Brezel didn’t move. Instead, she had eyes only for Sardius, looking him up and down and then up and down again.

“Is my bodyguard of particular interest?” Jenna asked, feeling mildly territorial.

Sardius looked at the doctor while she looked back at him, not really looking at his face, but more at his neck. “I shouldn’t,” she muttered under her breath. “I really shouldn’t.” But in direct opposition to what she didn’t want to do, she stepped closer to him and looked at him even closer. “May I look at him?” she finally asked Jenna, even though it seemed like she was asking after the fact. Hadn’t she already looked at him?

Sardius lolled his head toward Jenna. “I know what she’s doing. I don’t mind if she does it.”

Brazel clicked open her handbag and pulled out a bottle of what looked like hand sanitizer, which she sprayed onto her palms before she worked it down to her fingers.  

Jenna joined them by the front door. “What’s going on?”

“She’s looking at my cosmetic surgery scars,” he replied with an eyebrow waggle.

Brazel grabbed him by the chin and was openly looking at lines Jenna hadn’t even noticed.  

“Yeah,” Sardius admitted as Brazel opened his mouth and started looking inside.  

“He’s had more surgery on his face than anyone I’ve ever seen before. How many times have you had your face redone?” She let go of his chin so he could answer her.

“Maybe twelve?” he answered.

“More like sixteen. What have you been doing with your life that you needed that much surgery? How old are you? All your teeth have been traded out. How many times have you done that?”

Sardius bit down. “This is my third set of teeth.”

Jenna groaned. “Is that how many times you’ve had all your teeth knocked out?”

“Well, yeah. At first, I lost too many because they were pulled out when I was being tortured. After that, the dentist thought I’d do better to have the rest pulled and have them replaced with implants. Those were broken out during fights. Not prize fighting, but revolutionary fighting. That was the first thing I paid for with my prize fighting money. I spent the rest on body enhancements.”

Jenna felt a little weird, but she refrained from saying anything.

“Mind if I see under your arms?” Brazel asked, pulling out a pair of glasses that looked more like twin magnifying glasses than reading glasses.

“It’s only if Jenna says it’s okay,” he said, turning to Jenna for her guidance.  

“Wait…” Jenna said. “Why do you want to look at him in the first place? He isn’t the gentleman I want you to work on.”

“I know. I apologize,” the doctor hummed. “Lately, I have been studying the effects of multiple surgeries and their ramifications. I wouldn’t have noticed how many surgeries this man has had, except that I was looking at case studies this morning. He’s been cut open and replaced many, many times. I intended to come and tell you, Jenna Fairchild, that I do not approve of what you did to meddle in the life of my son. I did not open the gift you sent me. I don’t want to help you with anything…” She trailed off and began looking at Sardius again. Forgetting herself completely, she took his hand in hers, flipped it over as if she were reading his palm, and began to trace invisible lines down his forearm.  

“Maybe we could come to an arrangement,” Jenna said slowly.  

“How many times have you had your whole muscular system replaced?” she asked, staring up at him with a too-large gaze because of her glasses.

“Five times,” he said.  

“Have you had other things replaced as well besides your face, teeth, and muscle groupings?”

He nodded.

She took off her glasses. “Do you consider yourself to be still yourself since you’ve had so much of yourself replaced with other parts that are not you?”

“When I take other body parts, I claim them as mine while the parts of me that are discarded cease to be me once they’re cut free,” he explained rationally.

“Is that your real face?”

He chuckled. “Of course not!”

“All right. I phrased that badly. Is that what you looked like before you started getting banged up and having to have your face replaced?”

“Not exactly. It’s close. It’s what I should have looked like.”

“How old are you?” she asked, firing questions off left and right.

“I don’t remember,” he said, matching her grit. “I’ve passed through too many star systems and lived in too many strange places to keep something that trivial straight. Without the teeth I was born with, it’s really hard to tell.”

“It wouldn’t be if I had my tools to look properly in your eyes and ears…” she paused again. “Your eyes are false.” She grabbed his cheek and pulled one of his eyes more open.  

Jenna saw the red edging he told her about. That was his real eye.

