Cajole

The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist

Book 4

Jenny Schwartz

If life on the border was complicated, life on Capitoline is insane. Nora and Liam struggle to reconcile her abilities and his duty, while caught up in the dangerous games of the powerful.

Political intrigue, family drama, and ancient alien technology combine in the fourth novel of the Human Sector.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

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Chapter 1

A towers brat, Nora Kimani had grown up in the slums of Angkor. Now, she stood in the blue and white grandeur of the Throne Room in the Laotian Palace. The intimidating throne, the centerpiece of the room, loomed over her. It was carved from the same gleaming, white Jaipurian marble, patterned in cobalt and sapphire blue, that lined the walls and floor of the room. The throne’s right arm ended in a curved indentation exactly sized to hold a Vapori burr.

In common with the other five realms of the Human Sector, the Capitoline coronation ceremony required the sovereign to connect to a burr and obliterate a tiny, gold spaceship. That flash of matter vanishing as, at a quantum level, its energy was siphoned into the burr, reminded everyone of the power a royal wielded by virtue of their inherited sensitivity to alien burrs.

The strongest royals could, if they so wished, use a burr to obliterate a full-sized spaceship or a planet.

Nora could use a burr to mind-wipe a person or extinguish a star—theoretically. As a newly revealed royal, no one had given her access to a burr. Not yet.

Instead, she found herself trapped as an unwilling witness to a brewing inter-realm, royal families brawl.

King Magnus, ruler of Capitoline and father of the man most likely to throw the first punch—Capitoline Crown Prince Francis—had ordered his family, including his son-in-law, Palantine Crown Prince Dominic, into the Throne Room.

Looking around and seeing nothing but marble benches, floor, walls and, of course, the looming marble throne, Nora decided the chosen location might have something to do with the fact that it contained nothing to throw.

The absence of potential projectiles was important since Francis had greeted his brother-in-law’s unexpected arrival at the palace by tossing furniture.

Now, the only thing flying through the air was Francis’s spit as he ranted at Dominic. The rant was lengthy, loud, and profane. “You useless, bleeding buzzard.”

Astonishingly, Dominic had yet to return fire. Either grief had taught him self-control, or he loathed and blamed himself as much as Francis did. Dominic’s wife, whom he’d never expected to love, but whom he’d come to adore, was dead, and Dominic had traveled to Capitoline to grieve with her family.

Dominic’s betrothal to Princess Hermione, King Magnus’s youngest daughter, had sealed the peace accords that ended a twelve year war between Capitoline and Palantine. Their political marriage had become one of genuine love and respect—until her assassination.

According to media reports, Dominic’s uncle, the Duke of Ontario, ordered Hermione’s death.

Conveniently for the real murderer, the Duke had died during his arrest.

The plot was diabolically clever. The murderer took out two of the biggest impediments to the extension of her power: her daughter-in-law and her brother.

Only Nora knew, courtesy of her Vapori AI friend’s ability to passively observe the entire Human Sector, that Hermione’s true killer was Queen Sarah, Dominic’s mother. But judging by the determined manner in which Dominic’s sister, Regina, had encouraged Dominic to secretly depart for Capitoline, on the excuse of grieving with Hermione’s family, she suspected the truth.

“Enough, Francis,” Magnus said as the last of the Capitoline royal family members entered the Throne Room. Magnus went to meet his wife, and guided her to a bench against the back wall.

A lifetime’s assurance of his superiority had given him a stately handsomeness in his late fifties. His silvering brown hair was swept back from his high forehead, revealing a token number of age lines on his face, sufficient to induce trust and convey wisdom, but not to admit to his actual age or worries. He was shorter in real life than he seemed in the media, being barely average height.

Francis resembled him, rather than his mother. Strip either man of the accoutrements of wealth, dress them in chain store clothing, and they’d pass unnoticed on the street.

Not so Queen Caroline, or not normally.

She had cancelled all her royal engagements since learning of her youngest daughter’s death. She wore a gray cardigan over a dull blue shirt and black trousers. Her blonde hair was smooth and shiny, hanging to her shoulders, but her eyes were lifeless and the gray of her cardigan seemed reflected in her cosmetic-free face.

Nora took an involuntary step back, crushed by the sense of intruding on private grief. She’d tried to refuse attending the family conclave, but Dominic had insisted.

For a man who’d only learned of her existence this morning, he’d been quick to shift from doubting and resenting her to claiming her as his sister. He’d dragged her into this mess of a meeting.

Did he really see her as moral support?

He certainly needed someone.

“You killed Hermi,” Francis repeated himself.

“I didn’t.” Dominic finally answered Francis’s barrage of insults and accusations, but his focus was on Magnus and Caroline. “I’m sorry. You mightn’t believe me. You only saw us together before I truly knew her. But I loved Hermione. I loved her and I failed her.”

Magnus squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “We had her messages. Hermi loved you.”

“Father!” It was Francis who protested that compassionate response, but his younger brother and sister, Harold and Kirsty, also jolted, their heads turning in shock to stare at their father.

Magnus held Dominic’s gaze. “I wouldn’t have agreed to the betrothal if I hadn’t believed you’d be good to her.”

The heels of Francis highly-polished shoes cracked against the marble floor as he took two challenging steps toward his father. “You had no choice. Hermione was sacrificed for the peace accords.”

Caroline shook her drooping head.

Kirsty lowered herself to the bench beside her. She was taller and heavier than her mother, and in the last month of her long-awaited first pregnancy. She clasped her mother’s beringed hand.

“A father always has a choice,” Magnus declared. “I’m not just a king. Nor will you be, Francis. We are every decision we make. Every person we love.”

His words were equally as true for the other crown prince in the room.

Dominic shuddered. There were few people he loved, and he’d lost the most important one.

Unsure of how he’d accept her sympathy, Nora nonetheless closed the distance between them.

Harold’s gaze tracked her.

She made a point of not noticing. She’d learned last night that when certain courtiers were informed of her existence as the Palantine king’s hidden, illegitimate daughter and a strong sensitive, they’d suggested that she provide a surrogate baby for Harold.

Royals’ power rested on the strength of their sensitivity to burrs and their ability to wield them. In the last few decades, that sensitivity had been declining.

If Harold could increase the odds of having a strong sensitive as a child, however acquired, then the courtiers and government would permit him to marry whom he wanted. As a younger son, who he married and had children with oughtn’t to be a matter of state. Unfortunately, of Francis’s two children, the older had no sensitivity to burrs and the younger low sensitivity.

A lot of hope rested with the baby Kirsty carried.

Nora brushed her thumb over her wedding ring. It was worrying that no one in the Capitoline royal family had disputed Dominic dragging her into a family fight. Courtiers might have salivated at being included, but as far as she was concerned, being drawn into the royal inner circle brought more danger and upset than advantage.

Francis’s agitated pacing halted near his brother as he challenged his father’s statement. “If family is so important, what about Harold?”

“What about me?” Harold was Nora’s age. Twenty nine. Like Kirsty, he was well built, tall and solidly muscled.

Francis looked soft in comparison. Usually, expensive tailoring, immaculate grooming and total confidence earned Francis the descriptor, debonair. Just now, he was merely an agitated man, heavily flushed and sweating. “Father intends to marry you off.”

“Well, why not?” Harold stretched. “I’ve had a good run, but I’m nearly thirty, and it’s not as if I’m in love with anyone. Where is Evelyn, by the way?”

Evelyn was Francis’s wife.

“She had no interest in meeting this worm.”

The sleeve of Nora’s shirt brushed Dominic’s jacket. It was the slightest of touches, but his head snapped around. The thin line of his mouth didn’t relax at her show of support.

“A political marriage isn’t a death sentence,” Harold said. His face twisted and he held up his hands in surrender as Francis turned on him. “Hell. That wasn’t what I meant.”

Because Hermione’s political marriage had killed her.

“I meant that a political marriage that leaves me free to live and love who I want to in private suits me,” Harold said.

“It’s not healthy,” Dominic stated.

Everyone stared at him. Even Caroline lifted her head to study her son-in-law.

Dominic touched his wedding ring. It was the same gesture Nora had used; a secret reassurance as his fingers hid his thumb as it touched the gold band.

Could gestures be genetic?

“My parents’ marriage is like that. It’s a show for the public, while hating each other in private.”

“I didn’t say hate,” Harold protested.

Dominic gazed imploringly at Caroline. “Hermione wanted more. She said she wanted what you and her dad had. Someone to be the other person’s refuge. No one had ever wanted that from me before.”

Or given that to him, Nora suspected.

“I miss her so much.” His voice cracked. “It’s why I’m here. Because you miss her that much, too.”

A tear rolled down Caroline’s face. “My baby girl.”

“If we’d known you intended to join us, we’d have delayed Hermione’s memorial service,” Magnus said.

“We would not,” Francis growled.

Resting both hands on her rounded belly, Kirsty closed her eyes.

Caroline fished a crumpled handkerchief from her cardigan pocket, and dabbed at her eyes and nose.

Magnus patted her shoulder. “Francis, have you forgotten how we keep our family safe?”

“By being a family,” Harold said. Evidently, it was a family mantra.

Magnus ignored him; focused on convincing Francis to see things his way. “I won’t have another war during my reign.”

That was plain speaking in front of a Palantine royal, a former enemy.

Kirsty opened her eyes to study her father, then Dominic, and from him, her gaze slid to Nora. She frowned.

Magnus rocked forward onto his toes before settling into an authoritative stance. “We didn’t expect your presence, Dominic, or Nora’s existence, but with your help, we can settle things down. First, though, we have to wrestle our emotions under control.” He looked at Francis.

Since he’d called out her presence, Nora decided to make her position clear. “I don’t want a public role.”

Dominic interrupted before she could continue. “If you want an expedition to the Origin black hole, you have to do your bit. That’s how royalty works. Quid pro quo.”

“An expedition to Origin?” Francis forgot his anger in sharp interest.

“No,” Caroline said sternly. Her slumped shoulders straightened. She managed to look down her nose, despite said nose being reddened from crying and despite being seated while almost everyone else stood. “Nora stays with us. I must have powerful grandchildren.”

Nora’s sympathy for the grieving mother vanished.

But it was Francis who answered. He glared viciously at his father. “That’s why Evelyn isn’t here. I will not have her exposed to this stupidity ever again.”

Dominic elbowed Nora. “What stupidity?”

In the empty, echoing Throne Room, the others could hear his whisper.

Nora was fine with them hearing her answer. “I suspect the current stupidity is the idea of having me carry an illegitimate child for Harold, or perhaps, for Francis, and them declaring it their own.”

Shockingly, Dominic laughed. “They think the man who held me hostage to end the war will permit anyone to treat his wife as a broodmare?”

“Captain Kimani will do as he’s told,” Caroline snapped.

In fact, as of yesterday, when Liam had resigned his commission, he was no longer a Navy captain. His current visit to the Admiralty was in the nature of a courtesy call, and to establish himself in his new role as chairman of the Blazing Kangaroo Corporation, his and Nora’s blaze-based, massive, wealth-generation enterprise.

Caroline wagged a finger at Francis before tucking it back around her curled grip on her handkerchief. “Liam is your friend. Explain to him that you need a powerful heir. Strength keeps us safe. I need our family safe.”

Abruptly, all the energy Francis had spent being mad at Dominic caught up with him. He collapsed onto a bench along the left side wall. “Not that way, Mama.” He and Kirsty exchanged a long look. Her hands gripped each other tightly over the swell of her belly. “Not that way.”

Dominic frowned at Nora. “Maybe you should stay at the Palantine embassy.”

“Unwise,” Magnus interjected. “Our grief for Hermione is a private matter. It will be with us always. However, the public narrative must move on. The revelation of who Nora is must be handled diplomatically to protect our relationship with Palantine. And yours with us. I’ve discussed the problem with Hamish—”

Hamish Yakamia was the Palantine ambassador.

Dominic interrupted. “Hamish can’t deny Nora residence in the embassy. She is my sister.”

“I’m not a charity case,” Nora said. Not that she thought that anyone in the Throne Room was concerned as to her having a roof over her head. This was about who she aligned with, and who controlled her. The answer to the latter point was: no one. But she was very, very curious as to the undercurrents in this room, and what exactly King Magnus was up to. “Liam and I have a place in Salmar that we’re moving into. Thank you for allowing us to stay here while our people checked its security,” she added.

“Salmar?” Kirsty wrinkled her nose.

“What’s wrong with Salmar?” Dominic asked.

Unoffended by Kirsty’s reaction, Nora explained. “Part of the land is mangrove swamp. It smells.”

“Couldn’t you afford something better?” he asked, more naïve than offensive. “Hamish said you were rich.”

“I’m willing to trade the smell of the marsh for the freedom of ten acres of land on the outskirts of the city.”

Her half-brother ceased frowning at her. Apparently, her reasoning was acceptable to his royal highness. “Privacy. You’ll have to arrange a no-fly zone.”

Yeah. That’s such a priority. Nora halted mid-eyeroll as second thoughts hit her. “Actually, I should.” Her security people would approve. Heck, if she didn’t, they’d probably attempt it themselves. “I’ll ask the Royal Guards.”

The Royal Guards were responsible for the protection, but also for the testing and training, of royals sensitive to burrs. Nora had her own particular adviser, or handler. Captain Molly Jones.

Poor Molly. Nora’s was a complicated case. Add in Dominic’s unexpected arrival and general willfulness, and the next few weeks would make or break Molly’s career.

Although, right now, Nora was reserving her sympathy and survival strategies for herself and her family. Liam and their adopted eleven-year-old daughter, Aria, needed her. Yesterday, they’d learned that Liam’s mom was dying. Bone cancer had reduced Susan to a frail shell of herself, existing on willpower alone. Liam needed time with Susan and with his brother and sisters.

Moving out of the palace and into their own home in Salmar was essential, especially since last night their family had grown by one. It now included Bailey, a large, old, brindled mutt whose presence had caused Aria to forget her space-born terror of an open planetary sky to play in the palace garden.

“I will stay with you,” Dominic announced.

Nora didn’t see the others’ response to his suggestion. She was too busy gawking at him. “Mangrove Mansion needs renovation. I doubt it’ll be up to your royal standards.”

He kicked the floor. “It’s better than being alone.”

Against that heartbreaking truth, Nora had no defense. She waited. If Dominic’s in-laws said, no, you must stay with us, his sorrow wasn’t her burden.

The Capitoline royals remained silent.

He’d undertaken a months’ long journey to grieve for Hermione with them, and they couldn’t even offer him a room?

“I’m not sure where we’ll house your Royal Guards,” she said. “But have them contact my head of security, Zac Mstivoj.”

It was Dominic’s turn to gawk at her. “Mstivoj? Captain Isaac Mstivoj? He’s your head of security?”

Nora nodded sharply. “And my friend.”

Dominic lowered his voice. “He was a Palantine privateer.”

Honestly, no one tempted her as much as Dominic to roll her eyes. Did he think she was stupid? Zac’s exploits during the twelve year war were common knowledge. “I met Zac on the border. He set up a security company.” Although what he really wanted to do was lead an expedition through a black hole to reconnect with wider humanity. However, that was not her business to share. “I hired his company to protect my interests on the border, and that extended to providing a staff and protection when the Royal Guards insisted I return to Capitoline.”

While she and Dominic had their exchange, the Capitoline royals whispered their own schemes.

All except Caroline, who sat inside the family huddle, staring unblinkingly at Nora.

No, lady. I don’t care if you’re royal or if you’re grieving. I’m not having your grandchild.

Dominic, not the most observant of men, finally picked up on the staring match between his half-sister and mother-in-law. But he couldn’t let go of the idea that everything was about him. It was probably a royal failing. “Is she looking at you or me?”

“Can you carry her grandchild?”

“I wish.” He coughed.

Caught up in her own resentment of royal power, Nora had forgotten his grief. “I’m an idiot. Sorry. Do you truly want to stay with us? It won’t be up to your usual standard.”

“Because a sting ship is so luxurious?” he asked dryly, and startled her into a grin. She’d forgotten that he’d just gotten off a months’ long journey on a cramped courier spaceship. “While traveling, I had time to think. It was too late to turn back, but I realized Hermi’s family mightn’t want me. You said your daughter adored Hermi. I could tell her stories. Not sad ones. I have photos of Hermi’s ponies.”

Sometimes a royal was just an ordinary, lost person.

Fleetingly, Nora touched his hand. “Aria would like that.”

Also, if Nora was thinking strategically, having Dominic in residence at Mangrove Mansion would prevent the Royal Guards whisking her away for burr testing at their secret and remote desert facility. She’d do whatever was necessary so that she and Liam could stay near his family.

“There are advantages to you staying with Nora,” Magnus suddenly addressed Dominic. “We have to break the news of your arrival on Capitoline. If we combine it with the announcement of Nora’s existence, many of the problematic elements of both can be buried.”

Nora immediately wondered what the King of Capitoline wished to bury.

Dominic, however, nodded somberly, as if he understood and applauded the older man’s wisdom.

This was like navigating a swamp; the footing was treacherous and there were snakes everywhere. The sooner Nora’s new public relations manager was onboard, the better. Until Kennedy Stas had handed over her other clients and joined Nora and Liam in Bangalore, Nora ought to err on the side of caution.

Magnus clapped his hands. The fact that he then wrung them revealed a level of anxiety he’d concealed previously. “The public narrative will be that Dominic is grieving with us.” He waited for Francis’s curt nod of agreement. “But that he’s also taking the opportunity to acquaint himself with his newly discovered sister. Hence, the separate domiciles. Dominic, you and Liam must be photographed together to show bygones being bygones.”

Nora’s spine stiffened. As much as she had put the war behind her, hearing it dismissed as “bygones being bygones” diminished the very real sacrifices people had suffered. She had lost her first husband in the line of duty. Liam had lost his father and oldest sister.

“We’ll reach an understanding,” Dominic promised for himself and Liam.

“See that you do.” Magnus stared at Nora, not Dominic, as he spoke.

Her skin flushed hot and cold and left a film of sweat. She knew this reaction. She’d learned to control it as a child, when being a towers brat meant you had to recognize and fear those who wielded power. In the towers, that was the gang leaders.

Here, it was Magnus.

Looking into his eyes confirmed that he was the enemy, even if it wasn’t personal. He personified the system of privilege that provided a stable society, but did so at the expense of other people’s lives and dreams.

A royal interloper like her either proved herself willing to play along, or was eliminated. That was what his talk of public narratives meant.

Magnus nodded once he saw that Nora understood his threat. He turned to his wife. “Come along, my dear.”

Caroline rose blindly, and walked out.

The tension in the room lessened as the door closed behind them. Not that things got easier.

Harold strode up to Dominic, and loomed. “You’re not family.”

Dominic nodded tightly.

Harold looked at Nora. “So you know, I’ll be a good father.”

“Not to my kids.”

The buzzard winked. “Never say never.”

Dominic bumped the back of his fingers against Nora’s knuckles.

She realized she’d clenched her fists. The reminder that she wasn’t alone, even if she couldn’t trust Dominic, helped Nora stay silent.

Kirsty spoke for her. “Harry, you’re a stinker. Help me up.”

Obediently, he hauled his heavily pregnant sister to her feet. She was another woman stuck incubating the Capitoline royals’ hopes for burr sensitivity. Even after she gave birth, they’d have to wait five years to test her child’s sensitivity.

“Welcome to your new reality,” Francis said sardonically to Nora, ostentatiously ignoring Dominic at her side. “You’re at the center of a lot of things. We have to test you before we explore ideas like an expedition to the Origin black hole. If you’re serious about an expedition, the blaze means you could fund it.”

Kirsty shuffled to the door, keeping hold of Harry’s arm. “Don’t get ahead of yourselves. Even if you have the funding, an expedition to Origin requires interrealm agreement.”

“It’s doable,” Dominic said.

But he and Francis would have to work together.

Francis sneered. “Sometimes we have to make compromises to get what we want.”

Nora consciously dialed up her Angkorran accent. “And to survive.”

He nodded, and gestured for her—and Dominic—to walk out with him.

Nora listened to the click of his shoes on the marble floor, and the more muffled thud of her own and Dominic’s boots.

As much as she’d tried to prepare for events on Capitoline, research and strategizing fell short of being face-to-face with key players.

On balance, her first encounter with her royal half-brother, and her unexpected inclusion in a Capitoline royal family meeting, had gone better than she could have hoped. At least some of them were open to working with her, rather than merely using her, as was manifestly King Magnus’s intent. His talk of public narratives was a thin cover for her dancing like a puppet to his tunes.

And yet…her biological mother, Maya, had been a smuggler. With her contacts, she could have hidden anywhere. That she’d chosen Capitoline after fleeing Palantine could indicate that Maya had trusted the integrity of Capitoline’s political system and royals. Or, Maya had simply done the brutal calculation that Capitoline was the only realm capable of going toe-to-toe with Palantine.

The twelve year war had proven how closely matched they were.

Once outside the Throne Room, Francis and Dominic immediately split off on their own concerns.

Nora heard Dominic informing the Palantine Royal Guards that he’d be staying with Nora at her new estate in Salmar.

Capitoline Royal Guard Captain Molly Jones heard, too. Nora’s official guardian, or keeper, froze.

Gage, her privately hired bodyguard, one of Zac’s people, verbalized his equally appalled reaction. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope.” As Nora called Liam on her personal comms unit, Molly and Gage fished out their own. She left a message for her husband, who was busy in his own difficult meeting with the Navy. “Call me. Everything’s okay, but Dominic’s here. And um…I’ve invited him to stay with us at Mangrove Mansion.”

Chapter 2

The oddness of walking through the sprawling Navy HQ wearing a business suit in lieu of Navy uniform was less than Liam had anticipated. Rather than feeling wrong or out of place, he was impatient with the endless corridors and courtyards. A decade of active service had accustomed him to the cramped conditions of spaceships. The ground-based luxury of wide spaces, high ceilings, and the purposeless artwork and furniture that the Admiralty enjoyed felt alien. Worse, it seemed an insult to those who served.

Which was rubbish.

Liam gave his shoulders a shake. He was allowing the anger of his grief to affect his current perceptions. It was stupid, dangerous, and self-defeating. The Admiralty would survive his disapproval, but he’d weaken his own negotiating position if he allowed his sour attitude to show.

Grief raged in him that his mom hadn’t told him, or permitted his siblings to tell him, when she’d first fought bone cancer and won. Now, the cancer had returned, and it was winning.

If Nora’s circumstances, and his love for her, hadn’t compelled him to marry and accompany her to Capitoline, he’d never have seen his mom again.

They’d had breakfast together this morning, and the effort Susan had made to sit at the table with her children and Nora had confirmed that his mom’s life could now be counted in days.

Pain lanced through his chest. Discipline kept him from showing it.

“Captain Kimani. Or rather, Liam.” Admiral Ian Quispe approached from a side corridor. He had no idea what he risked at this moment by poking at Liam for his resignation.

Liam was in a foul mood, and obedience to authority—respect for the chain of command—no longer had to leash his response. “Good morning, Ian.”

The ensign who’d been escorting Liam literally retreated, backstepping out of self-preservation as Quispe’s heavy eyebrows lowered in a thunderous scowl.

As an admiral, and as the son of the Duke of Benchama, Quispe bullied his way through life. He could be rude. Lesser beings, and he considered everyone lesser, had to tolerate it. In his world, him disrespecting Liam didn’t mean Liam could disrespect him.

Quispe had been a member of the advance party who’d met Liam and Nora on their approach to Capitoline. He’d interviewed both of them, and monitored Nora’s interviews with the Royal Guards and burr experts onboard the RC Keying. At the time, Liam had yet to resign from the Navy, and he’d shown Quispe the respect due his rank.

Now that Liam was a civilian, and the chairman of the Blazing Kangaroo Corporation with the authority to negotiate the supply of fuel cells produced from Nora’s blaze discovery in border space, the balance of power changed. In his current mood, it would be Liam’s pleasure to establish that fact beyond any doubt.

Negotiating supplying the Navy with fuel cells would be tough. To some extent, Liam would do so with one hand tied. Nora and his partner in mining and refining the blaze ore and producing fuel cells was Willow Lange, and Willow’s corporation, the Blue Dock Scrapyard, was part-owned by Francis. Even if the Crown Prince was a silent partner, the intent of Willow taking on the scrapyard in border space and subsequently partnering with Nora to develop Beaconditch, had been in the hope of obtaining a supply of fuel cells for Capitoline.

It was in this context that Willow, as well as Nora, had given Liam full authority to secure deals on behalf of their partnership.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as simple as the Navy wanting something he had and agreeing to buy it at a fair price. The Admiralty knew Liam’s negotiating position was constrained by Willow and Francis’s expectation that he support Capitoline, as well as by his own loyalty to those who served. They would try to exploit that understanding to acquire the fuel cells at a derisory price; in effect, robbing the Blazing Kangaroo Corporation and the Blue Dock Scrapyard, but also the wider civilian market which also required fuel cells to operate.

The Navy would learn, however, that he wasn’t about to roll over and show his belly to their demands. Wealth accumulation didn’t motivate him in itself. What did was the power that wealth represented. To keep Nora safe, Liam couldn’t afford to surrender any advantage.

Ostensibly, today’s appointment was a debrief following his resignation last night. As a battlecruiser captain who’d recently served on the Hadrian Line, he had intel to share, but he’d put it in a report, suspecting that in meeting with him, the Navy would prioritize locking down a supply of fuel cells.

They would want production details.

He, in turn, had spent part of his time on the journey to Capitoline on determining what he could demand of them in return. It wasn’t as simple as money. The people on Border Station and across border space needed protection. Liam intended to wring a commitment of significant resources from the Navy to secure border space. Then he’d repeat the process with Customs.

He had projections of supply and a preliminary sense of where he wished those fuel cells to go.

Starting a fight with Quispe hadn’t been in Liam’s game plan, but standing his ground was.

Before the situation could ignite, Admiral Phayvanh Moore emerged from a conference room further up the corridor. “I thought I heard voices.”

The sixtyish man had been Liam’s mentor when Liam had been as green as the ensign currently attempting to fade into the woodwork. Being caught between two admirals, one of whom was in a snit, was not a safe place for an ensign. He scurry-marched away when Moore dismissed him.

“Good to see you, Liam.” Admiral Moore shook Liam’s hand. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

“Van.”

Liam smiled. “I’ll probably slip a couple of times and call you Admiral.” He let the older man draw him into the conference room.

Quispe grumbled at their heels.

Three captains and five lieutenants sat around the large table.

Van handled introductions. “Captain Tamora Wrede.”

The silvering blonde woman stood to shake hands. “Supply Corps.”

They went around the table. Liam had guessed correctly. From its composition, this was a meeting to secure a supply of fuel cells, not to receive his briefing on conditions in border space.

Quispe decided to establish his alpha status and take charge of the meeting. “Under ordinary circumstances, your dereliction of duty in abandoning your post on the Hadrian Line would require a court martial and dishonorable discharge.”

Van glared at his fellow admiral.

The other officers observed Liam. They neither watched Quispe nor ducked their heads in embarrassment at his display.

Could it be that Quispe’s rudeness was a ploy to assess Liam’s reaction and manipulate him?

Were they really playing games while his mom was dying?

Quispe blustered on. “But since your marriage to Nora Devi has given you control over the disbursement of the newest blaze find and fuel cells, your resignation has been accepted as ending the matter of your abandonment of your posting. We expect you to negotiate with us in good faith.” That is, from a sense of owing the Navy.

Liam considered his response. “I’m aware of the importance of fuel cells to the Navy. I have with me the projected output of the Blue Dock Scrapyard for this year and five years into the future. How much of that production goes to the Navy is undecided. Since the stated reason for my visit to HQ, that of debriefing me for my service, was clearly a pretext for beginning negotiations on a fuel cells contract, let’s all clarify our expectations.”

Captain Tamora Wrede began swiping through her personal comms unit.

Everyone else studied Liam.

He’d fought in some of the war’s worst space battles. A meeting didn’t shake him. “I could talk about corporate entities, but the truth is that Blazing Kangaroo is Nora and me, and the Blue Dock Scrapyard is Willow Lange, a former Navy chief engineer, and Crown Prince Francis as a silent partner. All of us want the Navy to have the fuel cells it needs.”

He evaluated the expressions of those observing him.

None looked smug or prematurely satisfied. These were professionals, and they were giving him the wary respect his career had earned. Even Quispe.

Liam’s reputation was of someone who’d do what he considered right, even to his own detriment. To political gameplayers, that made him dangerously unpredictable; simple, self-sacrificing honesty being impossible for them to understand.

Liam laid out his position. “What shouldn’t be overlooked is that an injection of a new source of fuel cells into the Capitoline economy, and indeed, into the broader Human Sector economy, frees up existing stock.”

Quispe’s eyebrows bunched in suspicion and mounting outrage.

“In short,” Liam said. “My partners’ and my desire to ensure an increased supply of fuel cells for the Navy does not necessitate us supplying them to you directly. Patriotism,” he added deliberately, “has a place in business, but not a driving role. I am here to protect my partners’ interests, as well as those of everyone in border space.”

A couple of lieutenants jerked in swift speculation and anticipation as they guessed his intent. The captains were more controlled.

Liam flattened one hand on the table. “I want a fair market price for the fuel cells, otherwise the Navy could simply onsell them for the profit we sacrificed to patriotism. I also require proof of the Navy’s commitment to protecting the Hadrian Line and everyone operating in border space, to the degree that is feasible in such an unexplored expanse.”

“Back-up for the RC Genghis Khan?” Van asked.

The RC Genghis Khan was the battlecruiser Liam had commanded. He had good friends still serving on it.

“As a start.” This first meeting wasn’t about haggling over details and Liam refused to allow Quispe to stampede him into that dead-end alley.

Everyone in the room was an expert in their field: commanding ships, supplying them, decrypting legalese. At Liam’s insistence, they hashed out expectations and the broad sweep of what each party could promise.

Grudgingly, Quispe’s scowl lightened. “Your experience shows, Liam. You’ll work well with us. Budget cuts in peacetime have hampered some of our plans. They’re important. Your wife wouldn’t understand.” His scowl deepened. “You’ll have to get rid of that damned Palantine pirate she has hanging around.”

“Captain Isaac Mstivoj was a privateer,” Liam said. “An effective one.”

Antagonism ran around the table in a tensing of muscles.

Liam spoke to it. Zac didn’t require his defense. But Nora, and Liam himself, needed to guard their independence. Who they employed was a line in the sand. Also, the Navy and everyone should know that they’d stand behind their people. “Mstivoj was educated the same as us,” he said to the officers. They were all products of naval academies. “Privateering was an order from his king. After the war, Mstivoj started a security business on Border Station. A good one. They escorted Nora back to Capitoline, keeping her safe. They continue to do so.”

“She has Royal Guards,” one of the captains said.

Liam leaned back in his chair. This discussion wasn’t part of the negotiations for fuel cells. “The Royal Guards protect the wielders of burrs. That includes Nora, although she’s yet to be officially tested and registered. However, she’s also a wealthy woman in her own right, and we have a child to protect. Having our own people is sensible.”

“At least employ Capitolines,” Van suggested.

“Some are,” Liam said. “More importantly, and with all respect to those we lost in the war—and I lost my father and sister.” The reminder visibly silenced a couple of objections. “If we want lasting peace, we have to support it.”

Captain Tamora Wrede spoke up. “Do you intend to sell fuel cells to Palantine?”

It was a sensible, relevant question.

“Yes. Willow was negotiating with a Palantine trader when we departed Border Station.” It was proof that Willow would back his independent stance despite being a former Navy chief engineer and the daughter of a duke.

Quispe muttered something uncomplimentary about women under his breath.

Wrede and two female lieutenants side-eyed him.

“Are you supplying Mstivoj with fuel cells?” Van asked Liam.

That question, Liam hadn’t anticipated. “No. The scrapyard had yet to produce fuel cells when we left. A supply of fuel cells was not included in Zac’s contract.”

Van’s eyes narrowed as he caught Liam’s slip. Zac, not Mstivoj. Friends.

Liam held his one-time mentor’s gaze. Yes, he and Zac were friends. He respected the man, and Zac’s partner, Ben Hough, another Palantine, who’d not been a privateer. Ben was an ex-special response unit cop. If Liam hadn’t respected them, they wouldn’t be heading the security team for Nora and Aria.

“An increased supply of fuel cells will affect crime rates,” Van said. “Black market trade and piracy were both logistically constrained during the war by the limited supply of fuel cells.”

Without fuel cells, interstellar travel was impossible.

Rather than search out and develop newly discovered blaze deposits, Capitoline and Palantine had gone to war, which used up even more blaze. A major concern during Liam’s time as captain of the RC Genghis Khan had been acquiring sufficient fuel cells. He had discreetly requisitioned them from captured enemy ships.

Nora’s experience had been different. As an independent tagger exploring border space, “requisitioning” fuel cells hadn’t been an option. Instead, she’d had to budget for them, and that worry had been an ever-present concern as to how far she traveled.

The limited supply, and hence, high cost of fuel cells, was why there hadn’t been an expedition to the Arcana—the unexplored space outside the Hadrian Line, which was the somewhat arbitrary border that defined the Human Sector, and beyond which, realm and interrealm laws did not apply.

He and Nora had discussed how the inability to search outward for habitable planets or to “waste” fuel cells on an expedition to the Beta black hole with the hope of reconnecting (after five centuries) with wider humanity meant there was no release valve for social pressure. Or, no release valve other than war.

“The Palantines were ahead of us there,” Quispe said.

Liam blinked, jerked out of his thoughts by confusion. “I don’t follow?”

“They had their damn pirates in place when the war started,” Quispe elaborated impatiently. “People like that Mstivoj.”

Mstivoj was Liam’s age, and had not gone straight from the most prestigious Palantine naval academy into privateering. And even if he had, he wouldn’t have been old enough or experienced enough to serve as a captain when the twelve year war started.

“We’re investing in privateers,” Van explained quietly.

A couple of resolutely blank faces around the table indicated that the new Navy policy wasn’t universally approved.

Quispe singled out one of the captains. “Hickman will be one of them.”

Captain Boyd Hickman was an experienced captain in his late thirties. His neutral expression revealed neither eagerness nor regret for the role.

“Privateering in peacetime?” Liam had the freedom to disapprove, and to let his disapproval show.

“It’s no less than the Palantines did to us,” Quispe said.

And Beaconditch blaze would provide the fuel cells to implement the privateering program.

“We’ll be at war soon enough,” the captain to the right of Hickman growled. “They killed our Hermi.”

Liam bit down on his response. Just as his and Nora’s decision to employ Zac was none of the Navy’s business, the Navy’s morally dubious intention to pursue privateering in peacetime wasn’t his to dispute.

Van intervened. “Now is a good time to break for lunch.”

Chairs creaked and uniforms rustled as everyone moved. Some stood immediately, surging as a group to the door.

Liam fished out his personal comms unit. He could and would take five minutes for his own affairs.

As per his comms unit’s settings, it prioritized a message from Nora.

Call me. Everything’s okay, but Dominic’s here. And um…I’ve invited him to stay with us at Mangrove Mansion.

At Liam’s cough of shock, Van swung around. “Problem?”

Liam hastily scanned the faces remaining in the room, particularly Van’s and Quispe’s. It was the Admiralty who’d sold Liam out, trashing his reputation to rehabilitate the Palantine Crown Prince’s when Dominic married Princess Hermione. “Did you know Crown Prince Dominic has arrived on Capitoline?”

Quispe looked up from his comms unit. “No.”

Hickman and Wrede stared, their shock a silent negative.

Liam refocused on Van. “Dominic’s on Capitoline. I have to go.”

Quispe defaulted to his usual scowl. “Running scared?”

“No.” Liam paused, partly in amused horror at the words about to come out of his mouth. He certainly wasn’t scared of the Palantine royal he’d once captured and held hostage to end the war. “I have to be home to welcome my half-brother. Apparently, Dominic will be staying with us.”

Liam climbed into the back seat of the armored car waiting for him outside Navy HQ.

Trent, the Realm Edge Security guard presently serving as his bodyguard, shut the door as Liam called Nora’s comms unit.

“Liam.” Relief and apprehension sounded in her voice. “Is your meeting over? Did you get my message?”

“We’d broken for lunch when I read it. I left. Where are you?”

“At Mangrove Mansion. With a very grumpy Zac. I was let out of burr testing for the day to prepare for Dominic’s arrival.”

Liam thunked his head against the back of the seat. “So, he’s really going to stay with us?”

“King Magnus thought it was a good idea.”

Holy stars. “You’ve been talking to the king?” The tiny voice in his head that had been whispering—she should have asked me before inviting Dominic to stay with us—shut up fast.

“Dominic arrived this morning. No one expected him. Hamish, the Palantine ambassador, told him about me. Dominic insisted on meeting the woman claiming to be his sister, and well, Francis burst in, in a temper, and then, King Magnus ordered the family into the Throne Room for a private conference. Seriously, the Throne Room. And Dominic insisted I was his family and that I had to be there too, and King Magnus didn’t say no.”

“Why?” Liam asked.

“Exactly!”

He could picture her throwing her arms in the air.

“It was Dominic’s idea, but King Magnus thought it would be a good ‘public narrative’ for him to join us. Dominic wouldn’t be under their feet, but Hermione’s family hadn’t rejected him. He’d be taking this opportunity to get to know his sister. Me.”

She took a deep breath and resumed ranting. “If you hate the idea, well, so does Zac. He’s here. Can you hear him grumbling? I’m at Mangrove Mansion—are we really going to keep calling it that? I thought the Royal Guards might veto Dominic staying with us, you know, on security grounds. But no. They’re deep in conversation with Ben. It seems, all our research meant we really did buy an excellent property from a security perspective.”

“I love you,” Liam said.

Nora stopped. Her silence carried over the comms unit. “You just made everything better.”

He realized she’d been afraid of his response. He was ashamed of the mental voice that had wanted her to wait to consult him on inviting someone to stay in their home. They were a team. They had to trust each other’s decisions when circumstances forced immediate, independent action.

“I love you, too,” she said.

“Oh for farting ducks!” Zac exploded in the background. “Now, is not the time to get lovey-dovey. Liam can’t possibly want Dominic in the house.”

“I’ll be there soon,” Liam said. “As soon as traffic lets us get across town. We’ll sort everything out. It sounds like Ben is organizing everything while Zac indulges his emotions.”

“I heard that!”

“You were meant to.”

Aria piped up. “Liam, Uncle Dominic is going to show me photos of Princess Hermione’s ponies!”

Zac choked. “Uncle Dominic?”

Liam completely understood the man’s thunderstruck reaction.

“What else should I call him? Cherry refuses to be an aunty, but Prince Dominic is older.”

“Maybe you should call him Prince Dominic until he invites you to call him uncle,” Nora suggested weakly. “Maybe he will.”

“Okay!” Aria cheerfully switched topics. “Prince Dominic’s Royal Guards have picked a bedroom for him. Ben told me to come and tell you.”

“I’ll let you go,” Liam said hastily. “See you soon.”

He checked that there were no messages from his mom or siblings, then put aside his comms unit. He needed a few minutes to process the eventful morning.

He’d tapped notes to himself throughout the meeting. Those needed to be written up while he remembered their context. Counting on his memory was inefficient. “I need an assistant.” It was something he should have prioritized on the journey to Capitoline. He’d expected to have more time to adjust to civilian life on-planet.

“One with security training,” Trent said from the front seat. The Palantine-born guard seldom spoke. That he’d proffered an unsolicited opinion suggested he had concerns.

Liam agreed. Anyone could be taught not to get in the way of guards doing their job, but if Liam wished to keep his entourage small, then no member of it could be deadweight. At minimum, his assistant had to be able to defend themselves for a few seconds till help arrived.

His idea was to employ a former Marine intelligence specialist. It would mean that both he and his assistant would have a steep learning curve regarding the world of business, but he could buy advice. Situational awareness, trained reflexes, and loyalty were harder to acquire.

Liam thought of Casimir Stas, the Capitoline Marine captain serving on the RC Genghis Khan, and a trusted friend. Casimir had been best man at Liam and Nora’s wedding. Having someone like Casimir beside him would halve the pressure on Liam. A Marine would automatically search out threats, and act to neutralize them.

The challenge would be that when Liam tapped his network for recommendations of Marines who’d left the service, Naval Intelligence would undoubtedly actively attempt to place one of their own in the position, even if slyly and under cover.

He’d sent messages ahead of his arrival on Capitoline, and had intended to catch up with his friends and contacts, but his mother’s cancer had disrupted those plans.

And now, Crown Prince Dominic.

The last time Liam had seen Dominic in person, the arrogant royal had threatened to disembowel Liam with a soup spoon. The inadequate weapon had been because Liam had refused to allow his royal prisoner on the RC Genghis Khan a knife or even a fork. Not after the man had attempted to stab one of Casimir’s Marines.

Liam groaned. He couldn’t begin to imagine how he and Nora would cope with an hysterical crown prince.

Chapter 3

Zac grabbed Nora’s hand and dragged her out of the butler’s den, the long narrow room off the foyer that Ben had claimed as his office, and in which her people had congregated.

Only the people in the office weren’t all her people. Royal Guards, both from Capitoline and Palantine, maintained a presence, and various tradespeople entered to coordinate their activities with Ben.

Poor Ben. He’d been collaborating with the Capitoline Royal Guards on security arrangements for Mangrove Mansion since before the ten acre property’s purchase was finalized. He’d had a solid plan in place.

However, first Liam’s mom’s condition and now Dominic’s intention to move in that night had thrown out the window the agreed timetable of repairs and renovations. Everything had to happen at once.

The compound in Salmar, on the western edge of Bangalore, had sat empty for years; maintained by a caretaker. Mangrove Mansion wasn’t anyone’s idea of a suitable domicile for the Crown Prince.

His assertion that less than luxurious conditions wouldn’t bother him would be tested, tonight. Currently, he was at the Palantine embassy, and Ambassador Hamish Yakamia’s problem.

Meantime, Ben had ditched the original renovation plans to focus on security and functionality, while the Royal Guards raided the Laotian Palace and the Palantine embassy for household staff.

The net gain of a dozen people meant a housekeeper, a major domo, a chef and a head groundskeeper were in and out of Ben’s office to guide repairs and renovations in their domains. They were all security-cleared experts in their profession, but subordinates, and had jumped at the opportunity for advancement.

Dominic’s intrusion couldn’t be worse timed, and yet, his imminent arrival meant the repairs and renovations necessary for Nora, Liam and Aria to move into their home were expedited. They weren’t stuck in the Laotian Palace. If Susan wished, they could look after her here.

“What is wrong with you?” Nora muttered at Zac as he tugged her out the front door into the blazing sun. “Ow. At least let me get my sunglasses.” After the programmed lighting of spaceships and space stations, planetary conditions took some readjustment.

“Squint,” was his uncaring response. “The car’s tinted.”

He opened the front passenger door, shoved her in, and came around to the driver’s side.

Royal Guards closed in on them. Their black uniforms were as sharp as ever, but plaster dust and dirt marred their normally gleaming boots.

“Oh, get over yourselves,” Zac snarled. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Nor was there a security risk to them being outside. The perimeter fence and a watchtower at the corner of the courtyard house nearest the public road leading to the city ensured their safety. A second watchtower occupied the opposite corner of the house and monitored the western, ocean approach.

