Like many of the Known Universe’s systems, the heirs were selected by a bewildering battery of tests, combined with the Empress’s guidance and preferences. The position would not have been announced, which led Niko to her next question, although she worded it as gently as possible. “Do you have any way to prove you’re an heir to the Empress?”

The presumed heir stared at her for a moment in shock before she drew herself up. She was a small woman, but her indignation seemed to allow her more inches. “Of course I’m an heir! Who would dare claim such a thing?”

“You were delivered in a crate,” Niko pointed out. She added, “An unmarked crate, with the label torn off.”

“You could be someone who’d been convinced they were an heir,” Dabry added somewhat unnecessarily, or so Niko thought. There was enough confusion in the room as it was.

The thought made Atlanta blink and then stand there, considering. Niko was impressed: rather than panicking, the kid was running through possibilities and odds in her head. Calculating.

Much the way you might expect an Imperial Heir to do.

“I see,” Atlanta said slowly. She looked around the room, the thick red curtains, the plushy softness underfoot. “And where is here, exactly, aside from being a metaphorical void?”

“Ah,” Niko said. “The good news first or the bad news first?”

The chin, which had been on the verge of quivering, steadied. “Having just come out of the crate in which I was sealed for who knows how long, I would like to know the good news first so that I may be momentarily lulled into comfort before being restored to panic.”

“That’s the spirit,” Niko said, folding her arms and rocking on her heels. “Very well, the good news: You are in a very expensive, state-of-the-line bioship that could probably outrace ninety-nine percent of the ships in the Known Universe.”

Atlanta nodded as though this were a matter of course. She took a breath. “And the bad news?” she asked.

“The ship is bound for Scourse, where all of us, including you I suspect, will be charged with stealing it and murdering the owner, not in that order.”

“That is not exactly what I had hoped you would say,” Atlanta said.

Niko grinned and turned to Dabry. “I like this kid. She’s going to fit right in.” She turned back to Atlanta. “Thank goodness I refused to listen to him when he wanted to leave you in the crate.”

Dabry rolled his eyes but remained silent.

“We should check and see what the others are doing,” Niko said.

The ship absorbed the last of the fluid and waited to see what would happen next, extruding eyes that peeled away from the wall to follow in their wake, monitoring them.

Surely this new thrill was … anticipation.