Atlanta remembered it being spring when she had last been here, the smell of petals drifting in her bedchamber window the night she lay down only to be awakened hours later, shoulders shaken by a white-faced maid, and sent away. Only to eventually end up here again. Now it was autumn, and dry leaves scattered underfoot in the crisp wind, and all the clothes the ship had made for her were insufficient against the cold. How long had she been in stasis?

The Thing’s servitors had been left behind, so Niko started to take the larger suitcase, hefted its lightness, snorted, and took the smaller but much heavier one.

“Poor Thing, it truly was sorry to see you go,” she murmured. “Pet didn’t get so much as a goodbye, and here it outfitted you in style.”

Atlanta objected to the pitying tone in Niko’s voice. “Petalia never talked to it, not once,” she said.

Niko stopped dead and looked at her. “Not once? Are you sure?”

“Not within my hearing.”

Niko continued on. “That is very unlike the being that I once knew. People change. That’s a fact of life, but something that takes getting used to. You can want someone desperately to change, and yet even if they want to change for you as well, they just can’t.”

Atlanta felt sad for Niko. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but think that the captain was better rid of her former lover. So she said nothing and pretended to be grappling with the larger case, trying to get a good handhold. She didn’t know whether Niko saw through the subterfuge, but they went down the shuttle ramp and onto the airfield. Atlanta felt wobbly and hollow, empty except for an excess of uncertainty.

She had expected a large party to be there to meet them, but instead it was a single majordomo, an elderly, sparse man with whom she had rarely interacted. He bowed to both of them as they approached, but did not speak, simply turned and walked away, evidently expecting them to follow.

They trailed him into the palace. Assembled several centuries ago, its stones were gray and cold, the color of frozen mist. The carpets that patched the floor, scattered here and there at far intervals, were woven in deep blue and purple wool, patterned with falling leaves. The rugs were sparse, and when they walked between them, the cold of the stone floor bit through the thin soles of Atlanta’s boots.

One glow drone preceded the servant, and another followed them, illuminating their path. Every once in a while they could see another one in the distance, guiding some other servant on an early-morning errand or preparation, but they passed no one on their route.