He winked at her. “It’s just Tain Hu’s will.”

And he was gone before she could even beg him to wait.

*   *   *

FARRIER had given her a key in an envelope, and it came with a note from Apparitor: You didn’t get much mail. I suppose because you’ve murdered or estranged everyone who’s no longer useful to you. Ha ha. That’s like a joke, in that we’ll both have to pretend we think it’s a joke so we can work together civilly. That’s my favorite kind of joke.

“Fuck off,” Baru told the silence. She slid the key in all the way to its handle, an oily insinuation of teeth and tumblers. The lock thumped with satisfying heft. She’d like to own a lock to open and close as she sat in thought. Imagine a currency made of locks! A currency that measures the value of secrets, and the more the secret’s worth, the more locks you attach.

The door whispered on silent bearings.

Baru’s lantern showed her the rack of letters labeled FOR THE CANDIDATE.

She demanded absolute obedience from every muscle and nerve. With two fingers she pinched out one letter at random.

To our daughter Baru Cormorant.

From Solit Able and Pinion Starmap.

Her loving parents.

And then she was crying, sure as a storm brought rain. Mother. Father. You wrote me—oh, you wrote me so often, and I never wrote back!

The tough cotton-rag envelopes. The heavy handwriting, as if perpetually frustrated, or, perhaps, shouting. Did they get news from Aurdwynn? Had they heard of Baru’s defection to the rebels? Had they read of her “true” loyalty to the Throne? Oh gods, what would mother think?

The envelopes changed to slick waxy card stock. A new hand on the pen, and a new signature:

To the Imperial Accountant of Aurdwynn,

From the Lieutenant Aminata isiSegu, RNS Lapetiare

Baru sniffled and smiled. Look, the later ones came from the Lieutenant Commander Aminata isiSegu, Annalila Fortress, Isla Cauteria. Lieutenant commander! She’d been promoted, and so young! Aminata always wanted to be an admiral. She was closer now. Too bad that she probably hated Baru for sinking all those navy ships at Welthony Harbor. Too bad. Too bad.

Baru knuckled her eyes and growled. Tain Hu was dead. Hold up that big pain next to losing Aminata. Look at you, tiny pain. You are so little. She had to keep everything in proportion.

And here was a letter that Baru clutched to her breast with both hands, to warm her heart. Lao had written. Her second cousin, Baru’s first crush, the woman Baru saved from the awful hygienist Diline in the Iriad school. Baru had definitely saved her. No one else was sacrificed—so the act of saving Lao was unambiguously, absolutely good. She loved Lao just for that.