It’s just that Thea’s flare-up is so recent and the dratted newslogs seized on it, and that makes it so much harder to get any serious negotiations done.”

Kiem realized his leg was moving restlessly, but the movement felt wrong in Vaile’s delicately arranged apartment, so he made himself stop. Vaile was a politician through and through; that had been obvious since she was fourteen.

Kiem accepted that she knew more than him, but however he tried to make the puzzle pieces fit, there were still some missing. He could feel rusted parts of his brain trying to move. “So they’re renegotiating,” he said. “But—we don’t have a Minister for Thea, do we? The Thean Ambassador told me.”

“Poor old boy,” Vaile said briefly. “Faculties failing even before he retired. I met him last year.”

“So who’s doing the negotiating?” Kiem said. “How can Thea get different terms if there’s no one in that post?”

Vaile hesitated. “I honestly don’t know,” she said. There was a layer of careful politeness over it. Vaile had always been able to turn her various manners on and off like a switch. Kiem used to know how to get past it to her unfiltered self, but he seemed to have lost the knack as they grew older. “I haven’t paid much attention to Thea. I assume the Emperor has it in hand.”

That was a nothing answer if Kiem had ever heard one. “So you can’t help,”

Kiem said, more of his confidence draining away. He’d been relying on her more than he’d realized. “Well, can you … I don’t know, recommend a lawyer for Jainan?” There was already a list of lawyers on his wristband; Bel had left it there ten minutes after he’d told her what was going on.

Vaile picked up her coffee cup and ran her finger around the curve of it.

“There are many fine legal firms that work with the palace. If you think about it, though, it might be better to distance yourself from the entire thing. Have you both considered a holiday? The north wetlands are quite bearable at this time of year, if you don’t want to go off-planet.”

“Vaile,” Kiem said, cajoling. “Come on, you don’t really think the wetlands are nice.”

“They have a certain bleak beauty.”

“Vaile. ”

She made a soft, frustrated noise and pushed her cup away with a clatter. “All right, Kiem. If you want my real advice, dearest cousin, you won’t go near a lawyer with a ten-foot pole.”

“Why not?”

“Kiem,” Vaile said, with a bluntness that meant Kiem was finally getting a real reaction. “The treaty is on a knife-edge. Whoever is playing games—and I honestly don’t know who is, but I suspect it’s everyone—knows these are high-stakes negotiations that won’t come around again for another twenty years. We will sign a treaty, or the Resolution will step back and we’ll find some real empire like the High Chain swarming through our link before the year is up.