“An advancing army all the same,” he said, and pushed himself restlessly away from the wall. Kit dropped to a seat on one of the chairs and watched him stalk through the room.

“So what else did your father say?” she asked, when it appeared he had no other conversation to offer.

“We didn’t talk long. I told him that Hecht and Shate had been to see me—”

“Hecht and Shate!” she exclaimed. “When did you see them?”

He shrugged irritably. “Last week, when I had a visitor’s pass. What I didn’t tell him was—”

“You had a visitor’s pass last week?” she interrupted. “But I thought—I hadn’t seen you for so long, I thought you hadn’t been given any passes at all!”

“No, not until last week,” he agreed.

“But—Hecht and Shate!” she repeated. She still could not believe it. “I thought if you only had one pass a week, you would send for me. I thought—Jex, I worry about you so much, I think about you all the time, I think, ‘Oh, if I can only see him an hour a week, then I can live on that.’ But you had the hour and you spent it with—with Hecht and—”

“Oh, spare me the tantrum!” he exploded, ramming away from one wall to practically plow into another. “Hecht and Shate can carry on my business for me while I’m stuck in here, which is something you can’t do, and wouldn’t if you could! Of course I had to see them! What can you do for me? You can’t get me out of here, and you won’t talk strategies with me, and you won’t even fuck me while there’s a camera in the wall, which—” He turned to shout at the discreet round eye sitting at the highest edge of the ceiling moulding in the corner facing the door. “Which there still is, isn’t there, Ariana Bayless? You watching the films every night, you stupid blueshi bitch? Would you like to see me fucking my girlfriend?”

He was laughing as he turned back to Kit, and he bounded to her side to pull her to her feet. “Now, that might just be worth it, a chance to turn the mayor’s face bright red instead of blue. Are you game, Kitrini? Want to help me give old Ariana Bayless a show?”

She was so shocked that for a minute she stood rigid in his arms, and then she shoved him away furiously when he tried to kiss her. He was still laughing, though he stumbled a little as she sent him backward. “Oh, come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”