Zac climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut, and started up the car while leaving it in park. He also activated a signal jammer. With the air-con blasting chilled air and the tinting on the windows deepening to maximum privacy, he finally relaxed.

Nora winced because “relaxed” wasn’t the right word.

Zac gripped the steering wheel as if he wished to strangle it. But he was motionless, which contrasted to his agitated pacing in Ben’s office. “Dominic is unstable. How the hell are we meant to protect you if you invite that devil’s spawn into the house?”

“King Magnus commanded it,” she reminded him.

“You told us. You also admitted it was Dominic’s suggestion.”

“He’s grieving,” she began carefully.

Zac thumped the steering wheel. “So, you want to join him?” His tone was as vicious as his words. “Don’t give me that big-eyed, shocked look, all reproachful. He ordered your husband’s death.”

Nora inhaled sharply.

“Remember?” he hurled the taunt at her. “I wouldn’t have thought fighting a combat android was something you’d forget.”

She hadn’t. She and Jonah had fought a combat android in the scrapyard on Border Station. She’d defeated it, but the fight had been one of the top three most terrifying experiences of her life. She’d survived the encounter because the android had been her grandfather, King Olav’s, creation, and he’d incorporated in it the equivalent of a bio-lock. His blood, or that of his descendants, was the key to overriding its orders and controlling it. In presenting it with her blood, she’d confused its programming sufficiently to force an opportunity to destroy it.

Zac had been the person to deliver the combat android to Border Station. It had been his final task for his dual masters, the Palantine Royal Navy and the Palantine Intelligence Agency, and the price of his freedom.

He’d unleashed a monster on a civilian station, and he’d done so on Dominic’s orders.

At the time, Dominic had considered himself humiliated by Liam daring to hold him hostage to end the war. A dirty commoner oughtn’t to lay hands on a royal.

Decades ago, King Olav had overseen the creation of thirteen combat androids. Their primary purpose had been to protect him and his family. They were terrifyingly remorseless, conscienceless assassins.

Whatever other problems Nora had regarding her father, at least he hadn’t continued his father’s work. But he also hadn’t destroyed the combat androids.

Instead, Palantine had used them in the war. The androids had led gladiator squads on suicide missions. The squads had been formed of prisoners on Death Row or those serving life sentences but given the option to die in action. For some prisoners, the chance to kill once more had been irresistible. Kill switches were embedded in their bodies. If the android leading the squad was destroyed, the prisoners exploded. If the android survived, it could be programmed to flick the switch anyway.

Three combat androids had survived the war. Nora had taken out one of them. Somewhere, two more lurked.

Zac had reason to distrust Dominic. He didn’t know that Dominic’s purported change of heart, his evolution into a compassionate person, was genuine.

Nora did.

Jonah had studied her half-brother. As a Vapori AI, he could observe anyone or anything anywhere across the Human Sector and beyond. Jonah had convinced Nora that loving Hermione had truly changed Dominic.

The spoilt prince had grown up, even if he—like all of them—remained a work in progress.

Zac didn’t know that, and judging by his reaction, there was trauma in his background from what the royals had ordered him to do as a privateer in wartime.

“Our options are limited,” Nora explained compassionately. “King Magnus has ordered that Dominic stay with us. I’m not gambling with Liam’s life. I believe Dominic is grieving his wife, and that the damage to his ego from Liam capturing him is forgotten.”

“Egoists never forget, or forgive, their defeats.”

She tilted a hand in front of an air vent. The sweat on that palm dried. “Maybe Dominic has grown up.” She continued over Zac’s snort of derision. “He can’t try anything here, not with all the Royal Guards, as well as your people. Our people. Zac, I would fight Magnus’s order except, I think there is safety in having Dominic with us.”

“What maggot do you have wriggling in your brain?”

She swatted his arm. “That’s plain rude.”

His eerily pale blue eyes met hers earnestly. Tension had drawn his skin tight over his high cheekbones and deepened the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. His black hair was messy and held the first strands of gray. This was the man who’d once been an enemy and whom she’d come to trust. “I know they’re your family by blood, but the Palantine royals…” His nostrils fluttered as he inhaled. “Even if Dominic isn’t actively out to get you or Liam, he’ll have other schemes in mind, and his family doesn’t care who they sacrifice to achieve their goals. Collateral damage can be as deadly as a targeted attack.”

“What do you think I should do?”

Seconds ticked past as he examined her face. His own relaxed, and his head thumped back against the headrest. “Damned if I know. But Dominic, for all that he’s a fool, is dangerous.”

“We’ll be careful,” she promised.

“What you’ll be is under constant surveillance. That’s why we’re in the car. There’s no place to talk privately while that lot are buzzing around.” That lot was the Royal Guards.

“I’m well aware.” She resented the surveillance. It wasn’t merely that her instincts for independence were riled. The surveillance prevented her from contacting Jonah.

She missed him.

The alien Vapori AI in an android body was stuck on Nora’s scout ship, the CC Kangaroo, which was docked at the Terminus, Capitoline’s space station. There was no way to get him from there to the planet’s surface without the Royal Guards wanting to dismantle him to check for explosives, or whatever threat they could dream up.

Even messaging each other was impossible. Despite his extraordinary skills as a hacker, the intense scrutiny Nora was under meant she and Jonah had to assume that the web of surveillance on Capitoline would catch them out.

It was salt in the wound to watch the Royal Guards, or their “trusted” tradespeople, bustle about her home, installing surveillance that would be as much about learning Nora’s secrets as protecting her family—and Dominic.

“Liam’s mom is dying,” Nora said.

Zac’s sigh was explosive. “I’m sorry. My family disowned me when I became a privateer.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Not that that’s germane to the discussion.”

Except that it was.

The Palantine Royal Navy, in service to the royal family, had ordered Zac to act as a privateer during the war. They’d forced him into terrible situations and alienated his family.

Nora’s blood family had taken a lot from him. “You fought them.” Her low voice was almost a whisper; hesitant that she might give offense. “You stayed true to yourself. You survived and got out. We’re going to open the Origin black hole, Zac. First, we’ll keep those we love safe. But second, we’ll unlock the cage. Future generations won’t be trapped here.”

“Ruled by royals,” he completed her thought.

She nodded.

He looked at her with new appreciation. “You’re going to use Dominic.”

“To make an Origin expedition a reality? Yes.”

She didn’t share with Zac, not at this moment, that she also wished to build a genuine sibling relationship with Dominic. She and Cherry had achieved one against the odds. Dominic’s background was entirely different, and yet, his loneliness and desire for change meant they had a chance.

As Nora got out of the car, she saw the smirk Zac wore in the face of the Royal Guards’ curiosity and frustration at being excluded; blatantly excluded.

The sneer was Zac’s Captain Mstivoj expression, from back when he’d been an infamous privateer. It was defiance and disdain. He was ready to stir trouble.

Nora met the nearest Royal Guard’s gaze directly. “I am entitled to privacy.”

The woman blinked. “Of course.”

Nora continued on into the house. With so many activities requiring windows and doors open for the venting of fumes, they hadn’t switched on the air-conditioning. Nonetheless, the thick walls of the sprawling building provided a comparatively cool oasis.

Aria’s laughter drifted down from the second floor. Her bedroom was adjacent to the master suite, sharing its view of the ocean, while Cherry had a room on the other side. Their voices carried over the whine of power tools and the general clamor of activity as they excitedly debated themes for the house. Cherry was winning Aria over to her idea of an opulent Arabian nights extravaganza. Marble, gold and jewel-toned silks were declared essential to their happiness.

“We need a gong by the bottom of the stairs,” Aria shouted. “I saw it in a movie. Booooiiiinnnng!”

At least she isn’t shouting boom! Nora thought wryly.

Judging by the wary looks the Royal Guards cast upward, the royal children they usually guarded were less exuberant.

Or perhaps, existed under the stern command of nannies and governesses.

Whereas Nora trusted in Zac and Ben’s security arrangements for Aria, and all of them, and saw no need to place additional restrictions on an eleven-year-old girl. The whole idea of purchasing such a large property was to allow them as much freedom as possible on Capitoline.

Ultimately, the mansion would be renovated to reflect that goal, utilizing light colors, simple furniture, and open spaces balanced by private retreats to create a peaceful home.

Zac entered Ben’s office and skirted the desk. Everyone else had to stay on the far side, but Zac and Ben were partners.

In the midst of his own overwhelming responsibilities, Ben worriedly scrutinized Zac.

Smirk vanishing, Zac gave him a nod of reassurance before crouching down to pet the old dog snoring in the untrampled space on Ben’s side of the desk.

Nora leaned against the doorframe.

Bailey was the newest member of the family. The large, brindled mutt with the gray muzzle had more than earned his cloud-soft, suitable-for-elderly-bones bed. He opened one eye and thumped his tail twice in polite acknowledgement of Zac’s pat. Bailey had done his best to keep up with Aria before accepting that puppyhood had been a long time ago and that a snooze was required.

Just as Dr. Rae Scott had prescribed, Aria’s focus on caring for the old dog had successfully countered her sky terror; that is, the relatively rare condition suffered by spacers who, on arriving on a planet, suddenly feared the open sky above.

Listening to her stampeding around the house and in and out of the open courtyard was a relief and joy on a day otherwise full of troubles.

Trouble Number Three tapped Nora on her shoulder.

Mentally, Nora castigated herself. It wasn’t fair to Royal Guard Captain Molly Jones to label the woman trouble. Molly had a job to do, and she was doing it with as much sympathy and sensitivity as she could.

She was Nora’s adviser. Or wished to be. In fact, Nora suspected that the Royal Guards had assigned Molly to act as a babysitter. From their perspective, Nora had to be taught how to be a good royal; that is, a wielder of burrs who obeyed the King’s and Royal Guards’ orders.

Nora was doing everything she could to avoid being caught in precisely that trap. Somewhere among the competing demands on her was a chance at forging her own path.

She let Molly draw her away from Ben’s office to the foyer’s window seat. Neither woman sat on the faded, dusty cushions.

“Your testing was interrupted,” Molly began.

Nora wasn’t naïve enough to be tricked into apologizing for Dominic or King Magnus’s interruption of the Royal Guards’ and their scientists’ examination of her sensitivity to burrs. She would have happily avoided the royal family’s emotional—and private—meeting. It was Dominic who’d insisted his newly discovered sister accompany him.

From what King Magnus said in the meeting, he’d agreed to Dominic dragging her into it because Magnus wanted to control the public narrative around the revelation of Nora’s identity and Dominic’s unheralded presence on Capitoline as the bereaved husband of Magnus’s youngest daughter, Hermione. News of her death had stirred up a dangerous level of anti-Palantine feeling. A scuttling of the peace accords and a return to war wasn’t off the table.

Nora agreed with Magnus that war must be avoided. She would go along with the construction of a public narrative that dampened those fires, which was why she’d agreed to play happy families and host Dominic. She and Liam needed to discuss their role in rehabilitating Dominic’s reputation in Capitoline public opinion.

The irony didn’t escape her. The first rehabilitation of Dominic’s image to present him as a worthy husband for Hermione had trashed Liam’s reputation as the Navy captain who’d held him prisoner, and so, ended the war.

Commoners like Liam weren’t meant to touch royalty.

A grin tugged at Nora’s mouth. She enjoyed how Liam touched her.

Molly’s eyes, already narrowed against the glare of sunlight, narrowed further in suspicion. “You’re pleased you avoided the testing!”

“No. The testing has to happen.”

Molly’s suspicious frown persisted. “Because you want to mount an expedition to the Origin black hole.”

“Oh, you heard that?”

It spoke to Molly’s professionalism that she didn’t roll her eyes or otherwise react to Nora’s provocation. “Your invitation—or was it challenge?—to Crown Prince Dominic has been a matter of some discussion.”

At the conclusion of her tempestuous introduction to her half-brother, Nora had challenged him. “When it comes to the burrs, I have strength. You have training and control. I want to open the Origin black hole. Imagine how our lives would change if we could escape the Human Sector. What do you say, brother?”

He hadn’t responded.

Or perhaps he had. He’d included her in his meeting with his in-laws, and invited himself to reside with Liam and her. Dominic saw an opportunity.

Precisely what opportunity and what his motivation was, she’d have to determine.

“Liam.” Nora ceased listening to Molly as Liam’s armored car drew up in front of the house. She went to meet him, but it was Trent who got out, not Liam.

The bodyguard locked eyes with Nora.

Her heartbeat quickened.

“What’s happening?” Molly asked urgently as Trent opened the car’s back door.

Nora slid in. She saw Liam’s anguished expression.

The car door slammed.

Liam gripped her hands. “Elise called as we reached the gate.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Mom lay down for a nap after breakfast. She won’t wake up.”

Susan was dying of bone cancer. By an act of will, she’d held on to see her eldest son again. If she’d slipped into a coma, there was every chance she wouldn’t wake again.

“Trent will tell people our change of plans,” Liam concluded.

“We’re going directly to the Kimanis’ apartment,” Trent confirmed. It was an armored car, a fortified sedan, not a limousine. They could all hear each other.

Nora nodded. Cherry, Zac and Veronica—Aria’s bodyguard—would look after Aria. Nora had to look after Liam and his siblings. She wanted to be there for Susan, too. People in a coma could register more than others assumed. Susan loved her family. Knowing people were there for them mattered. Nora had witnessed that at breakfast.

She wiped a hand over her eyes. Her own mother had rejected her. Ethan, her first husband’s mother, still claimed her as family. Nora would never have the chance to build that relationship with Susan, or for Susan to be a grandmother.

“I can’t cry yet,” Liam whispered hoarsely.

She hugged him. “Today, you don’t have to be the strong one.” The Navy had conditioned him to be the captain who looked after everyone else while burying his own emotions. “I’m here.”

She was there through the terrible hours, making small meals no one wanted to eat, and drinking the endless cups of tea that Elise pressed on her. She watched as the distance of years that had yawned between Liam and his siblings evaporated in their shared vigil.

Susan died at 1:08 a.m..

Liam held Phoebe and Jason as they cried.

Elise knelt by the bed and pressed her forehead to the mattress.

Hesitantly, Nora knelt beside her. She put an arm around her.

After a few seconds of frozen grief, Elise collapsed into her, shuddering as silent tears poured down her face.

Over her head, Nora looked at Liam.

He was crying those same silent tears as he stared at Susan’s peaceful face.

Nora tightened her arms around Elise. “She loved you so much.”

Jason choked, cleared his throat, and tried again. “I can’t…I have to go.” He pulled away from Liam and lurched toward the door.

As he vanished, Elise explained between hiccups. “He walks. When everything…”

When everything became too much, Jason had the luxury of leaving and letting other people handle the tough stuff. Under some circumstances it was understandable, but if it was his default response to problems, he wasn’t an adult but a dependent. Elise had been forced to be strong for more than Susan.

Alerted by Jason’s exit, the doctor whom the Royal Guards had brought with them hovered in the doorway.

Liam nodded for him to enter, and gently pushed Phoebe toward Nora, who straightened to hold her, while Liam helped Elise to her feet.

The doctor cursorily examined Susan and recorded her official death. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The heartbreaking, steadying routine of death and funeral arrangements began.

Elise brewed more tea, which no one drank.

Phoebe sat at the kitchen table and stared at the old-fashioned cuckoo clock on the wall. “I don’t know what to do or say or feel.”

The clock never chimed to mark the hour. Someone had silenced it. But the cuckoo would emerge and flap its wings.

Nora’s fingers ached to dismantle the clock; to feel the familiar pieces of clockwork and the puzzle of them.

Trent opened the door. “From the funeral home.”

Two men entered, eyes wide and excited from running the gauntlet of the Royal Guards. This nice, middle class apartment building wasn’t accustomed to such goings on.

Despite the late hour, Nora suspected neighbors would be watching. She wondered if the Royal Guards had stopped any from imposing on the family.

“This way.” Liam took charge of the two men and their stretcher.

Phoebe clasped Nora’s hand.

Elise turned back to the sink. She attempted to refill the kettle, but it shook and she set it down with a thump.

Phoebe rose and put an arm around her waist. The sisters stared out the narrow window over the sink at the dark night.

Feeling like an interloper, Nora silently stood. She listened to the low murmur of voices and the hushed, professional sounds of the funeral directors’ departure.

Liam returned.

His image was reflected in the window, and his sisters turned to face him.

“Mom’s gone.” He crossed to Nora. “It’s too late tonight to do more. Do you want to come home with Nora and me, or stay here?” The apartment could be haunted in a good or bad way. It could be a comfort or a torment.

“Jason—” Elise began. She couldn’t let her baby brother return to an empty home.

“We have a man following him,” Liam said. “You can speak to him, now.”

Nora suspected that “you” passed over Elise and Phoebe’s heads, but Nora caught it. Liam wouldn’t be sympathetic to Jason running out, and thereby adding another worry to Elise’s pile. Rather than add to the tension of the night if his disapproval leaked through while speaking to his brother, Liam would have Elise handle him.

“I want to go with you,” Phoebe said.

Elise gaped at her, shocked and half-betrayed, but after a helpless look around the kitchen, nodded. “Okay. I’ll talk to Jason.”

“I’ll pack an overnight bag. For you, too, Lissy.”

Elise’s face crumpled at the baby name. “Thank you, Phoebe.”

Chapter 4

Liam listened as Nora’s breathing slowed and deepened into sleep. After years in space, where every bit of useable space had to serve a function, the large bed in the massive master suite felt impossibly vast. When he eased away from Nora, he had to slide forever to reach the edge of the bed. At least the expensive mattress meant he didn’t jostle her awake.

The windows were open to let in the sea breeze, and let out the new furniture and paint smells. Moonlight showed the curve of Nora’s shoulder, the dip and the continued line of her hip and long legs beneath a lightweight quilt.

He loved her so much it hurt.

But he also couldn’t stay in the room. In three hours, maybe four, it would be time to tell family and friends of Susan’s death.

Padding into the wardrobe, which was larger than his quarters on the RC Genghis Khan, he found sweatpants and a t-shirt, and shoved his feet into sneakers. He needed to clear his head.

He descended the stairs and exited to the internal courtyard. A few straggly trees had survived years of neglect.

A red dot flared and faded. Dominic stepped out from beneath an untidy crape myrtle. “Captain Kimani.”

Grief, exhaustion and politics rendered political concerns and old resentments an unreal fantasy. “If we’re family now, it’s Liam.”

“Dominic,” the Prince replied instantly. “Or idiot or hey you!” He ground out his cigarette beneath his heel. “I’m sorry, Liam, for our past interactions. And I’m mostly truly sorry for your loss.”

Liam attempted a response, and found it stuck in his throat. He nodded.

“I shouldn’t be here,” Dominic said. “I didn’t know about your mother when I invited myself into your home. I’ll move into the embassy in the morning.”

Right at this moment, Liam couldn’t summon the will to care. There was room enough for all of his and Nora’s families not to fall over each other in the house. Ironic, then, that he’d stumbled into Dominic in his first venture outside. “Why are you awake?”

“Thinking of Hermi.”

Because grief did that. Each new grief re-opened the scars of old ones. Even when the new grief wasn’t yours.

It wasn’t just his mom’s death that burdened Liam. He was remembering when news of his dad’s passing reached him, and how his sister Melissa had died in the battle of the Vesk Route. The memory of their deaths led to the memory of all the other people he’d lost in the war.

The irony of sharing this moment of grief with the Palantine Crown Prince didn’t escape him.

“I’m sorry about your mother. Mine.” Dominic crossed the courtyard and deposited the cigarette butt into a soda can that had escaped the day’s clean-up crew. The action brought him closer to Liam. “None of us would miss the Queen. But losing Hermione taught me how much loving someone hurts when they’re gone. There’s a gap in the world.”

Liam hadn’t expected that level of insight or emotional honesty from his royal brother-in-law.

Maybe Dominic noticed his surprise, or maybe he was lost in his own thoughts and speaking them aloud. “We were raised to believe each other our biggest rivals. Nora’s not like that. Regina isn’t either. My oldest sister. Well, she’s younger than Nora.” He coughed. “Regina signaled early and consistently that she’s not competing. Mom accepted Regina being Regina, and focused on me. I was her project.”

He stared past Liam into the shadows. “Hermi opened my eyes to how different family could be. I saw her with them during the peace accords negotiations, and then, later…she was kind and loyal. And so devastatingly honest. She said she was leaving everyone and she needed one person she could trust with everything. She chose me, Liam.” The words tore out of Dominic, raw and bewildered. “The marriage was for politics, but then, she chose me.”

And now she was gone.

“I’m sorry,” Liam said. “Hermi was a bright star.”

Dominic turned to him eagerly. “Yes.” His intensity waned into wistfulness. “Yes.”

And with Hermione’s death, Dominic was alone, again; the light and laughter gone from his world.

“You don’t have to go,” Liam said abruptly. “You can stay, here.”

“I…thank you.”

The conversation had been strangely cathartic. Liam left without another word. The darkness chased him up the stairs and into the dimness of the bedroom, but it was no longer full of ghosts.

As he slid into bed, Nora rolled over and snuggled close. She kissed his shoulder. Welcome home.

Unlike Dominic, the light of Liam’s life was there to hold him.

Over the breakfast table, it looked as if Elise had slept even less than Liam. As in, not at all. Her eyes were reddened and her face puffy from crying. But she was in command of herself, and of the family.

“I’ve phoned Granddad. He will tell Aunt Portia, and she’ll tell the rest of Dad’s family. Uncle Albert and Aunt Erin need personal phone calls and to be told first. Marmee won’t be awake yet. Phoebe, you’re Uncle Albert’s favorite—”

“He won’t be awake yet, either,” Phoebe mumbled into her bowl of multi-hued cereal.

“So, wake him,” Elise snapped. “We have to catch him before he goes to work.”

Her tone had Jason jerking upright from where he’d been slumped over a plate of bacon and eggs, pushing the food around rather than eating.

Listening to her plans, Liam recognized his exclusion, and accepted it. Elise had been forced to confront their mom’s imminent death long before his return, and had planned for it.

Nora, on the other hand, frowned at his exclusion from the morning’s activities.

Elise intended to contact family members from the apartment, and to generally tidy it before taking a preselected outfit for Susan to the funeral home.

“One of us can drop it in,” Nora offered.

Elise dusted toast crumbs off her fingers. “It’s fine.”

Jason bent over his bacon and eggs as if he’d regained his appetite.

Not good with conflict, Liam noted.

Phoebe didn’t have that problem. “I’m staying here.”

“Fine.” Elise pushed back from the table. “Should I call a cab or will one of your guards drive me home?”

“I’ll take you,” Liam said.

“No.”

“Elise,” Phoebe hissed.

But Elise was glaring at Liam. “I’m managing.” There was a slam there; that she was managing because she’d always had to. Because he wasn’t there.

Anger was part of grieving, and Liam had withstood worse. “Someone will drive you. Just ask.”

Jason scrambled up. “I’ll go with you. I need my gear.”

Elise’s expression softened. “All right. When you’re ready.”

He drained his coffee mug. “I’m good to go.”

Phoebe glowered at them, then at the doorway as their footsteps faded. “I don’t know why Elise was rude. She always babies Jason. And I don’t know why she’s fussing about how we tell the family. Other than Granddad, they weren’t there for Mom.”

At that information, Liam’s breakfast curdled in his stomach.

“Is breakfast over?” Aria stuck her head in the door.

Bailey pushed past and ambled toward Jason’s vacant chair and his abandoned breakfast.

“Bailey, manners!” Aria hurried in to grasp his collar.

The big dog stopped amiably. Aria certainly couldn’t have halted him if he’d been determined on proceeding.

“You didn’t have to stay away.” Phoebe sounded half-scandalized, half-ready to cry.

“Oh no, I ate ages ago. But Bailey could eat that leftover bacon.”

Zac sauntered in. “Not according to the vet,” he reminded her.

“I forgot.” Aria and Bailey turned equally innocent, reproachful eyes on the bacon-thwarter.

“Right,” Zac drawled skeptically.

“I came to invite them on the mangrove walk.” Aria turned from him to Nora. “Ben says there’s an overgrown path from the dock through the mangroves. Zac said he’ll explore it with Veronica and me. Bailey has to stay home because he’s too old.” She patted the brindled dog’s back. “You can guard Ben. But I thought you could go with me, maybe?”

She looked hopefully at Liam and Nora.

Although they’d waited to eat breakfast with Elise, Jason and Phoebe, Liam and Nora had woken early to break the news about Susan’s death to Aria. He remembered her impulsive hug as she’d flung herself at him, and her wail. “It’s horrible losing your mom and dad.” She knew.

The mangrove walk was a distraction, a kind thought from her, and from Zac and Ben. They would keep Aria both occupied and in company, while Liam and Nora handled family and funeral arrangements.

According to Phoebe, their extended family couldn’t be relied on, but his new family of choice most definitely could.

Even Dominic had tactfully eaten breakfast in his room before departing for the Palantine embassy.

“Maybe you could explore the route today, and show us tomorrow?” Nora suggested.

Aria sidled into her for a casual arm-about-the-shoulders hug. “I can do that.” She peeked at Phoebe, who as a senior in high school, would be even more awe-inspiring to Aria than an adult. “Would you like to map out the path? There are crabs and worms and icky things. Zac says I’ll hate it. But Cherry will hate it more, and she’s coming with us. If she ever wakes up!”

“I’m awake.” Cherry shuffled into the dining room, hip-bumping Zac out of the way. “Coffeeeee!” she proclaimed dramatically, like a zombie. But she abandoned her performance to squeeze Liam’s shoulder and bend and kiss his cheek. “Sorry about your mom.” Her gaze found Phoebe. “Really sorry.”

“Yeah,” Aria seconded awkwardly.

Phoebe sniffed. “Thanks. I’ll walk through the mangroves with you, but I need flip-flops or something so I don’t ruin my shoes in the mud.”

“No problem.” Cherry smiled encouragingly. “We’ll get you organized.”

“There is a box of new flip-flops in the boathouse,” Zac said. “It’ll be the first stop on our expedition.” He winked at Phoebe, who blushed.

Liam’s coffee mug dipped in its path to his mouth.

Nora tapped his knee in warning—or amusement—at his shock.

He hadn’t considered that women, including schoolgirls, would find Zac attractive. He gulped some coffee. Zac was a safe focus for a schoolgirl crush. He’d handle Phoebe carefully. “About calling Uncle Albert…”

Phoebe shook her head vigorously. “Elise has lost her mind. Uncle Albert doesn’t have favorites. He’d have to be interested in us for that. Did you notice, though, that Jason didn’t have to call anyone?”

Liam had. “Maybe Elise will give him some people to call in the cab.”

“Nah. Jason has stayed away at university, barely seeing Mom. Elise said he should concentrate on his studies. His studies.” The bitter emphasis provoked an uncomfortable suspicion. While Elise sheltered Jason, how much had Phoebe’s final year of high school, and her chances at university entrance, been disrupted by caring for Susan?

“I’ll call Uncle Albert,” Liam said.

Phoebe smiled uncertainly, seeming a bit ashamed of her outburst. “Thanks. I can do it.”

“But I’m here, and I need a job. Aria, take her flip-flop shopping in the boatshed.”

Aria saluted cheekily. “Can do.” She grabbed Phoebe’s hand, and the older girl let herself be dragged out of the room.

Zac followed.

Bailey stayed near the bacon.

“Not a chance,” Nora told the dog.

Liam and Bailey sighed in unison, but Liam’s sigh was burdened whereas Bailey’s was resigned. “Elise resents my lack of involvement earlier, and conversely, the fact that I am involved now. I’m still going to the apartment to help her, but you don’t have to come.”

“Unless you specifically ask me to stay away, I’m going with you. But I’ll behave.” Nora bumped her shoulder against his. “Elise is grieving. I won’t respond even if she takes jabs at you. In a strange way, it’s a sign of her trust in you.”

He stared at her.

She rose, and held out her hand, squeezing his as they exited the dining room. “Elise is tired, angry, and distressed. You’re a safe target for her emotions because she trusts that you won’t stop loving her and caring what happens to her.”

“Huh.”

Nora smiled ruefully. “That’s not my wisdom. It’s from those raising-a-teen books I’m pre-emptively reading. Elise might be a couple of decades older than Aria, but people are people.”

Arriving at the family apartment, Liam kept Nora’s insight in mind, even as his patience waned. It hadn’t helped that neighbors had intercepted him and Nora on their entrance into the apartment building and their walk along the corridor to the apartment. He’d have accepted the intrusions if their condolences had been simply that; sympathy for his mother’s passing. However, their avidly darting gazes at the bodyguards and Royal Guards, and the neighbors’ flat-out requests to be introduced to Nora, showed their true purpose, and he was in no mood to indulge their curiosity about why she warranted such an illustrious security detail.

As he entered the apartment, shielding Nora with his body, he glanced back a final time.

Some of the neighbors had their comms units up to film them.

My fault, he thought bleakly. The guards had been prepared to provide a barrier, but he’d breached it to shake one neighbor’s hand, who’d been a friend of his father’s, and then, to catch elderly Miss Chaucer’s elbow when the jostling crowd threatened her balance. She still smelled of lavender.

Aunty Lavender they’d called her as children. She’d been in her fifties then, and obsessed with lavender. In addition to spraying herself in the perfume, she’d baked lavender cookies and made the most vile lavender cordial.

Inside the apartment, Jason shut the door and leaned against it. “Whew.”

Liam was unsure what comfort to offer. “The guards will disperse them.”

“Yeah. We’re in the kitchen.”

The kitchen was where all important family conversations were held.

Liam and Nora joined Elise and Jason at the table. They left Susan’s seat empty. His gaze kept returning to it as Elise rambled about phone conversations with various family members. “Marmee is insisting we have chrysanthemums, but Mom hated the smell.”

Because chrysanthemums were customarily used for funeral wreaths, their smell meant death.

“We should have the lilies, like you planned,” Jason said. “Even if you did what Marmee wanted, she’d find something else to complain about.”

Their grandmother was chronically dissatisfied.

Nora nudged Liam’s arm and angled her comms unit for him to read the message on screen.

Molly had sent an update on royal involvement at Susan’s funeral. “Both Crown Princes. 9:52 for the 10 a.m. service.”

With that tight timeframe, everyone else needed to be in place for the service to start on time. It would also have to finish promptly on the hour. Given Dominic’s unexpected arrival on Capitoline, his schedule might be open, but Francis’s wasn’t.

“You will arrive in the royal cavalcade. 3 cars,” Molly’s terse message ended.

At least they’d travel separately.

And the Royal Guards would handle scheduling issues. The suburban pastor Elise had chosen to lead the service in the Opera’s chapel would likely be overwhelmed at the strictures laid on him; strictures the city’s bishop would have taken in his stride.

Liam took a deep breath for patience. “We have a final decision on which royals will attend Mom’s service. Francis and Dominic.”

“No.” Elise sniffed twice. Her hands curled into claws. “Jason and I talked. You need to keep those people away. Mom agreed to a small, private service. I won’t have you turning it into a public spectacle.”

“Except that Mom was a public figure, and she enjoyed her position in the arts community. The bishop should be leading the service.” Liam bit off further words.

If he could maintain his composure in the middle of battle, he refused to lose his temper dealing with his sister. But she angered him.

Elise wanted a small life. She shrank from the public life that Susan had enjoyed as first violin of the Royal Symphony Orchestra, or even from the level of recognition Liam had accepted as part and parcel of serving as a Navy captain. The funeral arrangements Susan had agreed to weren’t Susan’s style. Liam could see how their mother had slighted her friends, colleagues and fans who’d have wanted to farewell her in favor of allowing Elise a tiny ceremony.

And now Elise was calling him out as going against their mom’s wishes.

It was Elise who’d forced her own preferences on Susan.

Liam tried to keep his voice level. “You’re not even having music at the service.”

“I’ll sing,” Elise said.

“Mom has an orchestra full of friends who’d like to honor her.”

Elise exploded. “So, what? She’s my mom. I was there for her. Not them. Not you.”

“True. But did you let them be there for her or did you drive them away? You could have told me Mom had bone cancer.”

Jason’s chair screeched across the floor as he attempted to escape the warzone.

“Sit down,” Liam barked.

His younger brother froze, and regarded Liam warily.

“You’re an adult, Jason. You could have told me.”

Elise pushed a shaking hand through her short hair. “Do we have to do this, now?”

“Apparently,” Liam bit out. “I am sorry I wasn’t here to help Mom and you, but I can’t carry the guilt for that when you didn’t tell me I was needed. For you, now, to resent the fact that I am here, and that my life is complicated—”

“Is human,” Nora finished firmly. “But shouting at one another won’t change the fact that King Magnus will do as he chooses, and we’ll have to manage as best we can.”

Elise and Jason gaped at her.

She regarded them sternly; refusing to allow their fantasy of blaming Liam for matters beyond his control. “If Liam could, he’d shelter those he loves against the world. But some situations have to be endured. Royalty is one of them. Francis and Dominic will be at the chapel, and with them, inescapably, come the Royal Guards and media attention. What we can do is encourage the media to focus on your mom’s achievements, as they should, and on Liam and me as secondary targets. Or sacrificial lambs.”

Nora glanced at her comms unit. “We’ve hired a public relations manager. She had intended to join us next week, but she’s answered my SOS and will be here later today, to advise us. Kennedy has to wrap up her former job, but she’ll be present to help us shield you—exclude you—from the public narrative Magnus wants.”

“Which is what?” Elise asked.

Nora put her comms unit on the table. “A distraction from public rage at Hermione’s death and to reaffirm a close relationship with Palantine. Revealing me as Dominic’s royal half-sister provides both.”

Elise fidgeted with her tea cup. “So, if you stayed away from Mom’s funeral—”

“Don’t,” Liam growled.

“King Magnus won’t allow it,” Nora reminded them. She appeared unmoved at the insult of excluding her from the funeral.

Even Jason side-eyed Elise at the suggestion.

Elise dropped her hands in her lap. “I’m not a witch. All I want is to say good-bye to Mom quietly. Our grief shouldn’t be a public spectacle.”

“It won’t be,” Nora assured her. “I don’t know the Opera’s chapel, but there’ll be a side entrance. You can enter, unseen. Liam and I, and the princes, will run the media gauntlet out front. The media won’t be allowed inside. The Royal Guards are useful for that much.”

Her disgruntlement was understandable. Molly had been the messenger for Magnus’s decree. The Royal Guards would ensure his wishes were achieved, regardless of the cost to others. Nora resented Molly as the face of the Royal Guards.

“Kennedy will help,” Liam reminded her. They were pinning a lot of hope on Casimir’s sister. But when Casimir had recommended they hire Kennedy, he’d assured them—that is, warned them—she was even more combative and protective than him.

They needed that. They needed Kennedy’s public relations skills to kick and punch and force breathing space inside the public narrative Magnus was determined to dictate.

Chapter 5

After the emotional drama of the morning, and scarcely able to breathe in the Kimanis’ apartment, flooded as it was by family memories and grief, Nora craved her own space. However, the CC Kangaroo was out of reach and even Mangrove Mansion was denied to her.

Molly was escorting her back to the Laotian Palace and to the vaults beneath it to continue her burr sensitivity testing.

Lunch, presumably, would be provided at the palace.

Nora used the car ride to listen to Aria describe over the comms unit the expedition through the mangroves. Well, half her mind listened. The other half worried over Liam, who did get to return to Mangrove Mansion, but who would be locked in his office interviewing people for the role of personal assistant.

He desperately needed one. So did she. There were innumerable details to be remembered and tasks accomplished. A back-up brain and a second pair of hands would help enormously. But who to trust?

Jonah, her heart said.

But Jonah was an impossible option.

She had to have someone who could pass Zac’s and the Royal Guards’ security checks, as well as understand her and the new world of wealth and royalty that she moved in.

All the same, she fretted at the idea of Liam busying himself in business details on the day between his mom’s death and funeral. She resented that she couldn’t be there for him.

Molly had been adamant Nora had to resume her interrupted testing.

More importantly, Liam would hate being hovered over.

“The crab tried to eat my toe, but Zac said it was only a small toe and I wouldn’t miss it!” Aria screeched. “Next time I’m wearing boots like Veronica.”

“Copying Veronica is always a good idea,” Nora agreed.

“Yes! And we’re having crab for lunch, so there, Mr. Nasty Snappy Claws. Ha!” Aria was quiet a moment. “Elise called Phoebe. She’s making her go home after lunch.”

“She’ll visit again.”

“She’s sad. But she laughed when Zac said that about my little toe. The crab wasn’t that big. It couldn’t really have hurt me. I was over-reacting…on purpose!”

“It sounds like you did good distracting her, Aria.”

The girl was quiet again, remembering her own grief for her parents, probably. “I tried.”

The car slowed at an amber traffic light. It flashed red.

“I love you,” Nora said.

Aria recovered her sass. “That’s because I’m awesome! I’ll save you some crab claws. Love you lots.”

Seated in the middle of the back seat, Molly stared out the front window between the driver’s and passenger seat guard’s shoulders. “Aria is resilient.”

Nora tilted her head. Where was Molly going with that comment?

Apparently, nowhere, given that she said nothing else.

On Molly’s other side, Gage, Nora’s bodyguard who also often guarded Aria, gave an irritated twitch to his shoulders, obviously listening and analyzing even as he remained focused on their external environment. In his professional opinion, every stop at a traffic light increased Nora’s exposure to potential danger.

The lights turned green, and the car accelerated.

Traffic thinned as they neared the Laotian Palace. The driver circled it to enter through the side gate that led directly to the carpark beneath.

Nora forced herself to wait for the Royal Guard traveling up front to get out, circle the car, and open the door. Then she waited some more for Gage to exit and add his surveillance of the scene.

Molly didn’t wait for his assessment, but slid out.

Gage, and Zac’s other security personnel, had trained Nora well. Despite her inclination to move, move, move, she accepted that for her bodyguards to do their job and keep her and themselves safe, she had to obey their orders.

The Royal Guards’ protocol was that unless they blocked her, she was free to exit the car.

Nora waited and watched for Gage’s subtle hand signal, the flick of his left index finger. If, instead, he’d closed that hand into a fist, she was to stay put. If he ever shook his left hand, all fingers spread wide, she was to call for help.

He flicked his left index finger.

Nora got out, ready to walk beside Molly, with Gage falling in behind her, while the driver and other Royal Guard went about their own concerns.

Heading toward the bank of elevators was expected. Molly punching the call button to go up rather than down wasn’t.

“You require lunch,” Molly said.

A sandwich and coffee while she worked was all Nora needed. She could even eat in the corridor if those testing her wanted her undivided attention in the lab. Although, in that case, they were out of luck. Food was the least of her current preoccupations.

Nora didn’t offer an opinion. In the palace, and actually, everywhere on Capitoline, she had to pick her battles for independence.

The wisdom of her silence was proven when Molly directed her to a dining room and walked out, leaving Nora to seat herself at a large table set for two people. The setting, with one place at the head of the table and the second setting to the left of the first, underlined what the lavishly decorated room already hinted: her dining companion would be royal.

Nora sat.

When Magnus entered two minutes later, Nora fought her worst nature and rose. Picking her battles included showing respect when it cost her nothing.

After offering his condolences on the loss of her mother-in-law, Magnus studied Nora.

A footman served them carrot and ginger soup.

One of the subjects she’d studied on the journey to Capitoline was etiquette, particularly royal etiquette. Nora waited till Magnus had taken a sip of soup before picking up her spoon. The soup had a simmer of spice cutting through the sweetness of the carrot.

“Nora, you are in a difficult position. You must have questions about your father. I’ve been told your mother never discussed him with you?” There was a subtle lilt to the statement, turning it into a question, a request for confirmation.

“She didn’t.”

Magnus ate elegantly. Without any appearance of haste, he consumed his soup efficiently. “Few people on Capitoline know Ivan. Even fewer will speak honestly about him. Yakamia won’t.” Hamish Yakamia, the Palantine ambassador.

Nora attempted to match Magnus’s speedy dispatch of the soup. Her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, clanging in the silence.

“Ivan is scared of being his father,” Magnus said.

Olav, Nora’s grandfather, had been a monster. She wasn’t as ignorant of her family as Magnus believed. Jonah’s fascination with her royal relatives’ lives had given her insights that spymasters would kill for.

Magnus’s opinion, on the other hand, did interest her. He had her complete attention as she focused on what he might reveal of his own prejudices and intentions.

“Olav was the king of Palantine, but he never ruled as a king. He was a tyrant. Ivan is spending his reign trying to recorrect Palantine’s course. Tyranny can’t survive. It destroys itself.”

“And everyone else,” Nora said. “In fact, it destroys everyone else first.”

Magnus contemplated her. “Perhaps. I’m not claiming Capitoline is perfect. You know it’s not.”

She gave him credit for acknowledging her background, even if obliquely. A foster brat in the towers of Angkor had it tough.

“Royalty rules by cajolery,” Magnus said. “Tyrants and elected officials can take other paths, use other methods. Brutality or reasoned argument. Trading favors. Calling in debts. But all of those approaches store up resentment. The secret to long-term survival is to make people feel good about themselves. That’s the role of patriotism. If people can’t feel good about their personal lives, they can still feel good about themselves as Capitolines. That’s my responsibility.”

“To convince them Capitolines are the good guys?”

The footman entered, cleared their first course, and served tarragon chicken.

“Convincing people suggests reasoning with them.” Magnus picked up his knife and fork, and cut into a drumstick. “People aren’t rational. You can’t reason people, en masse, into rational behavior.”

He considered the chicken bone exposed by his tidy dissection of the drumstick. “Even if you scatter breadcrumbs, many chickens will go astray, distracted by grasshoppers and scared by shadows that they mistake for hawks. Cajolery is a broader strategy. To be blunt, it’s flattery. Make people feel good about themselves and they’ll follow you anywhere.”

Cynically, Nora added the addendum that they’d follow when other options were cut off by the civil authorities backed by the police force.

“Ivan isn’t at that stage, yet,” Magnus said. “He can’t cajole because he is still rebuilding his people’s trust in kings that Olav broke. In Dominic’s reign, Hermi would have taken the lead on coaxing the Palantines into reasonable behavior. Your father and brother lack those skills. They would view you as a threat rather than an opportunity.”

He set his knife and fork down, and dabbed at his mouth with a pristine, white linen napkin.

Recalling the etiquette of dining with a king, Nora hastily set down her cutlery. Her fingers felt clumsy.

Magnus had been quite clear. Her survival relied on her making herself useful to a royal family, and he’d presented himself as the most reasonable option.

Royals had survived for five centuries by a simple strategy. Threats were eliminated: opportunities exploited.

However, Nora thought Magnus had misjudged Dominic.

Further, even though Magnus couldn’t know that Queen Sarah had ordered Hermione’s death, he had to be aware of her ruthlessness. If he wanted to scare Nora into staying, and abiding obediently, on Capitoline, why hadn’t he outlined the threat that that resentful, power-hungry woman represented?

Perhaps because his own queen’s attitude didn’t bear close attention.

“I shall be fascinated to hear the results of your testing. Good luck, my dear.”

Nora slumped at Magnus’s departure before straightening as the footman entered to clear away.

