“Well, Lady Kiva, you tell me. You arrive from End with a business dispute against the Nohamapetans and with a ship full of emigrants from a planet whose rebels have been attacking targets all around the Interdependency—and who have attempted to assassinate the emperox before. So now here is an assassination attempt that not only targets the emperox but also gets rid of the heir to the head of the House of Nohamapetan, and incidentally does immense financial damage to his house by destroying its new tenner just before it’s deployed into service. Do you not see how I could imagine that you and these terrorists from End might have decided to assassinate two birds with one stone?”

“You can imagine anything you like,” Kiva said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s true. And it wouldn’t make sense anyway. We needed Lord Amit alive to push through the settlement we wanted from him. Killing him before we got that wouldn’t do us any good. Now they’re not going to have a goddamn thing to do with us, especially if they think we’re involved.”

Limbar smiled. “That much I expect is true. Lady Nadashe is in a rage, and only the fact that she’s currently whipping up support to send a troopship to End is keeping her full attention from the House of Lagos.”

Kiva opened her mouth to say something about the Nohamapetan involvement with the rebels on End and why the fuck wasn’t Limbar looking into that, when she snapped her mouth closed so fast that her teeth actually clacked together.

“Yes, Lady Kiva?” Limbar said, noticing. “Something just occur to you?”

“I was wondering whether you have any evidence to back up your hunch here.”

Limbar motioned around him. “There is a reason we’re here. I don’t imagine you or your mother is stupid enough to commit any plans like this to recordable media, if you were involved. But perhaps not everyone in your employ is that aware. In which case, we’ll find out. In the meantime, Lady Kiva, you’ll understand that I’ve restricted your movements to Hubfall for now and that you’ll be discreetly monitored in your movement. It’s not just you, of course. Your mother, Lord Pretar, and most of your executives here on Hub and on Xi’an are also being restricted.”

“That’s not going to go over very well with my mother.”