Once Icarus was done gaping in disbelief, he asked, “How do you know that? I mean, okay, you being from another universe is weird enough, but it explains a lot of your…um.” He evidently decided against specifying and shook his head. “But Puce?”

TamLin shrugged. “It’s a talent of mine.”

Icarus mulled on that a minute, accepting the new information with a readiness that was probably why the assholes hated him so much: he was willing to notice what he actually saw and not stick to assumptions and stereotypes. “How does that work, exactly? You can look at someone and…just know ‘hey, this dude’s from universe zeta’?”

“It’s more a sense of divergence from what’s native to the somewhen I’m attuned to, and I don’t need visual contact to make it, but yes, I’m that accurate.” TamLin kept his body language as casual as his tone, ready to spin everything as a massive joke if he spotted any signals that Icarus was less upstanding than he presented.

“Huh,” Icarus said. “Why are you telling me this?”

The reflector was still running, so TamLin could still make Icarus disappear if it proved necessary. “Puce has been abusing shadows and shadowborn for too long.”

Confusion creased Icarus’s brow, so Puce’s volleys against TamLin hadn’t reached the nice guys’ scuttlebutt yet. That had some troubling implications about whatever he was planning. It was harder to outmaneuver someone who was already intending to resort to illegal methods, anyway, because that meant law enforcement wasn’t a deterrent and couldn’t be relied on as an aid or ally.

“‘Shadows’ are people from other universes,” TamLin explained. “Their children are called ‘shadowborn’.” Only if the child inherited something from the shadow’s native universe, but that was getting more complicated than the man needed.

Icarus blanched. “You have children?”

TamLin grimaced. “No.”

At least, he hoped he hadn’t left any kids behind when they’d fled home. He’d done his best to ensure he hadn’t, but birth control wasn’t always possible when you weren’t consenting to begin with.

Second would probably be willing to double-check for him, but he couldn’t ask that of her. His mother would recognize what Second was and respond accordingly, and then TamLin would have to commit matricide.

His coworker’s blatant relief admitted much of how the nice guys around the office saw him.

If thinking TamLin an abusive asshole meant they kept their distance and therefore out of harm’s way, he was okay with that. “Puce is a bastard, and it’s time to stop him.”

“…How does telling me do that?”

TamLin shrugged. “Office grapevine I have access to isn’t the same one you do.”

Most of the coworkers that TamLin associated with were either Puce’s lackeys or his victims. It had been safer for others that way, since Puce had so desperately wanted TamLin’s loyalty. Anyone TamLin lingered around would’ve been pulled into that part of office politics, and he hadn’t been about to force anyone into that.

But now…now he had a chance to take Puce on and win for himself and everyone the asshole was hurting, and he’d be damned if he was gonna let something as inconsequential as his reputation as a cruel bastard interfere with that.

“You want me to tell everyone that Puce isn’t from this universe?” Icarus asked.

Ah, there was the incredulity. TamLin had been wondering when that would hit.

He made sure his shrug was nonchalant. “He’s telling everyone about me.”

Icarus stared at him, obviously expecting a punchline.

TamLin just met his gaze blandly.

“Damn,” Icarus said softly. “You’re serious.”

Of course.

He rubbed around his eyes. “Okay. Who else knows about you?”

“Puce. Whoever his gossip’s been scattered to. Kasy. Misha.” If the tertiary scientist for their shift didn’t know, after what happened yesterday, TamLin would dose the man with a few years’ worth of ReWrite, himself. That would be kinder than whatever Puce would do to him.

Icarus waited for him to finish the list, then went pale again with the realization that he was done. “Your wife doesn’t know?”

TamLin scowled and gave him a dark look, hoping to press him into avoiding that topic. “The knowledge or lack thereof of anyone outside this office is not your concern.”

“Lies are no way to build a relationship.”

Bullshit. “Plenty of relationships rely on lies. Whether it works or not just depends on the presuppositions and personalities involved.”

Something akin to pity flickered in Icarus’s eyes. “I see,” he said quietly.

And TamLin had the uncomfortable sense that the man actually did.