“I believe that’s General Fenrik’s code,” Audel said, with an unseemly satisfaction. “How careless. He must have a local storage module. I wonder what he doesn’t want to keep on his personal systems?”

Gairad started to grin. “Can I have a look?” Audel gestured for her to go ahead.

Kiem finally realized what they were doing when Gairad started to open things. They were … personnel dossiers. Some of them had vids. They were all from officers whose names Kiem didn’t recognize, all at colonel rank or above.

“This isn’t right,” Gairad said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the refinery.”

They didn’t. The one she had open was about an officer’s conviction for petty theft and the affair he was having with a subordinate. Kiem felt dirty even skimming it. “Why would General Fenrik have this?”

Gairad shrugged and moved to the next one. Kiem took a moment to realize this was Aren Saffer’s file. “Close it,” he said, but Gairad didn’t. Instead she expanded it to fill both screens. Aren had been busy, Kiem realized, with a slightly sick feeling. He had gambling debts going back ten years.

“This is blackmail material,” Kiem said.

Professor Audel nodded, apparently unfazed. “So there must be a reason Fenrik needed to keep his senior officers in line.”

“Here’s a file on Prince Taam,” Gairad said suddenly.

“Don’t look at that,” Kiem said, but she’d already opened it.

It wasn’t a file. It was a vid. Gairad’s expression changed as she opened it.

At first Kiem couldn’t make sense of what he saw. Then his eyes adjusted, and he realized it was a view of a corridor from the static angle of a security camera. It wasn’t a place he recognized, but it had the white walls and polished opalescent flooring of—no, he did recognize that flooring pattern, that must be somewhere in the palace. It looked like the Emperor’s Wing.

Taam and Jainan stood outside the door of their quarters. Too close to each other, Taam furious, Jainan blank. Somewhere in Kiem’s head, the floor gave way.

Blackmail material.

“I … maybe we shouldn’t,” Gairad said uncertainly.

“Give me the vid,” Kiem said. He held out the data coin.

Gairad looked at him and did a double take, as if whatever was on his face wasn’t worth arguing with. She downloaded the vid and hastily came out of the program.

“We’ll carry on looking, then,” Professor Audel said, scrutinizing Kiem as if he were a research subject. “You’ll want to take that … outside.”

Kiem wasn’t listening anymore. Kingfisher didn’t seem important. Nothing seemed important except the slim disc of cool metal he held in his hand.

The door shut behind him. He was aware of passing other people in the corridors, but he didn’t see their faces. He realized he was walking too fast; he was probably drawing attention, and attention was the last thing he wanted right now. He stopped in a corner where two little-used corridors met and took the coin out of his pocket. It was warm from his hand; had he been holding it that tightly? He attached it to his wristband.