Pansy waited for him in the observation gallery of the Firebolt spacecraft, gripping the guard rail as she grimly surveyed the known galaxy.

“Officer.”

She’d felt him enter the room before she heard him. When his hand slid around her waist, Pansy glanced back over her shoulder. The observation gallery was empty, and only the ship’s cameras watched them.

He paused, then slowly curved his hand over the hard flat of her belly. Faster than she wanted to, she weakened, head falling back to his shoulder. She warmed inside, grew pliable and soft, and when he pulled her to himself, she was malleable as clay. He conformed her body to his without difficulty.

“You could have told me yourself.” Around the precise edges of his words, and beneath his tone, always cool, Pansy heard emotion.

She turned in his arms.

“This is me telling you,” she said. “I’m going. Tomorrow morning. I’m sorry you heard it elsewhere first.”

“Who’s the mission medic?”

“If you know I’m going, you know they’ve assigned Diggory.”

“You asked them not to send me.” It wasn’t a question.

Pansy stroked her thumb across his brow, and dropped her voice to nothing. “We have solid intelligence that Tom Riddle is on Q-186 right now. Percy, there isn’t anyone else who has—”

“Your shot.” Light glanced over the planetary horizon below and illuminated his irises, clear and blue as a glacial pool. “You never miss, do you.”

“I think I have.” She breathed him in, ran her fingers along his jaw, counted and recounted the freckles across his cheeks, building and reinforcing her sense memory of his body. “Once or twice.”

Percy bent down, and brushed his lips against hers.