He knew what the newslogs were saying. Bel had started sending him copies as soon as they realized Aren, even in detention, had managed to make good on his threat to smear them. Kiem had winced at the abduction articles, but at least they were true. Then the first accusation that Kiem mistreated Jainan had appeared in a small-time gossip log on Thea: it had spread from there to fringe newslogs and anti-royalist streams across both Thea and Iskat, who’d all eaten up the scandal. It wasn’t hard to find pictures of Kiem looking drunk and

unreliable. One of the newslogs had even decided their wedding photos looked miserable enough to illustrate the article; Kiem had abandoned his reading at that point and gone to bed. Then he’d asked Bel to stop sending cuttings.

His latest message of resignation—this one his third, for an education charity

—hung as a small glowing circle above the table. Kiem drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, outside the sensor area, and sent it before he could give in to temptation and add anything else. His messages were getting more like babbling as the hours went on. He should stick to writing, but even talking to an imaginary recipient staved off the awful silence of not having anyone to talk to.

He had seen only Internal Security agents for the past four days, usually Rakal or one of their interchangeable deputies. He was going to go mad if this carried on too long.

When the message was gone, he put his head down on the desk. What he wanted to do was send a message to Jainan—an honest one—but he knew Rakal’s people were reviewing everything that went through his account while he was in here, and he wasn’t going to hand them anything else about Jainan or Taam. It had to wait until Jainan woke up. Whenever he did wake up.

He made himself breathe out slowly. What he needed was a fraction of Jainan’s calm. When things went wrong for Jainan, he didn’t flap around uselessly like Kiem. He just got … more focused. For a moment Kiem wasn’t even afraid for him, he just missed him. Just not having Jainan there hurt.

A message added itself to the depressingly short list in the corner of the desk.

Kiem abandoned his attempt at serenity to see what it was.

It was from Bel. Kiem wasn’t expecting much: his messages to and from Bel were short and businesslike, so neither of them accidentally contradicted the details about Taam that Kiem had fudged in his original story. This one was short even by her standards, though, and contained a clipping with a single line above it.

Jainan’s awake. Brace yourself before you read this.

Kiem’s surge of joy left as fast as it had appeared. He frowned and opened the clip.