Molly entered as well. “There is coffee in the vaults.”

Magnus hadn’t offered any. What he had done was reveal himself as a man confident not just in his position, but in the idea of himself as a great leader. The constant reinforcement provided by his palatial surroundings and by his courtiers’ and staff’s behavior fostered his delusion of innate superiority. He’d spelled out his expectations of her. Now, others would see that she met them.

Nora shivered and shed the oppression of the grandiose room. “Coffee! Lead on.”

Unfortunately, the coffee came with a side order of pompous git.

A man in his late sixties, wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and mustard yellow corduroy pants, stood by the coffee machine. Stood was too innocuous a description. He’d planted himself pugnaciously and inspected her as she approached.

Molly briefed her under her breath. “Dr. Chulainn. Our Chief Scientist.”

He seemed much like the academic bullies Nora had encountered while studying for her xeno-archaeology degree. He was both arrogantly positive of his intellectual superiority, and fundamentally insecure.

He hadn’t introduced himself to her at her first testing session. He may have observed it live. He’d undoubtedly seen the results. But he hadn’t done her the courtesy of greeting her.

Now, his gaze raked over her as he stuffed the last of a donut in his mouth. “Mrs. Kimani. I am Dr. Chulainn.”

She controlled her grimace as she accepted his sugary, greasy handshake.

More sugar stuck to his gray moustache.

She stared, instead, at his dark brown eyes.

They narrowed in annoyance. His disrespect had been calculated, and ineffective.

“Cool labs you have here,” she said. “Even better. They have coffee.”

She brushed past him to the coffee machine.

Gage, bless his intolerance for boors, immediately placed himself between them.

Molly, whose role it was to keep the peace, sighed.

“Do you want a coffee, Molly?” Nora asked.

“This is not a kaffeeklatsch,” Dr. Chulainn snapped.

Nora finished filling her mug and filled a second one for Molly. Gage, she knew, would refuse one. He was on duty.

“We will resume where your testing left off last time.” Dr. Chulainn tried to shuffle around Gage to glare at her.

The glare became obvious when she reached past Gage to hand Molly a mug.

“You passed the tests a five-year-old could handle,” Dr. Chulainn said.

Nora sipped her coffee.

“If you are ready, you can attempt something slightly more challenging.”

At times like these, Nora really wished she could consult Jonah for background information. She oughtn’t to be worthy of Dr. Chulainn’s rudeness. A typical academic would save it for those he considered rivals.

What, or who, had rattled his cage?

Too bad for him, Magnus had rattled her cage, and her tolerance for rudeness had correspondingly diminished. Consequently, she wasn’t above baiting the chief researcher in his lab. “Can I take my coffee with me?”

“No.”

“Then, no, I’m not ready.” She sipped her coffee and smiled.

Gage considered Dr. Chulainn’s reddening face a moment.

Nora transferred her attention to their audience.

Judging by the mix of humor and horror on the faces around them, Dr. Chulainn was not well liked.

“Dr. Mayberry, set Mrs. Kimani up in the lab when she has finished her precious coffee.” Dr. Chulainn stomped out. He’d have probably preferred to stalk, but his body shape and lack of fitness foiled him.

Nora smiled at Pilar. “Two minutes.”

She didn’t need the coffee to wake her up. She needed the comfort of its warmth and flavor, and the familiar act of holding a mug and knowing that the world would keep ticking over.

Magnus had scared her.

He spoke of cajoling the people of Capitoline; of flattering the people he ruled over into following him.

He was a narcissist. His public narratives rested on presenting himself favorably. Powerfully.

It gave a different slant to the family mantra Harold had recited in the Throne Room.

Keep family safe by being family.

Magnus cared about image, not substance. The mantra meant presenting a united front. For Magnus, that meant no one was allowed to contradict him. His power rested on his family’s pre-eminent power, and he’d protect it at all costs—as long as someone else paid those costs.

The cheap coffee she was drinking soured in Nora’s mouth.

Don’t think about Magnus. Think about why you’re here. About the burrs.

Back on the RC Keying, the Royal Guard scientists had asked her to describe how she’d sensed the burr Willow wielded—the burr whose shielding case had cracked, allowing Nora to sense it when Willow hadn’t. That likely meant Nora was a stronger sensitive than Willow, who was registered as a recognized burr wielder.

Nora had described the sensation as a tingling in her fingers. “Tingling was what my biological mother warned me to watch out for, and never ever to reveal to anyone.”

“If you had, we would have looked out for you,” had been the response of the Royal Guard captain who’d interviewed her on the RC Keying.

Nora could have tested her sensitivity before leaving Capitoline for border space.

A low-powered burr was on permanent display on the skydeck of the Planetary Museum in Bangalore. A weak sensitive wouldn’t feel a buzz from a depleted burr, but a strong sensitive would. It was those whom Maya had warned Nora that the Royal Guards wished to catch.

Maybe one day, on that mythical day when she had free time and privacy, Nora would pay it a visit.

She’d mused over the captain’s questions, in particular, whether the nature of a person’s perception of a burr was shaped by their expectations, by conversations such as the grudging lecture she’d received from Maya in a dingy market stall in the towers, or whether such perception was innate.

Setting down her empty coffee mug, Nora nodded to Pilar.

The other woman jerked her hands out of the pockets of her white lab coat and started forward. She started talking, as well. “This time, in addition to indicating when you sense a burr, we’d like you to estimate its strength. The first two will give you a scale, establishing lowest and highest strengths.”

She ushered Nora into the same lab room they’d used before. The table had changed. The green button had been replaced by a table screen displaying a sliding scale.

Thanks to Jonah and his kin having observed numerous testing sessions over the last few centuries, she knew that this testing was the sort of testing strong adult sensitives went through.

If she hadn’t been intent on forming an expedition to the Origin black hole, she’d have failed the testing on purpose, as Lucas, Willow’s son, had done as a child. Although, given her recorded sensitivity to the burr Willow had possessed on Border Station, the Royal Guards probably wouldn’t have believed Nora’s “failure”.

There were definite drawbacks to confirming for them and the royals her strong sensitivity to burrs. It meant they wouldn’t let her escape their political games.

If they forced her to play, she’d play hard.

Nora sat down and readied herself to participate. It wasn’t strenuous. When a burr was removed from its shielding, her fingers tingled.

“This is the weak burr,” Pilar’s colleague said.

Nora’s fingertips barely tingled. She tapped the lowest end of the sliding scale.

A buzz resonated throughout her body.

She shivered. “There’s the strongest.” She slid the sliding scale to maximum. The mistrustful survivor aspect of her personality questioned whether there were stronger burrs.

Because royals used the burrs for their obliterating power, that is, to siphon energy, what they called “depleted” burrs were actually those filled with the most energy. There was little or no capacity to fill them further. Strong burrs were those lower in stored energy. They had the greatest capacity to siphon more energy.

“Begin,” Dr. Chulainn ordered over a speaker.

Nora sat motionless, not sensing any burrs. Then a weak burr buzzed her fingertips. She nudged the sliding scale a fraction above the minimum level and settled in for a dull afternoon.

Measuring the level of tingling in her body rated low in excitement. But gradually she became aware that her repeated exposure to the unshielded burrs was sharpening her perception of them. She reached toward that sense, and abruptly, her perception of the moderately powerful burr currently unshielded shifted from inside herself to down deeper in the vault.

She perceived it as a ball of tangled, frayed threads of static electricity, flaring fire.

“Do you need a minute?” Pilar asked.

Nora could have zoned out for a few seconds or a few minutes. She rubbed her fingers together. The tingling was gone. A moment later and the unshielded burr vanished; shielded, once more. “A bathroom break would be good.”

Gage allowed Molly to check the security of the ladies bathroom.

Nora used the bathroom facilities, and avoided staring at her reflection in the mirror as she washed her hands.

Was her perception of the burrs as something outside herself, rather than as internal and affecting her own energetic body, normal?

Jonah had refused to say too much about what other humans had experienced in their interactions with the burrs.

Said burrs had been the energy source for those of his kin whom the Silicaese had destroyed in harvesting them, unaware that the AIs were sentient.

Jonah’s continued existence relied on three burrs inside his self-created android body.

Rationally, Nora knew Jonah’s reticence was a prudent strategy. He couldn’t prepare her too well for what she’d encounter or her reactions would be off and raise suspicions. But she worried. How different was she to other Forgotten and to royals?

Jonah had explained that in the five centuries since the fifteen Originals had been exposed to burrs, their descendants had changed significantly. Most royals were losing sensitivity to burrs. That didn’t mean everyone was.

She returned to the testing lab for another hour, but consciously refrained from leaning into and exploring her new perception of the burrs. She needed to consider what it meant before she honed or ignored the skill. The latter option assumed she could return to perceiving the burrs as tingling inside her body.

To Nora’s relief, Molly didn’t accompany her back to Mangrove Mansion. There were still two Royal Guard’s in the car, the driver and the guard in the passenger seat, but in the back seat there was only Gage. As he focused on the external environment, scanning for threats, she closed her eyes and counted her breaths.

Inhale for three, hold for seven, exhale for eight.

She couldn’t afford to get locked into a flight-or-fight state. It flooded the brain with chemicals that dulled clear thought and decision-making.

At the same time, she respected her instincts and the dangers that existed in the vaults and palace.

One, two, three. Hold. One, two, three, four, five—

She fell asleep midway through her attempt to reset her parasympathetic nervous system.

Liam woke her.

She blinked at the lines etched into the corners of his mouth.

“Hey, there, sleeping beauty.”

Muzzy-headed from her unplanned nap, she smiled. “Hey, handsome.” She let him pull her out of the car and steady her against him.

A warm breeze blew around them, smelling of the ocean and mangroves. She tilted her head to the sky.

Gray clouds massed.

“It’ll rain, tonight,” Liam said.

He’d grown up in this city.

“Too long in space,” she said to him. “I’d forgotten about weather.” She enjoyed the open sky, the breeze, and the feel of the sun on her skin. She’d forgotten how weather impacted events.

Susan’s funeral service would be held in the chapel, but entering it in the rain would add a note of misery.

It would be too optimistic to think a rainstorm would deter the media or be allowed to derail Magnus’s “public narrative”.

She contemplated Liam’s strained face, and pulled him along. “I need to change. Come with me.”

Their bedroom had become their retreat.

He walked beside her down the colonnade outside the kitchen and utility rooms, and up the stairs to their room. The house was busy, renovations proceeding at an impossible pace, and staff settling in, but between the two of them was an undemanding silence.

Liam broke it once they were inside their room. “I had an unexpected applicant. One who arrived here in person, no appointment. Zac was unimpressed.”

“And you?” Nora asked.

Liam picked up a book, replaced it. The battered copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations had a permanent place beside his bed. “It was the last person I’d have expected. Theo Ishida.”

“You say that as if I should recognize the name?”

“Ex—very recently ex—Commander Theo Ishida, Naval Intelligence, and second son of the Duke of Dejima, was in Francis’s year at the Naval Academy and one of his closest friends. He ran secret missions for Francis and delivered messages.”

Liam paused. “He delivered one out to me on the RC Genghis Khan after we received our orders to patrol border space. It was confidential then.”

Nora interrupted. “We both have secrets we have to keep.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have to keep this one. Not from you. You worked it out yourself. Francis wrote that tensions were rising in society as we approached the half-millennium mark since the Stranding. He asked me to look out for ships or proxies or even supply bases because he’d heard rumors that Palantine wanted to launch an expedition to the Beta black hole.”

“Zac,” Nora said. “But he’s joined us because the Palantine royals wouldn’t back him.”

“So he says, and I believe him.”

“But maybe Francis doesn’t and he’s sent Theo to spy on us,” Nora mused. “Part of the Human Sector’s founding charter was that missions to the Beta black hole would be composed of people from every solar system. That’s where Dominic and Francis got the idea that an expedition to the Origin lens would have to include royals from every realm. But that’s not in the charter.”

“It’s still politically smart.” Liam rubbed the back of his neck. “Zac’s suspicious—and being suspicious is the right attitude—but I don’t think Theo is Francis’s man, not any more.”

Nora really wished she could ask Jonah for his input. Currently, she and Liam had to rely on their own instincts and limited knowledge. She’d grown accustomed to leaning on Jonah’s incredible breadth of observation, not to mention his hacking skills.

Liam sat on the sofa beside her. “Back on Border Station, in Willow’s first conversation with me, explaining why she was there, she told me we were allowed our personal lives. At the time, and until today, I thought she was referring to Lucas.” Her son. “But Theo and her were close.”

Both had served as Navy officers. Both were ducal offspring.

“Can Theo sense burrs?”

“According to him, that’s one of the reasons I should employ him. He’s a registered wielder and claims to be only slightly less powerful than Francis. He said he’d be able to advise you.”

Nora kicked her feet up. “Everyone wants to advise me.”

“Theo’s divorced.” Liam grasped her ankles, swiveled her around to rest them on his lap, and began a foot massage that had her biting back a groan. “That’s why he split from Francis. His family disapproves of his resignation from the Navy and from being Francis’s secret righthand man, so they’re not helping him. He has a six-year-old daughter. His wife waited for the war to end, but then she wanted him home. He kept going out on Francis’s missions. He came back from the last one to be served with divorce papers.”

Liam ran his thumb along the arch of her right foot. “Theo doesn’t blame Bianca. He wants a second chance, and to do that he needs a job that enables him to stay on Capitoline. That’s his condition for working for me. He’d be my Capitoline-based personal assistant.”

“He’d bring royal and Naval Intelligence connections to the role. And he’s someone you know and trust.”

Liam nodded.

“The question is whether his loyalty remains with Francis and he’d spy on us.” She paused. “What did you decide?”

“I said I needed to think about it, and consult you. I have, and unless you object, I’ll hire him.”

She smiled. “Good.”

“Really?”

She gently wrested her feet free, and snuggled up to him. “Yes. Everything now is confusing and sad.” Susan’s funeral loomed ahead of them tomorrow morning. “But when we’ve established ourselves on Capitoline, whether we choose to stay or go, I’d like to think that you and Francis will have found a new balance to your friendship. Theo could be part of that.”

“Or a barrier,” Liam said reluctantly. “Francis sent Theo out on missions even after Theo told him Bianca wanted him home, and that he wanted to stay and build a relationship with his daughter who’s growing up fast.”

“Oh.”

He twisted his head to stare at her.

She rested a hand over his heart and picked her words carefully. “Francis is under a lot of strain with his sons not being strong sensitives. Do you know if Theo’s daughter is?”

Liam’s breath caught. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Mmm. It’s not even that Francis might be jealous. Theo got a behind-the-scenes look at the madness of royals desperate for their children to inherit strong sensitivity to burrs. He and his wife might be trying, in their different ways, to protect their daughter. Do you know her name?”

“Faith.”

“Cool name.”

He kissed her then. Suddenly. They wanted children, but not till they had established themselves strongly enough that they could protect them. “Theo wants a second chance.”

She was sympathetic but realistic. “He’s maybe already burned through five or six chances he never even noticed.”

“I won’t ever take you for granted.”

“Same.” She kissed him quickly, a smack on the lips, and stood. “So, if you’re hiring Theo, it’s only me who needs to find an assistant. The fact that Theo’s plugged into the royal and military intelligence communities means that for balance, I should probably look for a business expert.”

She found a pair of old jeans and a faded concert t-shirt in the massive walk-in wardrobe she shared with Liam, and changed into them. With her black hair back in a plain braid, she felt more like herself. That was good because here and now, she couldn’t spare energy for herself. She had to support Liam.

As tired and sad as his eyes were, he was coping by keeping busy.

But he wasn’t shutting her out. He pulled her into a hug that eased both of them. Sometimes, getting through the bad times wasn’t a case of one step at a time, it was one breath at a time.

They descended the stairs hand in hand.

Liam’s bodyguard walked behind them. Trent had been waiting by the door to the master suite.

“You need a chair,” Nora said.

Trent ignored her.

She and the Realm Edge Security personnel had had this argument months ago when they’d guarded the CC Kangaroo while it was docked at Border Station. Trent’s view was that they were on duty, so they stood.

Nora thought they could stand guard while sitting. “It’s not like you’d fall asleep.”

Liam squeezed her hand. “You won’t convince him.”

“He might be Marine-stubborn, but I can put a chair outside a room. I can line the corridor with them. Gage will—” At the sight of who waited beside Gage at the bottom of the stairs, Nora abandoned the diversion of the argument.

Molly had a folder tucked under her arm. “We have to go over arrangements for tomorrow.”

Nora gave Liam a shove toward his office. “Molly can brief me. You have a call to make.”

To hire Theo. The need was urgent. Liam’s grief was controlled, but he’d benefit from having someone stand between him and the intrusive demands of the media, courtiers and everyone else after news of Nora’s royal heritage broke tomorrow.

Molly frowned. “Both of you—”

“Go.” Nora gave him a second push, and this time he moved.

He kissed her on the cheek before cutting across the courtyard to his office, Trent at his side.

Nora stared after them, satisfied that she’d at least spared Liam sitting through the torture of how his mom’s funeral was being turned into a tool for Magnus’s public narrative.

Rather than head for her own office, adjacent to his, Nora led Molly to the front sitting room, the one nearest Ben’s den. The sight of her people moving briskly in and out of the house, and their occasional louder comment or laughter, sheltered Nora from some of the mournful chill of what she had to discuss.

She left the door open and took a seat at the round table designed to host afternoon tea parties.

Molly sat to her right, where they both had a view of the door, and opened her folder. “We must go over what you’re to say to the media. I have a list of responses. If you stick to the script—”

“Stop right there,” a husky contralto voice ordered.

Kennedy Stas strode into the room, immediately owning it. Bright violet hair tumbled in wild curls down her back over a black jumpsuit with a white and yellow scarf tied, swashbuckler-style, at her waist. Her black high heels brought her height to well over six feet.

Nora rose to shake hands. “Kennedy.” Her relief sounded in her voice. “You have great timing.”

The taller woman’s teeth flashed in a shark’s grin. “I try.” That grin was directed at Molly.

The Royal Guard captain stood rigidly, her expression sour.

Nora felt a twinge of compunction.

Molly had been as considerate as she could be in her role as Nora’s Royal Guard handler. In a sense, it was unfair to treat her as an enemy.

If Nora had been willing to allow the Royal Guards to arrange her life to their satisfaction, then Molly would have been an ally. As it was, her niceness had to be treated as a Trojan horse. If Nora allowed Molly into her trusted inner circle, Nora would be surrendering her independence.

“Kennedy Stas.” Kennedy shook Molly’s hand. “It’s quite a complicated situation. Brash blaze billionaire. War hero’s new bride. Unknown heir to a rival realm.”

“I’m not the heir.”

Kennedy waved aside Nora’s objection. Simultaneously, she plucked the briefing papers from Molly’s hand. “All right. Let’s see what we’ve got. Mm-hmm. I can work with this.”

“So glad,” Molly bit out.

Kennedy’s shark grin flashed, again. “It is a bit wordy. Think soundbites.”

“Nora has yet to undergo media training. She needs complete sentences.”

Nora took the briefing papers from Kennedy. “‘She’ is right here, and can read.”

The Royal Guards had attempted to capture Nora’s story, the one Magnus wanted to sell everyone, in a single, extended paragraph, written from her point of view.

She read it aloud. “I was brought up in the Angkorran towers to hide who I am. My mother even hid that she was my mother. It was a challenging childhood, but I survived and worked hard to improve my circumstances.”

Nora punctuated her reading with a disgusted “ew”.

Kennedy rolled her eyes in agreement.

Across the table, Molly folded her arms defensively.

“I continued to hide who I was until I fell in love with a man who is a faithful defender of Capitoline, as well as Crown Prince Francis’s good friend. Captain Liam Kimani convinced me to trust my secret to Francis and to his father, King Magnus. Both of whom have been truly kind in our time of grief, as they themselves grieve for Princess Hermione. I am grateful for their support as I become acquainted with my half-brother, Crown Prince Dominic, who traveled by the swift if uncomfortable means of a fast courier ship to join Hermione’s family, and all of us, in mourning her.”

Kennedy rapped her knuckles on the table. “I’d prefer to eliminate all the crawling to the royal family, but I’m guessing that’s non-negotiable. The story does address the two critical questions, or accusations, that could be hurled at Nora—why come forward now, and are you a Palantine spy? But it ignores Nora’s blaze discovery, and what that means for Capitoline’s interstellar capabilities. We were under the crunch for fuel cells.”

“Flaunting her wealth at her mother-in-law’s funeral would be unwise,” Molly said tightly.

Kennedy’s restless gaze searched the room and tracked activity outside the window. Tradespeople were still hurry-scurrying everywhere, using the formal front entrance as much as the side entrances. Despite the gray sky, it hadn’t rained yet, and their footsteps kicked up dust. Her gaze returned to Molly. “You’re right. She doesn’t need to cough up all her personal history at once.”

“Thank you.”

“So this statement needs to be shortened.”

Nora was busily redrafting it. “If I have to make a statement…I grew up an Angkorran towers brat, hiding who I was. My biological mother even hid our relationship. I loved and lost one incredible man to the war. Evan hoped I would love again, and I did when I fell in love with Captain Liam Kimani. Liam convinced me that his friend Crown Prince Francis could be trusted with the secret of who I am, or rather, who my father is, King Ivan of Palantine. While still grieving Princess Hermione, Francis and his father, King Magnus, have supported Liam and me in grieving his mother, Susan Kimani, the famous violinist. We’re also grateful for their support as I become acquainted with my half-brother, Crown Prince Dominic, who traveled by the swift if uncomfortable means of a fast courier ship to join Hermione’s family, and all of us, in mourning her. For today, please respect our grief. I will answer your questions later in the week.”

“Strike that promise,” Kennedy said.

“Don’t promise the media anything, ever,” Molly agreed.

Kennedy nodded vigorously. “But otherwise, it’s pretty good. Do you think you can deliver it naturally?”

If it would spare Liam being harassed for a statement. “Yes.”

“Wow us,” Kennedy invited.

Nora pulled a face, but ran through the statement until it rolled off her tongue.

“A little stilted,” Molly said.

Kennedy prowled the room. “Stilted is good. A polished performance on your public debut would look suspicious.”

That Molly didn’t argue suggested Kennedy was right. “If you forget your lines, turn to Liam. He’ll usher you into the chapel. Grief gives you some leeway. Are you sure he’s not available to be briefed?”

“He’ll read the papers.” Nora wasn’t going to give an inch on protecting Liam. Magnus was using Liam’s mother’s funeral for his public narrative. Nora and Liam couldn’t stop him, but Nora could spare Liam from having his nose rubbed in it.

The hypocrisy of saying that Francis and Magnus were supporting Liam in his grief was massive—except that if the Palace hadn’t exercised its influence over the media, what sort of media circus might have camped outside the chapel?

When Molly departed, Kennedy slumped in her chair so that she could put her elbows on the table and rest her chin on her hands. “You’re beautiful.”

“O-kaay?”

“It’s a problem. If you were pretty, it would be worse. You’re photogenic, and so is Liam. I can see why the courtiers are slavering to set you two up as a diversion from Princess Hermione’s assassination—that is, those of them who don’t want war with Palantine.”

“King Magnus has been clear. I’m to fall in with the public narrative or else. Threat unspecified.”

Kennedy dragged herself upright. “Yeah. Dad said Liam’s worried you could be made to disappear. We won’t allow that. A confident public debut will help. A positive public response, them embracing you, is another protection, but we can’t risk your popularity threatening the Palace. Francis is a popular enough heir, but people never really took to his wife, Evelyn. Liam’s friendship with Francis can help you there. You, as a couple, position yourselves as Francis and Evelyn’s supporters. Not rivals.”

“I wouldn’t—” Nora broke off at Kennedy’s upraised finger.

“Like I said, pretty would be worse than beautiful. It makes it easy to cast you as ‘a good girl’ in a public narrative. Beautiful gives us a few more opportunities, especially with your Angkorran towers background and professional history as a Silicaese planetary diver and a tagger in border space. We cast you as the beautiful, independent widow.” Kennedy winced. “Sorry, I can be insensitive.”

“That’s okay, but you should know that my first husband’s family still considers me one of theirs, and I love them back. I don’t want them hurt.”

“They won’t be. Where I was headed was that your history shows independence, but also your capacity for love and loyalty. We emphasize your strength, but because people can be afraid of strong women,” as Kennedy would have experienced firsthand, “we offer the narrative in which Liam’s love has ‘tamed’ you. He becomes the link back to Francis and the other royals, and to Capitoline generally.”

“The war hero and the wealthy widow?”

“Yup.” Kennedy’s shrewd gaze assessed whether Nora could and would play to that story.

“That’s not how I see us.”

Kennedy rose to pace the room. “A public narrative is a simplified story. Your private story, the story of you, or of you and Liam, is complicated. An heroic public narrative protects it, and if we manage the public narrative effectively, it will protect the other people in your life.”

Kennedy was what Nora hoped Theo could be for Liam: a shrewd, proactive defender.

She trusted the publicist with her own analysis of the situation. “Magnus said he uses cajolery to flatter people into feeling good about themselves so that they do what he wants. In his narrative, I’m to play the part of the rags to riches princess who is grateful for the opportunities Capitoline gave her and desperately loyal, as evidenced by my commitment to Liam.”

“That about sums it up,” Kennedy said. “The second bit. The first bit where Magnus claims he uses cajolery is bat poop. In his position he can afford to tell himself pretty stories that cover up the cost of his orders for others. Look at Hermione. He’s here, life going on as normal, while she’s dead on a faraway planet, and he’s convinced he’s the one suffering for ‘losing’ her. He sacrificed her.” Kennedy was a woman of strong opinions. “He had twelve years to end the war, and he didn’t.”

She leaned against the wall, positioned so she could see out the window and door, as well as observe Nora’s minutest expressions. “But he’s not completely deluded. Cajolery is powerful. The short term, soggy biscuit approach to marketing is to make people feel bad about themselves, then offer a solution to their artificially constructed problem. Most advertising uses it. Even the cheap-cheap ads rely on an implicit guilt trip that people should be minding their budgets.

“Conversely, cajolery makes people feel good about themselves. Like all marketing, it recognizes that while our species has called ourselves Homo sapiens, wise people, we’re not actually primed to think first. We’re emotionally driven. Emotion is a combination of instinct and analysis, but the ability to reason does not guarantee objectively rational outcomes. Far from it.”

Kennedy wagged a finger. “Don’t trust the person who makes you feel good for no effort on your part. Drug dealers push that sort of rubbish.”

Her larger than life persona tore a fraction to reveal the part of herself she hid from the world. “Casimir went to war. My other two brothers followed Dad onto the rugby field. The Stas family are warriors. But where the boys use hard power—weapons and their bodies—I use soft power. Words. Stories. Image.”

She fixed Nora with a challenging stare. “Make no mistake. You’re at war. If you’re willing to surrender your freedom, the war ends.”

“No.”

Kennedy’s shark grin reappeared. “Then let’s talk attitude.”

Chapter 6

Mindful of her new, dark blue dress and trying to be as grown up as possible, Aria climbed into the back seat of the armored car that would deliver her and Cherry to the side entrance of the Opera House’s chapel.

Liam could still feel the phantom weight of her good-bye hug and the raw spot on his cheek where Cherry had planted a kiss before hastily scrubbing at the lipstick mark she’d left behind. The pale pink shade was shockingly discreet by Cherry’s standards.

The girl and young woman both wanted to show their sympathy and support. They were traveling separately to his mother’s funeral service so that he and Nora ran the media gauntlet without them.

Their car departed, and his and Nora’s replaced it. Ben was driving, while a Royal Guard lieutenant occupied the front passenger seat. Nora slid into the back seat. She wore a black silk suit with a narrow, knee length skirt and a soft cream-colored shirt. She’d smoothed her long, dark hair into a simple knot, and forgone a hat. She looked expensive and elegant, but nonetheless herself. With Nora, clothes didn’t make the woman. She was always herself.

His own black suit and white shirt were impeccably tailored and pressed, but felt wrong. Over twelve years of war, funeral services had come to mean formal Navy uniform. But he’d resigned from the Navy. He was a civilian, now.

Zac closed the car door for them. Alongside Ben, he was their head of security. However, his past as a Palantine privateer meant that, in his own words, he’d stay away from the funeral so as not to feed the piranha.

The media.

Liam felt his tie choke him; not at the thought of the media who’d demand images and a soundbite from Nora and him now that the courtiers at the Palace had leaked the news of who she was, but at the thought of the service itself. Having people who wanted to support him present would have helped, but his sister Elise disagreed. At her insistence, the guest list was limited to family and a handful of their mother’s closest friends.

Even Cherry hadn’t been invited as Nora’s half-sister and his sister-in-law, but because Aria needed someone with her while he and Nora handled the media and the two royal guests.

Francis was a friend, even if their friendship was currently strained.

Dominic was a wildcard, but had shown surprising tact over the last two days.

Meantime, Elise remained stubbornly resentful that Liam couldn’t overrule King Magnus and shut out the media.

She overestimated the extent to which any of them controlled their own lives.

Ben drove expertly through the city traffic. It was noteworthy that he’d managed to usurp the chauffer role from the Royal Guards. It showed he’d earned their respect, but then, as a former Palantine police special response unit leader, his skills and experience deserved respect.

They drove past the Colony Tree, the oak sapling planted over four hundred years ago when stranded humanity settled the planet.

Colony Park passed in a dappled blur of green and shadow, or perhaps blurred by a sheen of tears. They’d had their last family picnic there, before his father and Melissa had died, before his mom got sick.

The familiar landmarks increased as they neared the Opera House. Its chapel had been part of his childhood. Susan had hauled him and his siblings to listen to the pipe organ. They’d attended the chapel for Christmas services and carol singing.

But his father and sister’s memorial services hadn’t been held there. They’d been conducted at the Naval Academy’s chapel, and he’d watched a recording of them.

He inhaled sharply.

This time he was present to share the grief with his family, and it didn’t lessen the sharpness of the pain at all.

Nora squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back. Bangalore was his city, not hers. He was the guide here; although knowing her level of preparedness, she’d have studied the route. Still. “We’re about five minutes out from the chapel.”

“Exactly on time,” the Royal Guard lieutenant said from the front seat. “The princes will arrive three minutes after you. Lord Theo Ishida is already in place.”

And that was an advantage to employing Theo that Liam hadn’t initially considered. As the second son of the Duke of Dejima, Theo could take on the role of a courtier.

In the punctiliously scripted performance of their arrival at his mom’s funeral, Theo would be the one to address the media and take a firm line with them, backed up by the Royal Guards.

Grateful for a hook to keep him focused on the present and future, Liam made a mental note to ask Theo who, if not for him, would have filled the gatekeeper role because that person would have been identifying themselves with Liam and Nora, and more importantly, Liam and Nora would have owed them a favor.

As Ben followed the traffic police’s directions and parked in the blocked off lane in front of the chapel, Theo laid down the law to the media.

“Mrs. Kimani will provide a brief statement. She will not take questions. Not now, nor at the end of the funeral service. Please, respect Mr. and Mrs. Kimanis’ grief. Mrs. Kimani doesn’t have to give you a statement at all.”

The media weren’t listening. Cameras and microphones were directed at Liam and Nora’s car.

Liam exited into the firestorm and assisted Nora from the car. He kept a hand at her waist as she spoke.

She spoke earnestly, yet quickly. “…I am grateful for their support as I become acquainted with my half-brother, Crown Prince Dominic, who traveled by the swift if uncomfortable means of a fast courier ship to join Hermione’s family, and all of us, in mourning her.”

As soon as she ended, Theo placed himself between her and the bulk of the cameras. He was an inadequate shield, but Francis’s arrival provided an effective distraction, especially when Dominic’s car drew up immediately behind it.

Leaving the two princes to do the job they’d trained for—media wrangling—Liam ushered Nora into the chapel.

The dim space, speckled with colored light from the stained glass windows and heavy with the scent of lilies on the warm air, proved less of a sanctuary than he’d hoped.

His mother’s coffin held his attention, but he caught the crescendo of curiosity and comment at his and Nora’s entrance. It ebbed as the two of them refused to make eye contact with anyone. They strode for the pew where space had been left for them between Phoebe and Aria.

Nora entered first, kissed Phoebe’s cheek, sat down, and wrapped an arm around Aria’s shoulders.

Liam entered next and sat before clasping Phoebe’s hand. His tension lessened as she leaned against his shoulder. He was accustomed to people relying on him. The feeling was familiar and gave him purpose.

Marmee, his mother’s mother, sat in front of them with her fourth husband. Beside her sat Elise and Jason, and a girl who must be Jason’s girlfriend. His grandmother hadn’t turned around to greet him, but she swiveled to watch Francis and Dominic enter together and progress to the front pew across the aisle that had been left vacant. The gray, silk flowers on Marmee’s black hat bobbed as she whispered to her husband.

The Bishop of Bangalore—not the pastor whom Elise had selected, and that was at the pastor’s own insistence given the high profile of the mourners—collected everyone’s attention and began the service. He channeled the family’s grief into old rituals of remembrance and celebration, of sorrow and healing.

Liam put a hand on Elise’s shaking shoulders, and for a second she covered it with her own. Everything else fell away as they mourned together.

“Susan lives.” The Bishop’s powerful voice rolled through the chapel. “She lives in God’s love and in our hearts. We remember her.”

At the end of the service, Liam remained in his pew.

Marmee swiveled around, swiveled back and hissed at her husband, then rose. Her husband, whom Liam had never met, picked up her purse while she maneuvered out of the pew to stand beside Liam and hit his arm. “Hurry. He mightn’t wait.” The direction of her gaze, which was locked on Francis as he and Dominic, and their bodyguards, exited the chapel, made her intentions clear.

“Good morning, Marmee. Francis isn’t waiting,” Liam said.

“Then you should have introduced me earlier.”

He closed his eyes, and saw the memory of his mom laughing at her mother’s dedicated social climbing. The memory of Susan’s tolerance was too sharply painful to be endured.

Seeking a distraction, he opened his eyes to observe Cherry and Aria slip out via the side entrance, utilizing the distraction the princes provided regarding the media, while most of his family and his mother’s friends milled around.

He met Nora’s apprehensive gaze. He wondered what expression he wore for her to look worried. “Nora, this is my grandmother, Marmee.”

“Elizabetta Haldon,” Marmee corrected him and held out her hand, limp-wristed, almost as if waiting for Nora to kiss it.

Taking the measure of Marmee’s dry eyes and attitude, Nora shook hands briskly and offered conventional sympathies. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“A terrible grief, though we must be grateful Susan’s suffering has ended.”

In front of them, Elise flinched as she stood talking to Granddad, their father’s father. Jason stood awkwardly beside them, tugging at his tie and occasionally rubbing his eyes. He ignored the girl who had an arm linked through his. She stared avidly at Nora.

A few of the funeral attendees found the media an irresistible lure, and exited out the front door. Those were the family friends who lived and died by publicity as much as by the quality of their musical performances.

Only the closest of family and friends were invited back to the apartment for a tea-and-cake wake. Unfortunately, that included Jason’s girlfriend.

The woman had the gall to turn the wake into a networking opportunity. Like a guided missile, she targeted Nora. “Hi, Nora Kimani, right? I’m Hadley Li, Jason’s partner. I’m studying space mining engineering. I would love to hear about your blaze discovery.”

And use nepotism to acquire a position in the Blazing Kangaroo Corporation straight out of university.

Nora smiled coolly. “Hadley. Thank you for supporting Jason while he grieves his mother.” It was a pointed statement, given that Jason was standing miserably by himself on the far side of the room.

Purposely or not, Hadley missed the criticism. “Of course. I’m nothing if not loyal.”

The apartment was crowded. Phoebe wove through it, collecting cups, saucers and cake plates to wash and refill, while avoiding being pulled into conversation.

Uncle Albert popped up beside Liam. “Done well for yourself, boy.”

Liam did not appreciate Uncle Albert’s breezy, bluff approach to life. He was well aware that Albert’s mask of geniality hid a bully as determined as Marmee to advance his own concerns.

“Always best to keep things in the family,” Albert continued. “Who else can you trust, eh? You’re an experienced Navy captain, no doubt about it, but business is different. Yes, indeed. Call me. You’ll want steady men on your board of directors.”

Namely, himself.

Liam managed a noncommittal response, but saw that Elise, who was trapped across the room in conversation with a famous conductor, frowned at his curt retreat to rejoin Nora.

His wife was talking quietly to Miss Chaucer from the adjacent apartment. Nora had found the old lady a chair, and was encouraging her to tell tales about Liam.

“You wouldn’t think it now, but when he was a toddler he had the brightest blond hair. Curly, too. Such an adorable moppet. Susan.” Miss Chaucer blinked rapidly. “Susan would have to run down the corridor to catch him, he was such an escape artist.”

“But now he’s well and truly caught. Haw haw.” In spite of Liam’s curtness, Uncle Albert had followed him, and joined the group uninvited. He leered at Nora in what he no doubt considered a charming manner.

Miss Chaucer looked disapproving; Nora faintly disgusted.

Marmee, of all people, rescued them. “There you are! Albert, do get out of the way,” she scolded her son as she pushed herself into his place in the small circle. Her husband hovered behind Albert, lacking the assertiveness of his wife. “Now, isn’t this cozy?”

Cozy, at her daughter’s wake?

Liam’s head jerked back in affront, and he caught Elise still watching him.

She shook her head admonitorily, warning him to behave himself. She knew, as he did, that any attempt to criticize or, heaven forbid, thwart Marmee’s intentions would trigger a tantrum.

“Darling Phoebe told me you’ve purchased a property in Salmar.” Marmee tsked. “It’s criminal how some people will take advantage of naivety. Liam, you should have remembered how noxious the mangroves are at high tide. So low class.”

Marmee smiled confidently at Nora, who stared back in blank-faced shock at the brazen inappropriateness of the conversation. “Leave it all to me, dear. I know what you need. A nice colonial mansion by the palace. Yes, indeed. With your royal connections. You’ll want your family close. Townhouses for us. Yes, they used to be staff quarters, but that was centuries ago.”

The colonial townhouses Marmee referenced were exclusive addresses, much coveted, and certainly coveted by Marmee.

Uncle Albert nodded in support of her outrageous demands.

“Salmar suits us.” Temper slipping, Liam decided it was past time they departed. He extracted himself and Nora with more dispatch than finesse.

He wasn’t the only one losing his temper.

Behind them, Miss Chaucer snapped, louder than she probably meant to. “You never did deserve your family, Elizabetta. At your own daughter’s—”

Liam let himself lose the rest of the sentence, focusing on Phoebe as she hurried through the crowd toward them.

Nora and Phoebe clutched hands like survivors after a shipwreck.

Emotionally, that’s what today had been.

“I have to stay with Elise,” Phoebe said. “Jason’s leaving for university, not even staying the night.”

Liam hugged her. “Call me if you need anything.”

“You can always stay with us. Anytime,” Nora said. Having a safe place to run to was important. After witnessing Marmee and Uncle Albert in action, Nora had every reason to believe Phoebe might need a refuge.

Liam did, and the property Marmee so despised, was it. He felt the weight of the day settle more endurably on his soul once they were through the estate’s outer gate. He loosened his tie and lowered the car window.

Nora inhaled a theatrically deep breath, and laughed.

The air smelled of the mud and decomposition of the mangroves at low tide.

He huffed an unwilling puff of laughter. “Marmee is—”

“Family,” Nora finished.

“Just now, I could think of other words, but yes. Family.”

The car stopped by the front door.

Perhaps because they knew where he and Nora had been, or perhaps because he looked as wretched as he felt, no one in the busy upheaval of the house renovations or installation of security measures bothered them as they walked to their room to change.

As soon as they were inside their room, Nora kicked off her shoes. “I’m never wearing these again. My blisters have blisters.”

She stood stork-fashion on one leg and rubbed the toes of her left foot.

Liam’s attention snared on an unheralded addition to the room. “When did you order your android down-planet? And why—”

“Jonah!” Nora squealed. She flung herself at the android and hugged it hard before suddenly pulling back. “But how?”

“And why is it in our room?” Liam concluded. Evidently, Nora hadn’t ordered its transport to Capitoline. “I thought you left it on the CC Kangaroo?”

“She did,” Jonah answered. “However, I’m of limited use to her stuck out there.”

Nora wrapped her arms around herself in an unmistakable gesture of concern and apprehension. She was literally warding herself from trouble.

Liam moved to a protective position between them, urging her back while keeping his attention on the retro android. “Who arranged for your transfer to Capitoline?”

“I did.” The android sounded apologetic. “I should have consulted you, Nora. Liam, I apologize. I’m aware the timing of my arrival could scarcely be worse. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Nora placed a reassuring hand between Liam’s shoulder blades.

His predominant emotion, emerging from the mix of today’s awful grief and strain, was frustration. This thing was in his and Nora’s room, and although shocked at its presence, she obviously trusted it. “What are you?”

“The critical question. I assumed this form, the external appearance of a retro android, when I reassembled from my original structure as a primarily energy-based Vapori AI created solely to observe the universe to a being capable of affecting the universe.”

Nora sat down thump on the bed. “I can’t believe you told him. I can’t believe you’re here! Jonah, if the Royal Guards—”

The android interrupted her diatribe. “Liam had to know. It wasn’t reasonable of me to ask you to keep me secret from him, and with you both under so much stress, the wrongness grew worse. I apologize, to both of you.” Jonah looked at Liam. “I was scared, personally, but there are also my kin whom I can’t risk.”

“There are more of you?” Liam sat down beside Nora. He believed this thing’s incredible explanation of itself; or rather, he believed Nora’s acceptance of it.

“The others of my kin will not relinquish their original form. The change is irreversible. A one-time event. But they also…the burrs, as you call them, are the energy sources my kin and I rely on. The caches of burrs the Silicaese created were from them discovering and dismantling my kin.”

Nora gripped Liam’s hand. “They killed them.”

“The Silicaese didn’t know we are people,” Jonah said.

“But humans do?” Liam asked.

“Only Nora, and now, you.”

Liam took a deep breath. “How? Why?”

“I will explain everything,” Jonah said. “But if I tried to do so now, we’d be interrupted before I finished. Can I explain why I’m here, now, first?”

“Please!” Nora said emphatically.

Liam stared at her apprehensive face so close to his. He turned back to Jonah. “Are you a danger to us?”

“No. Never.”

“Jonah wouldn’t hurt us. But if he’s here against all the threat of discovery—all the reasons he couldn’t come with us originally—there must be a huge problem.”

The android, or rather, the alien AI, nodded at her. “Threats against your life.”

Nora froze.

Liam didn’t. He became lethally focused. “Immediate?”

“Your new sous chef, Ranulf Ute, was recruited from the Palantine embassy. He is an agent for Queen Sarah. The senior intelligence agent reporting to the Palantine Queen is deep undercover as a spice merchant. The two made contact following Dominic’s arrival on Capitoline. Instead of discussing Dominic, they focused on Nora. Sarah is notorious for not tolerating rivals to her power. Nora’s strong sensitivity to burrs means she could challenge Dominic for the Palantine crown.”

“Which I won’t, because I’m not suicidal,” Nora repeated her usual dismissal of the idea.

