Probably not a habit an actual empress would lose. She would have to do better. She would have to use all the knowledge that she had acquired during her trip to rule well, if she were ever called on to do so, and certainly to act as a good advisor if the Empress should ever need her.

She’d decided that was what she had been meant to learn. Perhaps even to pass those lessons along to the other heirs. She’d have to be careful not to sound too preachy about her experiences, even if she would probably have vastly more such experience than any of them.

She thought, with pride, that while she would not be around her friends anymore, she would be representing them, would be representing their points of view, their common sense and pragmatic priorities.

She wondered what Niko would think if she found out that Atlanta was working on a new virtual advisor modeled on her?

There were presents: small things, most handmade. Some teas from Dabry. A little knife from Niko, who also showed her a multiplicity of ways and places it could be hidden around her body. An even smaller set of explosive devices from Gio, who simply signed, “You never know when you might need them.”

A feather fan from Milly, who explained that it had been painless. “Molting from the stress of all the travel,” she’d said, waving off Atlanta’s thanks, even though the Swan’s plumage looked much the same as always.

The ship, never to be outdone, had produced an entire set of luggage, emblazoned with its own insignia along with Atlanta’s initials, in a pseudo-lizard hide that, it explained proudly, was impervious to up to 40-kiloton blasts, most scanning equipment, and temperatures between −100 and +500 degrees Celsius.

Atlanta, who had nothing to put in most of it, thanked the ship, and filled the smallest case with her belongings and the largest case with the rest of the luggage, nested one piece inside the other, each opening to reveal a smaller version, down to the smallest hatbox.

Lassite gave her nothing. He came and said, “I will tell you something that will comfort you. You will return.”

“When?”

His voice was earnest from the folds of the red hood. “If I could tell you that, I would. But I only know that on almost all twists of the Spiral of Destiny, you walk with the captain.”

She wanted to roll her eyes at the mysticism, but she refrained. Who was she to sneer at someone else’s beliefs, after all? Despite all the vagueness of prophecy, and all she’d been taught of its ineffectiveness, she had seen Lassite’s skills when he caught the ghosts.…

She said, “What happened to your ghosts? Do you still have them?”