“Like what?” she asked. “That you’re harboring another prince or princess on the Dossier? That Lenda’s secretly the heir to some grand fortune? Aragon maybe?” Because the last of the Aragons had died with the late Grand Duchess, her daughter killed by an assassin some twenty years ago. Siege flinched as Ana continued, “No, I’m fine not knowing, thanks.”

“Ana—”

But she’d already turned away from her captain. Siege sighed and left with Talle. Ana stormed off toward one corner of the garden, resisting the urge to kick a flower in her anger. The flowers didn’t deserve it.

The comm-link on her lapel flashed, the silver band on her ear that also served as an earpiece crackled, and Elara’s voice hushed through. “You seem irate, Princess.”

Ana jumped, startled. She whirled around the garden, but she was alone, save for the Solgard, looking bored and unhappy, guarding the entrance to the garden. “Elara?” she whispered. “Where are you?”

“The Dossier, where I’m supposed to be. The ma c’zar is certainly as cold as ever.”

“You were listening this whole time?”

“Just a bit.”

Hackers, Ana thought, and realized that there was nothing she could do about her anger, so she just let out a long breath. After a moment she said, “Did you know? That Jax had the dark fever?”

“I . . . had hoped that he didn’t.”

“And you recognized him as the C’zar when you first met him?”

“Yes,” she replied carefully.

Ana kicked a pebble, and it skittered across the cobblestones and into the bushes. “You seem to know a lot about us, and we know almost nothing about you.” When Elara didn’t respond, she added, “Does it have to do with that person you mentioned back in Neon City? Koren Vey?”

“Yes. She helped me rescue you.”

“How?”

“Can you take out your holo-pad, Princess? It’s easier to show you. And find somewhere . . . quiet.”

That meant find somewhere discreet where the Solgard couldn’t see her. There were plenty of bushes and trees and flowers in the garden, so she simply slipped between two budding rosebushes, thorns catching her coat, and settled down behind them, on the lip of the garden. It was a sheer drop into a cluster of official buildings a hundred feet below, where more trees and flowers and grasses bloomed in the shade. Zenteli was a strange place, a mixture of white marble and green spaces.

She took out her holo-pad. A screen appeared, prompting a code, and it filled in itself and opened a strange program Ana didn’t recognize. “I assume you hacked it?”

“So, don’t get mad, but I’ve been . . . looking at you for a while.”

Ana made a disgusted noise. “Spying?”

“Not in the traditional sense. Here.” Elara prompted the program on Ana’s holo-pad, and three screens expanded to fill the glass. They looked like windows into the Dossier’s galley, hull, and cockpit. Lenda was stocking the galley with supplies she’d bought in the market. There wasn’t any sound, but by the way her head bobbed she was singing something. Probably that snappy tune Wick played for her all the time.