Amit considered this. “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”

“Or, you could give me an answer now,” Huma said.

“Countess Lagos, please,” Amit said. “As you’ve so humiliatingly pointed out to me more than once in this conversation, it’s not entirely my call to make. And I do have a meeting with the emperox on my schedule today. I can’t exactly put it off.”

“Then how about this. In exactly twenty-four hours and one minute from now, unless I hear from you, a sworn affidavit goes to the secretary of the executive committee and to the emperox herself. And I’ll let you and your sister sort it out from there. Fair enough?”

“ ‘Fair’ is not the word I would use, Countess.”

“You might have thought of that before you began all this nonsense, Lord Amit,” Huma Lagos said, rising. Kiva rose with her. “And before you decided to drag our house into it.” She nodded and left without otherwise saying good-bye. Kiva followed. Her last image of Amit Nohamapetan was of him reaching for his tablet and jabbing in a call code.

“I fucking love you,” Kiva said to her mother as they passed by the receptionist on their way out. The receptionist resolutely did not look their way as they walked by.

“Mm-hmm.” Huma said nothing more while they waited for the elevator.

“Do you think Nadashe will agree?” Kiva said, when they were in the elevator, alone.

“It doesn’t matter,” Huma said.

“Two hundred million marks seems like it would matter.”

“The point of the discussion wasn’t to blackmail the Nohamapetans. That was just a fringe benefit. The point of it was to find out what they’re up to, and to unsettle their plans. Now we know what they’re up to. They’re planning to take over End.”

“Right,” Kiva said. “But why?”

The elevator opened. “Because they know something they think everyone else doesn’t,” Huma said, stepping out.

Kiva processed this while they walked. “You think they know,” she said, to her mother. “About what’s going on with the Flow.”

“They know, or they think they know something else equally big,” Huma said. “They’re risking a lot to position themselves at the ass-end of space, and I think they’re willing to give up a lot to keep it quiet.”

“So you do think they’ll give us the money.”

Huma nodded. They reached the door of Lord Pretar’s office. As they went inside, Pretar stood up and started to welcome them.

“Get out,” Huma said. Pretar swallowed his welcome and marched himself out. Kiva closed the door. “The money is another confirmation,” she continued, to her daughter.

“What if they don’t give us the money?”