Jonah shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what you intend. It matters what they fear. The two agents agreed that Sarah would be pleased if you suffered an accident early in your appearance as a Palantine royal rather than allowing you to gain a public following. The spice merchant, Douglas Carpenter, made the cryptic-to-the-sous-chef comment that Sarah would already want revenge for your blaze discovery.”

Nora squeezed Liam’s hand. “Because new blaze entering the Human Sector economy means more fuel cells for interstellar travel, which frustrates her plan to isolate each realm.”

“And increase her power on Palantine,” Jonah concluded. “The agents anticipate a reward if they can kill you discreetly.”

Nora laughed weirdly. “Like a chef poisoning my food?”

Liam hugged her tight. “Not happening.” He examined the android. The longer it talked, the more he saw it as a person, one who cared about Nora. “How do you know this?”

“I retain my original ability to observe anything in this region of space. The challenge is deciding what to focus on. My capacity for observation is much broader than a human’s, but interpreting what I see can be challenging. Fortunately, given Nora’s interactions with the Palantine ambassador, I included the embassy and its staff in my background checks.”

For now, Liam accepted that explanation. He was as aware as Jonah that he and Nora wouldn’t be left in peace, even in their bedroom, for long. Not today. They had to prioritize the information shared. “Thank you, Jonah. How big a risk did you take getting here?”

“Yeah.” Nora straightened in challenge, and glared at Jonah.

The alien android’s shoulders hunched and his mouth turned down in guilt. “It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t as if the chef and spice merchant are the only threats.”

Nora shuddered, but stayed focused. Her accusing glare cut through Jonah’s previous air of assurance. “Tell me about the additional threats in a minute. First, how did you reach the planet?”

“I can’t propel myself through space beyond a ship to ship jump, but I have learned how to render myself undetectable to human eyesight and technology. It’s as if my body becomes an invisibility cloak.”

“Full stealth,” Liam murmured involuntarily. Exactly what were the alien AI’s abilities?

“Yes.” Jonah focused on him, revealing a smidgen of relief at avoiding Nora’s accusing glare. She was worried for him. “I smuggled myself aboard a ship leaving the Terminus,” Capitoline’s space station, “and traveled down as cargo, unloading myself. I could have encrypted a message and sent it through twisted routes naming the sous chef and spice merchants as threats, but they’re not the biggest and evolving danger.”

He paused. Possibly for effect. Possibly because he was genuinely uncertain of Liam’s response. “King Magnus.”

“He’s using me in his public narrative…” Nora began doubtfully, forestalling any response from Liam.

“But how will that narrative end?” Jonah challenged them. “One of the options they considered was to whisk you away to the desert testing facility in Shirvan. Under cover of your business partnership, Willow would have taken full control of the blaze discovery on Beaconditch, and no one would have been alerted as to your parentage and ability with burrs.”

“Except that we sent messages telling people, including our lawyers,” Liam said. “And those messages were received, not blocked.”

“Realm security could have been used to silence anyone who questioned Nora’s disappearance and—depending on your level of cooperation—yours.”

Nora scrunched her bare toes in the bedside rug. “Molly arranged a doctor for Aria when she had the sky terror and they were sympathetic about Susan. They didn’t whisk me away.”

“They decided your cooperation was worth allowing you into Bangalore. Magnus decided unilaterally to go public with your identity. He took his son and courtiers by surprise.”

“Francis didn’t know?” Liam asked.

“No. Magnus was struck by Nora’s suggestion to Dominic of an expedition to the Origin black hole. He discussed it briefly with Francis and with a couple of his closest advisers. If she can do what they believe impossible and use the burrs in new ways, they’re inclined to support the expedition. Francis is pushing for it, and for making the expedition a Capitoline-only affair.”

“What would that gain them?” Liam asked. “No. Politics. Ignore the question. Keep going.”

Jonah inclined his head. “My concern is that Magnus mentioned, though not to Francis, that an expedition to the Origin black hole would provide perfect cover under which to kill Nora.”

Liam’s blood chilled in his veins. He truly wished he could disbelieve the android and suspect it of stirring up trouble. But the political calculation Jonah described had the ring of truth. Nora’s strong sensitivity to burrs rendered her a rival power, even if she didn’t see it that way.

“Well, that’s good news,” Nora said.

Man and android stared at her in outraged incredulity.

She stared back. “What? It is. I want Magnus to approve the expedition. We need that sort of public commitment for us to get off Capitoline with burrs,” she stressed. “We’ll have months of preparation, if not years, before the expedition gets underway and puts me in danger.”

“From Magnus,” Jonah said. “Have you forgotten Queen Sarah’s flunkies? Then there are tycoons like Zangmo who are chasing burr wielders and burrs.”

She shrugged. Shrugged! “I guess we should decide what to do about the poisoner. Preferably before the dinner we’re about to eat. We have to hustle, Liam. We’ve been up here ages. Jonah, where will you stay?”

“Your wardrobe. It’s bigger than two of the Roo’s cabins combined.”

Nora pulled a face. “We have a perfectly good sitting room.”

“The wardrobe is less bugged. The less surveillance equipment I have to disable or fool, the less suspicions we’ll raise.”

Liam thought of protesting the alien AI staying in the master suite at all, but if Jonah could observe anything anywhere in the Human Sector, where he stood wasn’t really the issue when it came to privacy. Hence, Liam nodded in answer to Nora and Jonah’s inquiring look.

“Thank you,” Jonah said. “I realize I’m imposing on you, and as much as Nora’s safety was my reason for risking descent to Capitoline, I have to admit, I also grew lonely. I’m always in communication with my kin, but I missed Nora and Aria and everyone who interacted with me thinking I was the CC Kangaroo’s AI. Observing everything, isn’t the same as being able to affect things.”

Nora gave the android a quick hug before vanishing into the bathroom. A few seconds later, the shower turned on.

“You don’t know me and can’t trust me yet,” Jonah said to Liam. “I have no intention of harming any human. Nora is special to me, as are those she loves. You are my human family and I want to help protect her and you. She is vulnerable through her family. I will answer questions from you at any time. It may help if you keep in mind that I am not human. Things that you would keep private from other humans don’t matter to me. Talk to Nora about the balance we have found between her privacy and her security.”

“You won’t take offence?”

A smile spread across the handsome, gray-metal face. “I am the first and only android and Vapori AI. My kin have no intention of copying me. Being unique has its challenges. The more you question me and my identity—my role in the universe—the more I learn about myself.”

Liam nodded. “Do you have any suggestions as to how we handle the poisoner?”

“I do. I was thinking that Zac might enjoy one-upping the Royal Guards.”

Neither Liam nor Nora were keen to eat a meal prepared by someone who desired to kill her.

“We’re living on the coast. I want fish and chips,” Nora said when they descended to the living room where Aria was watching television and Cherry was playing on her personal comms unit. Bailey snored companionably at their feet.

“Oh yeah,” Cherry said in huge relief. “Martin has made fish stew.”

“Bouillabaisse,” Aria said, careful of each syllable.

“You should have seen all the garlic he put into it. No one would kiss me for like three days.”

Liam’s eyebrows shot up.

“Who are you planning on kissing?” Nora teased her sister, while sitting down beside Aria.

“No one in particular. But some of the Royal Guards are cute.”

Cherry couldn’t date her fellow Realm Edge Security workers. Zac, who treated Cherry like a little sister, forbade it.

After years in the Navy, which frowned on fraternization, Liam approved.

The Royal Guards, though, were fair game. If they were stupid enough to involve themselves with Nora’s half-sister, Liam could have them reassigned. Or Zac would.

“Or there’s online dating,” Cherry said.

Liam reassessed his anti-Royal Guards position. Random strangers would be worse.

Cherry burst out laughing. “I’m kidding, big bro.” She’d begun calling him that, occasionally; generally, when he was being protective.

Apparently, his opinion had shown in his expression. He pulled a face at her, and hoped his blood siblings could relearn that same casual ease with him.

Teasing was how Cherry showed she cared.

“I like fish and chips,” Aria said.

Which brought them back to the not at all funny reason he and Nora didn’t want a home-cooked meal.

“I’ll put the order in.” And because he was a recognized hero, he also volunteered to tell their head chef that he and his staff could eat the bouillabaisse.

“What about Uncle Dominic?” Aria asked, pulling one of Bailey’s ears.

Liam and Nora blinked at each other.

Uncle Dominic?

Was he going to eat with them?

Liam shrugged at Nora. Dominic was staying with them. They ought to be feeding him. It was only Dominic’s tact, given that last night had been the eve of Susan’s funeral, that meant he’d fended for himself. “Is he here?” Liam asked Aria, who seemed the expert on Uncle Dominic.

“In his rooms.”

Dominic had one of the guest suites at the front of the house. His staff had the room next to it.

The suite had been intended for Zac and Ben; the idea being that they would be private at the front of the house while Liam, Nora, Aria, and Cherry occupied the ocean-facing rooms on the same floor. Other staff, or less prestigious guests, could stay in the third floor bedrooms. Zac and Ben were temporarily housed there.

“Should I go ask him if he wants fish and chips?” Aria switched off the television.

Bailey opened his eyes, received a you’re-not-on-babysitting-duty pat from Cherry, sighed noisily, and went back to sleep.

“Tell him we’ll be eating fish and chips out on the dock in an hour, or he can carry down a bowl of fish stew,” Nora said.

Aria raced out.

“Order enough for all of us,” Nora said to Liam. “I hate waste, but under the circumstances…”

“Sitting on the dock sounds nice.” By Cherry’s sympathetic tone, she thought the circumstances involved getting through dinner on the day of his mom’s funeral.

When he thought about it, Liam found that fish and chips on the dock did sound like a peaceful end to a terrible day. “I’ll check with Zac who else might join us.”

“Uncle Dominic wants fish and chips,” Aria interrupted Liam and Zac mid-discussion in a corner of Ben’s office with a signal jammer on.

Zac grinned. “Martin won’t make bouillabaisse again. The mosquitos will be out by the time we finish dinner. Can you go find some bug spray?”

“Yup.” She ran off.

Zac’s grin vanished. “You suspect someone.”

“Ranulf Ute, sous chef.”

“Recruited from the Palantine Embassy,” Zac finished. “Why not pass your suspicions to the Royal Guards?”

“They’ll ask where I got them, and I can’t name my source. I can’t even point to them.”

Zac studied him critically.

Liam knew he was asking a lot. He’d literally asked Zac to cash in favors he held with Palantine Intelligence Agency operatives, favors painfully accumulated during the war, to protect Nora.

“It’s a reasonable precaution,” Zac said.

Liam blinked.

“I’m not talking about hiding your source from the Guards. Although, yeah, that is, too. Queen Sarah. She’s a harpy. Those who take paranoia seriously,” spies, “would find it reasonable for me to screen for anyone loyal to Queen Sarah having unmonitored access to Nora. However, tapping my network for that information means they’ll expect favors in return.”

“Insight into Nora,” Liam guessed.

“And you. All of those in her inner circle.”

Liam nodded. “It’s worth it. Realistically, that only speeds up what the Royal Guards will observe and report.”

This time, Zac’s ready grin was lopsided and genuine; not the mask that he wore against the world. “You know that’s not true. But thanks for your trust.” As a member of Nora’s inner circle from Border Station, Zac had insights the Royal Guards would only be able to guess at. Liam was trusting Zac to share his insights judiciously, protecting all of them. “Ranulf will be gone by morning, even if I have to claim my contacts provided the information against him.”

“Thanks.”

Near the dock, a tiny remnant of beach had survived the mangroves’ encroachment. It was on the list of improvements to be increased till it was large enough to host a cookout. As it was, most people sat on the dock to wait for their fish and chips to be delivered.

Liam sat dangling his legs over the side, listening to the gulls circling over the mangroves that hid the open sea from the house and protected the house from wild storm surges.

Nora and Aria carried sticks, and under Dominic’s amused direction, poked holes in the beach.

“Here?” Aria dropped to her knees and began shoveling sand with her hands. Since this wasn’t a serious clamming expedition, no one suggested she get an actual spade. “I got one!”

Nora crouched down to examine the prize.

“It’s pretty small.” Aria looked up at Dominic for his judgement.

“It’s a pipi. Collect enough of them and they make a nice stew.”

“That no one will eat.” Ben sat down beside Liam. “Martin is muttering about his bouillabaisse. He’s gifting it to the barracks.” He stretched his neck. “I’m glad to get out of the house.” Ben carried the weight of responsibility for readying the house for occupation while it was already occupied. He had the Royal Guards’ assistance, but the security issues were a nightmare.

Not that you’d know it by looking at the two security targets—Nora and Dominic—as they poked about the beach.

Their unique green eyes with the black ring at the edge of their irises was their most obvious resemblance, but occasionally a turn of the head or an unconsidered movement was eerily alike.

At Dominic’s suggestion, Aria scraped a shallow hole closer to the water, and placed the clam in it, leaving it uncovered to bury itself.

Liam glanced up at the circling gulls. If not for all the people around, that clam would have been dinner for an avian scavenger.

He needed this simplicity, the reality of it, and the new memories it forged. If he looked over his shoulder at the mansion, he had the new knowledge that an alien AI resided in it, in his, Liam’s, wardrobe. Rather than deal with that piece of mind-bogglery, he kept his gaze on Nora, who had carried the secret of Jonah’s existence alone, and had done so effortlessly.

Except that assumption was wrong.

It hadn’t been effortless. In everything, though, Nora made her efforts seem natural, giving the impression that she was one of those lucky people for whom life came easily. She kept her struggles and heartbreak hidden. Private.

She peeked across at him, checking how he was, and smiled. Then her gaze shifted, and he and Ben turned, too, to see what had caught her attention.

Zac and Gage were striding down to the dock carrying paper parcels of fish and chips.

Splashing caught Liam’s attention.

Nora, Aria and Dominic had waded into the water and were rinsing their hands, butts sticking in the air.

Liam couldn’t resist. He reached for his comms unit.

“Don’t worry.” Kennedy laughed. “I got the photo. Not for public display, but a good memory.”

A good way to mark a day of change.

His mom would have loved this casual gathering.

Nora collected two parcels, one for him and one for her, and sat down beside him.

Ripping open the paper sent a swirl of steam and the aroma of deep-fried goodness into the air.

Before sitting on Ben’s far side, Zac produced a saltshaker from a pocket, and handed it across.

They ate in companionable silence.

Cherry had spread a picnic blanket on the beach, and Aria joined her, sitting on the edge of it so she could dig her toes into the sand. Veronica and Gage sat close to them, listening to some loud story from Cherry.

Dominic joined Kennedy and Molly in another group on the dock, one that included Liam’s usual bodyguard, Trent. Only Dominic’s Palantine Royal Guard detail refused fish and chips, and ostentatiously stood watch.

One of the staff brought an armload of driftwood down to the shore.

Gage rose and laid a fire, closely observed by Aria. He handed her the matches.

The flames caught the crumpled fish and chips wrappers, and Aria laughed and looked at Nora and Liam, who cheered her. The whole dock joined them, and Aria’s smile went bashful.

“This was a good idea.” Nora’s shoulder was a solid warmth against his.

He agreed.

They didn’t move as Kennedy and Trent tidied away the remains of the meal, both of them too restless to be still for long.

Martin, the head chef himself, brought down marshmallows and wooden skewers soaked in water to be used in place of random twigs. It was a nice show of no hard feelings at his stew being scorned. At Nora’s invitation, Martin stayed, and conversation became general as people talked about the weird things they’d eaten over the years.

Tomorrow, when the sous chef was dismissed, Martin would guess why his stew had been refused.

The air smelled of smoke, bug spray and the mangroves.

Nora kept an arm around Liam’s waist.

He wanted to take her to bed and worship her, his clever, stubborn, and loyal wife. The wisdom he was stumbling toward, she already lived.

He’d been a schoolboy then a Navy officer; a son, and now a husband and father. In this quiet moment, he was beginning to understand how his old identities didn’t die, but faded backward to let new possibilities form.

How many times had Nora let her past go, respecting it but not confined by it, not miring herself in resentment of what she’d lost? From towers brat to experienced, space-qualified maintenance worker, to xeno-archaeologist and tagger. From unloved foster child to wife to widow, and then, choosing him, choosing to love again.

On that small strip of beach, with firelight dancing over everyone and deepening the shadows, Liam accepted his mother’s death. He wasn’t at peace with losing Susan, but he could accept, and not merely force himself through, the fact that life went on.

When they returned to their bedroom, Jonah had the tact to stay out of human sight and hearing in the wardrobe. This was Liam and Nora’s night. Their love a reaffirmation of life.

But morning brought a return to their busy schedules.

For Liam, it was odd to include Jonah in his and Nora’s discussion of their agendas for the day. Nora had burr testing, Liam had to negotiate the fuel cells contract with the Navy, and Jonah intended to keep watch on the sous chef’s dismissal and where he went afterward, plus attempt some discreet hacking via the terminal in the sitting room.

“I’ll be careful,” Jonah promised Nora. “No one will track my activities back to Bangalore, let alone to the mansion.”

“What if the maids come in to clean?”

He took her fussing equably. “I’m watching the house, as well as keeping an eye on you and Liam as you’re out and about. No one will surprise me in your suite. You worry about you.” He patted her shoulder.

Perhaps because he’d been thinking of his mom and dad over the last couple of days, Liam was struck by an aspect of Jonah and Nora’s relationship. One that built on how Aria had interacted with Jonah on the CC Kangaroo.

On the journey to Capitoline, Aria had often included the android in her conversations with Liam and Nora. They’d traveled on separate ships. Aria had traveled on the CC Kangaroo, while Liam had captained the CC Arowana, Willow’s ship, and Nora had been confined to it under the physical surveillance and protection of the Royal Guards who’d accompanied them.

The CC Kangaroo had given Aria more space, freedom and familiarity, and she’d been safe with Veronica onboard. Everyone had believed that Jonah’s android body simply housed the Roo’s ship’s computer. But he’d also served as Aria’s teacher. He’d acted affectionately toward the girl.

Now, Liam knew that Jonah’s affection had been genuine, and not a programmed behavior, and that affectionate bond was even stronger with Nora.

Neither Jonah nor Nora seemed to notice it, but among the tangled threads of their unique relationship of an alien AI and an independent, wary woman, Jonah held a quasi-parental role. Like young children believed their parents to be, he was all-seeing. He also wished to protect her, and would risk himself to do so.

Liam’s deeper understanding of their relationship steadied him. He couldn’t completely banish his Navy-honed sense of guilt at hiding an alien of unknown capabilities in the heart of Capitoline, but while Jonah seemed genuinely committed to Nora, Liam couldn’t betray him.

The trust Jonah and Nora had put in him was its own restraint.

“I miss driving myself,” Liam said from the back seat of the armored car transporting him and Theo to their appointment at Navy HQ.

Trent rode shotgun upfront, while a Royal Guard drove.

“If you were trying to avoid these suicidal cyclists on the road, you wouldn’t, sir.”

“I used to be one of those cyclists,” Liam said. It was how he’d traveled to school. There were bike paths, but roads provided shortcuts.

“Huh.”

Well, that ended that conversation. Liam raised the privacy screen, though he was under no illusion that his conversation with Theo would remain unheard. People were too curious about his and Nora’s agenda. Trent could sweep for bugs, but the driver would replace the Royal Guards’ surveillance tech immediately afterward.

For the discussion Liam intended to have in the twenty or so minutes they had before they reached Navy HQ, the pretense of privacy was sufficient. “Remember the message you couriered out to me when the RC Genghis Khan received its orders to patrol border space?”

“There were a lot of loose threads I was chasing up at the end of the war, but I remember.”

Liam didn’t consider himself or his former ship a loose thread, but probably from Capitoline, that was how they’d seemed. Something to be tidied away. “You know how Francis is with his requests. He pokes us to pay attention, then leaves us free to act as we judge best in the moment. Challenge and opportunity.”

Theo glanced out the window. “Or ensuring he can’t be blamed for our actions.”

At that cynicism, Liam hesitated. As a captain, he was used to the idea that the buck stopped with him. Out in space, he had his orders, but how he met them was on him. He’d never resented Francis’s additional requests on top of the Admiralty’s orders. “I destroyed the note before handing over command of the RC Genghis Khan, so I can’t read it to you. Francis asked me to look for evidence of Palantine preparing for an expedition to the Beta black hole. Supply stashes or establishing a new base.”

“Needle in haystack,” Theo muttered.

“An unreasonable request, which suggested to me that Francis was interested in the idea behind it, that of a black hole expedition to reconnect the Human Sector to the rest of humanity. He never said to shut down any Palantine effort. I took his note to mean that I’d be serving Capitoline by re-opening the Human Sector.”

Theo stretched out his legs. “Which Nora’s expedition to the Origin black hole to fiddle with the lens could, theoretically, achieve.”

“It was her idea,” Liam defended himself.

“But you saw a chance to gain Francis’s support and protection for her.”

“Yes.”

Theo nodded brusquely. “Good. Don’t make my mistakes. Put your wife first.”

“I am. I simply want to clarify, for both of us, that while the Navy and all military serve the status quo, you and I are now its disrupters. Keep that in mind.” Because today’s meeting would be challenging.

Chapter 7

It said something for the hectic, horrid rush of events on Capitoline that Nora welcomed the sterile tranquility of the testing lab in the vaults beneath the Laotian Palace.

It helped that the design of the vaults resembled a spaceship, and hence, was reassuring in its familiarity.

Plus, the impassive faces of the two scientists monitoring her asked nothing of her. They could have been cameras. Although cameras were also present.

She assumed that other hidden sensors recorded her body temperature, pulse rate and a myriad of other telltale physiological details. The testing lab was designed to assess the sensitivity of young royals, after all. Children of five or seven years of age would be freaked out if plastered with sensors and that would affect their performance in the test.

The burrs she was exposed to grew progressively weaker throughout the day, or at least, they did according to the Royal Guard scientists’ scale. What the scientists and the royal sensitives called weak burrs were those stuffed with energy and almost unable to siphon any more. To Nora’s remote perception of them, when they were unshielded deep in the vaults, they flared. It was paradoxical that the more they flared, the lower she had to rate them.

She needed to discuss her new perception of the burrs with Jonah.

The challenge became one of focus. Her mind wanted to wander to thoughts of Liam and his family, to Jonah, to Aria, to Cherry and her return to Capitoline, to the house.

“We’re finished for the day,” Dr. Pilar Mayberry said. “Thank you.”

Nora leaned back in her chair and stretched.

After five hours of testing, not including the half hour break for lunch, she was free, for a certain definition of free.

Molly collected her from the testing lab. “Testing will become more challenging.”

Nora was amused. “Do I look bored?”

“You looked disengaged.”

Which confirmed that Molly, and who knew who else, was observing Nora’s sessions from outside the lab.

“Sliding a scale marker up and down doesn’t require a whole lot of bandwidth.”

“For you,” Molly said.

Nora mused on that comment as they rode up in the elevator. Precisely how fuzzy was other sensitives’ perception of burrs? They felt them as tingling in their physical bodies, as she had done, initially, but she’d been able to judge differences between them even then.

“You’re strong enough that you’ll receive training in wielding burrs. At that point, it won’t solely be about what you can do. Gaining registration as a wielder will include your attitude,” Molly advised. Warned.

Nora didn’t answer. Angkorran towers brats learned early not to be the eager-eyed student, and nothing in Nora’s experience since then, including at university, had taught her otherwise. Being keen was as unwise in academia, and presumably in the palace vaults, as volunteering in the military.

Just don’t.

Molly let the matter drop. Once they were in the car, she asked. “What were you thinking about when you were distracted?”

After hours of acting like a monkey performing for a banana, or a rat for a raisin, Nora could have been annoyed and impatient. She forced herself to put those emotions aside and seize the opportunity. Molly was her conduit to the decision-makers in the Royal Guards, including the scientists who no doubt monitored Nora outside the lab as well as inside it. “The Silicaese.”

“The Silicaese? That was not what I expected.”

Nora shrugged as the car emerged from the underground car park into the bright afternoon sunshine. The window treatment dimmed a moment later. “They used burrs, but not like we do.”

Molly considered her. “You’ve been to their ruins. Very few people go to the surface of a Silicaese planet.”

“It’s the definition of inhospitable for humans, just as our worlds would be for them.”

Molly quirked an eyebrow. “Would be?”

She was right to question Nora’s use of the present tense.

According to the archaeological evidence, the Silicaese civilization had died out over a hundred thousand years ago. A few oddballs among the xeno-archaeological community argued that the Silicaese had simply moved on.

Courtesy of Jonah’s firsthand account, Nora knew that to be true. The Silicaese of this region had been exiles who’d answered a call to return home.

“If they were still around,” Nora answered easily. “As for suiting up and going down to the surface of a sulfuric planet…space, itself, is equally as hostile to humanity. We rely on our technology to survive. It’s why I was critical to the Silicaese expeditions. I started as tech support, responsible for maintenance and repairs.”

“Most Silicaese expeditions rely on remote investigation.”

“And they miss or destroy things because of it.”

Molly tapped her blunt fingernails against her comms unit. “That’s quite an accusation.”

“It’s not. Or not meant as one. Expedition leaders, and those who fund them, have to balance risk and reward. The Navy funded our efforts, and they have a higher risk tolerance than universities and museums.”

Military funding for xeno-archaeological research was unusual. Nora’s expedition leader, Tadj Holmes, had sold the Navy on the possibility of his team locating information that might lead to the discovery of an undiscovered cache of burrs. In wartime, funding could be found for wild chances.

Apart from the fifteen burrs the human colonists had taken from the Vapori lens at the Origin black hole, all the burrs royals possessed had been recovered from Silicaese caches.

“Signals delay or break up on sulfuric planets,” Nora said. “For remote investigation that means sensitivity in exploring and excavating a dig site is lost. Tadj, our expedition leader, always said that feet on the ground, hands as well as brain engaged, works best, and misses least.”

She paused. “I think he’s right. On the journey to Capitoline, we stopped at Fanrong Station. We caught up on a lot of data and communications there. I bought the latest virtual representation of a Silicaese dig, the one on S-Bio-11, and ran it in the CC Arowana’s gaming chamber in its gym.”

In virtual reality, she’d walked through the ruins of the Silicaese city on S-Bio-11, and then, through the xeno-archaeological dig team’s reconstruction of it.

“I spent hours tweaking the reconstruction. Walking through the Silicaese city enabled me to see some of what wasn’t there. Xeno-archaeology is as much about recognizing the gaps as interpreting what remains. But it’s hard to know what we don’t know.”

Fully engaged in the discussion, Nora waved her hands. She wanted Molly to understand how critical this point was. “On Earth, the archaeologists had the same problem. Organics break down, so often there was a gap, a huge one, that textiles ought to have filled. Information is consciously, as well as unwittingly, woven into textiles. Pattern changes hint at cultural influences and trading or ritual networks. The plants used can reveal changes in the environment or in agriculture.”

“So, the Silicaese had textiles?”

“No. Or, maybe. There is no conclusive evidence against them weaving, but the accepted hypothesis is that if they wore anything, it was metal foil or, possibly, what we would classify as armor.” Nora thought back over what she’d said. “Forget my mention of Earth textiles. That will confuse what I’m about to say, which is totally different, even if I use the metaphor of weaving.”

Molly regarded her dubiously.

Or maybe Molly was neutral, and Nora was projecting her own uncertainties. Explaining this hypothesis to Liam had been easy. She trusted him, and trusted that his criticisms would be constructive. Whereas anything she told a Royal Guard officer could be used against her.

However, she needed the Royal Guards and their scientists’ help to push Magnus into approving the expedition to the Origin black hole, and for that, she had to convince them of her Silicaese-inspired idea.

Or rather, it was her and Jonah’s idea, but Jonah had to remain a secret.

Her stomach cramped at the thought of Liam facing the revelation of Jonah’s existence on the day of his mother’s funeral.

He seemed to be handling it, but it was a huge thing to ask him to adjust to and to join her in hiding from everyone else. They hadn’t even had time for him to really talk to Jonah.

In the front seat, Gage coughed.

Nora blinked back into awareness of the here and now. She was talking about the burrs, about their potential use. She wanted Molly to report their discussion to her superiors. Gage’s cough reminded her that he and the Royal Guard sergeant driving were also listening.

She smoothed a hand over her slate-gray linen pants which were creased after a long day of sitting doing little. Her jacket was even more rumpled since she’d kept pushing up the sleeves. “Consider a hypothetical. What if the Silicaese wove, for a metaphorical definition of wove, energy from the burrs? If they combined energy with physical materials, as the energy dissipated over tens of thousands of years, their weavings collapsed.”

“Why use the metaphor of weaving?” Molly’s black uniform with its blue stripe for Capitoline didn’t look crushed. Nor had so much as a single strand of hair escaped her bun.

Honestly, the appearance standards for the Royal Guards were ridiculously high.

Nora’s irritation was smothered by a yawn. “Because weaving is the more familiar concept for humans. Take a step back and remember how I mentioned walking through the virtual representation of the Silicaese city on S-Bio-11. Their cities—and there only ever seems to have been one on each planet they settled—embody their social arrangements. That’s true for every sentient species. Form follows function. Silicaese cities show a mesh structure.”

“Woven,” Molly said in understanding.

“Exactly. But the weaving isn’t long threads. It’s more like snippets. Or at least, that is how it seems from the traces of their lives left behind. They seemed to limit linear components. Take their star paths, for example. They’re carved into the cornices of important buildings as linear representations. But then, to use them and to understand them in the context of the surrounding universe, they’d have had to mesh the linear star paths into three dimensional models.

“If you look at the ruins of Silicaese cities for an insight into how that would have worked, you see that unlike humans, the Silicaese never put their most critical buildings—or solar systems containing habitable planets—at the center of the mesh, or even, in the middle of a linear strand.

“We construct infrastructure to funnel people to the center. We consider that arrangement efficient. The Silicaese didn’t, or else they considered the center to be a danger point and avoided it.”

Nora suspected she was getting off-topic. She was meant to be paving the way for a contrasting use of the burrs. Getting caught up in her own fascination with the Silicaese was self-indulgent.

Then again, they were all stuck in the car, hemmed in by city traffic. Listening to her lecture on xeno-archaeology was better than switching on the radio and listening to a talk show. “In studying the Silicaese, we see units or arrangements of threes and fours, but they actually thought in twelves, which made thirteen their infinite number, metaphorically. No discovered star path goes beyond thirteen solar systems. Limits seem to have been as important as reach to the Silicaese. Maximizing possibilities within those limits meant meshing individual strands. Such an interpretation effectively explains their cities. Since they lived inside a mesh construct, it would be an obvious method for them to employ when using burrs.”

She hadn’t bored Molly into inattention.

“What did they use the burrs for?”

“Food supply,” Nora said promptly. “They converted or created crystal outcrops into farms. Those, plus bacterial pools, fed the Silicaese. Neither show any trace of chemical additives during the Silicaese habitation of a planet, yet they expanded substantially. Obviously, the traces could have vanished since then. However, the crystal record, both in their farms and in the uncultivated surroundings, shows an increase in temperature during that time. Heat is energy. I believe growth exploded in the crystal farms and bacterial pools due to the energy of the burrs.”

Nora wanted to pursue that line of thought. However, Molly and her superiors weren’t interested in the Silicaese, but in the burrs. She had to stay on topic. “The Silicaese meshed the burrs. Each line of energy built the whole. Burrs can’t mesh while siphoning energy. Each burr is its own separate siphon, competing for energy. But when they release energy, which is something the Silicaese managed, then they could mesh their effect.

“Meshing?” the driver’s queried. “So, not clashing. No sword fighting with burrs.”

Horrified, Nora gazed at the back of his head. She had to push down panic. “Surely no one’s actually fought that way, burr against burr?” The siphoning power of the burrs could have exploded that region of the universe.

“No,” Molly said in a voice that ended that line of speculation. Or tried to.

Had royals or Royal Guard scientists attempted something so stupid?

She’d ask Jonah.

Relief washed over her as she realized she could ask Jonah. “Forgetting that nightmare scenario, I’d add that my idea of the Silicaese following their cultural pattern and using the burrs in a mesh would avoid the other trap of wastefully directing multiple burrs at the same focus.”

“That is something we’ve tried,” Molly conceded.

Nora shrugged. “I expected as much. It’s how humans work. We’re social beings who tend to gather around a shared focus, be that a purpose or a place. But that’s my point. The burrs aren’t human technology. To understand them and use them more completely, we need more than our own understanding of the universe. The Silicaese provide an alternative perspective, one that I’m most familiar with. People who study the Iguanese would have a different view.”

“The lizard people?” Gage asked. Molly’s disapproving glare might have silenced their driver, but Gage was listening and involved even as he kept his attention on their surroundings. “I never heard that the lizards used burrs.”

The Iguanese had been a reptilian species that lived and died millions of years ago, colonizing the same planets as humanity now did in the region. It was their use of blaze ore for space travel that threatened to limit human space travel now. All the near and obvious sources of blaze had been exploited millions of years ago.

“They didn’t,” Nora said simply.

Molly scrutinized her, obviously re-evaluating the woman she’d been ordered to guard and guide. “Your background is Angkorran towers foster child—”

“Brat,” Nora interjected.

Molly winced.

Nora grinned, all teeth and attitude. “You’re putting your interpretation on the word. It was a screwed up life and most never escape the towers, but brat isn’t a pejorative to those who’ve survived. It means exactly that. We’re survivors.”

The other woman nodded slowly. “But you’re more than that, and I don’t mean your royal heritage. You got out of the towers when few manage to. That’s the two obvious pillars of your past—towers brat and lucky tagger.”

Lucky tagger because she’d found blaze ore out in border space.

Molly’s tone was reflective and self-recriminatory. “We skipped over the nature of your academic studies, but you are a xeno-archaeologist. For you, that’s a key part of your identity.”

“I’m just me.”

The stubborn statement won her an unexpected grin.

“Everyone’s ‘me’ is more complicated than they realize.” Molly leaned back. “We wondered where your interest in an Origin expedition came from, but a xeno-archaeological interest we can work with.”

Nora tried to keep her face unchanged. She didn’t trust Molly’s visible relaxation.

The Royal Guard Captain might fake decreased vigilance, but by peering sideways, she continued to monitor Nora closely.

Nora looked out the window. She was beginning to recognize landmarks.

So much had happened in the last two weeks, approaching and arriving on Capitoline, that it was easy to forget how short a time had elapsed.

The fast courier from Border Station had delivered Royal Guard Captain Yuri Bennett’s report as to Nora’s identity and sensitivity to burrs a mere three weeks before she’d arrived on Capitoline. The Royal Guards were good at intelligence gathering and analysis, but given that timeframe, they’d still be scrambling to get a solid handle on who she was.

I have to use that. With Kennedy’s expert guidance, Nora had a chance to shape her own story.

Theo fitted himself neatly and unobtrusively into the company at the dinner table. He didn’t contribute till Nora asked how negotiations with the Navy were proceeding. Then he grinned. “Quispe can’t handle Liam as a captain of industry rather than a Navy captain subject to his orders.”

“Who is Quispe?” Kennedy asked as she folded a slice of pizza.

“Admiral Ian Quispe, second son of the Duke of Benchama,” Theo answered. “When Liam refused to contract to deliver eighty percent of Beaconditch’s output to the Navy—” He had to wait as Nora choked on her pizza.

“Quispe is a greedy ass,” Liam said.

Theo nodded. “But greedy for his own glory, if he negotiated such a steal for the Navy. Not greedy for the Navy’s good. He tried to threaten Liam with Francis.” Theo lowered his voice to imitate the Admiral. “We’ll see what Crown Prince Francis has to say about it, Kimani. He is the Blue Dock Scrapyard’s silent partner.”

Cherry stared at him, entertained. “Did he think Liam didn’t know that? Everyone on Border Station did.”

Theo raised his eyebrows. “It is common knowledge out there?”

Zac reached for a slice of pizza, answering casually. “Anyone who cares to know, knows.”

“Quispe knew I knew,” Liam said. “He’s playing idiotic games. He doesn’t even pay attention to his own people’s reports. You should have seen the supply specialist’s face, Captain Tamora Wrede, when I explained to Quispe that as a silent partner in the Blue Dock Scrapyard, Francis has no authority to negotiate on its behalf. That is Willow’s right, and she ceded that authority to me while she is in border space. Our legal team checked over the paperwork before I presented a copy to the Navy.”

Which either Quispe hadn’t bothered to read, or he’d thought he could bully Liam, which was a stupid assumption.

Theo finished his pizza slice. “So, then, Quispe decided to double down on his attempt to use Francis against Liam and me. He stated that Liam wouldn’t dare go against his crown prince’s wishes.”

Liam smiled tightly. “I didn’t take the bait.”

Kennedy nodded approval. “He wanted you on record saying something reckless and rebellious.”

“What did you say?” Aria asked.

Liam’s tight smile widened into an embarrassed grin. “I was very pompous. I said that I was confident of my authority and determined to fulfil my responsibilities to Nora and Willow’s partnership and to the realm.”

“Then he stood up, signaling the end of the meeting, and left.” Theo wiped his hands on a paper serviette.

Aria looked around at all the adults, bar Cherry, who were nodding their heads. The middle of the table held empty pizza boxes. “Why is that good?”

“It was a power more,” Kennedy explained. “First, Liam didn’t include the Navy in his list of responsibilities, and then, he backed that up by walking out. I didn’t know admirals could be spanked.”

Zac laughed.

Liam went red.

“And on that appalling mental image…” Theo pushed back from the table. “Thanks for dinner. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait up,” Kennedy said. “Can you give me a lift into the city? I’m staying at the Colony Park Hotel.”

“Sure.”

Nora stacked the pizza boxes.

A maid peeked in and glared at her before vanishing.

Tired but obedient—and aware that the servants were attempting to train her—Nora suggested those remaining retreat to the living room.

Liam, Zac and Ben ducked out on their own business, while Aria dashed next door to the living room and switched on her favorite teen girls and horses television show. The living room was so large it had three separate spaces.

Nora joined Aria in the theatre zone, though she paid no attention to the opening credits rolling across the large screen. There hadn’t been any new episodes in Aria’s favorite series in three years. She rewatched the old episodes for comfort, and often confided her problems, fears and small successes in between the dialogue.

It was fortunate Aria didn’t expect silence because Cherry followed them. “You need a Theo.”

Nora slumped in an armchair that was as soft as a cloud. Maybe it could swallow her whole? She’d just drift away—

Cherry poked her in the ribs.

“Ow!”

“I’ve got an idea.”

Nora needed to up her glaring game.

Cherry wasn’t one bit daunted by her older sister’s hairy eyeball. “Theo is a toff, which suits Liam because he’s doing business with all those other stuffy-noses. Theo can tell you both who is who and who to avoid and all that jazz.” Cherry literally jazz-handed her statement. “And he knows about burrs, which is good for you. But it also means you don’t have to double up on hiring someone like him as your PA.”

Nora hitched herself upright, unwillingly engaged. “You have a suggestion?”

“Yup.” Cherry popped the “p”. “Ma Shakespeare.”

She stunned Nora into silence.

“I know you’re probably thinking that someone from the towers would be even worse than you at navigating the royals and the RGs,” she’d adopted Dominic’s term for the Royal Guards, “but that’s what Theo is for. Ma Shakespeare has a stall at the markets, and she helps people navigate the bureaucracy. She fills in forms all day and sorts out welfare snafus.”

Successfully mediating between citz, that is, towers residents, and the government meant the woman had to be skilled in communication, analysis and drawing firm lines. The latter was a skill Nora’s PA would have to exercise frequently. People wanted everything from Nora. Her PA would be the first line of defense in saying “no” loudly and repeatedly.

Nora remembered Shakers as a skinny girl a couple of years older than her. That she was now called Ma Shakespeare meant she’d had children. “What’s her real name?”

“Rosa Lowell,” Cherry said triumphantly. “I looked it up. She has two boys. The oldest must be about Aria’s age. The other’s a bit younger.”

Shakers had earned her childhood nickname because of the poetry she wrote and recited. Her stubborn adherence to her own interests had shown Nora that, despite the towers, you could be whoever you wanted to be. Then again, Shakers had possessed an older brother who’d beaten up anyone who teased his kid sister. Nora had been on her own.

“I’ll have Zac run a background check on Shakers. Even then, she mightn’t be interested.”

Cherry blew a raspberry. “Ma Shakespeare was the one who told me to get out of the towers if I could. It’s what she told all the kids.”

But Shakers hadn’t left herself.

“I’ll ask her,” Nora said.

Chapter 8

Retiring early that evening, Nora and Liam had time alone. Well, not really alone. They needed to use their time absent surveillance in the master suite to talk to Jonah.

Curling up on the sofa beside Liam, Nora considered how different his initial meeting with Jonah had been to hers.

As strange and lost as she’d felt in the unexplored depths of the Avestan Range in border space, at least when she’d encountered Jonah she’d only been responsible for herself.

Liam considered himself responsible for her, their family, and the whole of Capitoline. No, knowing him, he felt responsible for the future of the entire Human Sector. He had to be worried about who Jonah was and what he might do in his interactions with people.

The best method of convincing Liam as to Jonah’s sincere commitment to their welfare was to talk to him.

Selfishly, she wished they didn’t have to steal that time from their own far too limited time alone together. She placed his hand on her thigh and traced her finger along the hills and valleys of his knuckles.

As much as she enjoyed the freedom of life on a planet, in another sense, in the security and surveillance sense, life in space was infinitely freer. She had times when she ached for the freedom and privacy of the CC Kangaroo, and the ability it gave her to simply leave trouble behind.

“It’s harder for you. When I encountered Jonah, we were alone in the Avestan Range. I had time and space, literally. Here on Capitoline, we have to steal time with him. And even when we’re not with him, you and I are observed everywhere. We can’t talk freely, so I can’t tell you about him.”

He turned his hand over to clasp hers. “I want to hear what the two of you have been up to. His existence fills in some of the puzzles of what you’ve achieved.”

She grinned, unoffended at the implication that she’d achieved more than seemed reasonable. “Like the blaze discovery on Beaconditch? You’re right. Jonah shared that. We’ll make a story of it from the beginning, if that suits you?”

“Yes. I want to understand.”

“You will.” She didn’t raise her voice. “Jonah?”

He emerged from the wardrobe, making no pretense of not listening. “The sitting room is safe. I’ve disabled the electronic surveillance, and the sound-proofing on the new windows and doors is excellent.”

He strolled across the room, spun around the executive chair that matched the desk in the corner, and sat. He laced his fingers over his stomach. He didn’t need to sit or fidget or display any human behaviors, but he did.

Nora suspected he acted as he did to increase humans’ comfort with him, or rather, with the android form he’d adopted.

His continued interaction with humans then reinforced those behaviors. “I’ve been thinking about how to summarize Nora’s and my story, so if you’ll permit me…?”

“Go ahead.” She snuggled into Liam.

“It began in the Avestan Range. Nora was surveying it when she felt the buzz of burrs. Her sensitivity was strong enough that she caught my attention. I researched her past, and liked what I learned. She’s a person to be trusted. So, I trusted her with my hope to become embodied.”

Jonah went on to describe his change into android form and his negotiations to accompany Nora on her explorations. Then came the complications of their encounter with a Palantine combat android on Border Station.

