The kiss itself was fine. There were only so many ways a kiss could photograph badly. But one of the aggregators had managed to get Kiem approaching Jainan just a few seconds before it, and it was easy to read the panic on Kiem’s face. Forced for the Galactics? the headline blared. Playboy prince hitched to Thean after last partner’s death.

Kiem slammed the folder shut and put his head in his hands. He bet that had been Dak. They’d have blacklisted whoever sold the photo, but that didn’t help now. “Don’t show Jainan that,” he said. “Do you think he reads the news? Shit, of course he reads the news.”

“How much context do you want?” Bel said. She held out another folder.

Kiem looked up at her. It was the same press-office red, but it had a different serial number on the front. “Where did you get this?” He opened it to find the folder packed with headlines and tiny newslog articles, so dense that he had to touch an individual article to enlarge it. The one he’d picked turned out to be something incomprehensible about trade tariffs. The newslog it came from was unfamiliar.

“Press Office. It’s a copy of the Thean Affairs folder,” Bel said. “Thean sources. I thought you might want to stay up to date, but I’ll send it back if you don’t.”

Kiem nodded slowly. The mass of text made his brain hurt, but it usually paid to listen to Bel. “I guess we should have it for Jainan, anyway.”

“Jainan—that was another thing,” Bel said. She turned to the desk and picked up a pearly, bubble-like diagnostic shell wrapped around a wristband that wasn’t hers. She threw the diagnostic display up on the wall. It blinked up an error and a passphrase request. “Jainan and Prince Taam seemed to have shared accounts.

Prince Taam’s has been deactivated, so the system keeps trying to wipe Jainan’s.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Kiem said, holding up his hands. “Shared personal accounts? Maybe Jainan and Taam shared an official account.”

“Jainan said he didn’t have an official one,” Bel said. “This is the only one the wristband has access to.” She clasped her fingers together, and the warning disappeared. “His account was a subsidiary. If he gave his passphrase I could tie it to yours instead, but then you’d be able to see his messages.”

Kiem pressed his knuckles against his forehead. Every time he turned around he seemed to see the shadow of Jainan and Taam’s marriage. It seemed pretty unlikely that he and Jainan would ever be close enough to read each other’s messages. It didn’t even sound that romantic to Kiem, which was probably further proof they were badly matched.

“We’re not really that close,” he said. He remembered last night and winced.

“We’re definitely not that close. What if we—”