“No, I do see that,” Jainan said. “Can’t I at least take responsibility for the break-in? This whole mess is”— my fault—“not your fault. Either of you.”

“Kiem said you might say that,” Bel said levelly. “And I would like you to know that if I could travel back five years with a burn gun and put a six-inch hole through Taam’s torso, I would also have been able to solve everything. It’s Taam’s fault.”

It took a moment for Jainan to reply. “I know that.”

“Apart from the part where you got tortured,” Bel said. “That was mainly Saffer. Fenrik’s still walking around, by the way. I suppose if you start imprisoning Imperial stalwarts it sets a bad precedent. I haven’t heard what the Emperor is going to do with him. Someone is very anxious that I don’t do anything illegal right now, which includes bugging the Emperor’s private message branch.”

That roused Jainan from his tangled thoughts about Aren and Taam. “You

should certainly not do that,” he said, then caught the gleam in her eye and realized he had risen to the bait. The side of his mouth quirked involuntarily.

The visitor’s light by the door beeped insistently. Jainan automatically reached out to sign it open when he saw Gairad’s face on the screen, then hesitated and glanced at Bel. “Do you mind? She’s clan.”

“You might as well,” Bel said. “She’s been camping out in the waiting room.

She came on the rescue mission, you know.”

“Pardon?” Jainan said as the door slid open to admit Gairad.

She looked somewhat the worse for wear. There was a healing bruise on her face and an inexplicable gel cast on her arm. She put one hand on the door frame

—the other was hampered by the cast—and said, like she was hammering the words out of a punch press, “Will you please stop almost dying?”

“What happened to your arm?” Jainan said, alarmed. “Why were you with Bel and Kiem?”

That seemed to take some of the wind out of Gairad’s sails. She touched the gel cast with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “I hit an Iskat soldier.”

“Punches badly,” Bel said. She sounded darkly amused. “Fractured her wrist.

I’ve shown her how to do it better.”

“That was highly irresponsible, ” Jainan said, not sure which one of them he was talking to. His mind was still reeling at how many people had been involved in finding him. Both Kiem and Bel had been strangers two months ago, of course, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Ressid might have something to say about Jainan putting a junior clan member in danger.

“We found the weapons,” Gairad said defensively. “Jainan, Iskat is trying to cover up the whole Kingfisher invasion. Even the Ambassador says to keep it quiet. That’s not right. And what’s going to happen with the Resolution treaty?”