The tiger man snapped his fingers and pointed them, gunlike, at her. The second woman stepped up to Niko and doubled her over with a fist in the gut. She gasped for breath as she straightened, but was quiet after that.

They—and their luggage—were shuffled along to a holding cell, despite Niko trying to tell them one last time about Atlanta.

“She’s an Imperial Heir,” she said, raising her voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” the tiger man said. “And I’m the clutch mate of the Pontificate of Rallibar.”

“She’s worth a great deal of money to you unharmed.”

“She’s a body, and one with decent flesh. We’ll core her out and install a chip reader.” He slammed the cell door shut in her face.

The room was tiny, barely able to hold all of them. Dabry tucked himself in the corner, holding his arms close to his sides and propped against the wall. The twins leaned their heads together and whispered urgently, patting each other. Skidoo contracted in a tight ball, one tentacle looped around the clustered Gio and Milly.

Niko stood glaring at the door. Then, suddenly, she turned on a heel and stalked over to where Atlanta lay curled around herself in pain. She raised herself enough to square her shoulders as Niko loomed over her.

“What,” Niko said, “the holy fuckin’ frell in a clamshell with a side of milk and a finisher of bewilderment was that back there with denying you were an heir?”

“I want to stick with you,” Atlanta said. “I told you that something is going on back home. You should want to save me from it, not send me right back into the heart of it.”

“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t want,” Niko said. “What I do want is to get you safely out of the IAPH before they decide to do something awful with you, but it’s already too late for that part, isn’t it?” She spun, muttering under her breath.

Atlanta looked around at the others with frightened eyes, feeling her heart fluttering in her throat while her finger stumps throbbed in time with the ventilator fan’s gasps.… Things were so much more complicated and dangerous in life outside the palace. How did anyone survive a single day like this?

She said, “I don’t know what he meant about coring me.”

“It is,” Niko said, “when you take the core—the heart—from a vegetable or fruit.”

“What would be comparable to the heart?” Atlanta asked.