After a half hour’s march anger had melted her thoughts from coherent sentences to puddles of emotion. Mara’s pity. Jace’s fear. Claude’s calm concern. She stomped past the shipyards, realized she’d gone too far, turned, and stomped past again in the other direction. She bought herself another coffee from a food cart. By the time she reached the Order’s office building, a glass-walled tower in the Palm, caffeine buzzed through her blood and burned behind her eyeballs. Perfect attitude for work. Easier to solve problems when you could direct the full weight of your messed-up life against them.

She realized her mistake when she reached the conference room and found a human being waiting for her, rather than a set of theological enigmas.

Kai stopped at the door. The pilgrim was a curvy Quechal woman, five six or so, skin darker than Kai’s, hair short and curled. She wore a pinstriped suit and a bolo tie, and if she noticed Kai’s mood, she did not let on. She swept forward, beaming, hand extended straight and sure as a ship’s prow. A silver wire bracelet gleamed on her left wrist. “Miss Pohala? I’m Teo Batan. Thank you so much for taking this meeting.”

Kai took the woman’s hand by defensive reflex. Her grip was firm, her smile the kind of genuine only naifs or consummate professionals could manage. Kai suspected she was the latter. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Batan.”

“Call me Teo, please.”

“Kai,” she said, again by reflex. She ushered Teo to a chair, but the Quechal woman shook her head.

“Do you mind if I stand? I’ve spent the last three days shipboard in a cabin the size of a doghouse. Feels good to stretch the legs.” She rose onto her toes, settled back to her heels, and swept her arms through the air.

“Fine by me.” Kai walked around the table, so the wood lay between them at least. She opened the project folder and fanned through pages of information she’d memorized already. She looked across at Teo, who looked back. Once more Kai felt that foreign frission, the fear of being spotted. Old Quechal society had little room for people born in wrong-sexed bodies; they’d kicked out their priests and pantheon at the end of the God Wars, but ancient attitudes lingered. The subject wouldn’t come up, no reason for it, but the extra tickle of tension tightened Kai’s nerves, which needed no more tightening. She took a breath and tried to think about water, or anything else. The first step of a sale, Twilling taught, was identification, connecting with the prospect. She’d done that already, or Teo had. Needs assessment came next. “Why do you want to build an idol, Teo?”

“I don’t,” the other woman said.

Kai closed the folder. “I guess we’re done, then.”