Emryld

She has spent two years documenting everything the IDA did wrong. The IDA just told her she has a 94.1% match.

Dr. Novalie Ikenna is not the kind of woman who signs up for alien matchmaking services. She is the kind of woman who writes peer-reviewed papers about why alien matchmaking services require stronger accountability frameworks. When the reformed IDA's notification arrives — 94.1%, a Drevhari security specialist named Emryld — she prepares a formal objection and keeps working.

Emryld of the Drevhari does not do subtlety. He is built wide, dense, and burns emerald when he's feeling anything he hasn't chosen to feel, which is something he cannot control and has stopped pretending otherwise. He was sent to Earth to meet his match, not to be interrogated about the ethics of the matching process. He did not anticipate that his match would ask better questions than anyone who has ever debriefed him. He finds this unexpectedly difficult to leave.

She needs to finish her research. He needs to convince her he's worth the risk. Both of them are going to have to reckon with the possibility that the institution she's been critiquing just got one thing exactly right... and that the same institution is hiding a crime her research is about to expose.