Dark eyes glazed in memory. “There was an attack on the palace, late at night. My maid woke me up, helped me into one of the hidden tunnels, but we found assassins there too—we had been betrayed by someone who knew the inside of the palace well. She killed them, but died in the attempt. I made my way to the spot where I’d been told to go in case of emergencies. There was a being there I’d never met before. They told me the Empress wished me sent to Nicolette Larsen but nothing more than that, and helped me into the crate.” She looked around the room. “That’s all I knew until I got here. What is this place?”

“Welcome,” Niko said, “from the air lock into the void. Why did the Empress wish you sent to me?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t there to explain. I don’t even know whether she survived or not.”

Dabry objected, “Surely if there had been a coup, the news would have come to TwiceFar. But we have heard nothing. Not even of the Empress’s absence.”

“And that’s what’s interesting,” Niko observed. “With an event like that, there should have been an uproar. When power changes hands publicly, it is marked.”

Both the others were watching her by now as she paced the room, hands behind her back, thinking hard. “A Holy Hive Mind takeover? That seems unlikely.”

“But not,” Dabry pointed out, “entirely outside the realm of possibility.”

“Look at the simplest explanation first,” Niko said. “That’s often the right one. Jumping to conclusions is perilous business.”

“And what would be the simplest explanation?”

“A joke, perhaps?”

“It does not seem a particularly simple joke,” Dabry observed.

“No,” Niko said, “it doesn’t.” She stroked her chin, looking at the girl. “What are we supposed to do with you?” she asked.

Atlanta spread her hands helplessly. “This wasn’t the drill,” she said, “and this wasn’t what was supposed to happen in an emergency. We’d practiced all that. I don’t know what changed.” She looked at Nicolette Larsen. “I know who you are. I’ve heard the songs. You’re the Ten-Hour Admiral.” Her voice trembled on the last word. “But all I know beyond that is that the Empress said to find you. I thought that meant that you would help me.”

Niko absorbed the knowledge that the Empress supposedly was aware who she was with only a slight glint in her attentive expression.

“I’m sure the Empress knew what she was doing, just as she knew what she was about when she selected you as one of her heirs,” she said.