The door clicked shut behind them.
Fin and Jax did not speak.
Not while walking down the corridor. Not while passing startled guards. Not while a maid nearly dropped a stack of linens at the sight of Fin's expression.
Not even when Jax accidentally kicked a suit of armor and muttered a curse.
They stayed silent.
Stone-faced.
Dead-eyed.
Absolutely not okay.
They didn't breathe a word until they stepped inside the war room and the door shut behind them.
Jax turned first, studying Fin like someone checking a bomb for loose wires.
"…You good?"
Fin slowly turned his head, expression blank, hollow, and vaguely murderous.
"Do I look good to you."
Jax snorted. "No. You look like you're about to declare war."
Fin inhaled sharply through his nose — the kind of inhale a man takes when he's restraining himself from breaking furniture.
"That," he said, voice cold and flat, "was the most excruciating ten minutes of my entire life."
Jax lifted a finger.
"You kissed her forehead. Twice."
Fin's left eye twitched.
"I know."
"And you smiled."
"I KNOW."
"She thinks you adore her."
Fin's voice dropped an octave into pure despair.
"She thinks the moon rises because she breathes. If I had stayed in that room another thirty seconds, I would have thrown myself out the window."
Jax clapped a hand to his shoulder with reverent sympathy.
"You did beautifully. Really. Oscar-worthy performance. I'm proud of you, buddy."
Fin glared with the force of a thousand suns.
"Don't."
"Oh, I am absolutely going to," Jax said cheerfully. "I will terrorize you with this for years."
A soft, irritated hum echoed down the hall. Aeron swept into the war room, arms crossed, aura crackling with arcane judgment.
"Well," he said, voice sharp enough to cut steel, "how was everyone's lovely little tea party with the viper queen?"
Fin closed his eyes in pain. "Aeron. Please."
Aeron ignored him completely.
"I'm just asking," he continued, smile thin as a blade. "Did she do that classic tragic sigh? The one where she pretends she's dying of something poetic and Victorian?"
Jax nodded. "Two of them."
Aeron snapped his notebook shut so violently that dust fell from the rafters.
"I am going to scream."
Fin raised a brow. "Why?"
Aeron threw his hands up. "Because I spoke with her omega again — and shocker — the story has changed for the THIRD TIME."
He pitched his voice into a ridiculous, airy imitation:
"'Oh Aeron, perhaps it was a shadow. Or maybe I dreamed it. Or perhaps I misremembered!'"
Fin and Jax simultaneously pinched the bridges of their noses.
Aeron continued pacing like a scholar on the brink of homicide.
"If that woman lies any harder, she will rip a hole in the fabric of reality. And somehow — SOMEHOW — she believes she can outmaneuver three of the most capable wolves in this kingdom while wearing a nightgown made of DELUSION."
Fin stared at the wall like it had personally betrayed him.
"She's going to escalate."
Jax shook his head.
"No. She's going to implode. And I'm going to be front row with popcorn."
Aeron turned, eyes narrowing.
"You two kept your composure, right?"
Fin and Jax exchanged a look.
A long, incriminating look.
Then—
Jax: "He kissed her forehead. Twice."
Aeron blinked. "…Twice?"
Fin growled. "I was being polite."
Aeron sighed deeply. "You deserve a medal. And therapy. Mostly therapy."
Jax lifted both hands.
"I swear — if she breathes near Nova again — I'm committing treason."
Fin didn't hesitate. "We're committing treason."
"Yeah, yeah," Jax said, nodding. "Team effort."
Aeron dragged a hand down his face.
"Gentlemen… we need a strategy. Before she writes another letter. Or — gods forbid — Nova looks prettier than her at breakfast again."
Fin growled softly.
Jax cracked his knuckles.