Tennal spent the next ten minutes watching the capture of the commencement ceremony, with additional irreverent commentary from Zin, while he finished his pastry. They didn’t have them in Sanura, and he’d forgotten the way the crisp buttery flakes broke on your tongue; it seemed unfair of the universe to remind him just as he was about to lose all those small luxuries. His time ticked down. He was putting it off.

“So,” Tennal said eventually, from his perch on her desk. “’Fraid this isn’t a long visit.”

Zin lowered her mug. “I thought maybe it wasn’t.” She turned the mug around in her hands. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”

Her usually meant the legislator. “We’ve sorted things out,” Tennal said. “I’m taking a tour with the army. We’re just going to see how it goes.”

“The army,” Zin repeated. She turned away from him and started to tidy the things on the other end of her desk, usually a giveaway for a conversation she didn’t want to have. “You hate the army.”

“It’s the best option I’ve got,” Tennal said. “Honestly, it’s not that bad. Research fleet, she said. Sounds like they’re going into disturbed space to study it.” Tennal knew absolutely nothing about how space screwed itself up near the galactic link or why anyone would want to study it. It wasn’t as if his aunt would care either. She just wanted him somewhere else. “Might find an alien.”

Zin shut her book, extinguishing the light inside it, and moved it onto a stack of other specialist legal texts. “Really.”

“Well, maybe not the alien,” Tennal said. He was confident in his ability to out-brazen a sixteen-year-old. “I’ll be running my unit in a year, no sweat.”

“Which unit?”

Tennal realized he hadn’t asked. It hadn’t seemed important. “We’re still sorting that out,” he said. “I’ll be out of touch for a bit, but she’ll know where I am if you want updates. And I’ll be back on leave in a few months.”

Zin turned back to face him. She had that grave, unfamiliar expression again. “Did she conscript you?”

“No,” Tennal said. “Lights, Zin, it’s not like that. Don’t get in knots about it.”

There was a long silence. Zin had a vintage-style clock above her bed; Tennal could hear it ticking. “All right,” Zin said, and Tennal recognized his own inflection with a mild jolt of surprise. “When are you leaving?”

“Tonight.”

“Of course you are,” Zin said. She took a slow breath. “You know she can’t legally conscript you, don’t you?”