The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort,Chapter 719: After-Action Tea (1),Arkalphaze,Inner Glow

Chapter 719: After-Action Tea (1)

Steam drifted like a thin veil over the slot. The tea was still warm, boards still glowing soft against stone, and the Brake Choir hummed its steady note somewhere below, like old pipes remembering their job. Thalatha stood close to the console with her arms folded, the cup in one hand. She did not hunch. She never hunched. But her shoulders had come down a notch since breakfast. The heat in her cup had found a home right under her collarbones and stayed there.

Mikhailis sat half-turned on the edge of the chair, one ankle crossed over the other, pretending to look relaxed and failing in small ways he didn’t mind. The heel of his boot clicked once against the chair rung and then went quiet. He watched Thalatha’s reflection in the polished rim of his cup as if it were another gauge: jaw untensed, eyes awake, the little line between her brows gone for now.

A skeleton courier stood sentry by the veil-mouth with its back politely turned, spear lashed to the shaft with marsh cloth. Two worker-ants idled near Rodion’s base panel, antennae lazy, as if even they understood this was a "don’t jostle the table" moment.

Rodion’s panel widened. Clean tiles stacked in rows: POPULATION, MORALE, PATHING, FOOD, SAFETY. Numbers flowed in like water filling shallow trays. Someone who liked neat things would be happy. Mikhailis did like neat things, even if he also liked to pretend he didn’t.

The necro-ant sub-hive pulsed on the map like a second heart, a cool blue node inside their patchwork territory.

Thalatha exhaled through her nose. "Tidy."

She almost smiled when she said it. Not the big kind. The kind that lives in the eyes first.

Mikhailis lifted his cup and blew across it, then sipped. The mint-paper and glowcap were simple and honest on his tongue. Not bad for a morning we almost gave to nerves. He angled his cup toward the board like a toast to numbers. "Good. That’s reach without noise."

One of the worker-ants tapped a little cadence on the stone with the tips of its forelegs, as if agreeing. Thalatha’s ear twitched, catching it; she didn’t look down, but the corner of her mouth betrayed that she heard.

The bullets ticked across the board without hurry. Thalatha nodded once at each, like stamping a ledger column. Her eyes lingered half a heartbeat longer on "Echo-Deacon," then moved on.

"No rush," she said, then glanced at him. "But not slow."

"Just polite," Mikhailis said, keeping his voice easy. "Rooms like polite."

He took another sip. The warmth traveled down and settled calmly. The slot felt smaller and safer at the same time. They had hands now—small ones, many of them, each doing single good jobs. He liked that kind of army.

Rodion flipped the board to a bone-white wireframe of the floor. Galleries and ribs crosshatched like a careful sketch pinned to stone. It was a tidy kind of maze, the kind that pretends to be reasonable. Four points pulsed in soft amber.

The wireframe zoomed. A rib-bridge thinned to a hair in one section; micro-cracks spidered out in a pattern that made teeth hurt if you stared too long.

"Teeth of that thing made everyone clench," Mikhailis murmured. He flicked a finger under the crack and stopped himself from touching the board. "A kinder path would be welcome."

Thalatha shifted her weight, looking at the line not with fear but with respect that had edges. "We put poles there. No bravado. If it groans, we back out."

Mikhailis nodded. No heroics where stone is already annoyed.

The view slid. The Basilica’s ribs formed elegant arches and then one wrong angle, like a musician playing a good song with one proud mistake. A faint pulse beat under the arch, slightly off-time.

Thalatha tapped a knuckle against her cup, making a small, round sound. "We touch it gentle. No rhythm."

"Of course it breathes," Mikhailis said. He set his cup down with ceremony a noble would approve. "Everything down here wants to be dramatic."

Thin blue vapor swirled up a vertical cut. The board marked tiny arrows that rose when the floor "inhaled" and fell on the exhale. Little safe steps lit only when the arrows pointed down.

"Up and down like a chest," Thalatha said, approving. "We walk when it sighs."

They both watched the trench outline. It stopped too neatly. Someone had drawn a line where a corridor should have kept going. The map painted a faint rectangle there, almost imaginary.

"File that under ’doors that pretend to be walls,’" Mikhailis said.

"We have the key," Thalatha answered. "We only need to find which pocket it likes."

He finished his tea and set the cup down with care. "We’ll need all of these," he said. "We don’t argue with rooms; we map them."

Her mouth moved—almost a smile—then flattened to discipline. "Finally something we agree on without three meetings."

He leaned back half an inch, satisfied. Put that on a banner, Mikhailis: Agree without meetings. Elowen would faint from joy.

The console tightened to a smaller window. Strings of pale text slid by like quiet fish. Rodion pushed pings out like gentle taps on closed doors. The slot seemed to lean in a little, listening with them.

Mikhailis’s fingers tightened once on his knee, then let go. He watched the word "no return" and felt a small weight sit down behind his ribs. Elowen would have liked this mess. She likes every mess that ends in order. He imagined Lira’s look if she saw him brood and straightened a finger just to annoy the thought.

Thalatha said nothing, but her eyes flicked, catching his tiny flinch and filing it away with care. She drank. She didn’t touch it with words.

<Dream-mesh ping to Chimera Queen’s broodmind: out of range.>

The text line paused as if waiting to see if distance would change its mind. It didn’t.

Thalatha turned her head a fraction, measuring him. Not pity. Just that soldier’s check: you still with me?

With you, he thought, and lifted two fingers off his knee in a small salute she probably wasn’t meant to notice.

The cursor blinked at the end of the line. It did not apologize. It did not perform.

The slot returned to regular breathing. The Brake Choir’s hum didn’t change; that was a kind of blessing here. A worker-ant nosed the edge of Rodion’s casing, then retreated, respectful.

Thalatha rolled the cup in her hand, feeling the warmth slide along the wood. "Options?"

Mikhailis rolled his shoulder like he was loosening a knot. The knot was not in his shoulder; it was behind his tongue. He spoke anyway. "Go through someone who already speaks bone," he said. "If she lets us."

She did not ask who. She already knew. Her chin dipped.

The boards dimmed one shade. The slot felt like it leaned closer, curious the way a room is curious when two people start speaking a language it understands.

The first frames arrived rough and sharp. Stitched boxes bloomed across the console—feeds from a dozen tiny eyes at ground level, each view black-and-white and punchy. The light hit bone like cut paper; shadows broke into hard edges. It felt old, like a silent film trying to explain a war.

"Looks like the archives in winter," Mikhailis said. "Everything thin and honest and a little cruel."

Thalatha stepped even closer. The cups in their hands warmed their fingers; the stone cooled their shins. She scanned. Even without color she could read details: a faint tremor in a resin lip; dust pattern on a floor that said "recent patrol," not "old wind"; a nurse’s antennae angle that meant she was thinking, not afraid. Her eyes were made for reading rooms like this. She did not brag about it. She just did it.

Rodion’s tone stayed level.

Mikhailis let himself grin because it was safe. "Thank you, Professor Marshmallow."

Thalatha’s lip almost curled. "Behave,"