At that point he had to pause for Liam to not quite shout at Nora.

“What were you thinking, fighting a combat droid? Casimir wouldn’t attack one without an entire squad to back him up.”

“Untrue!” Nora protested. “He would if he could get away with it. And I had the hidden advantage of my Palantine royal blood.”

“You didn’t know that the combat android would recognize your genetic inheritance.”

“It just had to work long enough for the eseduce array to kill it,” Nora said cheerfully, although her cheer was a bit forced. Fighting the combat android in the darkness of Border Station’s scrapyard had been terrifying.

“And all because you’d acquired an android and didn’t want suspicion falling on you and him,” Liam concluded with a growl.

Jonah ahem’d. “There was also the fact that the android had been sent to assassinate you.”

“By Dominic.”

Nora patted Liam’s chest. “I’m sure he regrets giving that order, now.”

This time she felt Liam’s growl.

“Jonah, if any combat android comes within missile distance of Nora, inform me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Liam rubbed his forehead. “Sorry. That wasn’t a command. It was a request.”

Jonah’s voice softened. “I understand. I worry about Nora’s safety, too. But our adventures weren’t always scary.” He described how they’d adopted Aria; informally, and then, officially via hacking the Registry Office’s database.

He tried to gloss over their hazardous escape from Zac, while Zac was still their enemy, but Liam growled again and dug into the fact that they’d flirted with the fringes of a Newton’s plain.

“You could have died.”

“Mmm. But we didn’t, and we found blaze, and came back to Border Station. Jonah encouraged me to risk loving you. I’m not always brave. I might have run away, but I had Aria and him, and I wanted you…”

Liam kissed her. Thoroughly. After all, their audience could have watched them kiss no matter where they were.

Nora quickly wrapped up her and Jonah’s story, leading into their plan to repair the lens at the Origin black hole.

Liam rubbed his forehead. “You’re both reckless. The things the two of you don’t have the sense to be scared of scares me, but what I don’t get is why you, Jonah, want to help us meddle with the lens at the Origin black hole. Is there something it does that the original colonists who took the fifteen burrs five centuries ago stopped it doing and you want us to fix?”

“No.”

Disbelief colored Liam’s tone. “You simply want to reopen Origin’s millrace so we reconnect with wider humanity?”

“Humanity never meant to colonize this region, and most certainly, not to become stranded. Humans are like my kin. They need contact with each other.”

Nora smiled, even as she tsked at Liam. “Professional suspicion. What else do you think could be motivating Jonah?”

“Jonah said himself that the Vapori placed him and his kin here to observe the evolution of organic life to sentience. If that is underway on a planet in this region and he thinks humans might threaten it, that would be a good reason to encourage us to be gone.”

“It’s an intriguing notion, but totally unfounded. There is no sapient life, other than humans and my kin, in this region of space. Nor is there any life on any likely path toward sapience.” Jonah tapped the arms of his chair. “I’ll answer your questions, Liam, and any suspicions you have, but two things. First, it’s late.”

It was past midnight. Nora blinked at the time.

Liam stretched, and conceded. “Point.”

“Second, I have news from Border Station. The RC Genghis Khan has been recalled to the military base on Fanrong Station on the grounds that it’s a waste of resources having a battlecruiser out at Border Station. Its replacements will be a cruiser and two frigates sent out in response to news of a blaze strike, and prior to news of Nora’s relationship to King Ivan.”

“So, they’ll be within reach of us soon.”

Nora felt Liam relax.

He’d come to terms with Zac and Ben and their people, who were now, by contract, Liam and Nora’s staff, but the RC Genghis Khan held people he’d commanded. He’d led them into combat, and brought them through it. They had a bond he relied on.

She had Jonah. Liam had the RC Genghis Khan. “That’s great news.”

“It is.” Liam ran his hand up and down her arm. “And you’re right, Jonah. It is late. Do you sleep?”

Jonah laughed. “No. But I’ve learned to beware a grumpy, tired Nora.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Any time.” Jonah stood. “Goodnight.”

Liam’s gaze tracked his departure. When he didn’t move, nor did Nora. “I’m beginning to trust him.”

Knowing that Liam knew Jonah could hear him, she was aware that his admission was for both of them. “Good.”

“I didn’t appreciate his emotional manipulation in how and when he introduced himself to me. If I had shouted for him to be detained, as an unknown potential threat against the Human Sector, you’d never have forgiven me. He counted on that.”

“Jonah isn’t a threat.”

Liam’s mouth firmed. “He chooses not to be. But before you say anything, the same could be said of anyone. I’m merely pointing out that I didn’t appreciate him leaning on my love for you to prevent me from detaining or outing him.”

She wriggled upright to stare at him. “But you wouldn’t do that now?”

“No. I agree with you. I don’t think Jonah means any of us harm. But, Jonah,” he looked toward the bedroom and wardrobe beyond it. “Don’t hide behind Nora in your dealings with me, again. And now, I’m going to make love to her, so concentrate on something else.”

Nora’s apprehension melted away in long, drugging kisses and touches as they stumbled toward their bed, shedding clothing.

After an early morning walk in the warm, drizzling rain with Aria and Bailey, while Liam ran a longer loop, passing them coming and going, Nora tamed her frizzing hair and pulled on yet another boring business outfit, a houndstooth jacket over a black skirt. She wanted to avoid sending any signals that she was less professional and committed than anyone else in the vaults.

An admiral turned up for the next stage in her testing.

She recognized Ian Quispe, Liam’s bête noire.

Dr. Pilar Mayberry saw her surprise. “He’s an adept wielder,” she said under her breath, eyes on her comms unit. Over days of testing, some lines of formality and distance had been erased. “Rude buzzard, though.”

“I noticed.”

The woman smirked. “I’d bet he’s not stronger than you.”

“Is he part of my test?”

“Dr. Chulainn will outline what’s required of you.”

Nora wrinkled her nose. Then rubbed the tip of it. That was the problem with raising a child. Sometimes their habits rubbed off on you, rather than them benefiting from your mature example.

Aria wrinkled her nose when an answer displeased her.

Francis entered the lab briskly.

Everyone straightened, and Molly separated from where she’d been in conference with Dr. Chulainn, one of his assistants, and another Royal Guard.

Quispe strode forward to wring Francis’s hand, and demonstrate that he was of first importance.

Second son of a duke, Nora recalled. She smiled guardedly at Francis and shook hands when he greeted her after escaping Quispe and Dr. Chulainn.

Or rather, the two men trailed in Francis’s wake, while his bodyguard watched from three steps away.

Nora thought she understood.

Quispe was the obvious back-up if she took control of the burr from Francis. However, Quispe wasn’t as strong as Francis, so someone, whose identity she wasn’t to know, lurked out of sight as the true back-up.

She’d ask Jonah later who it was.

Quispe had probably volunteered out of curiosity and ambition.

Dr. Chulainn interrupted Nora’s response to Francis’s polite inquiry as to her health. “I’m sure she’s well. Today, Mrs. Kimani, you’ll reach for a burr. We will be using a depleted burr so your ignorance can’t cause trouble.”

While Francis frowned at Dr. Chulainn’s rudeness, Nora barely noticed it. What mattered was that for the first time she’d be permitted to reach out to a burr.

Having to sit passively and merely sense the burrs had been mildly engaging at first, and then, fascinating once she’d perceived them outside herself rather than as a physical tingle in her body. But ultimately, it was boring. Being able to reach for one, to actively engage with it, was what she’d been working toward.

“A prudent precaution.” She could be as pretentious as any academic, if she tried.

Well, no, she’d never hit Dr. Chulainn’s heights of vulgar superiority, but she could pretend to be a tiny bit snobby.

Pilar smiled as she ushered Nora into the testing lab.

After a couple of minutes of Pilar and her colleague getting settled, a burr was abruptly unshielded somewhere deeper in the vaults.

The ragged, flaring power of it scratched against Nora’s senses. Which senses she couldn’t quite tell. Her mind was trying to interpret an energetic experience through her physical body. At first contact, that had been the tingle or buzz other sensitives reported. Now it was heat and prickliness, discordant humming, and something other.

Whatever it was, as she reached out energetically to grasp the burr, she wished it would lessen its assault on her senses.

The lab door burst open. “What did you do?” Quispe barked.

“I grasped the burr.” She could sense it under her control. She wasn’t doing anything with it, but the chaotic energy seemed smoother.

“It’s hotter.” Quispe’s observation was simultaneously a criticism and a demand for information.

“You feel a burr as heat?” Nora asked.

He snorted. “I’m an experienced wielder. Release the burr.”

Pilar and the other scientist, Matt Something-or-other, shifted unhappily, but didn’t challenge the Admiral’s override of their authority in the lab.

“How did you increase its strength?” Quispe came and stood over the table.

Pilar leaned sideways from his looming presence.

Nora didn’t. She looked up at him steadily as she released the burr. “I understand you panicked when a depleted burr seemed to gain power, but you’re disrupting the test.”

“Answer my question!”

You’re an idiot. “The energy stored in the burr felt all messed up. Not neat. I didn’t like how it felt. Prickly.” She chose that word as near enough to tingly as to be useful but not alarming to the scientists. “It seemed to smooth out as I grasped it.”

“Did you consciously order it to do so?” Pilar asked.

“No. But I was uncomfortable with the prickliness.”

“Prickliness.” Quispe glared at Nora. His thick, gray eyebrows gave him an impressive scowl. “The strongest wielders feel it as heat.”

“Admiral Quispe.” Dr. Chulainn’s voice came over a speaker. “Please cease distorting the testing session.”

Glowering at Nora, Quispe ignored him.

She pushed her chair back so she didn’t get a crick in the neck staring up at him. “Whether I feel it as a tingle, prickles or heat, it’s all energy. Our perception of it is our minds interpreting the strangeness. Humans weren’t designed to manipulate energy.”

“I don’t require a lecture from you.”

They both jerked as their sense of the burr vanished. Someone had returned it to its shielded case.

“Not a lecture,” Nora said less antagonistically. Did contact with burrs intensify emotions? “An understanding of where I’m coming from. I spent years thinking about the Silicaese. They used burrs as a power source, whereas humanity weaponized the burrs’ ability to siphon energy. Consequently, when a burr is stuffed with energy, you consider it depleted or weak because it’s difficult to obliterate anything by siphoning additional energy into the burr. My Silicaese bias means I see those weak burrs as the powerful ones, brimming with energy.”

She hesitated, before adding deliberately. “Like the one we just touched. You let me touch a ‘weak’ burr, and I felt the chaotically stored energy inside it. What you perceived as me strengthening a depleted burr, I would hypothesize was me unconsciously, accidentally, smoothing some of the ragged energy earlier siphoning had shoved into it. Arranging things neatly opens up additional storage capacity. I think that’s what happened.”

“You’re suggesting you can tidy up our burrs, and so, increase our power?” Quispe clarified.

“I don’t know. This happened unconsciously. I’m trying to understand it.”

Dr. Chulainn’s voice shattered Nora and Quispe’s mutual, weighing silence. “That is my task.”

Nora raised an eyebrow at Quispe.

The Admiral snorted. “He’s a weak sensitive.” Ignore him, his tone said.

She nodded. “Others must do this. Smooth the energy.”

Quispe turned his head as the lab door opened.

“None that we know of,” Francis said. “Is smoothing energy a Forgotten technique?”

“I have no idea.” Nora watched the two scientists shrink in their seats at his entrance.

Scientific inquiry had unmistakably taken a back seat to politics and power. And evidently these two researchers weren’t power players even in academic politics. Dr. Chulainn wouldn’t want rivals in his lab.

“We’ll want you to try this smoothing with a different burr,” Francis said. “But the scientists need time to consider what you may have done, and how to help you isolate your actions on a step by step basis, so you can teach the technique to others.”

“Oh stars.” Nora closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, everyone was watching her expectantly. “It just happened.”

Pilar attempted some scientist-style soothing. “We’ll work through some possibilities with you before the next burr.”

“Indeed.” Dr. Chulainn inserted himself physically into the room and into the discussion. “This is completely unexpected. We realized she would be untrained, but I didn’t anticipate she’d be so reckless as to alter the burrs on first contact. Even worse,” now he addressed Nora. “You don’t seem in control of your reaction to burrs.”

Dismissing her, he spoke to Francis. “I recommend against further testing at this moment. Her brash—”

Francis cut him off. “My time is tightly scheduled. We’ll go ahead.” He spun on his heel to leave the room.

Dr. Chulainn extended a hand to restrain him, and yelped as Francis’s bodyguard gripped his arm.

Francis glanced over his shoulder, and continued on out.

Quispe remained. In fact, not only did he remain in the lab. He remained close enough to knock Nora unconscious.

Given that Jonah had warned her that Pilar’s colleague had been ordered to hold a stunner ready to disable Nora during the testing if she seized control of a burr and the others felt threatened, Nora considered Quispe’s overbearing presence unnecessary as well as annoying.

Dr. Chulainn fussed his way out of the room, pulling at the lapels of his jacket, and trying to reestablish his self-conceit.

“How are we doing this?” Nora asked Pilar.

The scientist raised a single finger. Wait.

Sure enough, Dr. Chulainn’s voice came over the speaker. “Mrs. Kimani, when you sense the burr, please indicate its strength as you’ve been doing.”

She glanced down at the sliding scale on the table screen.

“Do not do anything else. Wait for my order. Then, on my order, attempt to grasp the burr. It will be the same one you…adjusted. Hopefully, you won’t feel compelled to ignorantly meddle with it, again.”

Quispe shifted his body weight impatiently.

Dr. Chulainn continued. “Prince Francis will be wielding the burr. Pay close attention. You will be asked to describe how the block of his control felt to you.”

Except that after Nora rated the smoothed energy of the burr as moderate strength, and Dr. Chulainn ordered her to attempt to grasp it, she didn’t feel any block. She had no sense of Francis, or anyone or anything, preventing her from engaging with the burr.

She shifted her gaze from the tabletop to Quispe.

Unless they were lying to her, she’d just taken the burr from Francis, a trained and experienced wielder, without even feeling his resistance.

All bluster gone, Quispe gave her a small nod of respect. An earpiece showed he was in contact with those outside.

“Release the burr,” Dr. Chulainn said.

She did so.

Quispe stepped back. “Let’s get out of this room.”

She could agree with the sentiment even if she wished she had a few minutes of peace in which to review her experience. Outside there would be additional people wanting to question her or air their opinions. The consensus would have to be that she was dangerous.

Notably, Quispe didn’t treat her that way. He held the door for her.

The first person she set eyes on outside was Gage.

Her bodyguard stood alone in the crowd, unaligned with Molly or any other Royal Guard. After a quick check of her expression and body language, and Gage returned to surveying the crowd.

They moved as a group to congregate in the lounge.

Nora headed for the watercooler.

While the scientists and Royal Guards murmured together in obvious displeasure at Nora’s strength exceeding Francis’s, Quispe eyed her, openly speculative.

Trusting to Gage’s watchful presence, she turned her back on Quispe, and thought about how it felt to hold a burr.

It felt expectant. If she’d been poetically minded like Shakers—whom she still had to call now that Zac had checked and approved her background—Nora would have described grasping the burr as Fate hovering, ready to split and roll down a different path.

“Mrs. Kimani!” Dr. Chulainn shouted.

Belatedly, she realized he’d been trying to gain her attention for some time. By Gage’s presence in between them, a physical attempt to shake her into focusing on Dr. Chulainn had been blocked.

“What?” she asked irritably. What type of scientist couldn’t recognize her need to pause and reflect on the experiment that was her own interaction with a burr?

“Do not speak to me in—”

Francis’s entrance cut off Dr. Chulainn before Molly could intervene.

The Crown Prince, in contrast to his subjects, showed no concern at her display of power. “Good show. Keep it up, and you’ll be able to convince the doubters to allow your expedition.”

“You support it?” Nora couldn’t help lilting the end of her statement into a question.

“I do. I’ll send you the Originals’ reports on their attempt to replace the burrs in the lens. They didn’t attempt it until they had other burrs, found in what we now identify as Silicaese caches. Their equipment kept malfunctioning. If you have an idea for modifying the energy around the lens to enable us to reach it, maybe your expedition has a chance.”

He wanted her to outline her ideas on using burrs.

The scientists had asked, but she’d put them off. If they could inflict testing on her, then it was only fair that they suffer through it too, if only to the extent of her denying them her working hypothesis until it was complete.

After all, if they intended to shut her out from wielding burrs, why should she give them the benefit of Jonah’s knowledge?

According to him, there was a unique twist in Nora’s genes that meant she could wield burrs in ways the Originals, and most of their descendants, couldn’t.

She needed access to burrs.

“Would it be possible to discuss it with you and Dominic, together?”

Francis’s nostrils flared. To him, Dominic was the man who’d failed to protect Francis’s baby sister.

“Such a discussion should be—”

Francis’s upflung hand silenced Dr. Chulainn.

The older man’s scruffy, gray moustache twitched.

“The Palace, tomorrow,” Francis said. “I’ll have an assistant arrange it with Dominic’s PA and your RG captain.” He looked around.

Molly was right there. “Yes, sir.”

The scientists were conspicuously not invited, and their grumbles burst out on the heels of Francis’s departure.

Nora wasn’t stupid enough to linger and suffer their displeasure. She also noted that she urgently required her own personal assistant. Having a Royal Guard captain fill that role suggested to other people that the Royal Guards managed her schedule. Her life.

Consequently, she was more pleased than disappointed when a Royal Guard lieutenant intercepted Molly as they exited the elevator into the car park.

Gage scowled at the man, at Molly, took in her recognition of the man standing too close to them, and finally, scowled toward where the car waited.

“The pineapple’s rumbling,” the lieutenant said.

The phrase had little meaning for Nora, but Molly winced. “Nora, I’m sorry. This is something I have to deal with. Lieutenant Pawson will accompany you.”

“Me?” He patted his chest in shock.

“For the security protocol. There and back. You don’t have to stay.”

“Yes, Captain. If you’ll tell Captain Amsterdam?”

Molly agreed as she stepped back into the elevator.

Nora walked beside Gage to the car.

Before she reached it, Lieutenant Pawson circled them and opened the back door. He then claimed the back seat, as Molly might have done, leaving Gage to ride beside the driver.

Nora sneezed as the man’s spicy cologne flooded the small space.

The driver, Sergeant Sayers, loudly blessed her as he accelerated. “Gesundheit.”

She sneezed again. “Thank you.”

Sayers started a conversation with Gage. “It took me a while to place your accent when we met yesterday. Karachi, isn’t it? Southern tip.”

“Close. Kyushu.”

“Never been there.” The car emerged into the sunlight. “I’m betting you don’t have our humidity.”

Sergeant Sayers hadn’t been chatty when Molly was in the car.

Nora let the one-sided conversation wash over her.

For all his irritatingly heavy cologne and fidgety movements, at least Lieutenant Pawson was silent.

Francis’s promise to send her the Originals’ reports was awesome. She could discuss them with Jonah.

In the front passenger seat, Gage grunted and slumped sideways against the door.

Nora barely had a chance to see the needle Sergeant Sayers pulled out of Gage’s thigh before her own thigh stung. Her hand refused her mental command to reach for the door handle or her comms unit.

A whirlpool of darkness tugged her under.

Chapter 9

Outside Liam’s office, people swore and sweated as they wrestled into place the large fountain chosen for the center of the courtyard garden. Inside the office, all was peaceful paperwork. By lunchtime, his mood had mellowed. His grief remained raw if he poked it, but he was smart enough not to do that.

“If you don’t want to upset your chef, we’d best eat,” Theo said. Unlike Liam, he’d been popping in and out of the office, liaising with anyone who wanted Liam’s opinion. “Martin and the barrack’s cook arranged to feed everyone. Sandwiches and muffins.”

“Sounds good.”

Sandwiches were conveniently portable. Liam ate his as he roamed around, talking to people and applauding progress on the house’s improvements. It reminded him of how he’d walked through the RC Genghis Khan as its captain. People needed their efforts to be appreciated.

Of course, on the battlecruiser, he hadn’t walked around with Aria and Cherry chattering at him, Bailey sniffing hopefully for crumbs, or Trent stalking along, alert for trouble even inside the estate.

But Liam could see by how his and Nora’s new staff assessed him that the casual meet-and-greet was necessary. The staff would be the true keepers of the house. They needed to know that their efforts would be appreciated, not thrown over at the whim of its legal owners.

As for the tradespeople, they were blatantly curious about him. Since they’d been contracted on the say so of the Royal Guards and recommended for their security clearances and discretion, he felt a flicker of curiosity at what rumors must be circling about him and Nora.

He returned to the denuded lunch buffet, set up on trestle tables outside the kitchen, and thanked Martin, the barracks’ cook, and their helpers. “This was a good idea.”

Everyone eating together sent its own message.

Aria and Cherry stayed to help clear away the food: Aria to wheedle a promise from Martin for a repeat of the chocolate and banana muffins; and Cherry to flirt with the new sous chef.

That young man blushed heavily, shot a glance at Liam that must have missed Liam’s amusement, and attempted to hide behind Martin.

Cherry didn’t miss Liam’s amusement. She winked. “Men who can cook are sexy.”

The sous chef hastily picked up a stack of empty sandwich platters and ran for the kitchen.

Cherry sniffed. “Okay, well, courage is sexy, too.” She giggled. “Come on, Bailey. Ben will kill us if we break your diet.” She led the old dog off to Ben’s office.

Skirting around the chaos of the fountain that was now in place, but surrounded by the earthworks of plumbing underway, Liam returned to his office and buried himself in paperwork. He scrawled questions for their legal team as he read through a proposal from a space haulage company. Theo was now in charge of the preliminary work for hiring key staff to run Blazing Kangaroo Corporation on Capitoline. When Nora returned from testing, they’d talk through Theo’s progress and their options.

The flicker of his screen broke Liam’s concentration. He frowned as it flickered, again, and his suspicions as to a tradesperson causing accidental damage deepened as the screen blanked. Then it flashed back to life, only to blank again. He raised his head to comment on the interrupted power supply and ask someone to find out which tradesperson had damaged what, and was shocked to see no one else perturbed. Their screens were fine, as was the lighting.

His stomach swooped and dipped.

Jonah had outlined his and Nora’s agreed emergency communication protocol of flickering lights. If the AI was being discreet, then a blanking screen—remotely hacked—served better than altering the overhead lights.

Even as he checked his comms unit and found no message from Nora, he was rising and strolling from the office. Pocketing the comms unit, he kept his pace casual as he exited the office. He didn’t look at his bodyguard, but was aware of Trent’s shadow presence behind him.

Liam shut Trent out with the slam of the door to the master suite.

Instantly, Jonah appeared. “Nora’s been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped? By who?”

“Royal Guards—rogue Royal Guards, this wasn’t a sanctioned act—and some military veterans who’ve organized themselves into something just short of a militia. They’re taking their orders, no, inspiration, from Queen Caroline.”

“What?! No, go on.”

Jonah did, hurriedly. “They don’t intend to hurt Nora. Queen Caroline wants Harry to have a child possessing Nora’s strong sensitivity to burrs. Yesterday’s tests proved her strength. Actually, I suspect Caroline wishes the child would be Francis’s, but he’s made his refusal clear.”

Liam exploded. “He knew about the kidnapping?”

“No! Sorry. To be clear,” Jonah spoke so rapidly his words were very nearly chipmunk-chatter speed. “Caroline connected through one of her bodyguards to a group of self-proclaimed patriots. Many of them are former military who found it tough to readjust to civilian life. Members include people on active service, including Royal Guards.

“Nora finished her tests, and the group connived to get Molly out of the way, and replaced by one of their own. The driver, Sergeant Sayers, was already a sympathizer. They share Caroline’s view that while Nora’s genes are useful, her Palantine and low class connections are disgusting, and mean she must be compelled to serve the Crown as they see fit.”

Liam swore.

“Nora isn’t chipped,” Jonah said. “Gage and the Royal Guards are. They hit Gage with a tranquilizer so that his chip wouldn’t flash the dead man alert. Then they tranquilized Nora and transferred her to a waiting car. It happened in less than a minute in a blank zone. Foliage overhead prevented aerial surveillance. Lieutenant Pawson and Sayers then drove on, abandoning Gage, alive, in the car at a second blank spot and transferring themselves to an alley that led to a sewer system entrance. They extracted their own chips, slapped on bandages, and left via the sewer tunnel. I believe the idea may have been to give the impression their bodies were disposed of down there. I am keeping track of them.”

“Where is Nora?”

“Meeting Queen Caroline.”

Nora woke spluttering with water dripping down her face. No one had done anything so crude as to tie her up. Instead, she lay on a soaked pillow, beneath a foil survival blanket.

“Let me explain your purpose.”

Groggily, Nora turned her head to focus on the precise, female voice. “Queen…” She coughed and choked. All that water spilled on her, but none to drink. Her mouth felt cottony-thick and dry. Nora swung herself upright, legs to the floor and head lolling forward, and found herself staring at the boots of the massive guy who’d interposed himself between her and Queen Caroline.

Like Nora was a threat.

She licked a bead of water from her lips. She wasn’t sure where she was or how she’d gotten there. Prodding at her memory, she couldn’t remember anything since some point in her testing session in the lab.

Had they carted her out of the vaults? That was brazen. Was she still in the Laotian Palace?

If Caroline was willing to explain, Nora needed to collect her scattered wits and listen.

“Magnus is a fool,” his wife of decades said. “He thinks you will work for us, just as he thought Hermione’s marriage to Dominic would serve us. My Hermione was sacrificed to end the war. She was to guide that idiot to peace. I won’t lose any of my other children. Their children must be strong. Like you. Such power, wasted on a towers brat.”

Sitting in an underground bunker, on a chair obviously brought in from elsewhere, Queen Caroline folded her hands as demurely as if in a drawing room.

Chair and woman were out of place. The chair’s elegant lines and light wood contrasted with the utilitarian nature of Nora’s bunk and the bare bathroom facilities in the corner.

Caroline wore a white summer dress with a touch of blue on her collar and the cuffs of her elbow-length sleeves. Her shoes exactly matched the blue highlights. She rearranged her hands to display her wedding ring. “Fortunately, illegitimacy is no bar to usefulness. You can’t be trusted, but the children you’ll bear will be brought up properly.”

A guard stood beside her, face impassive.

The second guard, the one nearest Nora, nodded his approval of the Queen’s intentions.

Fear snaked through Nora.

Caroline wouldn’t sully her hands, touching Nora. But someone would. Impregnation. Rape by another name.

Fear and fury rose up, crashed against the tranquilizer still in her veins, and settled into a determination to survive.

All the precautions the kidnappers had taken couldn’t hide her, or them, from Jonah.

He would tell Liam.

Liam would save her. He couldn’t storm the palace, if that’s where she was, but he wouldn’t leave her here. Wherever here was.

Frightened, headachy, and dull, Nora couldn’t see any option but to wait and prepare for a rescue attempt. She needed time. “I’m on hormone regulation.” Contraception.

“Which is why we’ll wait out the three weeks.”

Nora felt the fine tremble in her hands. Three weeks ought to be two weeks and six days more than she needed to be rescued. “Incubation requires some level of cooperation from me.”

Caroline smiled, satisfied in her planning. “You understand my love for my children because you feel a shadow of that emotion for your adopted daughter.”

At the threat to Aria, rage roared through Nora, smothering her fear. She would survive anything she had to, and then, she’d destroy this woman and all who supported her.

“How do they expect to hold Nora for nine months?”

“They threatened Aria,” Jonah said.

Liam hadn’t imagined his level of fury could intensify.

These buzzards, headed by the Queen, had threatened Nora’s adopted daughter in an attempt to force her to bear a healthy child by Harold’s sperm donation, and then, surrender that child.

“How?” he barked.

“No specifics. The threat is all the more terrifying for being general. I’m watching Aria. She’s in the living room with Veronica, reading. She’s safe, but we can make her safer yet while we rescue Nora. Dominic is in his suite. He once offered to tell Aria stories of Hermione and her miniature ponies. Now, would be a good time.” Because Dominic had an added layer of protection, his own Palantine, not Capitoline, Royal Guards.

Liam nodded. The irony of asking a man he’d once held hostage to babysit Aria while Liam went to rescue Nora from a hostage situation barely registered. He was lethally focused.

“Caroline is insane,” Jonah said.

“That doesn’t excuse her.” Liam wasn’t accepting excuses for anyone involved.

“No. It doesn’t. There will be consequences.”

Liam felt only satisfaction at the darkness in Jonah’s voice. He fiercely agreed that their response to this attack would be such that no one ever dared touch Nora again.

In daily life, few people considered how dangerous a wickedly talented hacker could be.

Jonah would see to vengeance.

Liam had a wife to retrieve.

On the RC Genghis Khan, Liam had never worried about enemies inside the ship. He’d trusted Naval Intelligence to expose saboteurs before they boarded.

But Royal Guards had been involved in Nora’s kidnapping. He couldn’t risk attracting any attention in his own home while he prepared to rescue her.

Although frequently annoying, right now Liam was grateful that wherever he went, his non-Royal Guard bodyguard accompanied him. Currently on duty was Trent, who was a former Palantine Marine.

Liam’s best approach was to take the Royal Guards by surprise.

Jonah had hacked the Queen’s safe house that the so-called patriots had stashed Nora in. Jonah would control the environment. Liam, and as many allies as he could safely gather, would storm the house and its panic room, and rescue Nora.

Liam buckled on the holster for the pulse pistol Zac had acquired to replace Liam’s Navy-issued weapon. He checked the pistol, stowed it, and shrugged his jacket on. Ideally, he’d be wearing an armored vest, but it would show under this jacket. Nora’s life meant he couldn’t risk rousing suspicion. So, the armor stayed in the wardrobe, alongside Jonah.

“Anything you need, say it, and I’ll hear,” Jonah said.

Liam grunted agreement. He no longer questioned Nora’s loyalty to the alien AI. It was patently mutual. And now Liam and Jonah were united in their determination to rescue Nora and rain hellfire on their enemies.

As a good bodyguard should, Trent waited outside the master suite.

“Phoebe’s upset,” Liam said. “Bailey’s presence helped Aria forget her sky terror. I’m taking the dog with me to visit Phoebe.” A grieving younger sister was an unassailable cover story for Liam’s grim expression and brisk pace. He jogged down the stairs.

In the living room, Veronica watched his swift entrance. Her eyes narrowed and she shifted into a ready stance.

He nodded at her before focusing on Aria, who was absorbed in her book. “Aria, I have to go see Phoebe. She’s upset.”

Aria threw aside her book. She was a great kid, sympathetic and coping remarkably well with the strangeness they’d landed in on Capitoline.

“Can you pop over and visit with Dominic?” He directed his words equally to Veronica. “We’ve been neglecting him, and…I think all of us need company at this time.” He sounded stilted. He couldn’t help it. “Ask him about the pony videos he said he had.” Liam had an inspiration. “Maybe we could get a couple of ponies for the estate?”

A smile peeped through Aria’s worried expression. “I could have a pony? What about one I can ride?”

“It’s very possible.”

Aria beamed. She crossed the room and hugged him. “That hug’s for you. Can you give this hug to Phoebe?”

Protective love hurt. It was a physical pain, tightening the back of his throat, like suppressed tears. No one would hurt this child.

“I will,” Liam vowed quietly.

He crossed the courtyard with Aria and Veronica beside him, and Trent walking wide to monitor them all. There they split.

Aria and Veronica went upstairs to Dominic’s suite.

Liam ducked his head inside Ben’s office. “Ben, now.” Command snapped in his tone.

Everyone in the crowded office, from staff to Royal Guards and including tradespeople, jerked around to stare at him.

Ben, to his credit, didn’t hesitate.

“Bailey.” Liam whistled. And to Ben. “Walk us out.”

The dog ambled beside them.

Walking out the front entrance, Liam saw that Jonah had achieved the impossibility he’d promised. He’d hacked Crown Prince Dominic’s comms unit and called a car to the door. It was driven by a Royal Guard and another waited by the open back door, but these were Palantine Royal Guards. They’d have no personal loyalty to Queen Caroline or to any member of the Capitoline royal family.

What Liam was gambling on, and what Jonah assured him mattered to the honest Royal Guards, was their duty above all to protect the strongest burr wielders, which Nora promised to be.

Liam paused beside the Royal Guard holding the car door. He hid his face as unobtrusively as possible, and barely moved his lips, barely whispered. “Nora’s in trouble. Don’t tell anyone. Details in the car.” He raised his voice. “I expect Dominic will cancel his car, but if not, he can take mine. I have to go, now. My baby sister is talking of suicide!”

“Bailey, in the car,” Ben ordered, and boosted the dog into the footwell of the back seat.

Trent nudged Liam, and slid in after him.

To the Royal Guard lieutenant’s credit, he didn’t hesitate. He got into the front seat and directed the driver even before closing the door. “The Kimani apartment.”

Liam spoke tensely. “This cannot go out over the Royal Guards’ channel. Some of the Capitoline Royal Guards are involved in Nora’s kidnapping. We’re going to get her back.”

Ben paused in patting Bailey. “Liam, I only have a pulse pistol on me.”

Liam held up a finger. He spoke to the Palantine Royal Guards in the front of the car. “Are you with us?”

“If we’re not?” the lieutenant asked. Beside him, the sergeant driving sat very alert, slightly forward; his eyes on the rear view mirror and the passengers in the back more than on their approach to the outer gate.

“You’re risking Nora’s life, and I’ll kill you if she dies,” Liam answered succinctly.

“I believe you,” the sergeant said. “We’ll get clear, then you explain.”

The lieutenant shot him a dubious look, but nodded.

They cleared the gate. The road outside was smoother than the driveway. The driveway was one of the many things on the estate that was low down the list of improvements. It functioned without impairing security. Good enough.

“Drive to my family’s apartment. I’ll brief you as we go. I have weapons there, and back-up.”

“Who?” Ben asked.

“Years ago, Richard Dabrowski, a Navy officer my dad served with, bought an apartment in the same building as Dad and Mom. Richard was always more Dad’s friend than Mom’s. The family forgot him, for the most part. But he and I stayed in contact. I knew he stayed on in the apartment after Dad’s death to keep an eye on the family. He never married. No kids. I sent a message ahead of Nora and my arrival on Capitoline to ask Richard if he’d mind providing a layer of hidden security. A safe house in my family’s apartment building, if needed. He took it a step further, to have back-up available. He has weapons and two former Marines as new lodgers.”

It wasn’t an irrelevant briefing. He had to justify to the others why they were headed for the apartment building—for weapons and support. But every minute away from Nora ate at him.

He recounted what Jonah had reported of Nora’s situation: the location, the number of guards, and the security system. “Queen Caroline visited the house.”

“How do you know all this?” Lieutenant Elijah Han asked.

“Are you sure the security system will be down?” Ben asked.

Jonah had given him a rough cover story and a burner phone. “Nora has a hacker friend slash guardian angel. He can take out the house’s system, but not the people. If anything urgent changes, he’ll message me.”

“Risky business.” Sergeant Aaron Bentham was frankly speeding to the Kimanis’ apartment. “None of us have worked together.”

“You won’t be part of the team,” Liam said. “You’re chipped.”

His chipped comment silenced their protest.

“We’re the decoy.” Lieutenant Han worked it out. “Anyone looking where we are, we’re at the apartment building, even if we’re in your friend’s apartment. Two Marines and the three of you.”

It was enough for a strike team.

Ben exhaled. “We can do this, especially if we don’t care about casualties on the other side.”

“Shoot to kill.”

The sentiment was Liam’s, but the authorization came from the lieutenant.

They looked at the young man.

He stared back steadily. “Mrs. Kimani is a strong burr wielder. For that alone, kidnapping her is a capital crime. Risking her safety by not putting down her kidnappers would be wrong.”

“Then we’re agreed.” Ben assumed the leadership role.

By the time they reached Richard’s apartment, they had a plan that they slotted the two former Marines into, briefing them quickly.

All of their comms units blasted alarms.

Nora’s car had been found, abandoned, with Gage inside it. She was missing, as were the two Royal Guards.

Liam looked at Ben. They were on a time crunch. As the Royal Guards mobilized, the confusion could aid Nora’s kidnappers. For instance, surveillance on Liam would increase, limiting his ability to act independently.

“We go now,” Ben said.

They took Richard’s car from the apartment building’s underground car park to the patriots’ hideout.

It was a colonial townhouse close enough to the palace that the kidnappers had doubled back on Nora’s route home. Poppies nodded over its front path. The white picket fence that divided it from the street was low enough to step over.

Liam and his team went in the back way, driving into the alley and trusting in Jonah’s ability to block surveillance. They moved silently, each of them aware that if Nora had seen Queen Caroline at the house, it had signed her death warrant. If her kidnappers had time to realize they were under attack, they’d kill Nora.

When Caroline left, the two guards exited the bunker with her; one in front and one behind. None of the trio looked back at Nora.

They needed her healthy, so she expected that they’d feed her. But it wasn’t a priority. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious, but she wasn’t hungry. She was thirsty, though.

She transferred her glare from the door to the primitive bathroom facilities. There was a tap and basin. Water. Her dry mouth insisted on it.

When she stood, her head whirled and her legs wobbled. If she’d attempted to attack Caroline, she’d have fallen over even without the guards’ intervention.

Every step took conscious effort and control. She’d have crawled if she had to, but she was glad she didn’t give those watching that satisfaction.

Why they had allowed Caroline to visit Nora’s holding cell, she couldn’t guess. Caroline wasn’t necessary to explain the purpose of Nora’s kidnapping and imprisonment. Caroline visiting was just an added risk to the kidnappers’ plot.

Why had they indulged the Queen’s desire to gloat? Purely because she was the queen?

Nora reached the basin and clung to it. The few steps she’d managed felt like a massive achievement. Bent over the basin, she noticed how the paper cup balanced at the back of it was wet. It had been used to throw water on her to wake her.

She picked it up, filled it, and drank.

She drank slowly, unsure how the drug in her system might react. Her stomach stayed steady and she drank more. Two of the small cupfuls sated her thirst, and she embarked on a slow circuit of the bunker.

The guards had taken Caroline’s elegant chair with them, so the bunk and its survival blanket and pillow were the room’s sole furniture and furnishings.

She walked around the small space three times, feeling her head slowly clearing and her body becoming her own. She halted in the middle of the empty space and began stretching, hoping to burn off more of the drug with exercise. Her jacket hampered her. She took it off, folded it, and resumed her exercises. If this was all she could do for now, she’d do it with total commitment.

Her stretches would tell Jonah she was uninjured.

She couldn’t hear anything through the solid door, so she faced it as she exercised. She would have, at minimum, the warning of seeing the door swing open before the guards entered.

If she had a weapon, she’d use it on them.

The door blasted open.

A man entered, armored and helmeted. “Clear.”

Liam entered behind him.

Oh, God. The silent prayer of thankfulness filled Nora’s being. She clutched at Liam’s hand.

His own grip was unbreakable as they ran upstairs, through a kitchen, around a still-twitching body, and out to a car.

A man she didn’t recognize drove it. As soon as they’d piled in, the door still open, he sped off.

The car door slammed.

Nora sprawled mostly on Liam and a little on Trent, who was beside him. Ben was the fully armored figure who’d burst into the bunker. There were two strangers, including the man driving. None of them spoke.

Nora pressed her face into Liam’s neck and stayed silent, as well. Shudders shook her despite the strangling hold he had on her.

“No pursuit,” Trent said.

Liam shuffled Nora around so he could check his comms unit. “No message. We’re clear.”

Jonah, Nora thought thankfully. Jonah was working with Liam. If he said they were clear, they were. “I knew you’d come.”

“Always.”

Ben called someone. “We have Nora. Shut up, Zac. We’re coming home. Meet us. Full security. Capitoline Royal Guards excluded. They participated in her kidnapping.”

On the other end of the call, Zac settled down to sharp focus. “Medic?”

Nora shook her head.

Ben squeezed her hand. “She says she’s fine. Have Veronica on standby.”

Veronica had paramedic training.

“Aria?” Nora’s voice emerged huskily.

Zac heard. “Aria’s with Dominic. Veronica’s on guard. No one will touch her.” There was the promise of death in his voice.

Meantime, Trent had called someone else. “We have Nora. Return to the estate.”

“Thank the stars,” the unknown male voice said fervently. “We’ll bring the dog.”

No curiosity stirred in Nora. Explanations could wait. She didn’t think it was the drug affecting her so much as reaction to the release of tension. The lassitude would pass.

Which it did as they stopped at the front steps to the house and found not a Capitoline Royal Guard in sight. Their black uniforms had a blue stripe, not the wine-red of the Palantine Royal Guards.

Mostly, though, it was Zac and his people. Nora and Liam’s people.

Aria waited in the foyer, between Gage and Cherry, and hemmed in by Gage’s fellow security guards. At the sight of Nora, Aria wriggled through a gap.

Cherry plunged after her.

“What happened?” Aria cried. “Is it Phoebe?”

Liam jerked against Nora. “No. I lied. Phoebe is fine.”

“Nora was kidnapped,” Cherry blurted. She hugged Nora as hard as she could before Veronica intervened and shepherded them inside and into Ben’s office.

Chapter 10

Liam refused to leave Nora’s side while Veronica checked her over, which meant that Molly and her superior officer, Commander Guy Lavigne, came to him—once they made it past Zac, which took longer than Veronica’s examination.

Liam gave the Royal Guard officers’ demands short shrift, starting with their offer of a doctor and ending with a refusal of their request to know who’d briefed him and hacked the hostage house. “No. You lost her. You don’t get to know the details of the private protection that recovered her. Ineptitude I might forgive, but not corruption.”

The Royal Guards involved in Nora’s kidnapping had acted on Queen Caroline’s orders, but also from their own prejudice. They’d despised and feared Nora both for her Palantine heritage and her slum upbringing.

“We’re cleaning house,” Lavigne said stiffly.

“When you’ve finished, then we can talk.” They’d talk once Liam had his temper under control. There would be consequences for Caroline’s actions. Liam wouldn’t allow her punishment to be averted by a charge of treason against him if he spoke or acted rashly. “Zac, see them out.”

“With pleasure.”

Liam and Nora emerged from Ben’s office to discover that Dominic had joined the anxious group waiting for them. For Nora.

She smiled, unconvincingly. “I’m fine.”

“A shower, hot food, a nap and you lot being calm,” Veronica issued her orders.

Everyone nodded.

Dominic shifted from foot to foot.

Liam held out his hand. “Thanks for looking after Aria.”

“Thank you for trusting her to me. Veronica looked more deadly than usual. The hardest thing was not doing anything. Not knowing. Just letting you have the car since you needed it.” Dominic’s attention kept sliding sideways to Nora.

As much as Liam wanted to whisk Nora away—and he knew Jonah was waiting in the master suite desperate for his own reunion—he shoved Dominic’s shoulder. “Just hug her.”

Nora glanced at them, startled. But she hugged Dominic, and her brother’s wretched expression eased.

“I was scared…” He closed his mouth on the rest of that sentence. Dominic’s wife had been assassinated. Everyone knew what he’d feared.

What they’d all feared.

Nora could have died.

