A few minutes later, Ilina had everyone sorted into cabins, and I trailed after Aaru into the one she’d assigned to us.

In spite of the size of the ship, there wasn’t much space: just two narrow beds, two closets with shelves on the bottoms, two nightstands, and one lavatory. The last was behind a partition, and it had a sink and commode. Nowhere to fully bathe, but hopefully Nine would show us somewhere later.

There was no porthole, either; we must have been deep inside the ship.

Aaru looked between the beds. “Which one do you want?”

I let LaLa off her leash and put my bag on the left-hand bed. “This isn’t so bad, although it isn’t much bigger than our cells in the Pit. I wouldn’t want to live here for decans at a time.”

“They probably don’t do much living in here.” Aaru dropped his bag on the second bed and offered a hand to LaLa. She trilled and tumbled to him, landing with a thump. “It’s probably sleep and work. If there’s time for recreation, I bet they do it somewhere else.” Carefully, he stroked down LaLa’s spine, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

“Do you mind this?” The words were out before I could think better of them. “Sharing a room, I mean. Ilina didn’t exactly ask.”

He looked up, face dark with embarrassment. “I heard what they said. Before the memorial. I know what they meant—why they wanted us to share.”

“I—”

A sharp knock on the door saved me from having to finish that conversation just yet. I put LaLa back on her tether and found an impatient Nine in the corridor, accompanied by three large sun-darkened men. I didn’t know much about imperial fashion, so from their dress—loose cotton shirts and trousers, and brown boots that went up to the middle of their calves—I couldn’t tell if they were important people Nine wanted to introduce us to, or . . .

“Hello,” I said, but they didn’t respond.

“These gentlemen are here for your protection,” Nine said. “Don’t worry about them.”

Guards.

I wanted to be angry, but we’d have done no different to her, had our positions been reversed.

Finally, the others emerged from their cabins, and Nine imparted more rules—mostly ordering us to stay out of the way. Then she showed us how to find the mess hall, the infirmary, a communal washroom, and a small library stuffed with books.

“Are these novels?” I trailed my fingertips over stories from another world. It hadn’t occurred to me that such a thing would exist, but it made sense: humans were creative creatures, and everyone had some sort of story to tell.

“I found histories,” Ilina murmured. “This will be useful. We can get to know the empire and its many conquests.” Her tone was pleasant, but I didn’t miss the bite.

“I think you’ll be impressed.” Nine was leaning in the doorway, one hand on her hip. “The peace our empress has brought to so many warring kingdoms is truly remarkable.”