“Take out your lens,” the doctor ordered thoughtlessly. She was completely and inappropriately in doctor mode.

Sardius pulled his face out of her grasp. “No. You didn’t come here to give me a checkup.”

Brazel took her glasses off. “Indeed. I came here to tell off Jenna Fairchild and I still haven’t…” She suddenly grabbed Sardius’ ear in an iron fist and looked directly into it with her magnifying glasses hanging from her fingers. “You’re young. You’ve just had the crap kicked out of you for decades.”

“What’s your definition of young?” he replied before pulling his head free.

“You’re young enough to be my son,” she replied. “If you were my son, I’d be sick right here and now. Because even though I have performed multiple surgeries on him to keep him looking slick and beautiful, I would never have allowed him to undergo this many. How many times have you had your face bashed in?”

“A fair few. I imagine there will be more.”

“Are you looking for any improvements? You clearly had someone talented working on you, but I can see at a glance that I’m better. They cheaped out on your neck and… I still want to see under your arm.”

“You can’t work on him,” Jenna interjected, putting her foot down.

“Why not?” Brazel asked with wide eyes.

Jenna crossed her arms. “Because he’s mine and I’m not giving him to you without your help with my other man. I need you to do the surgery on him yourself or give another doctor authorization.”

Brazel clicked her tongue ten times in rapid succession. “Tut, tut, tut. That man, Phane, has never been worked on. We’d be lucky if it ended up being only eight surgeries. He’s not young and his skeleton is as brittle as tile. It’s risky and I don’t want to do you a favor. I want you to apologize to me for what you did to my son.”

“I’m sorry. Did I make your son marry Excelyn the first time?” Jenna said without remorse. “Cause I know I didn’t make him marry her the second time.”

Philip’s mother frowned and accused, “You provided the opportunity for them to reconcile.”

“I did not. They were meeting that night anyway because of Philip’s stipulation in their divorce. He wanted to see her once a year, every year, for the rest of their lives. I did not make them do that either. I did not play a meaningful role in their revived romance and I will not let you pin it on me. Do you want Octavian and Adamis talks to be stalled?”

Brazel clenched her teeth and put her glasses back in her purse, but said nothing.

Jenna went on. “I don’t need you to do the surgery on Phane personally. I just need you to sign a document permitting me to get another surgeon to do the work he needs in Octavian air space.”

Ixy put a copy of the document up on the screen by the sofas.  

Jenna pointed to it. “Unless you have a major objection to Octavian diplomacy, I suggest you sign it.”

“What will you do to me if I don’t?” Brazel asked with half a snort.

Jenna went through the options in her head, feeling that it was not a wise idea to say any of them. She could request to have Brazel’s permit to practice medicine revoked. That was a terrible idea considering that she was an Adamis doctor. It seemed like an act of aggression against the Adamis medical personnel on Octavia Prime, which Jenna did not want to be the origin of.  

There were plenty of other things Jenna could do that could sweep the rug out from under Brazel. She could have the law changed, so she didn’t need Brazel’s approval for the surgery. She could have her citizenship revoked. She could cook up a scandal about her and let it loose, but none of those things would make Philip happy. By extension, none of those things would make Excelyn happy, even if she did not enjoy her mother-in-law one bit.

She resorted to returning to plan A.

Jenna crossed the room and picked up the parcel with Misha’s seal on it. She pulled at the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a dress the color of midnight navy. Jenna took it by the shoulders and lifted it out of the box. The shine of the luxurious material filled the room as Jenna held it up against herself.

“Well, whether you sign the permission form or not, you returned my gift,” Jenna said, flaunting the fabric. “Ryatt, where could I wear a dress like this?”

Sardius cleared his throat. “A hospital fundraiser.”

Jenna looked between him and his cut forearms and Brazel and her sudden interest. “That’s what Misha thought when she made this dress for you, Brazel, but I understand if you don’t want it. You’re a doctor and rich as a witch. I understand if something like this is below your notice. It was only meant as a token of friendship and you’ve refused it. I suppose I could wear it to a hospital fundraiser. Do you think it would get people to come and open their wallets?”

“Put that dress back in the box,” Brazel commanded.  

