Or maybe she just really, really hated being in Valerio militia colors. The jacket was too tight, the pants too long, and it itched everywhere. She had been more comfortable in some of the dresses she was shoved into at the Iron Palace—and Ana never thought she’d ever feel that way.

“Receiving the docking codes,” Jax said, swiping up two notifications on his dash before he eased up through the lines of traffic toward the Valerios’ floating estate. “They definitely stepped up security since we last popped in. Sir Erik, would you like to be dropped off at the front or on the side?”

Erik Valerio glowered at him. He wasn’t detained anymore—he’d agreed to help them, after some cajoling—but they were definitely not seeing eye to eye. Erik wanted to kill Di—blaming him for Lady Valerio’s murder. That was one of the reasons Di had opted to go with Wynn and Viera instead, so that he could stay as far away from Erik as possible. It’d been easy enough to keep them separated on the Dossier, but here it would be a little more difficult.

Jax tapped his fingers on the helm and glanced over his shoulder. “Well, Ironblood?”

Erik Valerio pulled himself to sit as tall as he could and said, “The side is for paupers and Ironbloods too stingy to hire their own drivers.”

“The side it is,” Jax replied, much to Erik’s disgust, and eased into the docking canal in the marina underneath the garden.

“It took months to renovate this place after you heathens trashed it,” Erik was saying as Jax parked in one of the docking stations. Mechanical arms came out and hooked onto the bottom of the ship to steady it. “Do you know how many good ships were destroyed?”

“Hopefully plenty,” replied Jax. “Now out.”

Gathering her Metroid and lightsword—which, ha, Ana used about as much as a comb at this point—she hopped out of the skysailer and reached a hand back for Erik. He took it, leering at her, and stepped down off the skysailer, followed by Robb.

“Hey, Jax?” Ana turned back to him as the docking latches unhooked from the skysailer.

“Yes, my love?”

“Be careful.”

He smirked and gave her a salute, and the skysailer dropped from the marina and disappeared into the steady stream of traffic below.

“I really should have killed him when I had the chance,” Erik mumbled, earning a look from Robb that could have melted the sun.

She took a deep, calm breath. She just had to keep Robb from kicking Erik off the garden for a little while longer.

“You know, this party is going to go so different from what I imagined,” Erik Valerio went on, and started down the docks. The last time they’d been in the belly of the Valerios’ floating estate, she’d been a much different person, chasing wide-eyed after a rumor.

She wasn’t chasing things anymore but coming to meet them.

And oh, the image of that red coat burned in her brain.