“The cosmos doesn’t line up very often,” she said. The hysteria hadn’t leeched completely from her voice. “Except for the destiny of kings and nations, it seems.”

I stared at her, wide-eyed and bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

“Last night my grandmother told me that Mathis’s occupation of Andalaa is illegal. The planet is mine.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, either. “What?”

“Insofar as a planet can belong to anyone,” she added dryly, and waved her hand.

“I don’t understand,” I repeated faintly.

“Yes,” she said, bemused. “I can see that.” Her expression turned more serious. “Amani. What does your little rebel plot mean for me? You’re my sister—I expect you don’t mean to have me executed beside him.”

That snapped me forcibly out of my daze and at last I reached for her hand.

“Do you know what I have spent the last few weeks doing?” She shook her head. “Securing you an army. They will assassinate him to put you on the throne.”

She looked out at the Ghufrani harbor, though her hand lay in mine. “What do you need from me?”

“Nadine is the only person with a verifiable itinerary of Mathis’s flight plans. It will be easier to catch him in transit.”

“You need her imperial tablet,” Maram murmured. “Easily done. And long overdue, truth be told.”

“You can secure it?” I asked, relieved.

She gave me a wry smile. “I am the heir of this planet, Amani. Of course I can. Though the tablet will cost you.”

My stomach sank. “Cost me?”

“A meeting with the rebels,” she said, and at last pulled her hand free. “If the army is mine, then let it be mine.”

Maram and I swapped clothes and jewelry and agreed that she would communicate to the tour that our departure from Ghufran would be delayed until the late afternoon. She was gone little more than an hour, but in that time I secured the meeting she required in a place she would not balk at going. My hands trembled. I’d worked so long toward this moment—the joining of the makhzen and the rebels, spearheaded by Maram. That this moment had finally come to pass was almost unimaginable to me.

When at last Maram returned to the double’s suite she was grim-faced but had the tablet in hand. She carried something else as well: the medallion that was Nadine’s badge of office. My eyes widened.

“Did you think I would suffer her in any era?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I will not be her stepladder to imperial rule. Now. The rebels.”

“I’ve secured a meeting with them,” I said. “In the lower gardens.”

“How efficient you are,” she replied, and tossed Nadine’s medallion onto the couch. “Aghraas will accompany us.”