Jenna smirked. She’d got her.  

“Come and sit with me on the couch and tell me about Philip,” the doctor said, taking a seat on the couch. “Were you really not involved?”

Jenna did as she was commanded because Brazel had that tone and she was old enough to be Jenna’s mother. From the sofa, Jenna said, “I was not even aware that your son and Excelyn had been married. I was recruiting him regardless because of his personal excellence as a traditionally practicing doctor and I thought he would provide a different voice to balance Excelyn’s.”

Brazel nodded, but she did not believe Jenna until Ixy brought up the research material Jenna had analyzed before offering Philip a crown. Once she had seen everything Jenna had read (she went through it quickly because she was aware of what had been written about her son), she leaned forward and said without pretense, “Now, tell me about Phane. Who is he and why is he so important?”

Jenna sucked a breath in. “He’s a starship pilot and the very opposite of an AAMC man.”

“I see,” the doctor said. “I’ve seen some of the footage Celestina has released lately and you have been forced to accommodate three of their goons.”

“It’s actually four. I have been forced to accommodate four of their goons. However, I might be able to squeeze this guy in if I can crown him before I have to crown General Rennett. It’s on the rocks as to whether or not I’ll be able to offer him a position as a diplomat. However, Captain Phane is vital to protecting Octavia against an Adamis invasion.”

“You’re going to put his life in danger. The AAMC men won’t stand for a man like him making comments alongside theirs. They like to control the narrative, which is one of the reasons they don’t like you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had multiple meetings with him and I’m very fond of the perspective he brings. I want to crown him badly.”

Brazel looked at Phane’s medical charts. “If I did the surgery on him, it would be as though the god of gravity had touched him. I’m very skilled at what I do, but he might need longer to recuperate than Rennett. I can’t guarantee that he’ll be ready to crown in time. You must be aware of this.”

“I need to crown more than eight diplomats regardless of the timeline. Don’t worry about when he’s ready. Will you do it?”

Brezel nodded slowly. “But I have conditions.”

“Name them.”

“First, I want to be able to do the first four surgeries in orbit before we bring him down. I will need someone like Favel to arrange that for me. I don’t have good enough connections, as that is not normally how it is done. Normally, the people we work on are people like your bodyguard who have spent time on the surface of a planet and then lost all their muscle mass traveling through space. They know what surface gravity is like and they just need their muscles to respond to it. Phane isn’t like that. He’s never lived on the surface of a world. He needs time to adjust.”

“I’ll see if I can accommodate you,” Jenna said, loath not to give her consent immediately, but she really did need to see if that was plausible before agreeing.

“Secondly, I would like to work on your bodyguard. Ryatt? Is that his name? I’d like to work on him as part of the research I’m doing. Finding another person with as many scar lines as him is nearly impossible.”

Jenna hesitated. She didn’t like the idea of Sardius getting cut even one more time.

“I’ll do it,” he said easily. “I could probably use the tune-up anyway. And some feet.”

“Shut up,” Jenna said to him without ceremony before she turned back to Brazel. Then she did a double-take, having finally registered what he said. “Did you just say that you don’t have feet?”

“Yeah, I lost my feet ages ago. That’s why I almost always wear boots,” he said, ruffling his own hair like he was a scampy kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and not like he was an amputee.

Jenna stared at him. That was why the Fallcet’s boys hadn’t removed his super-all-utility boots. They couldn’t get them off because they were his feet. Jenna stared at him a little longer. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

He crossed his arms. “No one cares if a man has feet or not, as long as he’s got his—”

“Hush up!” Jenna hissed, interrupting what was surely going to be something she’d rather he didn’t say in front of Brazel. She took a few cleansing breaths and was grateful that she’d cooked up something softer to say instead of ‘shut up’. She turned back to Brazel, having regained her composure. “Do you have any other requests?”

“None,” she said, stifling a smile.

“I’ll have to take my time and consider your offer,” Jenna said smoothly.

The doctor nodded. “Of course. I’ll look forward to hearing from you about the orbital surgeries. Lastly, I’m taking that dress with me and I’m leaving now.”

Jenna agreed.