Kiem didn’t know what he was expecting to see, but it absolutely wasn’t a

picturesque shot of the gates outside the Imperial College.

“Please tell me this isn’t some kind of military joke,” Kiem said. Jainan looked as baffled as he felt.

Aren gave him a humorless slash of a smile. “We traced the network intrusion,” he said. “We had to go fairly deep into the comms grid, but we found the identifiers. It came from the Imperial College networks.”

“Nobody at the College would hurt Taam,” Kiem said. “He didn’t study there.

He went to officer academy. Nobody even knew him at the College.”

“Wish that were true!” Aren said. “That would make my life much easier. But there is a connection.”

He made a sharp-angled gesture toward the screen, and something else appeared: a picture of a person. Kiem blinked.

“Not possible,” Jainan said sharply, at the same time as Kiem said, “Isn’t that Professor Audel?”

It was Audel. Kiem had only met her in person once but remembered her face: the engineering professor with straggly white hair who had watched Jainan sharply at the College reception then asked him to join her project. “Come off it, Aren,” Kiem said. “You’re looking for a student with too much time on their hands, not an Imperial College professor.”

Aren laughed, short and sharp. “Am I?” He made a second gesture, and another photo appeared: Audel, only a few years younger. She wore the blue uniform and silver tabs of a military captain.

“She was recruited as a technical expert,” Aren said. “We bring in people from various industries—she’s been in and out of academia and commercial mining for years. I found her resume. Her military career stops there, though.

Because she made a complaint about Prince Taam, who was only just out of officer academy then, and he made a counter-complaint to General Fenrik. She was discharged as incompetent for her role.”

“What?” Kiem said. He shot a glance at Jainan. “You didn’t know anything about this, right?”

“This is absurd,” Jainan said, his composure showing rare cracks. “She mentioned military experience, but I don’t believe it was—she didn’t know who I was when she met me. She can’t have been holding a grudge against Taam.

This is preposterous.”

Aren slumped back in his chair and sighed. “Look at it from my point of view,” he said. “The Auditor wants some straight answers. Internal Security hasn’t found anyone to take the blame. It looks like this professor tried to

illegally access the Kingfisher network, and it turns out she had a grudge against Taam. This is the only person we have real evidence against—and at least it’s not a Thean.”

Kiem hadn’t been happy since they walked into Aren’s office, but his whole body recoiled at being complicit in that. “We’re not just looking for someone to turn over to the Auditor,” he said. “We’re looking for what really happened.”