I waited until my team was secure before looking for a seat of my own. While I’d waited, Torran had closed the shuttle’s doors. Now he waved me to the last empty pair of seats, located in the back—he’d remembered my preference for being able to keep an eye on everyone.

He pointed at the shoulder harness. “Would you like me to show you how the clasps work?”

I had a pretty good idea, because we’d recovered Valovian vehicles during the war, but I nodded and let him demonstrate the buckle that slotted together at an angle and then snapped flat. The design worked well as a safety restraint because the clasp wouldn’t come apart as long as there was tension on it.

I gingerly climbed into the seat and strapped in. The chair swayed as Torran settled next to me. The slim armrest between us did nothing to prevent me from feeling the heat of his body all the way from my shoulder to my knee.

“Ready?” he asked.

I twisted to glance back at Luna, who still sat on the pile of cargo like a tiny, fluffy queen. “Should I hold Luna or will she be able to ride where she is?” The little burbu had excellent balance, but if we needed shoulder harnesses, then she might need more support.

“She’ll be fine there. She can dig her claws into the cargo if she needs to.”

“Then I’m ready.”

Torran said something in Valovan and the shuttle lifted off its parking pads. The sides of the vehicle were lined with tinted windows, and I didn’t even bother to pretend that I wasn’t fascinated by the view outside.

We accelerated smoothly away from Starlight’s Shadow. Our seats did not swing as much as I’d expected, and I wondered if the pivot was actually connected to an electronic control that activated when the transport was in motion.

Torran must’ve already set the destination because once we left the spaceport, the shuttle seamlessly joined the stream of ground traffic. I didn’t see any transports in the sky.

I turned to Torran. “Are flying transports banned because of the Imperial Palace?”

“There are flights within the city, but they are limited to public transport and imperial business,” he said. “There are also both local and high-speed underground lev lines.”

If I were a thief, which option would I choose? I would probably split the team, making it harder to track everyone. I wondered if Kee could still pull surveillance video from two weeks ago.

We left the neighborhood streets and entered an elevated expressway. The shuttle accelerated rapidly. On the first corner the seats started to make sense. They swung just enough that I felt pressed into the seat bottom rather than the armrest.