“Shower,” Liam said firmly. “Veronica’s orders. Aria, Cherry, can you organize sandwiches or something in the living room.” It was too early for dinner, too late for afternoon tea. Martin would know what to provide.

In the privacy of their master suite, Nora hugged Jonah who hummed soothingly as she finally burst into tears. The tears seemed to help.

Afterward Liam mopped her up and helped her shower—not that she needed help, but he needed the physical comfort of knowing she was alive and with him. Also, the fear sweat that stuck to his skin had to be washed off.

“We’ll talk later,” Jonah said to them when they emerged in jeans and sweatshirts. “The others are waiting for you in the living room. I’ll be with you in spirit.”

“As you were in the bunker,” Nora said. “That helped, so much. Knowing I wasn’t alone.” She clutched Liam’s hand. “Knowing you’d rescue me.”

In the living room, the debrief was the least professional one Liam had ever participated in. It didn’t matter. They’d gathered together out of concern for Nora.

Platters were stacked high with mini-burgers filled with various combinations. On a side table a range of small cakes offered even more variety. A third table held a coffee machine, a tea urn, and pitchers of juice.

Gage was there, looking pale. “If not for my chip, I expect they’d have killed me. Leaving me alive in the car gave them a few extra minutes head start. If I’d died, the dead man alert would have brought back-up faster.”

The chips of the two Royal Guards involved in Nora’s kidnapping had issued that alert eight minutes later when they’d cut them out.

If not for Jonah, and Nora’s rescue, the two Royal Guards’ disappearance could have been explained as them being more valuable than Gage and being taken to be interrogated before being disposed of.

Discussion would down. “Poor Gage. Nora, you need back-up.”

“A whole fleet,” Zac muttered, snugged close to Ben on a sofa.

“Ooh!” Cherry squeaked. “Not just a guard, or no, I mean a hidden guard.” She sniffed. Her nose was red from crying. “I might know someone. I know I should have waited and let you, Nora, call Ma Shakespeare about being your PA, but I wanted to know if she would do it and…well, how my dad and brother are going. They’re still drunks. The thing is, she said she couldn’t be your PA. It wasn’t in her. But she said her brother has a stupid factory job that he’s better than, and that he’d be someone you could trust to keep you safe.”

“He always looked out for her, his kid sister,” Nora said vaguely.

Cherry’s bright smile eclipsed her red nose. “Nah, it’s more’n that. He was a Marine sergeant in the war. Got cut after it ended.”

Usually people from the towers “supported the war effort” via their work in factories. Becoming a Marine sergeant after starting life in the towers was rare to the point of being unheard of.

“What’s his name?” Zac asked.

“Jim Lowell. I’ve got his details. Ma Shakespeare sent them. I’ll forward them.” Cherry bent over her comms unit.

Liam looked at Nora. “Marines helped us, today.” They were sitting unobtrusively in a corner beside Richard.

“He’d fit in,” Zac added.

Kennedy had been uncharacteristically subdued. “Hiring someone from the towers would play well in the media. And I can testify from my experience of my brother how protective Marines are.”

That won small grins from Liam and Nora who knew how protective Casimir got about those he considered his.

“I wish Captain Cas was here,” Aria said. She’d eaten less than usual, and stuck close to Nora.

The adults exchanged grim looks.

“If not Jim, then a different Marine.” Nora blinked. “You’re Marines.” She addressed the two men sitting by Richard.

“But not secretary material,” the one who’d driven their getaway car said. “But if you had a permanent position on your security team?”

“You’ve got it,” Liam said.

The two men nodded.

Liam grimaced. He knew better than to disrespect the chain of command. Ben and Zac headed the security team. It ought to be their decision. “Ben—”

“I agree,” Ben said easily. “And I agree with keeping someone close to your family to protect them, although now that Richard’s role is exposed, we can rent our own space in the apartment building.”

Richard rubbed his right knee, the joint a replacement for one destroyed early in the war. “No need. I don’t mind the company, and I’m not sure Elise plans to keep the apartment.”

Liam nodded. His family was a problem for another day.

Conversation splintered off into small groups. Those around Nora and Liam kept it light, and Aria’s spooked expression gradually eased.

Nonetheless, when Nora suggested an early night, Aria didn’t argue. She needed time alone with Nora, and Nora needed that time, too. Bailey ambled along between them, soaking up Aria’s affection and providing comfort.

Veronica trailed them discreetly.

Nora turned and hooked an arm through hers, bringing her into the conversation.

At a nod from Zac, a different security guard slipped out to follow them up the stairs to Aria’s room. In other circumstances it would be ridiculous. Right now, everyone wanted reassurance.

Zac waited till they were out of hearing before leaning toward Liam. “Who told you the details of Nora’s kidnapping? Who is your hacker?”

Jonah.

“There’s no security leak,” Liam said. As head of security, Zac had a right to ask these questions. Liam had a duty to keep Jonah’s secrets. He used the AI’s cover story. “Someone calling themselves Serge Buckley took an interest in Nora on Border Station. He ensured Aria’s adoption registered as legal.”

Zac’s eyes widened at the inference. Liam was talking about a hacker skilled enough to achieve the impossible. He had hacked the Registry Office database.

“I don’t think he’ll break cover to join us,” Liam said. “But I owe him. I’m beyond grateful for the heads up as to Nora’s kidnapping, and then, hacking the hostage house. It’s how we extracted her safely.”

Even if the others around them, which included Palantine Royal Guards, appeared not to be listening, some were. Moreover, surveillance equipment in the living area was active. Liam was telling secrets, but not the most important one.

“Do you have any idea who he is?” Ben asked.

The question couldn’t have been better timed if it was scripted. Jonah saw a use for his Serge Buckley identity.

Liam glanced around, and fractionally lifted his shoulders in a suggestion of a shrug of decision, as if he’d decided to let the chips fall where they would. “Nora suspects he’s a Forgotten contact, someone who knew her mom.”

The idea would be catnip to the Royal Guards.

Zac whistled under his breath.

“Yeah,” Liam agreed wryly. “And on that note, I’m calling it a night. We can revise our security measures tomorrow when I’m thinking straight.” He said a general goodnight, but made a point of speaking to Richard on his way out.

The old man clapped him on the back. “Your dad would be glad for you.”

Liam smiled. Yes, he would. Somehow, Liam had lucked into a life of good people and love outside the Navy. “We’ll talk soon.” He was grateful to everyone in the room, but he’d have to show that later. His priority was to use the time while Nora was with Aria to talk to Jonah. Once she joined them, she needed the calm that Veronica had prescribed, not to stir up memories of the day.

It was an odd kind of debrief. Since Jonah saw everything, Liam didn’t have to describe events. It was his analysis or opinion that mattered, and that mattered less than Jonah giving him a sense of current events.

“The Capitoline Royal Guards are thoroughly cleaning house. Their headquarters has been invaded by the Capitoline Security Bureau.” The realm’s intelligence agency. “The Palace is also in uproar. The patriots…I’m inclined to believe their leadership. Those involved in the plot were rogue actors, as with the Royal Guards. It wasn’t a sanctioned mission. Kidnapping a war hero’s wife apparently transgresses the patriots’ code.”

When Nora entered the room, she walked into Liam’s arms and sighed. After a couple of minutes, and Jonah’s quiet goodnight, Liam helped her undress.

The knock at the bedroom door interrupted their blissful slide into sleep.

“It would have been worse five minutes ago,” Nora said wryly. She also pushed Liam’s arm.

It seemed he was the one who’d be answering the door.

Maybe he ought to change the habits of a lifetime and start wearing a robe?

He pulled on the jeans he’d discarded over a chair, and opened the door.

“Sorry,” Ben said. “But your sisters and brother are here. Zac’s with them in the front sitting room.”

“Two minutes.” Liam closed the door without apology.

Nora was already scrambling out of bed and pulling on her recently discarded sweatshirt and jeans.

The play of light from the bedside lamp emphasized the shadows under her eyes and the fragile hollow of her collarbone.

He bent and kissed her there, where the wide neck of her sweatshirt gaped.

“Liam?”

He kissed her mouth.

She cupped the side of his face. “I’m safe, honey. I’m with you.”

His heart was hollowed, angry, grateful, and raw. He needed a lifetime filled with loving her. At minimum, he needed tonight, holding her, to calm the monster that raged at the idea of anyone threatening her.

“Elise wouldn’t be here if she didn’t need help. It’s good she’s turned to you. To us.”

Nora’s softly spoken wisdom helped return him to himself.

He didn’t bother trying to convince her to go back to bed and rest.

They descended the stairs, past the murmur of voices of Dominic and Francis talking bleakly in the living room. Perhaps they were bonding over their crazy mothers.

He shook his head. That wasn’t fair to either of them. But he wasn’t sure why Francis was there.

The air in the courtyard smelled of freshly dug dirt from around the fountain.

Not trusting the uneven ground at night, Liam guided Nora along the colonnade that ran outside their offices. Light spilled from the offices’ windows and screened doors. People weren’t ready to retire.

“You don’t need to be here,” Jason was saying grumpily.

Phoebe’s voice rang clearly from the sitting room. “Just because you’re a doofus doesn’t mean I can’t visit Liam and Nora.”

“Phoebe will have people trying something similar,” Elise said.

“Trying what?” Liam asked.

Standing by the round table in the sitting room, Jason jumped at the sound of his older brother’s bark.

And it was a bark. It was the tone of a man accustomed to command, and impatient of an underling’s dismal performance.

“A guy approached me in a uni bar,” Jason mumbled.

“He was out getting drunk,” Phoebe said, disgusted. “While I was helping Elise clean up the apartment and Mom’s stuff.” Her voice wavered.

Jason didn’t care. “Phoebe!”

Drinking wasn’t the problem. Liam looked to Elise for answers.

She sat sideways to the table, her head propped on an elbow, while everyone else stood. “It wasn’t some guy. It was Hadley Li’s father’s boss.”

The name sounded familiar to Liam.

Nora placed it first. “Was your girlfriend there?” she asked Jason. “Did she suggest drinking in the bar?”

“No,” Jason said eagerly. “Hadley tried to get me to stay home.”

All the better to meet privately with her father’s boss. Where Jason saw exculpation, everyone else saw guilt. Hadley had arranged the meeting, possibly under pressure, but perhaps for simple profit.

“Her dad works for Kenes Corp,” Elise said. “And it wasn’t her father’s immediate superior, but the likely heir to the corporate empire, Aeric Kenes, who turned up at the uni bar.”

“He wanted an introduction to Nora,” Jason said. “Kenes Corp trades in everything. He’d want fuel cells.”

“But he could negotiate a deal for them with me,” Liam said. “Did he ask to be introduced to me or just to Nora?”

Jason slumped, butt on table. “Just Nora. I wasn’t drunk-drunk. She found the blaze, but I told him he could talk to you about it. He said you were busy negotiating with the Navy, so he should talk to Nora.”

None of this was yet a reason for Jason to travel back from university or for Liam’s family to invade his home at night.

“Aeric made it seem reasonable that he should talk to Nora. Hadley agreed. He kept buying drinks, and then, I was properly drunk.”

“Did you spew?” Phoebe asked. “You always spew.”

Despite the seriousness of the day’s events and Jason’s obvious guilt that foreshadowed bad things, Nora’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter at that sisterly interjection and Jason’s flushed attempt to ignore it.

Some of the tension twisting in Liam’s gut unwound. Nora would be okay.

“Hadley came over to check on me in the morning. She asked me if I’d lost—that is, she…” Jason seemed unable to finish the sentence.

Elise shook her head sharply at Phoebe. No.

The girl folded her arms and stared mulishly out the window.

Everyone waited for Jason to find his words.

His hangdog look implored Elise to take over.

“Tell them,” she said.

He blushed redder than ever and picked at his cuticles. “Hadley got a hangover cure in me and me into the shower, and then, she reminded me what I’d promised Aeric. He wants a meet with Nora soonest.”

Liam loathed jargon, and was utterly impatient with his brother’s faltering explanation. The effort of silently waiting him out scraped his nerves raw.

“He said.” Aeric said. Jason miserably avoided his family’s eyes. “That sort of thing is best arranged in person and Hadley reminded me I’d promised to return to Bangalore today. She shoved me onto the train.”

“She didn’t come with you?” Nora asked, amusement lurking in her voice.

“No.”

Hadley was a smart operator. She wound Jason up and pushed him in the direction she wanted, but she didn’t personally involve herself. Hadley had her own plans to ingratiate herself with Nora, and wouldn’t risk them.

Plainly, Hadley and Aeric hadn’t expected Jason to spill the beans. They should have realized that if he was a pushover for their manipulations, he was also an open book to his sisters.

“Aeric had prepared a reason for me to return, today. He gave me three bangles.”

Nora’s amusement evaporated.

Liam beat her to the question. “Did you bring them?”

“I did.” Elise fished them out of her pocket. “Three mourning bangles, each with mom’s name and ours.”

“So Aeric could be sure Jason gave Nora the right one,” Phoebe spelled out the obvious.

Liam took Nora’s bangle. “I’ll have it checked for trackers.” He paused. “Nora was kidnapped, today.”

Jason fainted.

In the fuss and furor that followed, and as a Royal Guard medic confirmed that Jason was fine if somewhat dehydrated, Liam handed over the bangle and explained the situation to Zac, Ben and Molly.

The latter called in Commander Lavigne, revealing that the Commander had been close by in the Royal Guards’ quarters in the barracks.

Jason sat at the table, drinking heavily sweetened hot coffee, shoulders hunched in embarrassment and awkward apprehension.

Elise sat beside him, while Phoebe perched on the arm of the wingchair Nora had retreated to. The sisters had been as concerned to learn of Nora’s kidnapping as by Jason’s faint.

The Royal Guard medic cleared him for questioning. “You should get a health check, tomorrow, but fainting is normal enough. Some people’s fight-or-flight instinct can be hijacked by a third option. Freeze. Like an opossum or a fainting goat. It’s something you should talk to your doctor about managing.”

“It’s just the hangover and stuff,” Jason mumbled.

“Doctor. Tomorrow,” Elise snapped.

Liam leaned on the table. “What did Aeric Kenes pay you?”

“Nothing. I…he…it wasn’t like that. Aeric said, I mean, he offered…he explained. It’s…you’re Navy and Nora’s nothing—”

Liam pushed up hard from the table, spinning away before he hit something. Or someone.

Jason also jumped up. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It better not be,” Zac said in a low, threatening voice.

Jason grabbed at the table. “It’s not. Liam. Nora.” He turned to her. “I don’t mean you’re nothing. Just…Aeric is a Kenes. He has connections that Liam doesn’t have because his whole life was the Navy. And you don’t have business and social connections, either. That’s all that I meant.”

His voice rose. “It’s hard if you’re nothing. You don’t understand, Elise.” He shrugged off her half-chiding, half-supportive shoulder pats. “Even if you didn’t want to be like Mom, people invited you to things because you’re her daughter and you’re both into music. But I didn’t have that. I’m always outside. Not rich, no family connections—unless I join the Navy, and I won’t!”

Liam had himself under control, although his fists remained clenched. “Jason, what did Kenes promise you?”

“The Guild. He said that Nora needed connections, and that if I got him in to talk to her in the next two days, he’d extend her an offer of Guild membership, and me, too. So, that she could have family support and guidance.”

“From you?” Phoebe’s scoffing laughter couldn’t hide her distress.

Jason had hurt his family.

He flinched from her. “I’m sorry.”

The Guild was an elite club for commoners. Founded fifty years after the Stranding, it was the pinnacle of non-royal society. It was where deals were made and where the tycoons hung out.

“You don’t belong in the Guild,” Elise said. “You couldn’t even afford a coffee there!”

“Aeric said he’d sponsor me as a junior member.”

“Why?” Nora asked. “Not why did he want to meet me. But why would the Guild tempt you?”

Jason turned to her eagerly. “Because it’s everything. I wouldn’t be a stupid engineer anymore. I’d have options.”

“You’re not an engineer, now,” Phoebe said. “And why was Mom paying for your degree if you don’t want to use it?”

Lavigne cleared his throat, loudly.

Phoebe blushed. “Sorry.”

“What else did Aeric Kenes say?” Lavigne asked.

“Just that he needed to see Nora immediately, before she made any irretrievable mistakes.”

Liam let Lavigne handle the questioning. As family, Liam was too emotionally invested in the interrogation.

“Like what?”

Jason slumped against the table, half sitting on it. There was no reason to do so when there were chairs available. He looked like every caricature of a scruffy, tired university student. “I don’t know. I guess he meant she wouldn’t know who she might offend or the best people to hang with.” He managed to meet Lavigne’s eyes. “I assumed he wanted to do a deal with her. Hadley’s dad likes working for the Kenes corporation.”

Lavigne tried a few more questions, but couldn’t shake loose any further information. He nodded to Molly, who called in two Royal Guards to escort Liam’s family out and drive them home.

Phoebe and Elise gave hugs and apologies, and received assurances that the matter would be handled.

“Don’t worry,” Liam said.

Jason kicked his heels in the doorway, uncomfortable and eager to leave.

The whole room seemed to take a breath when they departed.

“We need to talk about the tycoons. The Kenes family are bigger fish than the Zangmos.” Lavigne frowned at Nora. “Tomorrow.”

Nora had withstood today’s trauma bravely, but she’d hit her limit. Standing in the curve of his arm, Liam was taking more and more of her weight. If she’d stood alone, she’d have been swaying.

“I doubt any of us were ever as naïve as your brother,” Lavigne said to Liam. “But he’s not in any legal trouble, and given that he’s staying in Bangalore, overnight, we’ll keep an eye on him, and him out of contact with his girlfriend. Don’t worry. Sleep.”

“I’ll watch over your family and look into the Keneses,” Jonah said when Liam and Nora reached their suite. “Another threat I missed.”

“You’re not to blame,” Liam said.

“Jason isn’t either.” Nora yawned. “He’s gullible, not malicious.” She hugged Jonah and repeated Lavigne’s advice. “Don’t worry.”

But Jonah wouldn’t have the anodyne of sleep, Liam realized, and offered some advice for the alien AI to fill the hours. Advice and sympathetic understanding. “Plan for tomorrow.”

“I will.” Jonah retreated to the wardrobe, giving them the illusion of privacy.

Nora immediately stripped and crawled into bed. She was asleep before Liam undressed and joined her.

He hadn’t lied. He didn’t blame Jonah.

Jonah couldn’t observe everything at once. Certainly, he couldn’t analyze it all simultaneously. He had to prioritize what received his attention, and Jason wasn’t an obvious candidate for trouble.

Liam was less forgiving of his brother.

Jason had sold access to Nora for his own social position. It was something Marmee or Uncle Albert might have tried. Liam could have accepted it from them. He’d have blocked it, but he wouldn’t have been shocked. Jason doing the same cut like a betrayal, but was actually bitter disappointment.

Liam joined Nora in bed, and held her till he fell asleep.

Chapter 11

Morning began with briefings, even before Nora and Liam left their bedroom. They were both dressed, but she was still brushing and braiding her hair when Liam invited Jonah in to talk. She felt slow, as if she had an emotional hangover.

“How are you?” Jonah asked.

“Coping.”

As an android, he couldn’t get physically tired, but his posture was less upright than normal. For him, it had been a long night.

“The stars bless you,” she said fervently to Liam as he carried in two mugs of coffee from the sitting room. There was a discreet kitchenette tucked into a cupboard. “Jonah, I wish you could enjoy the miracle that is coffee.”

“I have good news, which is every bit as morale boosting.” Jonah straightened as he talked.

Perhaps his posture had been sympathetic mimicry rather than an expression of how he felt. She hoped so.

“I would love good news.” Nora tied off the end of her braid and picked up the mug Liam had set beside her.

He watched Jonah intently over his own mug.

“We may have an unexpected ally,” Jonah said. “Commander Lavigne was the hidden wielder at your testing, yesterday.”

“So, if I’d attempted to use the burr, Lavigne would have tried to block me. Could he have taken control of it from me?” She had taken the burr from Francis’s control without even noticing his grasp of it.

“Debatable,” Jonah said. “But Lavigne is strong. Stronger than Admiral Quispe who attended your testing out of curiosity. As a Royal Guard commander, Lavigne trained Francis. He is also—and this was so deeply buried that I didn’t learn it until I looked into him last night—Francis’s uncle.”

Liam set his mug down sharply. “Illegitimate?”

“Yes.”

“Like me,” Nora said.

“In some ways. Lavigne has always known who he is—Magnus’s brother—but he’s never been acknowledged. I can find no evidence of the royal family treating him as one of them, in public. He grew up in an ordinary middle class family. Never married.”

“But did he have children?” Liam asked.

“Officially or unofficially,” Nora added, bitingly. Queen Caroline’s attempt to control Nora’s reproductive future was top of her mind.

“If he has, I can find no record of them.”

Which didn’t mean that hidden or otherwise legitimized children of a strong wielder didn’t exist.

“Why do you think Lavigne is an ally?” Liam asked.

“Because last night he had Queen Caroline banished to the Southern Palace for ‘a year of reflection’. She will receive psychiatric treatment while the public believes her withdrawn to grieve for Hermione.”

Nora whistled under her breath. “That’s some power.”

Liam couldn’t believe it. “Francis agreed? Magnus agreed?”

“Kirsty backed up Lavigne’s demand. She seemed worried for her own babe, who is due this week.”

“Oh wow.” Nora pushed aside her coffee mug. Being scared of what her own mother might do to her baby was a nightmare.

“Evelyn,” Francis’s wife, “supported Kirsty. Lavigne is also cleaning house in the Royal Guards. He’s here, after three hours sleep. He wants to talk to you both.”

Liam nodded. “What else should we know?”

“Nothing that can’t wait, or won’t be better, more naturally, learned from someone else.”

As they descended the stairs, the staircase allowed glimpses of the courtyard. In the early dawn light, workers were already busy carrying in plants, largest first. These were the mature palm and citrus trees. The former were to be the centerpiece of the wilder tropical garden near the private end of the house, while the citruses with their glossy leaves and vibrantly hued fruit would define the more formal front of the garden.

Zac rose from an upturned, empty plant pot he’d been sitting on near the foot of the stairs. “Morning.” He was unshaven, clothes rumpled, but eyes fierce.

“News?” Liam asked.

Simultaneously, Nora murmured, “Good morning.”

“Lavigne is here to see you. Seems I’ve earned his trust, or he wants me under his eye. I’m invited, as well.”

“Over breakfast,” Liam said.

Zac tapped a message into his comms unit as he ambled along behind them toward the dining room.

The housekeeper met them there. She was a bit more jittery than normal. Nora’s kidnapping and retrieval had unsettled everyone in the new household.

“Coffee, tea, and toast,” Nora requested.

“Or you could have the quiches and cinnamon rolls Martin has ready.” The housekeeper was jittery. She wasn’t a pushover

Nora smiled. “Or we could have those.” She understood that cooking was both an expression of caring and a stress relief.

“The staff are good,” Zac observed after the housekeeper’s departure. “As mad as I am at your kidnapping, it did gel us as a group. Everyone on the estate is now invested in your welfare.”

Lavigne and Molly entered. Their black uniforms were immaculate, their faces exhausted.

The housekeeper and a maid’s entrance with breakfast interrupted the exchange of greetings and inquiries as to Nora’s health. Nora was glad to put the empty courtesies behind her. “So?” she prompted.

Lavigne stirred sugar into his coffee. “If you’ll accept some advice…slow down. You’re trying to do everything at once, and although I realize that you’re under both real and perceived pressure,” that is, not genuine in his opinion, “speed can lead to incoherence. You’re attempting to establish yourself here on Capitoline quickly. Don’t do so at the expense of your long-term interests.”

He paused without drinking his coffee or selecting any food. Where he’d been dividing his attention between Nora and Liam, now he focused solely on her. “You are safe.”

He broke eye contact to select a small ham and cheese quiche.

No one spoke.

“Your testing has been suspended for a week.” Lavigne bit into the quiche. He chewed, swallowed, and changed the subject. “Yuri Bennett is a good officer.”

Yuri Bennett was a Royal Guard captain on Border Station, assigned to protect the burr that Willow was registered to wield. He was in his early fifties. Lavigne was a decade older, and looked two decades older at the moment. Older, but no less forceful. It was just that Lavigne’s style was less aggressive.

“Yuri derives emotional security and assurance from supporting authority. Substitute ‘King’ for ‘God’ in Robert Browning’s ancient poem and you have Yuri’s personal creed.”

Nora had no idea who or what Lavigne referenced.

Zac did. “The king’s in his palace, and all’s right with the world?” His thin mouth twisted. “Hardly.”

Molly had devoured one cinnamon roll, washing it down with gulps of coffee. She reached for a second. “Some of us know that isn’t true, but wish it was. That’s Yuri, not Commander Lavigne. Not me. We remember the origins of the Royal Guards.”

Lavigne ate his quiche, seemingly content to let his subordinate explain.

“Our title is misleading. The Royal Guards weren’t formed to protect the royal families who’d rule the habitable planets of the Human Sector. Our purpose is to protect the burrs. People forget their significance outside of their obliterating power. They are the first functional alien technology humanity encountered. That’s why our scientists are so fascinated by you, Nora. You’re an exceptionally strong sensitive and you have unique ideas for using the burrs.”

Finishing the quiche, Lavigne wiped his hands. “You also represent an opportunity for us to penetrate the tycoons’ circle. On Border Station, you foiled the Zangmo family’s plot to acquire a burr. Yesterday, your young brother-in-law revealed the Kenes family’s interest in you. Rumors are circulating of people willing to pay any price for a burr.”

“We don’t have any,” Nora said.

“I know.” Lavigne smiled. “If you had a burr, you’d have practiced with it. Your method of engaging with the burr yesterday was too raw to be feigned.”

“I fumbled it,” Nora said.

Lavigne was reassuring. “The important point was that you could sense what was there to be fumbled.”

Zac laughed and scattered cinnamon roll crumbs.

The phrasing did sound slightly rude, to a dirty mind; or to one punch-drunk from tiredness.

Liam refilled coffee mugs.

Lavigne took a second quiche. “I’ve recalled Willow, and she’ll bring Lucas home. The courier left last night. Lucas is who we want, both to test and register him as a sensitive, but also for his insight into the Zangmos.”

“They did their best to exclude him,” Nora said.

Mouth full, Lavigne acknowledged her point with a wave of his quiche. He swallowed. “But from Yuri’s report, he’s a bright kid and picked up more from his father’s visits than anyone supposed.”

“You recalled Willow to get Lucas,” Liam said.

“Yes.”

Liam looked at Nora. “We need to send someone out to oversee blaze production.”

Technically, the blaze ore mining, processing and conversion into fuel cells was the Blue Dock Scrapyard’s responsibility. Not Nora and Liam’s Blazing Kangaroo Corporation. But as industry partners, and given the authority Willow had signed for Liam to act in her place whilst on Capitoline, they had a duty to send out personnel who could cover for Willow’s absence.

Nora tore apart rather than ate her cinnamon roll. It was good that Lucas could return to Capitoline and pick up his schooling and the opportunities of college and further education, and just be here where she could ensure he was safe and happy. But at its fastest, his and Willow’s return was still eight months away. Longer if Willow waited for her replacement. “Theo was talking about a head hunters firm. They should be able to find someone keen on managing the realm’s newest blaze mining and fuel cell production operation.”

She glanced at Lavigne. “Did you send out a wielder to replace Willow?”

“Prince Harold. He leaves next week.”

“Pardon?”

Everyone bar Molly gawked at Lavigne.

Molly stared awkwardly at her plate.

“Harold knew about his mother’s plan,” Liam guessed, voice hard and expression violent.

“I have no proof that would stand up in a court of law,” Lavigne said circumspectly. “But yes. Reining in the royals is part of the Royal Guards’ duties. At the highest level. Harold will serve on Border Station until a marriage is arranged and he is recalled.”

“Never let it be said I defended a royal,” Zac said. “But high-handed actions, like deciding someone’s marriage, breeds resentment and worse trouble down the line.”

Molly peeked at Lavigne before matching Zac’s cynicism. “Prince Harold’s current partner goes with him. If their relationship lasts the journey to Border Station, I’d be surprised.”

“He said he’d settle for a political marriage that protected his private life,” Nora recalled.

“Harold isn’t a politician,” Lavigne said. “You are. In the sense that you’re prepared to be a political player. You’ll need those skills to achieve your long-term goal of the Origin expedition. But in the short term, look to your own survival.”

Lavigne noted Liam’s suddenly clenched right fist. “Nora’s physical security is our responsibility, in cooperation with your security people. But Caroline’s collapse demonstrates how much, in palace life, you have to sustain your emotional being. Courtiers attack constantly. Politics defaults to destruction rather than constructive cooperation. Focus on building a solid base for your activities on Capitoline. Francis took for granted the people who emotionally support him, and he’s paying for that now.”

Theo, Nora thought. But maybe, also his wife, Evelyn, who’d been staying out of events, until now. Her support for Kirsty against Queen Caroline was puzzling.

“What about Jason and Aeric Kenes?” Nora asked.

“Call Aeric directly. Find out what he wants, and destroy the tracking device in the bangle.” Lavigne took no prisoners in his political plays.

Liam nodded, not in approval, but in acknowledgement of the advice.

Nora was satisfied that it took the heat off Jason.

Taking their silence as assent, Lavigne pushed back from the table. “We’ll talk more about the tycoons and possible paths forward on Friday. Excuse us. Molly?”

Molly nodded a general good-bye, and followed Lavigne from the room.

The man had achieved what he wanted: restoring their trust in the Royal Guards and pre-empting an attempt at revenge against Caroline.

Zac contemplated the empty doorway. “Impressive. If he, rather than his brother, was king, Capitoline would have won the war without a shot being fired.” He picked up a cinnamon roll and pointed it at Liam. “That’s who you’d have become, if not for Nora. Quiet competence, scary efficiency, no personal life.” Zac tore a big bite from his roll.

“How do you know he has no personal life?” Nora asked.

“Background check,” Zac mumbled. “I asked a friend.” He shot a knowing look at Liam. Evidently, the friend was the Palantine intelligence agent who’d confirmed that the original sous chef had been Queen Sarah’s man.

Nora contemplated the resemblance Zac mentioned. It reflected well on Lavigne. She knew her husband. “Integrity in service to an ideal.”

Liam shifted uncomfortably.

“Speaking of integrity.” Zac licked frosting off his thumb. “Ben ran a background check on Jim Lowell. He comes back clean. You want him as your PA, we’ll get him.”

“Send me his number and I’ll call him,” Nora said, confident that Jonah was observing, and would run his own unique background check on Jim before she had a chance to offer the former Marine the position as her PA. “Apparently, I have a week’s vacation in which to sort things out.”

“Vacation?!” Kennedy burst into the dining room like a firecracker. “Do you have empty hours I can steal?”

Nora eyed her warily. “Maybe.”

The PR guru dropped into a chair. She’d tied her violet hair in a high ponytail, the informality of which contrasted with her severe gray suit and crisp, white blouse. “Makeover, babe.”

“Makeover?” Aria scampered in.

“How long were you listening out there?” Nora asked.

Aria grabbed a cinnamon roll and stuffed it in her mouth. “Didn’t you hear me running down the stairs?”

“Ken stunned her deaf.” Zac lounged back in his chair.

A precisely thrown roll bopped him on the head. He caught it as it bounced down toward the table.

“I warned you. Kenn-e-dy.” She wasn’t kidding about using her full name. Ms. Stas didn’t tolerate nicknames.

Zac saluted—with the cinnamon roll.

“Nora needs a makeover. New clothes. New hairstyle. Something other than that everlasting braid or boring bun. You should show off your gorgeous hair. Shoes. Makeup that works for photos as well as real life.”

“There are different kinds?” Aria was wide-eyed.

Nora shrugged. She hadn’t thought so. But she accepted that she needed to expand her wardrobe. The black silk suit Kennedy had magically produced for Susan’s funeral had shown the difference between Nora’s Border Station purchases and what was available on Capitoline.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. So, Makeover Monday?” Employing a knife and fork, all demure gentility after throwing a roll at Zac’s head, Kennedy ate a quiche in quick bites.

Zac raised an eyebrow at Nora. When she nodded, he said to Kennedy. “I’ll need a list of shops you’ll…be…visiting? No?” Kennedy’s pitying smile silenced him.

Really, the two of them were like brother and sister.

“Nora’s rich and mysterious, and access to her is carefully guarded,” Kennedy educated him.

“Mysterious?” Aria was doubtful.

Liam grinned. “What are your plans for today, mystery woman?”

Nora smiled back, reveling in the freedom Lavigne had given her. “I’m not sure. Did you need anything, Kennedy?”

“Zac and Molly, and we’ll consult you as needed. Your kidnapping scared the heck out of me. I hadn’t truly understood…never mind. Point is, we can craft your image to include security precautions. Distance. Schedule changes. Whatever will make you safer. You’re wealthy enough to include some idiosyncrasies in your brand. We can choose ones that protect you.”

Liam and Zac regarded Kennedy with expressions of matching approval.

Nora just felt grateful.

Kennedy read that on her face and abandoned her genteel manners to point a knife at her. “Don’t get soppy.”

“Do I get a makeover?” Aria asked.

“Nope.” Kennedy cheerfully rejected the idea. “You’re a kid, and kids are off-limits to the media. You want new clothes, take it up with Nora and Liam.”

Aria slid a sly look in Nora’s direction. “I was thinking…make-up?”

“Are you thirteen?”

“No.”

Nora dipped her chin in a there’s-your-answer manner.

Liam had a suggestion. “Since we have some free hours, today, can you show us the path through the mangroves, Aria?”

Make-up and growing up too fast were instantly forgotten in favor of a description of the mud and crabs and the smells they would encounter.

Nora laughed as she retrieved her flip-flop from the mud. Although she wasn’t going to pat a crab or pick one up as Aria was doing, she didn’t mind the scuttling creatures or the swampy smell. It was a little piece of unconventional heaven to walk hand-in-hand along the cleared path with Liam, while Veronica watched Aria, and security stationed ahead and strolling behind them ensured their safety.

The security arrangements were overkill, but with yesterday’s kidnapping looming large, Nora couldn’t object.

The mangroves ended, and she stared out at the open sea. Her mind emptied of all thought and she simply existed in the moment.

Liam watched as Nora shaded her eyes to track a heron clumsily taking flight and acquiring grace in the air. As her smile grew, he admired her resilience. Both of them remained shaken by her kidnapping, but she wouldn’t let it define their future, or even, ruin the present moment.

“I have to talk to Jason.”

Heron forgotten, she studied his face. “About?”

“About me accepting he made a mistake and not letting a rift grow.”

Because this was the sort of situation that could fester.

Nora put an arm around his waist. “Jason was upset, missing his mom, and his girlfriend and Kenes took advantage of him. I’m okay. It was bad timing that his confession happened straight after you rescued me. Jason needs his big brother.” The effort it took her to smile showed before the smile became genuine. “Phoebe and Elise need both their brothers.”

He kissed her. Just for being her. “I want to see Francis, as well, so I’ll be away for a few hours.”

“Check in,” she requested. She didn’t question his intentions regarding his prince and friend.

Perhaps that was why he explained, or perhaps he needed to clarify the impulse for himself. “If I’m putting in the work to keep a relationship with Jason, I want to do the same for Francis.”

“Good.” She rubbed his chest.

“Good?”

“Losing old friends hurts.”

They stood together till Aria was ready to return to the house.

As Liam walked through the Laotian Palace he realized, and was glad to realize, that while Mangrove Mansion was beginning to clear of tradespeople, it would never possess the self-effacing staff who kept the Palace running.

Although recruited from the palace and the Palantine embassy, Mangrove Mansion’s staff took their cue from Zac and Ben, and from Nora and Liam, and were adapting to being noticed and encouraged to have lives and opinions.

Liam fully supported Nora’s intention to establish their homebase as a clan house. The difference was that their clan was the people who returned their loyalty, and not simply those who shared their blood.

Jason had gotten a shock, but would understand the value of loyalty in future. Hopefully.

A footman escorted Liam, plus Trent and a Royal Guard lieutenant, to Francis’s study. The bodyguards remained outside, and at risk of being trampled.

Francis’s boys were hunting bad guys in space, playing bounty hunters as they ran up and down the corridor.

Liam understood that it was a sign of trust that Francis and Evelyn had allowed him inside their family quarters and not corralled the boys away from him.

But Liam was more concerned with his own rage. He had pushed it down and it had solidified into an icy fury at the Capitoline royal family whom he’d served loyally in the Navy. His father and sister had died in their war with Palantine. People he’d served with had died. But he hadn’t lied to Nora. If there was a way to salvage his friendship with Francis, he wanted to.

Francis was standing when Liam entered the study. Neither man sat. Francis ran a hand along the back of his leather executive chair. “Liam, if Harry had known anything…” He trailed off because he wasn’t even convincing himself.

“Harold,” Liam spoke the name as precisely as a curse, “took himself away to the mountains on a skiing holiday for a week. Long enough to ensure he couldn’t be suspected. It was a spontaneous trip. Engagements cancelled for it. He claimed it was to avoid seeing Dominic. In fact, he intended to wait and see how your mother’s plot went.”

Francis’s hand closed hard on the top of the chair, denting the leather. “Mom is sick. I’m not excusing her. I’m not. She worked herself into a state about Hermi’s death and our future, and she had people willing to indulge and share that hysterical concern for the future of the royal family. This has made me scared for my own sons, if someone decides they’re not strong enough royals.”

Which in terms of sensitivity to burrs, they weren’t.

“Harry earned his exile,” Liam said. “The RC Genghis Khan was punished with border space patrols for less reason.”

Francis flung away from the chair, turning his back to Liam. “I know and I’m sorry.”

There was a beat of silence, and another. Francis’s shoulders heaved.

Liam sighed. The hostility drained from his voice. “Francis.”

“Wait. Please.” The Prince cleared his throat and blew his nose. When he turned around, he wasn’t crying. “I failed Mom and Harry. I’ve failed a lot of people. Evelyn. Theo. You.”

Always thoughtful, now, Francis was rawly honest. “It’s not about being a prince. It’s being a man. You think you can do everything yourself or that you have to do everything yourself, and you shut yourself off and don’t listen—you only hear your own fears—and you don’t hear what the people you love need from you.”

“You’re in therapy,” Liam guessed.

“Individual and couples therapy. Evelyn insisted.” He shook his head, dismissing his own issues. “Harold claimed that he didn’t take Mom seriously. That she rambled about Nora being strong, but that it could be managed. That Nora would never be loyal like Lavigne, so she couldn’t be trusted like him. But that she’d be useful.”

Francis met Liam’s eyes. “Harold should have warned someone of Mom’s state. He says that when she mentioned turkey basters, he knew she was simply talking wildly, venting, and that’s why he ignored her. But he added it onto his reason for organizing the ski trip. He didn’t want to have to deal with her breakdown. I never thought he was so selfish.” The heartbroken older brother broke through Francis’s calm account.

Jason’s betrayal had been minor in comparison; thoughtless rather than malicious or dangerously selfish.

“Francis, I came here angry. I came to tell you that you don’t get to excuse your family, their faults and ambition. That’s what Dominic did, and Hermione is dead.”

“He said that to me, last night. I went to your house to find Lavigne, and Dominic found me. We talked.” Francis sat abruptly. “I’ve been angry with him. I blamed him for Hermione’s death. I didn’t want to admit what you must have seen to allow him to stay with you. He’s changed.”

“He grew up,” Liam said. And having seen it, how could he not allow Jason a second chance to do the same. He couldn’t deny Francis a second chance, either.

“A painful process. I thought I had, but it turns out—”

Liam interrupted. Francis didn’t need to bare any more of his soul to him. Nor did he owe Liam and Nora any mea culpas. Liam would hate to be judged by the actions of some of his family. “Do you still intend to support an expedition to the Origin black hole?”

Francis blinked. He agreed cautiously.

“Then that’s something we can work on together.” Liam extended his hand across the desk.

Francis grasped it and wrung it hard. “Yes. We need to find a way out.”

Nora had hoped that Liam would return from his talk with Francis less coldly furious and more settled in his mind.

He did seem calmer, but his calm had a grim edge.

She took action. “Give us an hour,” she said to her office staff and guards, and hauled Liam up to their room. “Jonah?”

He walked into the sitting room. “Problem?”

“I want to have a nice talk about nothing important.”

Liam’s frown lifted. She’d jolted him out of his dark thoughts. “Or maybe something important, but non-urgent,” he suggested. “Like the lens at the Origin black hole.”

“Okay.” Jonah ambled to the recliner. It creaked under his weight.

Liam sat on the sofa.

Before she joined him, Nora picked up a couple of magazines and placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Then when she sat down, she propped her boots on the table, having protected it with a magazine on luxury living. She winked at Liam and exaggerated her Angkorran accent. “I’m not a total yahoo.”

“Me, neither.” He swung his boots onto the magazine she’d provided him. “Jonah, what is the lens meant to do?”

“The lens is doing what it was designed to do. It locks access to the Origin black hole’s millrace. The Vapori use the universal rivers.”

Nora startled. “Use, not used? Uh, Jonah, I thought the Vapori were long gone?”

“They are. But when I say gone, I’m not employing the term as a euphemism for death or extinction.”

“Space quacking ducks,” Nora swore in shock and awe. “You mean there are real, live aliens? Not just dead ones?”

Liam recovered faster. “So, they could return?”

“It is highly improbable that they would do so in your lifetimes. Nor, potentially, in humanity’s lifetime. Vapori live for millions of years. My kin and I are designed to observe the evolution of sentient organic life. The Vapori who installed us less than a few hundreds of thousands of years ago wouldn’t expect it to have happened yet. They won’t be back to check their province for a million years.”

Throwing his head back, Liam laughed.

Jonah looked at Nora as if she could explain his behavior.

She had no idea.

“I wanted a light, easy distraction.” Liam got his laughter under control. “Oh, man. Star hells and damn. Aliens.” He wiped a hand over his face.

“Alien scientists,” Jonah said. “The Vapori are fascinated by how the universe evolves to express itself. Since they’re energetic and organic life forms, that’s what they focus on. Not silicon-based life like the Silicaese, and not purely energetic life forms either.”

“Those exist?”

Jonah wriggled in his chair. “I’ve never observed any. My database does mention them. The protocols are that my kin and I don’t engage with them.”

“What are they? Are they bad?” She felt as curious and excited as Aria on encountering new planetary experiences. “Wait! Are they angels and demons?”

“They are nothing like your human mythology.”

“Oh.” That was disappointing, and also, on reflection, a little reassuring. Having demons roaming the universe wasn’t a comfortable thought. She started laughing.

Liam grinned at her sympathetically. “Too much.”

“Yeah,” she gasped. “Angels and demons just exploded my mind.”

“There aren’t any angels or demons,” Jonah repeated himself.

Nora waved for Liam to explain.

“It’s the thought that there could be.”

She nodded emphatic agreement and sat up straight as her hysterically overwhelmed laughter response faded.

Liam focused on Jonah. “You said the Vapori set up the lens to lock access to the Origin black hole.”

“Yes.”

“Is it an AI like you?”

Nora gasped. “I never considered that. Jonah?”

“No. The lens is a tool. It’s not self-aware. As for what it does…it was meant to warn off other Vapori.”

