She’d come in strength. Tennal had never seen all her senior officers there at once, fanning out behind her as she entered, every one of them an architect. This was a major negotiation. As the officers broke ranks to sit, exchanging short words and taking half the seats at the table, Tennal had the uneasy thought: could any of them write the legislator? Surely not. The legislator wasn’t a Rank One, but she wasn’t far off. None of these architects were that strong. And Oma couldn’t brainwash the legislator in a public meeting, not with everyone watching.

His aunt must’ve already known about Oma and what she could do with the remnants. The legislator had intelligence agencies reporting to her, for Lights’ sake. There was no way Tennal could know something his aunt didn’t.

Tennal had the horrible realization that he was going to have to try to warn her.

He’d have to catch her afterward. How he was going to do that and not get detained as a traitor by either side, he didn’t know. Surit? he said, then realized his mouth hadn’t moved.

Surit was already turning to him as if he’d heard. But Tennal hadn’t said his name—he’d just reached out wordlessly to the other presence in the churning mess of their joined mind.

Surit was stopped by someone gripping his arm. Captain Fari had broken from the pack of aides, and now he’d obviously come to fetch them. “The governor wanted to see you, Lieutenant Yeni.”

“Surely there’s no time for that,” Tennal said breezily, but Surit gave him a hunted look as he was drawn over. Tennal bit down on a swear word and followed. It took him a second to realize the fear he felt wasn’t all his own. Surit was also afraid of Oma.

Oma was in conversation with one of her senior officers, but she paused as they came up, dismissed the officer, and glanced at Surit. “Thank you, Captain Halkana. I don’t know if there’s time—”

Tennal broke in. “Okay, let’s not pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It took everything he had not to look at Surit, but he couldn’t afford the distraction. “You can’t brainwash Surit. You said it doesn’t work if the architect is synced.”

Oma blinked and looked at him. It wasn’t possible to pick out a synced pair by sight, but it must be obvious something was up: one of Surit’s eyes was unfocused, and Tennal kept having to move his left leg or forget where it was.

“Interesting,” Oma said. Her eyes rested on Tennal. “We’ll talk after. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Sir,” Surit said.

“Mm,” Tennal said brightly. He didn’t know if the immediate intention to be elsewhere came from him or Surit.