Gazson shrugged. “There’s a war on.”

Kiva pointed. “He wants to leave.”

“It’s not the same, ma’am. He wants to leave forever and take his family with him. Everyone who has family here wants to be with them right now. Down on the surface there are huge numbers of people moving away from the open war zones. There’s a refugee crisis down there. Honestly, even if we hadn’t been barred from selling the haverfruit we wouldn’t have sold much anyway. There’s almost no market right now.”

“We still would have had our license fees and profits,” Kiva noted. Then she stopped, looked again at the man in her hold. “What’s this dude’s name again?” she asked Gazson.

“Sivouren Donher.”

“Has he been a good franchisee for us?”

“One of our most successful. It’s one of the reasons why he’s asking. I think he thinks we owe him.”

“Does he,” Kiva said. “Then I guess you better bring him up.”

Gazson nodded and went to retrieve him.

Close up Sivouren Donher was middle-aged, a little puffy, and had a look on his face that twitched between arrogance and anxiety so quickly that Kiva was certain he wasn’t aware his head was doing that. It was a look of someone who until the last few days was pretty sure he could ride out whatever nonsense this rebellion was about, and then suddenly realized he couldn’t.

“Lady Kiva,” Donher said, bowing. He looked at the seat Gazson Magnut had recently vacated in order to retrieve him. He clearly expected that he would be offered a seat, this meeting being between equals and all.

“You want off End,” Kiva said, not offering the seat. Magnut, who stood in the corner of the room, also not taking the seat, raised his eyebrows ever so slightly at the intentional breach of courtesy.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kiva nodded in the direction of Magnut. “Gazson here tells me that you’re one of our most successful franchisees.”

Donher smiled and nodded. “I have done well for your family, Lady Kiva.”

“Define ‘well’ for me.”

“For this current payment period, House of Lagos received four million marks from my companies. Uh, will receive, once the current unpleasantness you are having with the Duke of End is resolved.”

“Four million marks,” Kiva said. “That’s not bad. That’s not bad at all.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“So why the fuck would I want to mess with that?”

Donher blinked. “Ma’am?”

“You’re one of my biggest moneymakers. If you leave End, that money dries up. Logic dictates I tell you to go back to your orchards and factories and keep at it.”

“Ma’am… there’s a war on.”

“And? My people here tell me you idiots do this shit on a regular basis. In a few months you’ll all be back to life as usual.”