TamLin was rinsing off his face—because walking around bloody was a good way to increase the stress and trigger-happiness of his coworkers, and they had enough ‘accidental’ incidents without him exacerbating the likelihood of and excuses for them—when Kasy found him in the bathroom closest to their office.

He heard her approach, recognized the footsteps, but she still gave a polite sigh signaling her presence. Someone barreled past her, nearly shoving her into a hand-drying unit, and waltzed straight into one of the empty stalls beyond him in the bathroom.

Then Kasy said, “Ribald? Really? Isn’t provoking him like taking candy from a baby?”

TamLin shrugged as he turned toward her. “Needed a punch to the face, not a challenge.”

It said more about her adaptability than it did about her comprehension of the somewhen he came from that she just shook her head. She was shadowborn, meaning she’d inherited abilities from an ancestor from another somewhen, rather than her being from one, herself.

Kasy was a far weaker sensate than he was, but even she picked up traces of others’ emotional profiles. Grade yellows like her just experienced what they sensed as faint vibes, not as concrete awareness, so she couldn’t positively identify what was wrong, even for out-of-natural-timeline bio-identities.

Most sensates couldn’t spot the gaps of masked ‘should be there’ bio-identities at all. That was a grade-black thing, lucky him.

At least she didn’t get the cluster headaches.

He dried his face on his sleeve, checked the dark fabric for the particular sheen that would indicate blood, then faced her. “Got the paperwork for me?”

She lifted her chin and considered him with eyes cold enough to admit how she’d survived this long with Puce, their boss, forcing her into his illegal-but-well-protected breeding program. “You signed off on it yesterday, remember?”

He hadn’t, so Kasy was a forger. She was trusting him with that information—and implicitly offering to do it for him again. She’d also made sure he owed her a favor.

At least that meant there was a less-negative possibility for why nobody had sought his witness statement about their boss’s blown-up office. She’d already filed it for him.

TamLin rubbed his eyes, as if he were tired. “Right. I forgot to keep a copy for myself. Can you get me that?”

She offered him a mini data storage device (called a ‘codette’ in particular somewhen), which doubtless had a copy of the file on it.

He flashed her a smile and started for the door, plucking the codette from her grip. “Thanks.”

She yanked her hand back, then grimaced—because she’d failed to block the reflex, perhaps?

He still didn’t respond well to unexpected touch, himself, particularly when stressed.

TamLin paused, and then pulled his console from his belt, so he could start working on the way back to his desk. He backed into the bathroom door so he could keep an eye on her while he opened it. “You know you aren’t my type, right?”

Kasy crossed her arms and let out a huff of air, but she followed him out into the nondescript hall and towards their office. “You’ve said that before. Do you even have a type?”

Answering that honestly would admit a weakness.

Answering that honestly would reassure his coworker that he would never side with Puce’s efforts to have her raped, just because he wanted some tail. “Yes.”

Kasy’s eyebrows rose. “I’m not sure I dare ask.”

As they walked, he plugged the codette into his console and copied the appropriate file over. “Wouldn’t answer even if you did.”

She flinched.

TamLin had to be careful which details he admitted about himself, due to legitimate risk of harm to him, to witnesses, to his audience, or to other shadows he knew. Most of what was safe to say would only frighten her.

He finally offered, “You’re too soft for me.”

Kasy’s stare said he’d judged right, that she wasn’t offended by his words. “For you.”

“Yup.”

She tilted her head in a quick nod—indicating acceptance, not affront. “Nice disclaimer.”

The concise, precise responses were reminding him of She-who-used-to-be-Third. “Thanks.”

Kasy studied him. “Okay, what’d I do wrong?”

He raised an eyebrow at her but kept his stride even.

“You’re mighty uncomfortable, all of a sudden.”

There was one thing he could tell her that would explain his reaction without admitting his unhealthy attraction to a particular Nameless…but that would open too many vulnerabilities to make it worth the risk. “I am?”

She considered him for another moment, then shrugged dismissively, apparently deciding they each had too many secrets to risk forcing one into the open. “So you don’t think I’m soft?”

The pleasant smile and inquisitive eyebrows were all innocence eager for an honest answer.

Despite the office gossip calling Kasy a dimwitted floozy, that apparent naïveté was also as fake as her choice of hairstyle.

“No,” TamLin answered as they entered the office they shared with a few others, most of whom worked different shifts than they did. She was far from ‘soft’.

Surprise flashed over Kasy’s face, and she nervously fiddled with her hair instead of heading to her desk. “Seriously?”

No, he had a habit of lying when he gave compliments.

The sarcasm wasn’t a good sign. His temper could put people in the emergency room.

“So what’s the deal with Puce?” he abruptly asked instead, knocking the conversation onto another—and more important—topic as he glanced over what she’d filled out and filed for him.

She stiffened before asking carefully, “What do you mean?”

“He dead from the explosion yesterday?” TamLin asked first, letting her relax a little before he asked, to point out that he knew, “And just how often did he pimp you out?”

Kasy recoiled away from him, into the corner of a cabinet. He cringed in sympathy as she rubbed the to-bruise spot in her back.

He also noticed that she didn’t yelp.

That (lack of) reaction meant she was used to pain. But she was an agent, not an operative, so she didn’t have the kind of field training or experience that would result in that kind of pain tolerance. StretSec agents handled civil cases, not criminal ones.

She stared at him through narrowed eyes, brow furrowed as she bit her lip. “Forensics is still checking things out, but they didn’t find a body.”

There wouldn’t necessarily be one, for someone from an alpha universe, but TamLin had reason to pretend he didn’t know the top jackass of the office was a shadow, himself. (Namely, presumed ignorance would make TamLin safer whenever Shadow Corps finally showed up in this somewhen.)

She continued, “Someone tossed some kind of explosive right on Puce’s desk—”

“Napalm-echo,” TamLin stated.

Kasy rolled her eyes, catching him off-guard. “Well, yes. You and I know that, but”—she pointed her thumb over her shoulder towards the door—“our buddies down at the labs don’t, since Puce was the only person in the office with authorization codes to get our kinds of messes classified properly for the appropriate examination.”

Only one person in the entire building for the region’s division of StretSec? StretSec was incredibly centralized—foolishly so, in TamLin’s opinion—so there were far too many secs in their single building for that kind of incompetence to be excusable. “Who came up with the law that allowed that?”

“Yes, because Puce is such an upstanding example of a law-abiding agent.” She gave him the side eye. “How did you get your rank without knowing who gets the codes?”

TamLin shrugged. “Fast track.”

“Oh, so that’s why Puce’s been pressing so hard for you to knock me up. They’re trying to kill you.” Her brow furrowed with confusion. “But you’re a trained grade-black sensate with firsthand knowledge of universe-hopping. Why would they want you dead?”

“Because I’m a trained grade-black sensate with firsthand knowledge of universe-hopping.” TamLin checked through the paperwork again, confirming that Kasy had filled it perfectly. “Tends to make people with illegal side businesses nervous.”

Her frown remained. “Because you know enough to be able to turn them in to Shadow Corps?”

He met her gaze, wondering how she’d gone this long without anyone cuing her in. “Because Shadow Corps actively hunts for the shadows like me.”