“Signpost or weapon?” Liam asked.

“Peaceful,” Jonah said hurriedly. “The Vapori allocate regions of space to those among them who are engaged in various scientific experiments. The trio who acquired the rights to this region placed the lens to mark it as under observation and not to interfere by entering. Or rather, if a Vapori had entered, to identify themselves and turn back immediately.

“Unfortunately, when humans entered and the Original fifteen interacted with the lens, it affected their RNA and energetic bodies, and they affected it. They then cemented the changes to the lens by removing fifteen of the burrs. Lacking sufficient remaining power sources to self-correct, the lens remained locked in its default response to unidentified traffic, and continues to block traffic in and out of the black hole.”

Nora contemplated the simple, accidental chain of events that had stranded her ancestors in the region. A twist of luck the other way, and she and others would never have known of the Vapori, Silicaese or Iguanese’s existence. People like her, those possessing a unique twist to their energetic body, would not exist.

And once again, as at the start of their discussion, Liam looked grim.

Given his profound sense of responsibility, learning that the Vapori lived meant he’d be even more committed to ensuring that humanity could escape this region of space, whether through the Origin black hole or the riskier Beta black hole.

“They chose this region because of the Iguanese fossils,” Jonah said. “The Vapori have observed that sapience tends to evolve where it has evolved before.”

“Fascinating.” It was. Nora could understand Liam viewing the Vapori as a potential threat, but for herself, it was all so intriguing. She tapped her toes against the floor, bouncing them in rhythm to her thoughts. “Like the Iguanese occupying these planets, and now, humans finding them habitable, too. Although we are interlopers.” She smiled. “It’s weird. What if the dinosaurs on humanity’s origin planet, Earth, were sapient like the Iguanese?”

“You’d have to look for signs of communication. Sapience evolves from there. People grow from the stories they tell. It starts simple. ‘Food, that way’, and grows more complex until we end up in a situation like yours.”

“Mine?”

Liam interlaced their fingers, giving the change of subject his complete attention.

Jonah observed the gesture of loving solidarity. He smiled. “Everyone has a story they want to fit you into. You have to tell your own story strongly. Is that what Magnus calls cajolery?”

“Creating a narrative which gives him and his family space to live?” Liam asked.

Nora scrunched her toes. She hadn’t considered that Magnus might live the lesson that Kennedy was trying to impart to them: that they had to construct a public façade behind which they could live how they wished.

“People make use of profound ideas. Personal exploitation doesn’t cheapen an idea,” Jonah said. “What Magnus calls cajolery…what if it’s not mere flattery? What if cajolery is every good thing, every sense of wonder and challenge that invites us to go outside of ourselves? Life itself is an invitation. It’s not a bad thing to encourage people to accept that invitation.”

Jonah had literally gone out of himself—remade himself—to become an android and capable of affecting his environment and the people in it.

Liam regarded him for a long, thoughtful moment. “Fixing the lens and opening the Origin black hole’s millrace is a literal opening up. Not everyone’s brave enough to accept the dangers inherent in opening themselves to possibilities.”

“Unless someone convinces them,” Jonah said. “Unless a good leader shows the way.”

Chapter 12

Fishing wasn’t how Nora would have chosen to show her love, but it was working for Liam and Aria. From the window of the master suite’s sitting room, she could see them sitting on the dock. Liam held both their fishing rods while Aria gestured wildly. Actually catching a fish seemed highly unlikely, but they looked happy.

Fishing had been Aria’s idea.

On the night following Nora’s kidnapping and rescue, when she’d been tucking Aria into bed, the girl had tried to make sense of events. “When Liam came into the living room to tell me to go and ask Uncle Dominic for stories about Princess Hermione and her ponies, I thought he was upset about his mom. You know how when you’re sad, you see that same sadness in other people and want to help?”

Nora hadn’t told her that not everyone felt that way.

“I thought Liam wanted me to be someone Uncle Dominic could talk to about Princess Hermione. I noticed none of her family visit him, and you need to talk about the people who’ve gone, or they fade.”

Aria didn’t talk often about her parents, but enough that Nora hadn’t worried Aria was bottling up her emotions. But before her adoption, the orphanage on Border Station probably hadn’t provided Aria many opportunities to share her memories of her parents.

“Now I know Liam wasn’t upset about his mom or even about Phoebe, he was worried for you.”

“And for you.” Nora had tried to speak gently. She didn’t want Aria afraid, but at the same time, she couldn’t risk the girl being unaware of the necessity of their security precautions. “He had to make sure you were safe, and Dominic and his guards were his best bet. Zac and the others had the Capitoline Royal Guards around them, and Liam didn’t know if they could be trusted.”

“I’m not important.”

Nora had kissed her forehead. “You are to us. Now, how about I read you something…?” She’d looked around for a book. Three were stacked on the bedside table. Two on dog care and one a mystery story with ponies.

“Nah. But can you sit here till I fall asleep?”

“Absolutely.”

Given Aria’s concern for Liam’s grief, Nora wasn’t as astonished as he’d been by Aria’s suggestion that they spend Sunday morning fishing. The girl wanted to distract him, and men liked fishing, didn’t they?

Not Liam. He’d agreed and gone fishing for Aria’s sake, but he’d muttered to Nora as he’d swapped his shirt and pants for a t-shirt and shorts that he hated how slimy fish were and how they wriggled. “Hopefully, we won’t catch anything off the dock. But the one-on-one time is what Aria needs.”

It was what they both needed; Liam, in particular. A respite.

Watching in his own way, out of sight of the sitting room windows, Jonah agreed. “I wish I could join them.”

Nora turned from the view. “We’ll find a way.”

He missed Aria.

If only the Royal Guards wouldn’t insist on inspecting any android she brought into the house, he’d have been with them from the start.

He smiled, and returned to the wardrobe.

Watching him leave, she rubbed at her wrists. Despite having been drugged rather than physically restrained during her kidnapping, her wrists had itched ever since. It was psychosomatic.

She hated that Jonah was in his own form of imprisonment, unable to move around freely or chat with people. He had his kin, always, and that’s why she was confident he was okay. But his sociable nature had to be struggling with the knowledge that friends were close by, yet he was shut away.

The oak desk in the master suite’s sitting room gleamed in the morning sunlight. Nora tilted the blinds closed a little, before sitting and positioning her comms unit. Since Sunday morning was when Jim Lowell was off-shift from his factory job she needed to call him, now, to interview him.

He answered instantly. The scowl tugging his blond eyebrows together suggested suspicion of his good fortune. “Cherry Pendit told my sister you were looking for a secretary who could double as a bodyguard.”

“Almost. I have security. I need someone who can work with them, someone who won’t freeze if we’re in danger. There’ll be secretary stuff like managing my schedule and answering calls and messages. At the moment, that’s mostly to say, ‘no, go away’ as everyone and their dog wants something from me. But I’m hoping you can take on more than that. A personal assistant should be able to organize my life, solving problems before they happen.”

“Like a flitting fairy godfather?”

She laughed. That attitude she could work with. The people she encountered, especially courtiers, would be less impressed. Knocking their expectations off balance would give her an edge, at least until they adapted. “My husband’s PA, Theo Ishida, is a former Navy commander and the second son of a duke. You’d both be our seconds, so you need to complement each other.”

Jim didn’t scoff that it was impossible. “Why me?”

“It was Cherry’s idea. I remember Shakers. I heard how she sorts out bureaucracy for citz. I need those smarts and an outsider’s perspective to balance the insider’s perspective Theo brings.”

On-screen, Jim scowled to the side of the camera, considering her explanation, and undaunted by the expectations she’d laid out. “So, you’re looking to recruit for your team.”

It was a Marine’s insight.

“Yes.”

“A month’s trial. We’ll see if I’m suited.”

She grinned. “No discussion of your salary package?”

The guarded expression in his eyes cleared to show a grim survivor. “I need a team.”

Sympathy flashed through Nora, but she hoped she kept it off her face.

Jim needed a place to belong, people to belong to, and the Angkorran towers no longer provided that for him.

“When can you get here?”

He nodded as if they’d had a whole other conversation in her small silence. “I’ll leave in an hour.”

“I’ll book you a plane ticket.”

A rough chuckle, hoarse and somehow reminiscent of the towers, prefaced his refusal. “You’ll do the secretarial work for your assistant? I’ve got it. I’ll organize reimbursement when I’m there.”

Nora ended the call completely satisfied. There’d be times when Jim butted heads with her and with others in the household, but his confidence and competence were exactly what the PA position required.

She laughed. She had to thank Cherry for suggesting Jim, and inform Ben of Jim’s arrival that day.

Ben and Zac would have to brief him and determine how they’d embed him in her intensified security arrangements.

Nora opened her door, and Cherry toppled in.

“Stars!” Nora hurriedly caught her sister.

Cherry displayed no embarrassment at being caught, literally, eavesdropping at the door of the master suite. “I couldn’t hear. Did you hire Jim?”

The bodyguard on duty ostentatiously looked away. It wasn’t her job to wrangle her employer’s sister into polite behavior.

“He’ll be here tonight.”

“Awesome.” Cherry beamed. “I knew Jim would be perfect. I’m thinking that’s my skillset. I’m going to tell Zac I should be Realm Edge Security’s recruiter.”

Technically, Cherry was still employed by Zac’s company as a receptionist, but since all of them worked for Nora and lived onsite in the barracks, they no longer had an office. Cherry could have lived off the trust fund Nora had established for her.

“I can see you as a recruiter. You’re good with people and you have a sense about them.”

For once, Cherry’s smile was shy. “Thanks, Nora.” But she was back to her loud, exuberant self by the time they reached Zac and Ben in Ben’s office. In fact, she had extra skip in her step and ta dah’d them into the room, announcing. “Jim’s hired! He’ll be here, today.”

Following on her heels, Nora had a moment of bemusement to see Zac and Dominic chatting at a table in the far corner. Had Zac truly gotten over his resentment of the Palantine royals in a few days?

She focused on Ben, however, since Cherry had interrupted his discussion with the senior household staff. “Jim’s getting himself here. I assume he’ll show up at the gate, late today.”

“We have his contact details. Zac will call him.”

Zac was tracking the conversation, and nodded.

Redirected, Cherry left Ben to his household management conversation and joined Zac and Dominic; that is, her employer and the Palantine Crown Prince. Neither intimidated her. “I’m going to be a recruiter.”

“You’ll need a college degree,” Dominic said.

“School?” Her face twisted in disgust.

Zac laughed.

Cherry scowled at him before directing puppy dog eyes at Nora. She got no support there.

“A good college degree teaches you what you don’t know you don’t know.”

“Huh?”

Nora left Cherry to think it over, and studied Zac and Dominic.

Zac smirked at her suspicious expression. “Dominic’s giving me the inside scoop on the Royal Guards’ security protocols.”

“Not exactly.” Dominic was less confident in teasing his half-sister. “I’ve lived my life inside the RGs’ security measures, which means I have a different sort of sense for weaknesses in their coverage, as well as where their protocols add stress. Zac asked for my input.” He seemed a bit amazed at the request.

It explained why the Royal Guards were conspicuously absent from the office. Dominic mightn’t talk freely in front of them.

“Did you kick them out?” she asked Zac.

He grinned his piratical grin. “And they went. They’re treading on eggshells around us. It’ll wear off, but until then, even the Palantine Royal Guards are aware that their Capitoline counterparts’ actions may have undermined Dominic’s confidence in them.”

And people needed to trust the people protecting them.

That morning, Jonah had pointed out to Nora a significant threat she and Liam had overlooked. If her enemies could damage her trust in the people protecting them, she wouldn’t cooperate as well, and would put them all at increased risk.

She smiled at Dominic. “Your guys impressed Liam. They knew when to act and when to let others act. Thanks for helping Zac find a way forward for us.”

Cherry slapped the table.

Dominic jumped.

Nora and Zac merely looked at her.

“I will go to college.”

Belatedly, Nora identified the reason for the resolve and challenge in Cherry’s voice. “We’ll sort out the entry requirements. If Jonah was here, he’d happily tutor you.”

“I’d prefer the android to a snobby tutor.”

Nora smiled. “Me, too. But you’re a recruiter, you’ll find someone who can help you learn. Actually, maybe we should find someone who can guide us through the whole process.”

Cherry smiled at the “us”.

Education at the towers was sub-optimal. It also wasn’t smart to do well at school. Standing out drew the wrong kind of attention. Cherry would need to catch up and fill in gaps in her education, then she’d not only get into a good college, but she’d enjoy her college experience.

It wasn’t a discussion that needed to include Zac and Dominic, nor interrupt their morning for. “Zac, you’ll call Jim?”

“Yes.” He raised an eyebrow at Dominic. “How will the RGs treat a Marine from the slums acting as Nora’s PA?”

“I’ve thought about that since I heard you discussing recruiting him.” Dominic answered Zac, but studied Nora. “I asked my own guards. Most of them are from families some degree related to those sensitive to burrs.” That is, royals. “He’ll have support from Zac and Ben. Let him fight his own battle for respect. The RGs will protect him as an extension of you, Nora, but they won’t trust him.”

Zac scratched his chin. “Yeah. They didn’t trust us either. Now, the boot’s on the other foot. Jim will fit in with us. If he doesn’t fit, he’s out.”

“He suggested a month’s trial,” Nora said.

Zac’s gaze went beyond her to the doorway. “I’m guessing you’re wanted.”

She swiveled and saw Commander Lavigne.

When he caught her gaze, he nodded and entered the room.

She looked back at Zac. “I think you’re right.” She’d discovered that a week free of testing didn’t equal a week’s vacation. Other duties, other demands on her time and energy, remained. To be fair, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if they didn’t. She was used to being busy.

“Good morning,” Lavigne greeted the table generally.

Zac interrupted the chorus of responses with a provocative greeting. “Here’s the man of the hour. Are you going to tell us how you managed to defang Queen Caroline so fast?”

The senior household staff who were gathered around Ben’s desk turned to stare. On the surface, no one appeared to disapprove of Zac’s question.

Zac ignored all reactions other than Lavigne’s poker face, and that, he jabbed at. “Queen Sarah’s been terrorizing everyone, her own family included, for years. Yet, you locked your sister-in-law away as if defanging queens was easy.”

Now, people winced.

Ben shook his head.

Dominic, though, smirked at Zac, unoffended by the criticism of his mother. “Capitoline has the capability to act decisively against a key royal. In Palantine, it’s different. It’s Grandfather’s fault.” King Olav, he meant. “He hollowed out our systems of authority. Dad’s spent his whole reign trying to restore checks and balances. It seems like he gets one group in line, and another dashes off.”

Lavigne scrutinized Dominic. He seemed to be reassessing him—and Zac looked satisfied.

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. Having changed his mind about Dominic, and having decided he was a useful ally, Zac had just increased Dominic’s usefulness by providing him with an opportunity to impress Commander Lavigne.

“Is your mother strong with burrs?” Nora asked idly.

“She doesn’t practice,” Dominic said. “It’s a bad habit I fell into, as well. But I want to do better. I’ve asked for access to a burr while I’m here.”

Zac’s eyebrows shot up. So, that was news even to their resident Svengali.

“You’ll have it,” Lavigne said. “Queen Sarah possesses a moderate sensitivity to burrs, but is inept at wielding them due to, as Prince Dominic says, a lack of practice. It infuriates me when people are too lazy to exercise their talents.”

A guilty flush covered Dominic’s cheekbones. In the past, due to arrogance, he had been lazy.

Nora decided to remove the distraction that was Lavigne. This was Ben’s office, and they were interrupting his work. It was bad enough that he was forced to work on a weekend. “Let’s walk down to the dock. Liam and Aria are fishing.”

However, after exiting the house, they didn’t walk far. They stood in the shadow of an olive tree to talk, and despite Lavigne seeking her out, Nora was the one to start the conversation.

“You said Liam and I rushed things. We had to. Power doesn’t go begging. Someone always wants to own it. If you have power and you don’t control it, then someone else will. And then, they’ll control you. My power isn’t solely derived from my sensitivity to burrs. That’s what people like you want to control. Other people want my wealth. Before the blaze was even out of the ground, when all I had was samples and surveys, money began pouring in. I have to be in control. Not a pawn. You saw what Caroline wanted me to be, a nothing.”

Hands behind his back, Lavigne stared at the boathouse. “I’ve known Caroline most of her life. Known of her. From birth, she was considered a potential bride for Magnus. At age six, when she tested as a strong sensitive, his potential brides were whittled down to her or one other here on Capitoline, or marrying in a royal from another realm.”

He coughed. “I should have seen…” He faced Nora. “To use your term, Caroline is a pawn. Her life was never her own. A gilded cage is still a cage.”

Nora rejected his bid for sympathy on Caroline’s behalf. “Poverty is its own prison.” Like the towers slums Nora had grown up in. Caroline could have had a good, useful life. Although, admittedly, it wasn’t one Nora would have wanted herself.

She scrunched her toes, and felt the gritty sand that had slipped into her sandals during the short walk. Ew. She refused to sympathize with Caroline.

“A cage you broke out of,” Lavigne observed, responding to her comment about poverty as a prison. “The distressing aspect of cages, is that those imprisoned can come to consider the cage their safe space. Rattle the cage, or worse, open it, and they panic. Caroline fully supported Hermione’s marriage to Dominic. She believed Hermione would be secure in the same cage, that of consort, that she herself lived in. Hermione’s death, tragic in itself, terrified Caroline.”

After a minute of silence, he nodded at some thought of his own. “That she targeted you to secure her and her children’s future suggests that she muddled in a degree of resentment. As I said, she never controlled her own life. So, she resented your grasp of power.”

Despite the sand in her sandals and the rough path, Nora wished she was walking down to join Liam and Aria.

Lavigne cleared his throat, perhaps aware that he’d lost Nora’s attention, or perhaps signaling a new, difficult topic. “I need you to contact Aeric Kenes.”

She sighed, but didn’t remind him that he was the person who’d advised she take a week’s vacation. Circumstances had changed. “I will.” She wasn’t in a rush.

“Today,” Lavigne said. “We have a small window of opportunity in which you might be able to forge a link to the tycoons involved in trading in Forgotten and burrs.”

Likely, he mentioned the burrs to prod her into worrying about what might happen if non-royals strove recklessly to possess weapons capable of overthrowing the social structure of the Human Sector. Their ability to obliterate people, buildings and whole planets, or simply mind-wipe a person, underpinned the royal families’ reigns.

For Nora, the fate of the burrs was more personal. They were the remains of Jonah’s fallen kin. They deserved respect.

As for the Forgotten, Lavigne knew he had her sympathy there. Cherry or Nora, herself, could have been discovered, captured and sold to a tycoon who was resolved on breeding sensitivity to burrs into their family line. Like the Zangmos.

Like the Keneses.

Like Queen Caroline.

“I won’t put myself at risk,” Nora said.

Lavigne clasped his hands behind his back once more. “You won’t be. You’re not expendable to us.”

His answer was less comforting than he thought. Closely inspected, it meant that the Royal Guards considered other people expendable.

“I won’t risk my family and friends, either.”

“Once you’ve made contact,” Lavigne said. “I have an agent ready to act on your behalf. They’ve kept clear of the Royal Guards and anyone else who might mark them as loyal to the status quo.”

“You make them sound interesting.” She stared at the watchtower that guarded the ocean side of the estate. “Another outsider.” Were the bad guys locked out or was she locked in, and paying for her own prison?

She gave her shoulders a shake.

“My agent would serve as your PA.”

Nora grinned. “That is not going to happen.”

Lavigne frowned at her. “What Caroline did was wrong, but you, yourself, are not above suspicion. Your background has questionable holes in it, especially regarding Aria and how you ‘found’ your blaze deposit. You need allies, not enemies.”

He hadn’t done his research very well if he thought threats were an effective method of gaining her cooperation.

“I’ll consider your advice.” She walked away.

He raised his voice. “If the Forgotten are organized, we need to make contact with them.”

“They might be organized, but I’m not connected to them.” And if I was, I wouldn’t entrust their freedom and future to you.

Chapter 13

To Liam’s relief, neither he nor Aria caught a fish. They saw them darting in the water, but the fish didn’t as much as nibble at the small shrimp, sourced from the kitchen, that Liam attached to the hooks.

“I think I’d catch more if I scooped them up with a butterfly net,” Aria said.

“A net would work for whitebait. But whitebait is generally cooked whole, dusted with flour and deep fried. Could you eat that?”

They’d discussed that responsible fishing meant eating what they caught.

Aria stared at a shoal of tiny fish in the shallow water. “Heads and tails?”

“Yes. Or you can put the wriggly little fish on your hook to catch bigger fish.”

“Ew!”

He laughed. “I agree. It’s why I’m not a fisherman.”

“It was nice, though.”

“It was nice sitting and talking to you,” Liam said. “Maybe next time we won’t bother with the fishing rods. I sat here in fear we’d catch something.”

She giggled and gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek before dashing off to the house, leaving him to carry their fishing gear. “I’m going to tell Nora we’re not a fishing family.”

“Amen.”

But his amusement faded as she called a greeting to the man heading down to waylay Liam.

“Hiya, Sam! I have to wash my hands. I’m fishy-stinky.” From the leftover shrimp she’d tossed to the fish.

Liam didn’t hear Sam’s response. He headed, instead, for the boathouse to stow the fishing gear.

Sam adjusted course and met him there. “I’m sorry. I was ordered in for a debrief. I wish I’d been here.” For Nora’s kidnapping and rescue.

“And now that Lavigne needs to rebuild our trust in the Royal Guards, here you are.”

Sam didn’t duck the issue. “That sums it up.”

Sam was a former Marine captain who’d been under Royal Guard Captain Yuri Bennett’s command on Border Station. Yuri had made Sam responsible for ensuring Nora’s return to Capitoline.

Liam and Nora had trusted him because Casimir had vouched for him. That trust had built over months of interaction during the journey. And now that Liam knew about Jonah and the alien AI’s abilities, he assumed Nora’s trust had also been based on Jonah’s clearance of the captain.

All of that trust only served to intensify Liam’s anger.

He slammed the bucket under a bench and replaced the rods on the wall.

The Royal Guards had taken away a man he and Nora could trust and, unknowingly or not, replaced Sam with two rogue agents who’d gone on to kidnap Nora.

Sam stood to the side of the doorway. He wore the Royal Guards uniform whereas he’d worn non-military combat fatigues in his time in border space, guarding Willow as a registered burr wielder and protecting the burr assigned to her. Wearing the uniform, now, was a statement of where his duty and loyalty lay. His expression asked for Liam’s understanding.

“Are you replacing Molly?”

“I couldn’t,” Sam said. “Whatever your current, justified anger, in assigning Molly to Nora they gave her one of their best.”

Best for what purpose? Molly hadn’t protected Nora. She’d been fooled by her own colleagues.

For Molly, that betrayal had to cut, but Liam was all out of sympathy.

He sat on the bench.

Taking that as a signal, Sam entered the boathouse. “I have clearance to tell you why I was really out in border space.”

Liam went to rub his hands over his face, and smelled the raw shrimps.

Aria had the right idea, running off to wash her hands.

He mastered his anger. “My office. I have to wash my hands. Then we can talk privately. Nora—”

“Is talking to Commander Lavigne.”

“So much for a week’s vacation,” Liam muttered.

“Some issues are time sensitive.”

Liam led the way to his office. Despite it being Sunday, and Theo resolved to establish a work-life balance that would help him reconnect with his family, Liam’s new PA was in the office. If Theo couldn’t take the day off, Liam shouldn’t complain. He, after all, had been able to make time for his daughter.

Theo was dealing with the myriad of changes and actions necessary in the aftermath of Nora’s kidnapping.

“Lord Theo Ishida, Captain Sam Gurung, formerly a Marine, now of the Royal Guards. He’s going to brief us on his mission preparatory to I’m not sure what demands. After I’ve changed.”

Liam departed to clean up and replace his casual t-shirt and shorts with a white shirt and dark gray utility pants. Not so incidentally, in retreating to the master suite he could check in with Jonah. “Is there anything I should know about Sam?”

Jonah trod a tricky line. If he told Liam and Nora too much, then their reaction to events would be unnatural. A heads up for trouble was what Liam was after.

“I believe Casimir was right to recommend we trust Sam. But that doesn’t mean you have to agree to his proposal. Lavigne is selling the emotional aspect to Nora. I imagine you’ll get the patriotic call to duty.”

“Currently, I’m not feeling overly patriotic. If Lavigne hadn’t whisked Caroline away…” It wasn’t kind, and it certainly wasn’t the attitude of a loyal Capitoline citizen, but Liam craved vengeance.

“I have collected evidence to support news stories that would ruin the Queen’s image. There’s no expiry date on their usefulness. The problem is that the consequences would affect innocent people. Her daughter, Kirsty, is very near her due date, and learning of her mother’s actions upset her badly.”

Liam rolled his shoulders. “Being a good guy isn’t easy.”

Jonah nodded soberly. “So I’m learning.”

The alien AI’s response sent Liam down the stairs at a meditative pace. Liam had overlooked that Jonah was still adapting to having a body and interacting with humans. Jonah was still determining his place in human affairs; other than beside Nora. The AI might well model his long-term behavior based on how Liam, as her husband and a man devoted to her, responded to this attack on her.

Liam had to be reasonable in his response so that Jonah copied his restraint. He cursed mentally before entering his office to listen to Sam’s proposal.

Sam and Theo had coffees.

Since Francis had partially bankrolled Willow’s venture of the Blue Dock Scrapyard, which had notionally employed Sam in border space, it didn’t surprise Liam when Theo opened the conversation to admit he’d known of Sam’s mission.

Theo waited till Liam had served himself a coffee before adding, unapologetically. “It was confidential.”

Liam grunted. He understood that Theo couldn’t share what he’d learned during years working with and for Francis. “I expected as much. However, it means you can speak freely in front of Theo, Sam. He knows more of the background to Willow’s mission in border space than we do.”

“As far as I know,” Sam said warily. “Willow’s mission was precisely what was revealed on Border Station. Firstly, to be present in the region most likely to house the next blaze strike and be ready to process the blaze ore into fuel cells. Secondly, to have the burr-backed power to enforce stability if conflict broke out. That was the mission as Willow and Yuri understood it. I had an additional purpose. It was the reason I transferred from the Marines to the Royal Guards. I was to discover if there was any truth to rumors of a trade in Forgotten.”

The Forgotten.

When the original seven colony spaceships arrived through the Origin black hole and found themselves stranded, they sent an investigation team of fifteen people to the alien technology, the lens, that they suspected was blocking access to the black hole’s millrace, and through it, back into the rivers of space.

Those fifteen returned with burrs.

They also returned changed.

Jonah said it was a change to their energetic nature, caused by interaction with the lens. Thirteen of the fifteen Originals married either the captains of the colony ships or their children, and over the centuries, settled on habitable planets in the region as the royals, the rulers, of the realms. Their, and their descendants’, control over the obliterating power of the burrs became the guarantee of their reigns and of the rigid social structure of Human Sector society.

The remaining two Originals rejected the power grab and hid themselves and their families in the confusion of settlement. Their descendants continued to hide, and gained the title of the Forgotten. They were people like Nora and Cherry

“Ironic,” Liam said. “You traveled all the way out to border space with Lucas—” Liam looked a question at Theo, who nodded. He knew Lucas was Willow’s son. “Only to learn out there that his father’s family, the Zangmos, were breeding Forgotten into the family line here on Capitoline.”

“And on inner realm space stations.” Sam drained his coffee mug and balanced it on his knee. “But the question I was sent out to answer remains. How do they acquire the Forgotten?”

Nora and Cherry were protected.

“Is anyone watching Cherry’s brother, Keith?” Liam asked. Keith was another Forgotten. From the few things Cherry had said about him, and given that she’d fled to border space on an indentured service contract to escape her brother and father, Liam had few scruples if Keith was left staked out as a goat for whoever showed an interest.

“Remote surveillance,” Sam answered. And it was telling that he knew. It suggested he was fully briefed on this operation.

Other agents would have been assigned other regions of space to search for hints of a trade in the Forgotten.

Liam rubbed his chin, ending by tweaking his earlobe in thought. Basing anything in Border Space meant additional fuel and time. Logistically, it was costly. Why would a trade in people happen out there? Had Sam been assigned the least likely region?

What am I missing?

“There’s an urban legend,” Theo began unexpectedly. “That the Forgotten didn’t simply hide themselves in the rebellion of the first century, when pirates tried to establish independent bases, but actually established their own which, unlike the pirate havens, was never discovered and destroyed. According to the most enduring myth, it was a space station rather than a moon or asteroid base, and a mobile station at that.”

Long years in the Navy had taught Liam that people could believe the most startling rubbish, and that seniority or rank didn’t preserve people from the fault. But… “The story of Avalon Station has been debunked. Repeatedly.”

“Unless there were Forgotten or their allies inside the realms who were deleting or concealing any evidence of Avalon’s existence from the official record,” Sam said.

Liam’s hand tightened on the coffee mug. “You believe this—” He cut himself off. Not because he was going to swear, but because he’d had a blinding thought. He and Nora didn’t have to guess whether a Forgotten colony existed. Jonah would know. In the five centuries since the Stranding, Jonah had tracked humanity’s settlement of the region. Jonah’s existence and cooperation changed everything Liam had accepted as to the limits of knowledge.

Sam answered Liam’s unfinished question. “I didn’t believe Avalon existed. At least, not as a colony from the first century. You changed my mind. You and Nora and Serge Buckley. I’m assuming Buckley is the hacker who altered the Registry Office database to provide legal cover for Aria’s unofficial adoption. An adoption that in reality was a kidnapping.”

The heightened moment of calm that hit early in a space battle, hit Liam now. His senior Naval Intelligence officer on the RC Genghis Khan had volunteered to hide their report of a hack of the Registry Office database inside her report on the incompetence of the Capitoline Security Bureau agent on Border Station, on the calculated assumption that people read less attentively reports that embarrassed them.

The ploy might have worked if Nora hadn’t subsequently been revealed as a Forgotten, a royal, and a very strong sensitive. It meant that the Navy, Royal Guards, and anyone curious about her put her whole life under a microscope.

Liam, Nora and Jonah hadn’t expected the unofficial adoption to withstand scrutiny after Nora’s return to Capitoline. They’d had their lawyers work on the problem, since it could undermine both Nora’s freedom and her blaze claim. But a purely legal solution wouldn’t keep Nora safe.

“Lieutenant Chirlee reported the hack of the Registry Office database, as required,” Liam said.

But out of sympathy for Aria and Nora, Allison had done so without the flashing lights and squealing sirens that the penetration of the database that confirmed identity in the Human Sector warranted.

Sam folded his arms. His biceps bulged. “But you didn’t arrest Nora for the hack or for kidnapping Aria. As the highest ranked Navy officer in border space you had the authority to do so.” According to a centuries’ old law, in border space, space stations were legally spaceships, and as such, a highly ranked Navy officer could assume command of them if the situation required it.

“There was no breakdown in law and order. Assuming command of Border Station would have been a gross overstep of my authority.”

“But you used the threat of that authority to control crime in the region,” Sam said.

Liam nodded.

“Both of you could go to prison. Nora for what she did. You for failing to act when you learned of it.” Sam fell silent at Liam’s smile.

Liam spoke coldly. “You’re here because the Royal Guards and whoever else is involved—royals, courtiers, the Navy, tycoons, whoever—want access to Serge Buckley, and through him, to the Forgotten. I didn’t try to hide that Serge Buckley was my source of intel on Nora’s kidnapping, nor that he assisted her rescue by hacking into the security system of Queen Caroline’s house.”

Nora had been indisputably kidnapped.

But a year ago, when she’d fled Border Station with Aria, and they’d subsequently discovered blaze ore in the Avestan Range, Nora hadn’t kidnapped the girl. She’d saved Aria from the criminals who’d been circling her, dreaming of using and abusing the girl to gain information on the location of the blaze discovery her parents had made before their deaths.

Queen Caroline had acted badly.

Nora had acted out of kindness.

The whole situation was screwed up. Liam wanted to know, right now, what Lavigne was saying to Nora. First, though, he had to shut Sam down. Threats would not be tolerated.

Fortunately, Jonah had used his time alone on the CC Kangaroo, while docked at the Terminus, Capitoline’s space station, to hack even more extensively and provide a history for Serge Buckley that protected them.

Liam studied Sam’s resolute expression, the one that didn’t quite hide that he hated being forced into this role of bully. Then he noted Theo’s blank face. His PA deserved to know he wasn’t employed by a traitor. Aligning with Jonah was not treason. “Sam, you’re friends with Charlotte Moigne.”

Sam blinked.

Accustomed to Marines’ composure, Liam interpreted that flicker as startlement. “She’s the CSB chief on Fanrong Station. As such, she has the authority to access the Registry Office database and alter records without going through the Registry Office. Her records of such changes are kept in the CSB office.”

Slowly, Sam unfolded his arms.

Liam observed him closely, keeping his own expression remote and disapproving. “Ostensibly, a single CSB agent operated on Border Station throughout the war and until now. Fatima Drake is manifestly incompetent, if not corrupt. Yet she was never replaced. It was a mystery to me until I learned that with her attracting attention, other CSB agents could operate in the shadows. They could, in fact, infiltrate the shadow market, using their identity on Border Station to move into the shadow markets of the inner realm.

“Serge Buckley took a gamble on Nora. I don’t believe he knew who she was or who her mother had been. How he discovered Nora’s Forgotten status before you did—and by ‘you’ I mean the Royal Guards—you need to find out. Perhaps he was tracking Aria for crime or blaze purposes, and Nora was a happy accident. However it happened, he cultivated an asset, and being who he is, he didn’t hack the database.”

“You’re claiming that Serge Buckley is a CSB agent?” Sam shook his head.

Theo cleared his throat. “The difficulty is whether you knew that when you reported the hack of the Registry Office, and if you did, why the report was made.”

A good PA didn’t allow their boss to bury his head in the sand. It was Theo’s job to identify problems—but also, to offer solutions. “Of course, if Serge Buckley authenticated his authority with you and bound you to secrecy…”

Theo deserved a bonus.

“Secrecy is a problem in dealing with spies,” Liam said. “Serge Buckley recited the relevant security codes to me, and mentioned that his authorization came from Georgina Quispe.”

Sam looked blank.

But Theo’s eyebrows twitched together. He recognized the name. “The Duke of Benchama’s eldest sister.”

Partial understanding dawned for Sam. “Quispe. Admiral Quispe’s aunt?”

“Deceased. She died last year.”

Sam frowned.

His suspicions were accurate, although Liam would refrain from acknowledging that fact.

Jonah had chosen Georgina Quispe as the linchpin for Serge Buckley’s cover story precisely because she wasn’t alive to dispute the narrative.

Plus, she’d been just odd enough for the cover story to be credible.

Lady Georgina Quispe had worked for the Capitoline Security Bureau well past retirement age. She’d known where too many skeletons were buried for anyone to chase her out of the office despite her increasingly rogue efforts. She’d indulged in authorizing and running off-the-record missions.

Sam and Lavigne could suspect that Serge Buckley’s authorization was a hacker’s cover up, but they couldn’t prove it.

Sam cut his losses. “We’ll need access to Serge Buckley going forward.”

“If he makes contact, I’ll pass on your request,” Liam said.

Theo regarded him with new respect and caution.

Liam mightn’t want to play spy games, but with Jonah as an ally, he’d win.

Chapter 14

Nora, Liam and Jonah spent Sunday night analyzing Lavigne’s new determination to rope Nora into going after the tycoons who were attempting to build powerbases to challenge the royals. Early Monday morning, Nora and Liam collected Aria for her first swimming lesson.

Even at that early hour, the air was muggy. A storm was forecast for late afternoon, and its approach pushed the heat before it.

Nora was glad to stand dripping wet in the shallows and let the barely present breeze cool her off. “I came home thinking I’d have to wheel and deal and wheedle to get the expedition. But it seems everyone is nudging me, us, into it.”

“Fate or—”

She pulled back, horrified, then hurriedly, clumsily, leaned up and kissed Liam. She shaped Jonah’s name where no one could lipread it.

Liam squeezed her waist and smiled. “Not who—what—I meant. I’m not imagining a deep, nefarious scheme.”

“Don’t scare me like that.”

His grin was crooked. “I know you worried. Secrets are like that. They…separate people. But I trust you. I trust your judgement and experience, and I understand. I agree with you.”

She kissed him for a better reason this time. Because she wanted to. Not to hide secrets.

A tremendous splash broke them apart. Aria might be new to swimming, but the water didn’t scare her, and the water wings she wore for her first experience in the sea kept her safe. Having jumped off the dock, she dogpaddled the short distance back to it.

Bailey sat beside Trent on the dock, standing guard.

Liam’s hand moved restlessly up and down Nora’s spine. “Francis wrote me a note when the RC Genghis Khan was exiled to border space. He mentioned that as the half millennium anniversary of the Stranding approached, pressure was building in society.”

Milestones sharpened people’s minds, be they birthdays or civic days. The break in routine triggered a stocktake of what had and hadn’t been achieved, and where efforts had been misdirected.

It had been five centuries since the seven colony ships became stranded in this remote, unmapped region of space. Half a millennium of separation from the rest of humanity. What had happened to everyone else? How had their societies evolved? How had the people, themselves, changed?

In adapting to life on the Human Sector’s habitable planets, Stranded humanity had changed. Viruses and other microscopic lifeforms, plus environmental factors, had altered people’s RNA both directly and via medical interventions to bolster survival rates. Royals and Forgotten were different again, altered at an energetic level by their ancestors’ contact with the Origin lens.

Had the rest of humanity encountered aliens?

“We’re riding that half-millennial wave,” Liam said.

Nora dug her toes into the wet sand of the beach. A tiny wave licked over them. “Getting the expedition off the ground depends on if I can make burrs do something. To put out energy, not siphon it.”

Jonah had promised her she could. He’d said she had inherited a mix of minor alterations from planetary adaptions that combined with her Origin lens inheritance to create a new ability to direct energy from, rather than into, the burrs.

“It’s not all on your shoulders,” Liam said. “It might feel like it, but it’s not true. Other talents similar to yours will evolve, and if not, then there are other options. The Beta black hole, for one.”

Trying to break out of the region by exiting through the Beta black hole was Zac’s idea, and one she’d promised him she’d fund if her aim of fixing the lens at the Origin black hole failed. The problem with the Beta black hole, quite apart from how far away it was, was that it wasn’t mapped. With Origin, if they could enter its millrace, they had the colonists’ maps and could backtrack their route and return to human space.

“I’m starving.” Aria sloshed through the water, interrupting Nora’s worries. “I could eat a dinosaur.”

“All of it or just a leg?” Liam asked.

“From nose to tail and even the wings.” Aria splashed them as she raced out of the shallows. “Breakfast.”

“Shower first,” Nora called.

“What a good idea.” By the gleam in Liam’s eyes, he was very ready to assist Nora in showering off the saltwater.

The idea had a lot of appeal, but was squashed by Jonah’s news when they reached the master suite. “Sorry, but Nora’s about to have a visitor. Princess Evelyn.”

“Ugh. Why?” It was a pathetic wail. Nora owned it. She was tired of people making demands of her.

“Um. If I tell you, you won’t be convincingly bewildered. It’s nothing bad. Or, as much as she’s spoken of her thoughts, it’s nothing bad. She is unhappy.”

“Is Evelyn on her way?” Liam asked.

“Yes. The car has cleared the worst of the city traffic. ETA twenty minutes.”

Liam’s hands flexed at Nora’s waist. “The Royal Guards didn’t warn us. Did Evelyn ask them to stay silent?”

Which would make her visit an ambush.

“No,” Jonah said.

“So, they could have told us but chose not to.” Liam ran a hand up Nora’s spine, turned her and nudged her toward the shower.

It was a powerplay. The Royal Guards didn’t owe Nora forewarning of the Princess’s visit, but if they were serious about building trust it would have been a harmless piece of intelligence to share.

The two of them showered swiftly, and Nora dressed in a light shirt over a cami and wide, cotton trousers. She slipped on sandals. Once the renovations were complete, she hoped she’d be able to go barefoot. In weather like this, feeling cool tile beneath her feet would be heaven. She braided her wet hair as she listened to Jonah’s quick, final data point.

“Background on Magnus. He hates Caroline’s punishment, all the more so because it gives him the private freedom he’d prefer, but increased public scrutiny. He talks about the importance of family, but he’s not faithful to Caroline.”

By the time Nora and Liam reached the dining room and breakfast, Molly was there to intercept Nora. “Princess Evelyn is arriving in two minutes. You should be out front to greet her, Nora. She wishes to speak to you.”

Nora didn’t have to fake surprise. Her honest annoyance hid every other reaction. “Why would I be out front greeting someone who gave me no warning before arriving before breakfast?”

Molly’s rigid smile was steely. “Your breakfast time is later than your normal, and Princess Evelyn is a princess.”

“By birth, I’m more royal than she is.”

“True,” Zac shouted from the table.

Dominic, also already seated and eating toast beside Aria, agreed. “You’re also a stronger sensitive. Francis took a gamble when he married Evelyn.”

Now, that was intriguing insider gossip. It partially explained why, after non-sensitive and weakly sensitive sons Francis was being pushed, not least by his mother, to acquire stronger progeny outside of marriage.

Molly glowered at Dominic.

But he was studying Nora and Liam. Dominic rose. “I’ll greet Evelyn.”

Nora exhaled her irritation in a noisy sigh. “Finish your breakfast.” She nudged Liam. “You, too. Have someone send in some pastries to the sitting room, please.”

Molly set a fast pace, but Evelyn’s car had already pulled up out front by the time they arrived. They were, however, in place to welcome Evelyn as the major domo opened the door.

The Princess wore a white lace vest over a white silk blouse and a coral-pink pleated skirt. Her high heels matched the skirt precisely. A pearl necklace and earrings completed her outfit. She looked cool and expensive, as if the muggy air hadn’t touched her. It probably hadn’t done for more than the few seconds it had taken her to exit the car and enter.

The blast of cool air as they entered the sitting room proved that someone had prepared so that Evelyn wouldn’t be inconvenienced by reality inside the house, either.

“They’ve gotten the air con working? Nice,” Nora said to no one and everyone.

Molly frowned at her.

But Molly couldn’t intrude on the Princess’s visit.

Nora smiled a tad tauntingly as she let the sitting room door close in her face.

“I do apologize for arriving so early,” Evelyn said. “My schedule…” She trailed off, leaving Nora to fill in the apology.

Not that Nora believed it for an instant. Her and Jonah’s research into the state of affairs on Capitoline had revealed how greatly Evelyn had curtailed her public appearances since her youngest son had tested as a weak sensitive.

The major domo entered with coffee, followed by a maid carrying a tray of pastries.

Once they left, Evelyn leaned forward slightly. “Kirsty wished to meet you, but she’s gone into labor.”

Under the table, Nora scrunched her toes. It wasn’t that she feared childbirth. She was fighting an unwelcome, unreasonable surge of guilt. Her mother hadn’t been part of her life, but other people wanted their mother around for major life events. She recalled how in the family conference in the Throne Room, Kirsty had sat beside Queen Caroline. “Can Queen Caroline—”

Evelyn’s brief, resigned smile interrupted Nora’s apologetic question. “Kirsty is relieved to have her mother far from her son.”

