“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—”

“Stop,” Bel said. Her voice was muffled behind her hand. “Stop, shut up, for the love of everything, shut up. There is no sick grandmother!”

Kiem stopped. “What?”

“I’ve been lying to you!” Bel said. Her voice was lower and faster now, almost a whisper. “I don’t know where the hell my grandmother is, she was with the Black Shells last time I spoke to her. She’s probably fine. Stop—stop sympathizing!”

That put a wrench even in Kiem’s current panic. “Black Shells? Is that a monastery?”

“She’s a raider!” Bel said. “Do I have to spell this out for you? The Black Shells is a conglom! Like the one I came from!”

“I don’t—you—conglom?”

“Raider outfit!”

“Right,” Kiem said and bit down on I knew that. His limited knowledge of Sefalan affairs wasn’t the issue here. He tried not to feel like he was talking to someone else, someone who wasn’t Bel at all. “Why did you need to lie to—”