“Not as long as the fifty years I’ll spend in prison if this all goes sideways, Lord Ghreni,” Jamies said. “That is, if the emperox doesn’t simply decide to have me killed.”

“May I humbly ask that I can say to the duke that he’ll have an answer within five days. Five days, I am sure, would be acceptable to him.”

Jamies appeared to think about this. “Very well, Lord Ghreni. Five days.”

“Thank you, my lord.” He bowed. “If the duke wishes to come see you himself, where may I tell him you will be, these next few days?”

“I’ll be here,” Jamies said. “As I always am. As I always have been.”

Ghreni bowed again, turned, and exited. Marce waited until Vrenna went and closed the office door behind him before speaking.

“You can’t seriously be thinking of doing that,” he said to his father.

“Why not?” Jamies asked.

Marce was gobsmacked.

“You’re buying time,” Vrenna said, coming back up to both of them.

“I am,” Jamies agreed.

“Buying time for what?”

“Until it doesn’t matter anymore.” Jamies pointed at the tablet that Marce was still holding. “I’ve modeled the collapse of the Flow streams, son. It will be years before they’re all gone. But some of them are already about to fail.” He tapped the tablet. “One of the first will be the stream from here to Hub. The model shows it’s already collapsing.”

“How long until it’s gone?” Vrenna asked.

“Another year. But it’s collapsing from the entrance shoal. The best-case scenario has it closing in a month. The worst case is in about a week. After that it will be entirely inaccessible. Any ship that’s here at End will stay here. Forever.” Jamies turned to his son. “Which is another reason you have to go, now. If you don’t go now, you’ll never be able to go.”

“You should be the one to go,” Marce repeated, to his father.

Jamies shook his head. “The duke’s about to be deposed. All the sitting nobles are being watched to see if they’re trying to abandon the planet ahead of his fall. And now I have to give Ghreni Nohamapetan an answer about the money. If I so much as leave this house, the assumption will be that I’m making a run for it. They’re watching me. They’re not watching you.”

“It makes sense, Marce,” Vrenna said. “You’re the only one who can explain this stuff as well as Dad can. And they won’t be paying attention to you.”

“Especially since I’ve made Vrenna my heir,” Jamies said.

“What?” Marce said.

“Yeah, what?” Vrenna said.