I had known. I had known what Basnaaid Elming’s reaction would be to my offer. But I had thought I would only tender a polite invitation this morning and have the confrontation itself later. Wrong. And now, I knew, Captain Hetnys was waiting in my apartments in the Undergarden, sweating in the warm, still air and stiffly, angrily refusing the tea Kalr Five had just offered her. Going into that meeting in my present mood would be dangerous, but there was, it seemed, no good way to avoid it.

At the entrance to those rooms, Bo Nine standing at impassive attention just beyond the open door, Lieutenant Tisarwat—I had forgotten, between the waterside and here, that Lieutenant Tisarwat was with me—spoke. “Sir. Begging the fleet captain’s indulgence.”

I stopped, without looking behind me. Reached out to Mercy of Kalr, who showed me a perplexing mix of emotions. Lieutenant Tisarwat was miserable as she had been all morning, but that misery was mixed in with an odd yearning—for what? And a completely new sort of elation that I had never seen in her. “Sir, permission to go back to the Gardens.” She wanted to go back to the Gardens? Now?

I remembered that startling moment of pleasure when she’d seen the little fish in the pool, but, I realized, after that I’d paid her no attention whatever. I’d been too caught up in my encounter with Basnaaid. “Why?” I asked, blunt. Not, perhaps, the best way to respond, considering, but I was not at my best just this instant.

For a moment a sort of nervous fear kept her from speaking, and then she said, “Sir, maybe I can talk to her. She didn’t tell me to never speak to her again.” As she spoke, that strange, hopeful elation flared bright and sharp, and with it something I’d seen in countless young, emotionally vulnerable lieutenants.

Oh, no. “Lieutenant. You are not to go anywhere near the citizen Basnaaid Elming. I do not need you interfering in my affairs. Citizen Basnaaid certainly doesn’t need it.”

It was as though I had struck Tisarwat. She nearly physically recoiled, but stopped herself, held herself still. Speechless, for a moment, with hurt and anger. Then she said, bitter complaint, “You aren’t even going to give me a chance!”