Then, and only then, he entered the high-urgency code that was only supposed to be used for a life-or-death situation, and called Bel.

He waited so long he started counting the seconds. A minute. Ninety seconds.

Eventually, though, the soft waiting pattern dissolved into Bel’s face. She was in what looked like a privacy capsule at the shuttleport, distracted and drawn with

worry. “Kiem?” She looked at him and behind him and seemed to reassure herself he wasn’t in immediate danger. “I’m literally about to get on the shuttle, they’re calling the passengers now. I can’t talk.”

“Jainan’s been arrested,” Kiem said. He could hear his voice crack. “They think he killed Taam and tried to kill me. I need to get him out before they interrogate him. I need your help.”

Bel’s eyes widened, but only for an instant before calculation spread across her face. “Let me guess,” she said. “Major Saffer.”

“I’m sorry,” Kiem said. “You can still go tonight. Just delay by half a day, I’ll book you on a new—What?”

“Saffer’s somewhere behind this,” Bel said. “And if you’re worried about interrogation, that means the military have him. Hell fucking damn it.”

“Right,” said Kiem, who had rarely heard Bel swear like that before, but at least someone was having the right reaction. He didn’t know where she’d gotten Aren’s name from, but that wasn’t the most important thing right now. “I need you. Just for half a day. A few hours.”

She paused. Kiem realized he was gripping his wristband with his other hand, an old habit from when he was a child and thought you needed to keep holding it to make the other person’s image stay there. The edges pressed into his fingers.

“Please.”

“Kiem,” she said at last. “There’s not a lot I can do. It’s not going to help if you send me to talk to people. They’ll need to hear from you. I’m really sorry.”

“I’m not going to talk to people,” Kiem said. “I’m going to find out where Jainan is and get him out.” He lowered his voice, even in the privacy of his own room. “I’ll cover you when it comes to the legalities, I swear, but I need you. I know you can get around entrance scanners. You did it for me when I lost my wristband last year. The Emperor’s only given them two days, and they can’t have gone down to Thea, so he has to be in the station or on one of the cluster modules. I’m going to find where they’re holding him, and I’m going to come back with Jainan.”

Bel had already covered her face with her hand. “Oh fucking hell.”

Kiem could feel his momentum crumbling away from under his feet. He barreled on anyway, desperate. “I have to do this before they hurt him. There’s stuff you don’t know about Taam and—please. I know you need to get to your grandmother soon—”