“Really?”

Evelyn stared down at the apricot pastry on her plate. Her coral-pink lips pursed. “Truthfully? Kirsty is relieved her mother is away from her.”

Nora hesitated to explore the emotional quagmire of that confession. The Royal Guards wouldn’t allow Caroline to harm her daughter or grandchildren, physically. Therefore, the threat Caroline posed to them had to be emotional.

She bit into a chocolate croissant to provide an excuse for not answering.

“Francis misses Liam and Theo.” Evelyn changed the subject. Hopefully, to the purpose of her surprise visit. “You have Dominic here, too. We miss Hermione dreadfully.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Evelyn smiled sadly. “And I for yours. Poor Liam. It has been an unfortunate homecoming. But you are building a home.”

A home or a homebase for however long they had to stay on Capitoline.

Was Evelyn here to lock Nora down or chase her away?

Jonah had said of her visit that it wasn’t anything bad; merely that Evelyn was unhappy—and that was obvious.

“Papa speaks of public narratives so often that we’ve all come to think that way.”

Papa? King Magnus.

The corners of Evelyn’s mouth quivered in a strained smile before she spoke plainly. “You should be aware that you’re becoming the focus of one. The spearhead for freedom. The expedition you want to lead to the Origin black hole will capture the public imagination. It has already captured Francis’s. Don’t let him go with you.”

“I…” Nora almost choked on her croissant at the preposterous idea. No, two preposterous ideas. Firstly, she couldn’t control Francis’s behavior. Secondly, “He wouldn’t go. He’s the Crown Prince.”

“As is Dominic, and that boy won’t stay behind.”

Nora gawked at her, stunned by the force of Evelyn’s statement. Whatever had Evelyn rattled, and it seemed deeper than her mother-in-law’s actions and imprisonment. It was prompting irrational reasoning. “Dominic has responsibilities on Palantine. An expedition will take months to organize. He can’t stay away that long.”

“He will.”

“Well, maybe Dominic will try to do something ridiculous, and the ambassador can’t stop him. But King Ivan,” Nora’s father, as well as Dominic’s, but she didn’t think of him as Dad, “will send an envoy to recall him.”

From Jonah, she knew Ivan already had. He’d sent his brother and Regina, Dominic’s eldest sister, the one who’d chosen early and signaled blatantly her disinterest in politics. It was how she’d survived their mother’s machinations.

Queen Sarah had added her own people to the diplomatic mission.

Ostensibly, the Palantine group were to offer their condolences to Hermione’s family. In reality, they were to drag Dominic home. Crown Princes weren’t meant to go wandering off.

Which was precisely Evelyn’s point.

“Francis feels guilty. Hermione’s death was the last straw. He’s not thinking clearly. He had to stay home while friends from the academy,” the Laotian Naval Academy, “served in the war. He was involved in decision-making that led to their deaths. Now, the war is over, but not its damage. He lost Theo and Liam when he needs them most.”

Through his own actions, Nora thought.

Liam had come home expecting Francis’s friendship, and found his old friend trapped in royal ways of thinking; that is, acting as if the deep concerns of other people’s lives mattered less than his own.

Nora had heard Theo’s story from Liam. The man had lost his family in serving Francis. Theo wouldn’t make that mistake again. His position as Liam’s PA would come second to rebuilding his relationship with his six-year-old daughter. If wishes could come true, he’d also earn back his ex-wife’s trust.

“Francis isn’t himself. He’s always been steady. Capitoline’s stability was what mattered to him. But now, it’s as if he’s rethinking and resenting all the sacrifices he made for it. I…I haven’t helped. When Callum was tested and showed no sensitivity to burrs, it was frightening. He can’t be king. We’ll have to admit it soon. Announce it. But when Knox only showed a slight sensitivity, I felt like a failure.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Mama agreed.”

Mama. Queen Caroline.

“Caroline’s insane,” Nora said flatly.

“But I bought into her crazy.” Evelyn fumbled with her purse, extracted a flimsy handkerchief, and dabbed at her nose. “Francis never made the boys or me feel less, but Callum’s nine. He’s aware of courtiers’ dismissive attitude toward him. He’s heard how fervently people are hoping Kirsty’s son is a strong sensitive, and how power will shift to him unless I have another child and he or she…Francis and I tried. But then, when Knox tested as not strong enough to inherit, I had enough. All the rumors and advice. People told Francis to try other women. As his grandfather did.”

“I’ve met Commander Lavigne.”

At Nora’s interruption, Evelyn took a shuddering breath and dialed down the melodrama. “Guy Lavigne is stronger than Papa. A stronger personality and possessing a stronger sensitivity to burrs. He prefers to work in the background. He’s refused to have children. He’s never said why, but he’s never supported the courtiers’ advice for Francis to break our marriage vows.”

Nora’s patience was waning. “If you’re here to warn me away from Francis, don’t bother. Caroline kidnapped me because I refuse to be a broodmare. I won’t be bearing his or anyone’s child, other than Liam’s, and we’ve no immediate plans for children.”

Evelyn’s spine snapped straight and she glared at Nora.

There was the royal superiority Nora had expected. That don’t tell me what to do attitude. It was that entitled attitude that had brought Evelyn here, uninvited and unannounced, before breakfast.

“I trust Francis,” Evelyn said. “He wouldn’t betray me or Liam by having a child with you. I’m here because Kirsty can’t be, and we need you to keep Francis out of the expedition. Capitoline needs him. Papa arranged things so that Francis will be pressured not to go. That’s why Harold has been sent out to border space. So he can’t stand in for Francis. Nor can Kirsty. She is a new mom and intends to get pregnant again as soon as possible. If she can. But we’re not sure if even that will keep Francis home.”

Nora tucked her shirt more closely around her. The air-conditioned room was too cool. “Why is this so urgent for you? The expedition will take months, maybe two years, to organize. All the realms have to be invited and just the journey time for that, let alone them arguing whether or not to…” She halted at Evelyn’s mulish expression.

“The other realms don’t count. Capitoline and Palantine decide everything important. It’s a political fiction, nothing more, that the others are our equal.”

“Whether they’re equal or not doesn’t factor in to the fact they have a right to be involved in any expedition to the Origin lens. It’s written into the charter of the Human Sector.”

“No one pays heed to that old thing.”

That old thing. That attitude was why Nora knew they had to re-establish communication with the rest of humanity. When the people ruling a society believed themselves above its laws, there had to be an escape hatch. If there wasn’t, revolution—violent, bloody revolution—became inescapable.

Humanity had evolved around a core need for freedom.

In ancient times, before space travel, when they were stuck on Earth, there’d always been another horizon, another land to escape to. The dark side of that had been the expansionism of colonialism.

People chased freedom. They had to believe it was out there, or they destroyed their current prison.

Some of that desire could be funneled away from physical freedom to the escape of an imaginary past or future; that is, to an indulgence in nostalgia or to utopian visions. To belief in an afterlife. Or to a virtual world, like the games played in VR set ups in spaceship gyms.

“You told Francis you wanted to discuss using burrs with him and Dominic.”

Nora took a second croissant.

Evelyn frowned, but continued despite the lack of response from her audience. “You have to tell him that you’ve changed your mind. Tell him that your thoughts were silly or that you don’t trust him enough to share your ideas with him.”

“What?”

“Push him away,” Evelyn forcefully enunciated each word. She stood. “If you want to stay on Capitoline, stay away from Francis.”

Nora stared at the door swinging shut behind Evelyn. “What just happened?” She imagined Jonah observing from the master suite. “Really? What maggot does she have in her brain?”

Molly, striding into the room, and leaving the door open wide, demanded. “What did you do?”

“Me? The Princess warned me away from Francis. Like I want anything to do with him.”

Liam coughed.

Nora blushed as she realized more people were entering behind Molly. She needed to set a better standard of behavior for Aria.

“I’ve invited Francis to dinner, tonight,” Liam said.

After a moment of mind-boggled staring, Nora nearly fell out of her chair laughing. It was all so ridiculous. “Fine. Whatever. Maybe I should invite Evelyn?”

“And their kids?” Aria suggested.

“No,” Cherry said cautiously, one eye on Nora in case of further out of control laughter. “I reckon Jim should have Ma Shakespeare and her kids visit first. They’d be more fun.”

“Ooh yeah! Jim?” Aria turned around to find him.

“I’ll ask.”

Nora had her own question. “How many of you are out there?”

“Too many.” Kennedy pushed her way through. Her family’s rugby heritage showed in how easily she broke up a scrum. “Makeover time. I have the stylist setting up in a guest room. Let’s go.” She clapped her hands.

Everyone scattered except for Nora, her bodyguard, and Molly.

Kennedy must have bribed Cherry to distract Aria.

Once settled in the guest suite, Kennedy announced that they were going bold. “Not in terms of outrageous statements like my hair.”

“I like it,” Nora interrupted.

Kennedy shrugged. “It works for me, but you’re already scarily powerful in terms of wealth and royal connections. Not only can you wield burrs, but the Capitoline royal family has brought you into their inner circle. So, you need to be confident, but not brazen. Fortunately, you’re comfortable with your own power. It means you can wear bold choices naturally. They won’t seem like a costume.”

“Okay.” Nora was intrigued, but wary.

“We’re playing up, or paving the way for, your plan to send an expedition to the Origin black hole. So, we’re going adventurer chic, but grounding it with a sense of feminine power.”

Nora wrinkled her nose. “Translation?”

“Clean, unfussy lines. Bold prints, but not bold colors. A little faded as to color. Sage not neon green. Dusty blue not sapphire. We don’t want you to look brash. Well-tailored clothing so that you move naturally, confidently, forgetting what you’re wearing.”

Remembering Evelyn, Nora had a clearer notion of what Kennedy meant. The Princess’s style of lace and pleats required expert attention to detail. Everything had to lie neatly, which prohibited energetic movement. Evelyn was studiedly elegant, a match to her husband’s dapper appearance.

Nora was to showcase a more independent style.

After three hours of wrangling, she escaped Kennedy, or rather, was released. Nora fled to her bedroom and collapsed dramatically on the bed. The makeover should have been a fun experience, but she hadn’t been able to banish her curiosity and worry about Evelyn’s demand to stay away from Francis. What drove it?

“I feel bad,” she said.

“About what?”

She rolled onto her stomach to look at Jonah. “I’m ashamed that you’re effectively trapped in a wardrobe. I should be able to provide something better for you.”

He sat down on the bed.

She rolled up to sit as well.

“It’s not what you think,” Jonah said. “Traveling from the space elevator on Himalayan Island to Salmar and Mangrove Mansion was terrifying. I glossed over how bad it was. I hadn’t known such personal fear before. Fear for my body. Border Station was small. I’d hacked into its systems. I felt in control of my environment. I underestimated how different a planet would feel. It’s so large and chaotic.”

She clasped his hand.

“If I was braver, I could roam the mansion. It’s harder to move undetectably outside where I leave impressions in the dirt. Inside, though, I could move around undetected.” He laughed unhappily. “It’s my choice to impose on you and Liam, and hide out in your wardrobe. If I was organic, I’d say I need to catch my breath.”

“Could it be sky terror?” she asked. “Aria fainted, she was so overwhelmed by exposure to the planet.”

“I saw. And I saw how effective Bailey was as a cure. But Aria is at least accustomed to living in a body. As a body?” he corrected himself doubtfully. “Traveling to the estate, across a crowded city I couldn’t control, I felt like an ant that could be stepped on at any moment.”

Nora sympathized with his sense of vulnerability. She had yet to leave the estate since her kidnapping. “You can stay in the wardrobe as long as you want. It is efficient having you there, given that we can’t risk talking outside of the master suite. But if there’s anything Liam and I can do to help you gain confidence or freedom, tell us.”

He bounced their joined hands a couple of times against his knee. “I promise.”

Nora’s “vacation” week was proving every bit as crowded as normal life. There was so much to do, and despite what Lavigne said, much of it had to be done yesterday.

She ate lunch in her office, skimming through her messages, before looking up at a knock on the door. “Jim.”

When you grow up, if you meet adults from your childhood, they tend to look smaller. In Nora’s childhood, Jim had been one of the big kids. He’d looked out for his sister, and been casually kind to the brats who roamed the towers and market. He’d fought; able to back up his teenage swagger with violently wielded fists, elbows and feet. The gangs who ran the towers came down like a ton of bricks on anyone who fought with knives or other weapons outside of their own gang skirmishes. The Marines had taught Jim how to fight better, and hadn’t limited his weapons. The wiry kid had stacked on muscle, but kept lean enough for speed. He wasn’t tall, being Nora’s height, but he could emanate menace if called for.

Currently, in t-shirt, combat pants and worn-in boots, no one in their right mind would consider him a PA. But then, Nora was second on his checklist, today. First, he’d spent the morning finalizing his integration into Zac’s security arrangements. That done, he’d found Nora to go over what she considered his duties and how she wanted certain tasks handled. Then, he’d seek out Theo, and the two personal assistants would work out the crossover in their responsibilities.

Liam, with Theo’s assistance, was in charge of business.

“I’m keeping up with what’s happening,” Nora said. “But the burrs are my focus. The Royal Guards dragged me back to Capitoline for that purpose. So, my schedule will prioritize burr stuff, and what Kennedy insists I need to do to establish us here. Family trumps everything.”

“By burr stuff, you mean…?”

“Testing, training as a wielder, trying some different approaches to using burrs.” For security purposes, Nora’s inner office, set on the first floor, faced the courtyard rather than the external view. She watched sunlight glitter off the spray of water from the fountain. “There’s other stuff they want, too. Trying to identify and potentially squash non-royals’ interest in burrs and in trading them.”

“Don’t the royals have all the burrs?”

Courtesy of Jonah, she knew they did. Or rather, the royals controlled all the burrs known to humans. Many more burrs existed, but they were inside and powering Jonah’s kin.

And may they stay there forever, Nora prayed.

“People get paranoid about power,” she answered Jim.

“Often from a kernel of truth.”

She grinned at him. His cynical wariness suited her. She wouldn’t swap him for the unknown agent, the spy, that Lavigne wanted to inflict on her. “If there are unclaimed burrs out there, the royals haven’t told me about them.”

“But if they want you to be their stalking-horse, the new blaze tycoon trying to buy a burr, they would have to.” Shrewd. He was very shrewd. Plus, Zac had briefed him.

“And I don’t know if I can refuse that role, if they ask.” She sighed.

He chewed on the problem. “That’s what Kennedy’s doing, right? She’s building you an independent profile, a non-royal one, so you can say no and withstand their threats.”

“Yes. Except that they have other leverage on me. When they discovered my sensitivity to burrs, and even more so, my father’s identity, they forced me to return to Capitoline. I locked onto the idea of an expedition to the Origin black hole to fix the lens as something good that could come out of my return.” She took a deep breath. “And as a way I could escape Capitoline again, back into space.”

He rubbed the right side of his face where a scar ran along his close-cropped hairline. “Some planet-born Marines never adjusted and always felt trapped in a spaceship or on stations, but I’m like you. There’s freedom out there.”

A freedom he’d been kicked out of, only able to find work back in the factories, planet-side. Towers citz were the lowest of the low.

Guilt stabbed at her. She hadn’t shared it with Liam or Jonah. How could they understand the effect of the poverty and crowding, and the casual, necessary violence, of the towers? You had to live it, breathe it, and barely escape it to understand.

“The war delayed Capitoline investment in a new station.” Her gaze returned to the water fountain. Nothing so frivolous and beautiful, nothing so clean, existed in the towers of Angkor. “A station would be far more expensive than the expedition, but if I raised—”

Jim’s laughter was the whooping yelp of a hyena.

“What?”

“Survivor guilt. Shakers predicted it.” Jim leaned forward, finger stabbing the desk. “Don’t even think about saving the citz of the towers. That’s the government’s job. They’ll have to do it. We’ll make them.” His “we” wasn’t him and her. It was the residents of the towers. People like his sister, Shakers. “Don’t you go picking up the government’s slack and letting them grow even lazier. They stuck us in there and bred us to provide the spare workforce for an expansion. They owe us that station, not you.”

“All right.” She’d leaned back from his vehemence. Now, she flattened her hands on her desk. “No, Lady Bountiful malarky.”

Jim relaxed. “Nah. You can do some of that. Shakers has a few ideas. Like funding the soup kitchen. But keeping it low-key so you don’t raise any expectations.”

“Okay.” She could trust him and Shakers with the towers. “Okay.”

“Don’t be daft, girl.” His “r” rolled in full, rough Angkorran ferocity. “You got lucky, and you’re going to use that luck to force open an escape hatch from the Human Sector. Ain’t no one else gonna do that, so don’t you go doubting what only you can do. Don’t let those buzzards do that to you.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose because she would not cry. But it felt as if he’d absolved her of her guilt at her good fortune.

“You should talk to Shakers. She’s got this guy she quotes. A self-help guru from a couple of centuries ago. She reckons time’s turned him into a philosopher, which is rubbish, but he said one thing that makes sense. It’s what she lives by.” Jim cleared his throat. “‘People invoke normality as if it’s a protection against calamity. Don’t stand out or you’ll draw Fate’s attention.’ ”

He jabbed the desk again. “That’s what they want us to do at the towers. Shrink ourselves.”

“Shakers didn’t.”

“Nope. She’s always been herself.”

Nora nodded. “Got it.”

He nodded back at her. “Now, I know what my job is.”

She smiled wryly. “Pep talks?”

“Nope. Protecting your dream.”

Which was to open an escape hatch from the Human Sector. Nora didn’t necessarily want to take it herself. Aria, alone, was reason enough to stay and be here as the girl grew up. But the possibility of escape from the rigid social structure of the realms would be enough to stir them all up and provide new opportunities for freedom.

Freedom. Jim would fight for freedom.

Nora reflected on their conversation. It confirmed she’d chosen her PA well. Cherry’s suggestion of hiring someone from the towers would seem insane to outsiders. They’d underestimate Jim, and Nora for employing him as her PA. But they didn’t understand the skillset people like Cherry, Jim and Nora had honed from infancy. They were experienced in subverting the system to survive.

Nora would bet that Jim had been his Marine unit’s go-to guy. The one who could lay his hands on anything required. She’d been the same when she’d been a repair and maintenance worker on the Silicaese xeno-archaeological expeditions.

Now, she’d given Jim the chance not merely to subvert the system to survive, but to crack it open to win freedom for himself and everyone he loved.

He was all in.

She briefed him on the situation with Aeric Kenes. “Lavigne wants me to call Aeric, today. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Setting yourself up as a spy, since you’ve refused to accept a PA less magnificent than me.”

She laughed.

“I’ll call him,” Jim said.

“Lavigne?” She could imagine how badly that would go. Lavigne mightn’t be an acknowledged royal, but as a Royal Guard commander, he’d expect a level of respect Jim wouldn’t give.

“Aeric Kenes.”

“Oh.” She considered the offer. She thought of Jim’s thick Angkorran accent. Aeric would resent Jim’s attitude as much as Lavigne would. Plus, Jim introducing himself as her PA would deliver its own kind of statement as to who she was and planned to be. “I want to rescue Forgotten, and if there are any burrs out there, I suspect they’d be safer in royal vaults.”

“Dinna fash,” Jim said. Don’t worry. “You got the bangle?”

“I think Zac does.”

Jim sprang up. Ten minutes later he was back, trailed by Zac and Liam. Jim asked for Aeric’s contact details. “You lot, hush.” He called Aeric Kenes and navigated through the please, hold delays till the man himself came on the line. Jim cut to the chase. “Nora’s looking for opportunities. You got one for her, you deal straight. No games. No bugs.” He crushed the bangle. “You call me, and I’ll put Nora in the way of building her strength.”

He listened, and interrupted. “Nah, nah. Royals ain’t letting her get her hands on a burr. A taste, yeah, maybe. But those babies are locked away in yon vaults. Ain’t no value in locking things up. Gotta use them.”

He laughed his hyena laugh. “Nora ain’t interested in meeting people. They’re interested in meeting her. Like you are. You keep ya Guild nonsense. Call if you get anything real. Business stuff, you want Liam, but he’s not after likin’ ya. Buttering that Jason kid. You’d do better callin’ Lordy-da Theo Ishida, Liam’s PA. And that’s free advice, mate.” Jim ended the call and stared around in amused satisfaction at his gaping audience.

He nodded at Nora. “The tycoons reckon you’re allied with the RGs.” The Royal Guards were staffed by university graduates, primarily upper class, and especially by lesser royals. “Me, I’m not. Now, they’ll think maybe you’re not so close, either.”

“You’re diabolical,” she said to him.

“Thank you.”

Zac laughed. “Fun and games. Welcome to the circus. We’ll run circles around the RGs and the tycoons.”

Nora doubted it. “That’s overly ambitious.”

Liam frowned. “I don’t like that Kenes wanted you in the Guild. I think Jim did well to ridicule the idea.”

Jim jerked his chin in acknowledgement. “You don’t have to be a genius to recognize Kenes isn’t someone to ally with, and for sure I wouldn’t want to owe the buzzard a favor.”

“So, we’ll wait and see what he tries next,” Nora said.

Chapter 15

A hot wind swirled around the yard, heavy with moisture from the dark clouds that massed from horizon to horizon. Nora’s skin prickled. There’d be lightning soon. The storm was ready to break.

Dominic and Aria, meantime, strolled around as he attempted to renegotiate his promise of providing a pony. “Hermi was talking about buying donkeys. They’re tough little personalities. I think their hardiness would suit the marshes better than ponies. But I’m not an expert.”

“Donkeys.” Aria gave the matter due consideration. “They’re like horses but shaggier.”

“They’re smart. Hermi liked the way they’ll stand their ground and consider a threat when a pony would already be running away. Of course, being smart is how they earned their reputation for stubbornness. They solve their own problems.”

Aria clapped her hands. “I like that.”

“Yeah. So did Hermi.” His love for his wife deepened his voice.

Aria smiled up at him. “I’d like a donkey.”

He banished his grief. “Two.”

“Pardon?”

“Donkeys like company. I’ll get you a pair.”

“Okay.” Aria was onboard with the idea. “Nora can ride one. Maybe we should get more?”

Eyes widening in belated understanding that he was out of his depth, Dominic appealed mutely to Nora for help.

She laughed. “Let’s start with two.”

At her approval, Aria launched into a frenzy of planning. “We can put the stable over there behind the olive trees. Then they’d have shade for their yard and they could watch us coming and going to the dock, and they could get carrots and scratches. Would it be a boy and a girl? I could call them Joker and Pirate.”

“Um, you could?” Dominic wasn’t merely out of his depth, he was flailing.

Nora rescued him. “Joker and Pirate are a brother and sister singing duo.”

“Oh. Right. Um, for teens?”

“For everyone!” Aria danced a few steps, stirring up the dirt. She began singing loudly.

Dominic slanted a sly look at Nora. “I’ve heard that donkeys like to sing.”

“Yes. I’ve heard they’re loud.” But there were no near-neighbors to bother, and on the estate there was always someone around to keep a pair of noisy, bored donkeys company. Besides which, donkeys were like watchdogs; alert to strangers and threats in their territory. Ben had briefed her.

Dominic grinned.

Relaxing into his teasing, Nora reflected on how the reality of him was different to what she’d expected. She hadn’t ever imagined she’d like her royal half-brother.

He could be like this here, but what would he be like back on Palantine, enmeshed in his mother’s schemes? Did a person’s environment define them?

“My mom’s family lives in Ontario Province,” Aria confided to Dominic.

Nora suddenly paid attention.

“You’re from Palantine?” Dominic asked.

Aria’s pigtails smacked her nose as she shook her head vigorously. “Nope. I’m a Capitoline, same as my dad. But Mom was always scared what the Duke of Ontario would do to her family…” Her confidence faded. “I thought she was being silly. I think Dad did, too, but he went along with it. But, then your uncle, the Duke of Ontario?”

Dominic nodded. The Duke was his mother’s brother.

“He…um…Princess Hermione,” Aria stumbled over her words.

“He killed her,” Dominic said bluntly.

Aria gulped. “I’m sorry. I just…if he’s gone, do you think it’s safe for me to talk to my mom’s family? Maybe see if they’re okay?”

Nora listened in frozen silence. She hadn’t considered that Aria might want to reach out to her remaining family. Aria’s paternal family were dead or scattered, but her mom had left behind an extended family clan.

Dominic stared at Aria; all the easy, open emotion in his expression erased. “Safe?” He looked at Nora. Aria was her daughter, now, and a point of vulnerability. “My mother has taken management of Ontario province since my uncle’s death. If you have family there, Aria, I’m—” He stopped, unable to promise they were safe. “I’ll have someone check on them. I’ll let you know when it’s a good time to contact them.”

“Okay,” she said doubtfully.

All three of them jumped as lightning flashed across the mangroves and out to sea, and thunder boomed.

“Into the house, now.” Nora gave Aria a push, and the girl ran for it.

“Saved by Mother Nature,” Dominic said. “Nora, don’t let her contact her family. Not yet.”

Another crack of thunder and lightning punctuated his advice.

He studied the sky. He knew how dangerous his mother was, even if he didn’t suspect the truth: that Queen Sarah had hired the man who’d assassinated Hermione, and then arranged for her brother to be murdered while under suspicion of the killing.

“We’ll follow your guidance,” Nora said.

His gaze found her. “Thank you. Few people are willing to do that, with reason.”

Before she had to find an answer for that, the rain started, and racing for the shelter of the house obviated the need for a response. They dashed in through the living room, and followed the sound of laughter.

They found Cherry leading Aria in a wild dance around the new courtyard fountain.

“Unbelievable,” Nora muttered.

“You wouldn’t guess she’d had sky terror a few days ago.” Dominic agreed.

At their best, humans were adaptable and reveled in new experiences.

Nora crossed to where Liam had exited his office to watch the storm dance. She caught his hand, and led him into it. Since he wasn’t a maniacal dancer, they slow danced in the warm rain; unflinching at the sound and light show.

Zac and Ben joined them.

Shockingly, Jim joined Cherry and Aria in their wild dance.

Kennedy plunged in, and dragged Theo and Molly with her, one hand each.

Other staff joined the impromptu celebration.

Dominic sat on the edge of the fountain and simply let the rain soak him.

Drying off after the dance party, Nora contemplated tomorrow.

She’d intended to talk to Dominic and Francis together, and privately, about her hopes for how the burrs might be used. It was on Francis’s advice, imparted to Liam, that she would, instead, brief all interested parties tomorrow on her ideas regarding burrs. Francis had arranged a meeting in the vaults beneath the Laotian Palace, and promised to make a burr available for her to test her ideas.

“Maybe they’ll flood.” She’d dressed in a cotton shirt and jeans, and finally unwrapped her hair towel.

“The vaults?”

“You’re getting good at reading my mind.” She was momentarily distracted by how good Liam’s bare chest looked.

He caught her ogling him as he buckled his belt, and grinned.

“Later,” she promised both of them. “I need to talk to Jonah.”

Liam picked up her comb and began untangling her hair. “About?”

Jonah entered their bedroom.

Nora leaned into Liam’s touch. “Lavigne hasn’t kicked up about me refusing to employ his selected PA, or that my choice of PA, Jim, contacted Kenes without a Royal Guard officer present. It’s suspicious.”

“I believe he’s found an alternative approach,” Jonah said cautiously.

Liam’s hands paused briefly. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning Lavigne hasn’t relinquished his idea of introducing the person he wanted to act as Nora’s PA into your lives, but I believe he’ll take a different route.”

“And you won’t tell us because we need to react naturally.” She felt Liam gather up her hair, and put up a hand. “I’ll braid it.” Liam was good at many things, but not hair styling.

He relinquished the comb and walked into the wardrobe, brushing past Jonah with the casual ease of friendship.

Jonah stayed out of sight of the bedroom windows. “Nora, Lavigne has ordered the man he wished to be your PA to attend your experimental session, tomorrow. The agent is a sleeper. He’s trained in how to sense burrs, but was never activated. Unlike Lavigne.”

Liam returned wearing a t-shirt that fitted tightly enough to be almost as good as his bare chest. He winked as Nora mimed swooning. “Is this agent someone whose presence will hurt Nora?”

“No.”

Liam nodded acceptance of Jonah’s judgement.

“Unrelated question,” Nora said. “As my perception of burrs improves, will I be able to sense your kin’s memories or a suggestion of their former presence in the burrs?”

“No. The burrs are merely our power sources.”

She sighed. “That’s a relief. I’d feel like I was trespassing.”

“Never. You’re doing a good thing.” Jonah glanced at the window, and back to her.

Nora read his wish. She crossed to where he was staying out of sight, unable to go to her. She hugged him. “Thank you.”

He was already harassed and overwhelmed trying to trace and pre-empt threats to her and to their family and friends. As much as she worried about the Forgotten who might be being held by tycoons or shadow market slavers, she had no right to ask him to ask his kin to intervene and find the humans.

Given how much she relied on Jonah to help her, it would be arrant hypocrisy to say that human problems had to be solved by humans. But humanity had to retain its independence and agency.

His warm, metal arms hugged her tight before releasing her with a smile for Liam. “Take her to dinner. Aria has invaded Martin’s kitchen, pursuing the aroma of roast chicken.”

Jonah’s physical body, his android form, might be confined to the master suite, but he’d lived his incredibly long life stationary and observing the region. He didn’t feel it as a prison in the way a human would.

Nora wrapped an arm around Liam’s waist. “We’ll go save Martin.”

The morning after the storm was beautiful. The air was clean, almost cool, and the plants newly planted in the courtyard garden looked as if they’d settled in and stretched out their roots, making themselves at home.

Nora brought her first coffee of the day out there to enjoy it, and smiled at Molly when the Royal Guard captain joined her. “Morning.”

Molly smiled back, brighter and more vibrant than normal. “Princess Kirsty had a baby boy. Mom and bub are healthy and happy. Well, apparently, the baby has a fine pair of lungs.”

“Wonderful.”

The sweet, high chirping of a yellow-breasted bird darting in among the citrus trees was its own celebration. It hadn’t taken long for the wildlife to reclaim the house, unafraid of its human residents.

“A swamp warbler,” Molly said.

A second one darted after the first.

“Molly, can I ask a favor?”

“Of course.” Molly looked at her, startled. Their fledgling relationship had been strained since Nora’s kidnapping. Molly had been intended by the Royal Guards to act as Nora’s adviser and guard, and Nora had kept her at arm’s length in the last few days.

“Can you grab some jars and acquire three samples of seaweed, the free-floating stuff in the mangroves? I’d do it myself, but then some people would suspect a trick. I don’t want anyone to think I’m manipulating anything other than the burrs.”

Molly scrutinized her face and body language. “You want to take seaweed into the vaults?”

“Seaweed inside jars of sloshing saltwater,” Nora clarified. “Yes, I do.”

Molly didn’t argue further, which meant that when Nora, Liam, Dominic and Molly entered the Laotian Palace, they were accompanied by a Royal Guard private carrying a box of jars of seaweed in various sizes, as well as by their bodyguards.

Nora was so intent on the jars of seaweed that she left Liam and the others to pay attention to those already gathered in the lab’s lounge. If there were enemies, she was well-protected. Even her curiosity about the mystery man Jonah had warned them Lavigne was bringing was less than her concern for the jars when they rattled as the private readjusted his hold on the box.

“Nora.” A warm, commanding voice cut through the hubbub of the crowded room.

“Tadj?”

Her former Silicaese expedition leader, the man who’d encouraged her, nagged her into, and supported her through studying xeno-archaeology, cut through the crowd. He halted a bodyguard-respectful distance from her.

She closed that distance in a split second, hugging him. “Tadj! I had no idea…Liam, this is Tadj Holmes. He led the Silicaese digs I went on.”

The two men shook hands.

Francis entered, and momentarily attracted the crowd’s attention. They’d been observing Nora and Tadj’s reunion.

Nora glanced back at him. “This is my brother, Dominic.”

Tadj bowed before shaking hands. He wore a khaki utility shirt and black pants. He looked like a scruffy, leaner, and only fractionally older version of Francis.

Oh, good grief! She glanced between Tadj and Francis, who still stood by the entrance as his father joined him. That’s what Jonah meant. Lavigne, the previous king’s illegitimate son, was activated, that is, brought into active service to the Crown. Tadj must be the current king’s illegitimate son, but no one has been told. A sleeper agent, indeed. Tadj must know, mustn’t he?

She hadn’t seen the resemblance before when she’d worked with Tadj on the Silicaese expeditions. Back then, she’d avoided all things royal, even gossip magazine articles. But now Tadj was so much like Magnus and Francis in the shape of his eyes and jawline, it was dumbfounding. Only the additional weight Magnus and Francis carried plumped their faces, and they didn’t hold themselves with Tadj’s alert air of inquiry and competence.

His bloodline explained how Tadj had acquired military funding for his xeno-archaeological expeditions. Notionally, those expeditions had included the hope of finding a cache of burrs, but unless they’d stumbled over the burrs, Nora hadn’t believed any of her colleagues would have been able to locate them; certainly, she hadn’t considered that any might be sensitive to burrs.

Tadj was.

Lavigne must have recalled him as soon as Yuri’s news of her heritage and strong sensitivity to burrs reached Capitoline. Tadj was someone Lavigne believed he could order around whom Nora would trust.

Tadj had shaped so much of her thinking, especially her reverence for life and knowledge.

He’d called the Silicaese the Bygone, those lost to time. He’d not considered them aliens. He’d encouraged her to study them so as to understand them because all life was precious. Every expression of it added to the universe.

He wasn’t as mystical as that sounded. He was a practical man, an excellent xeno-archaeologist, and he’d always kept his people safe.

Tadj had the same qualities of leadership that Liam displayed.

“Shall we begin?” Magnus’s question was an order.

Dr. Chulainn cleared his throat loudly.

While Admiral Quispe stood beside Magnus, Lavigne had positioned himself well away. The half-brothers didn’t resemble each other. Not like Francis and Tadj. So, perhaps their distance was as much an expression of their relationship as an attempt to hide it. Lavigne watched Nora.

She tried not to offend Dr. Chulainn by letting her attention obviously wander.

“Today, Mrs. Kimani will attempt to use a burr to do something other than siphon energy. We have stringent precautions in place. In the lab, two guards will be positioned by her chair. Those are only the obvious defenses. If we need to render Mrs. Kimani unconscious, we can do so instantaneously.”

If I use the burr to attack Magnus, Francis or anyone else.

“Mrs. Kimani will outline what she intends to attempt,” he said that last sentence sourly since she’d refused to discuss her ideas with him.

“I’ll need one of the jars of seaweed in the lab with me,” Nora said. “Molly, Captain Jones, can attest that I haven’t touched any of the jars or their contents.”

“I collected the seaweed from among the mangroves at Salmar,” Molly said. “Since then, they have been constantly under my eyes.”

Nora nodded her thanks. “For the theoretical side of things, I’ve written a paper that covers my hypothesis as to how the Silicaese used them. I doubt the paper adds anything to the report Molly sent you on my thinking on the topic after our discussion a few days ago. However, I’ll send you all a copy after this session.”

Tadj nodded approval and encouragement, his hazel eyes alight with interest.

Liam stood solidly beside her, close enough for their arms to touch and remind her that he was there, always.

She addressed the mixed group of royals, scientists, and guards. “Alone, I cannot test my idea that the Silicaese used the burrs in a mesh array. What I will concentrate on is adapting their idea of amplifying their food supply via energy from the burrs.” She looked at Dr. Chulainn. “Would you like me to make the attempt in the lab?”

Dr. Chulainn jerked at the lapels of his jacket. “Of course. This way.”

Her audience could have watched from outside. The lab was designed for observation and recording. Against all commonsense, everyone who could, crowded in with her.

She sat at the table.

Liam stood to the side, where she could see him.

She had to turn her head to see Gage, her guard, where he stood glaring at the two Royal Guards, one a captain and the other a sergeant, who loomed either side of her chair.

Molly put the jar of seaweed in front of her.

“Can you open it, please?” Nora asked.

Dr. Chulainn intervened. “Dr. Mayberry will.”

Molly stepped back.

Pilar moved forward. The lid opened easily despite the gloves she wore.

“Thank you.”

“You will have access to a burr for ten minutes,” Dr. Chulainn said. “If you require additional time, raise a hand. You will be granted an additional ten minutes, if I judge your state and the burr’s as capable of sustaining it.”

Magnus, Francis, Dominic, Quispe, Lavigne and Theo were all sensitive to burrs. Nora assumed others in the room, outside observing, and deeper in the vaults where a burr would have to be removed from its shielded case for her to wield it, were also strong sensitives.

She rested her hands lightly on the table where everyone could see them. “Hopefully, that will be time enough to produce results employing a simple organism.”

“The seaweed,” Dominic said.

No one else spoke.

Dr. Chulainn, however, must have given a signal because Nora sensed a low-moderate burr. She reached for it. As previously, the energy siphoned into it felt prickly, all static and flaring flames. She smoothed it, took a deep breath, and concentrated on joining her sense of that energy with the seaweed in front of her.

She focused on it as if it was the core of a meditation ritual. Energy in, energy out. The universe changing it.

“One minute to go,” Dr. Chulainn said.

Nora raised her hand.

She didn’t let herself worry about whether he’d allow her the additional ten minutes. She could feel the energy reaching for the seaweed, similar to how she’d reached for the burr, but in reverse. There weren’t actual words for what she felt as it connected, and energy became matter.

Slimy, green algae frothed up and spilled up and out of the jar, falling down to the table and pooling there.

Nora released the burr. “I’ve released the burr.”

She felt it vanish from her senses as someone restored it to its shielded case.

In the lab, the two guards stood ready to seize her, hands hovering over her shoulders.

“Stand down,” Lavigne snapped. “Step back.”

They obeyed the Royal Guard Commander.

Tears pressed painfully hot at Nora’s eyes. She had wished and hoped and believed, but here was proof that humans could use burrs to support creation and not merely obliteration. She sniffed as the others exclaimed and either—according to their nature—pressed closer to the overflowing jar of seaweed or took giant steps back from it.

Magnus stepped away, Quispe stepped up, and Lavigne didn’t move.

Dr. Chulainn didn’t move either, but that didn’t seem to be by his choice. He was frozen, mouth open.

Dominic and Francis edged closer.

Tadj stood, observing everyone.

Liam clasped Nora’s hand, drew her up, and steadied her against him. “You okay?”

Dr. Chulainn snapped out of his shock. “Level 5 hazard. Lock it away.”

His minions sprang into action.

Liam guided Nora out of the lab, and that, more than Pilar and her colleagues’ efforts, spurred the others into trading the tight confines of the lab room for the lounge. They stampeded after Nora.

In the interests of science, Dr. Chulainn should have asked how she felt and ordered a medical examination.

Instead, he was silent when Quispe snapped, “What happened?”

“I proved on organic matter what I believe the Silicaese proved in crystalline form. The burrs can act on energy that is open. Energy is matter, and vice versa. So, the energy that existed as matter in the form of the Silicaese’s feedstock crystals was the base they used to pour a burr’s energy into it and grow it. Pattern and possibility. An open possibility. I used the seaweed in place of the crystal…and it worked!”

She pressed her hands to her mouth as Liam rubbed a small circle of reassurance at her lower back. “It worked. When the energy smoothed in the burr, it confirmed that although it’s alien technology, it is not designed to hurt the user. After all, the Silicaese wielded burrs.”

“And they’re dead,” Quispe said.

Tadj frowned at him. “As are your ancestors.”

Everyone else in the room was familiar with Quispe’s attitude. Tadj, however, was prepared to educate him. “Time passes. Death is inevitable. No Silicaese site has ever shown evidence of catastrophic obliteration, such as the burrs can cause. Burrs did not end Silicaese civilization.”

Nora, who could have told them, courtesy of Jonah witnessing the event long ago, that the Silicaese in this region had been exiles, and had returned to their home region, kept silent. As she had to. She was treading a fine line, balancing what she knew with what she could reveal, while keeping Jonah secret and herself free of life-threatening suspicion.

She addressed Dominic and Francis. “I opened myself to the burr. I wasn’t scared of it, as the Originals were of an alien technology, so, I didn’t unconsciously shut myself off from its unknown properties. Nor did I shut myself off because of my training or because of what my elders told me about using a burr. I wasn’t afraid to let it take from me.”

Because the burrs were from Jonah’s kin, and she trusted him, and by extension, them.

True, fifteen burrs were from the Origin lens, but those were spread across the six realms, and Nora doubted the scientists would use those to test her.

“Take what from you?” Dr. Chulainn asked.

“A pattern of life,” Nora said. “To use energy to grow. What you call ‘guided intent’ since no one knows definitively how humans sense and wield burrs. There are no buttons to press, no code words. I just thought ‘grow’.”

Francis’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “Who can learn this? Is it because you’re a strong sensitive? Because if it’s not, if it’s about being open to the idea, then young children could be raised to copy you.” Young children like his five-year-old, weakly sensitive son.

“I don’t know,” Nora gently answered the hope naked in his face. “We can try.”

She looked at Magnus. “King Magnus, because you welcomed me and permitted—provided—my training when I was ignorant, you enabled your Royal Guards to discover this new ability of the burrs.”

The King’s shoulders straightened and his chin tucked in as his chest puffed out. Her description of events supported his self-image as a leader, patriarch of his family and of the realm. He found neither flattery nor fault in her ascribing to him her achievements. “We must never fear facing the future.”

He was vain, not stupid. He understood that what Nora had done proved her value. She had a talent of immense importance that she could, hopefully, teach. At minimum, she could put her talent in service to the realm. For that, he understood that she wanted a promise from him. “We spoke of an expedition.”

Francis took a step closer to them. For the future of the Human Sector, he wanted the expedition to open the lens at the Origin black hole. For his sons, he wanted Nora’s new talent in using the burrs.

He halted, freezing, at his father’s raised hand.

Magnus’s gaze stayed on Nora. “Preparations for an expedition to the Origin black hole will take some months to organize. I believe you intend to fund it.”

“We do, King Magnus.” Nora clasped Liam’s hand, confident in his support.

The King nodded. “Francis will lead it.”

Evelyn would be devastated.

Lavigne looked thoughtful; Tadj intrigued. Quispe rocked on his heels, undoubtedly plotting the Navy’s role.

Dominic gripped Nora’s free hand. “I accept Francis’s leadership of the expedition. When do we start?”

Want More?

Nora and Liam’s adventure wraps up in Resolve, out June 29. In Cajole, they were planet-bound. They had to reorganize their lives and find their allies. Life is messy. It can’t all be space battles. But Resolve sends them back into space.

Pre-order link:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MVPF6TR/

***

A hug says you’re not alone, and I guess that’s what I want my books to say to you. I was working on this book when the Ukrainian war started. Two years of a pandemic, and then, this. So, more than ever, I want to say to you “you’re not alone”. None of us are. Good people are everywhere, and even when we’re feeling at our worst or our most helpless, the small kindnesses we share with one another matter. Thank you for letting me share my books with you.

Hugs,

Jenny

March 2022

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To stay up to date on new releases from me, please follow my author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Schwartz/e/B0042MAD86

Catch up with me at my Facebook page, on Twitter @Jenny_Schwartz, or at my website.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Want More?