.

“And the umbrella,”
she admitted, lowering her head.

Neuvillette closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Very well. Instead of blaming my rug, let us return to the matter at hand.”

I silently thanked him for not pursuing the subject. We returned to our places before his desk, both standing rigidly upright, as if posture alone could erase what had just happened.

“Clorinde,”
he continued.
“Given that Navia can no longer act as an infiltrator, I require the two of you to work together as a tracking unit. Follow the group’s movements and locate the new distribution point. Can you do so… without incidents?”

“Yes, sir,”
I replied immediately, still feeling the echo of warmth on my face.

Navia nodded as well, though she avoided looking at me.

We left the office minutes later in complete silence. Only once we were out in the hallway, with the door closed behind us, did I dare speak.

“If you fall on top of me again, I’m going to assume it’s on purpose.”

She shot me a quick glance—and then… smiled.

“What if it is?”

I looked at her from the corner of my eye. I wanted to reply with something sarcastic. Something cold. Something that would put distance between us.

Nothing came out.

So I just sighed and kept walking.

Because the next step of this mission would take us to darker places…
And I wasn’t sure whether I was more worried about the criminal network—

—or about what I was beginning to feel for Navia.