Both Lolola and Arpat were on their feet and looking around. The critic’s eyes were wide, but Arpat was smiling as pleasantly as though this were part of the experience.

Niko shoved the suits at them. “Here!” Lolola grabbed one and began to put it on, but Arpat shook his head, tapping a golden button at his throat. A field shimmered into existence and surrounded him. Trust the rich to have environmental protection built in, she thought, and finished fastening her more mundane and bulky suit before helping Lolola with hers.

She rushed the two to the entrance, where everyone was gathered. Dabry appeared beside her.

“Where’s the admiral and their party?” she demanded.

“Rushed off to their ship,” he said. “The admiral said to tell you to go there.”

Niko considered. Boarding the admiral’s ship was tantamount to rejoining the Holy Hive Mind. A real artist would, according to their scripture, stay with their greatest work, and Niko had claimed the restaurant as hers. “We can’t do that,” she told Dabry, and was glad to see him nod in agreement.

“Then where are we going?” Lolola demanded. Arpat kept smiling amiably, but dug in his heels at Niko’s gesture toward the entrance door. “If you’re taking me to an escape pod,” he said, “think again. I have a vessel.”

“There are a number of us,” she said.

With a calm humility she hadn’t expected, he nodded. “And in turn I will offer you and all of your folks the shelter that I can, aboard my ship.”

She heard a muffled cheer from behind her. The twins, no doubt, who’d figured out what ship it was.

“Very well,” she said. “But the question is—can we make it to that ship in the first place?”

“Sounds good,” Dabry said. “Just let me grab a few things first, if we’re evacuating.”

“All right, but hurry! I don’t want to lose us all just because someone couldn’t stand to leave their teddy bear behind!” Niko snapped.

“Without the means of my livelihood, what am I?” he asked.

“Alive, perhaps?”

Despite Niko’s words and the shuddering of the walls all around, Dabry insisted on a full evacuation, allowing everyone to grab their go bag and even some cherished mementos. Ducking into her office, she rummaged through her belongings. Weapons, survival gear, some small things both valuable and fungible. She shoved Skullduggery and Sacred Space Vessels into the pack as well.

How had she accumulated so much clutter? There wasn’t time to sort through it all, sift out what was worth taking and what wasn’t. She yanked open a second bag.