Kest spent the ride to the CPA hub furiously reading walls of text on her SignalSong.

  I spent it thinking about how often I was in handcuffs these days and poking at the Spirit suppression construct built into these. Pretty solid. On top of that, the shackles were air-tight to my skin, covering from my wrists to halfway down my forearm. It was starting to get sweaty under there, which made it itch. I tried squirming my hands and wrists around, but couldn’t get enough movement going for a scratch.

  I wondered if I could send necrotizing frost to kill the nerves there. The construct on the cuffs wasn’t as strong as Biggerstaff’s Antimatter Spirit attack. I gave it a shot, but the suppression wouldn’t let a drop of Miasma out of my Spirit sea. It even blocked my internal alchemy. The festering, tangled mess of knife scars in my side throbbed painfully.

  A pair of uniforms met us on the sidewalk and escorted us in.

  The place was weirdly reminiscent of a police station back on Earth. Desk pools, quietly ringing phones, a couple agents pulling night shift, the acrid smell of coffee left on the burner too long. Director Chillion made a pitstop at the coffee pot to grab some of the sludge left in the bottom.

  Memories of all the times my mom had woken me up in the middle of the night, bundled me in blankets, and driven us down to the station to get Dad out of jail made the experience super surreal. Even though Kest was there and Warcry was back at the hotel, this dread kept creeping up on me that there was no one here to post my bail since Mom was dead.

  In Interrogation Room A, the uniforms shoved me into a metal chair and latched my Incredible Hulk handcuffs to a locking mechanism in the middle of the tabletop before leaving.

  Chillion settled into the chair across the table from mine.

  The second the door shut behind the uniforms, Kest unloaded.

  “Under Article Eight, Section One of Selk’s Foreign Employment Laws, a person of any Spirit, race, or planet of origin gainfully employed by a Selken citizen as a bodyguard is allowed to defend their employer against an attack initiated by another party, up to the level of force instigated or threatened. If you review the footage I sent you, you’ll clearly see that Agent Eliona attacked me with deadly weapons without provocation before Hake intervened.”

  The director flashed her that smug Hollywood elf smile. “You’re willfully ignoring the fact that Confederation laws regulating Mortal supertypes take precedence over any local planetary ordinance.”

  “But I’ve been with Hake nearly every second since we arrived on Selk. When I wasn’t with him, a representative from the CPA was. Call in Agent Vaya Tre Ravomet, Rank C if you don’t believe me. According to Article Five, Section Two of the Confederation’s Mortal Supertype Directive—”

  “I’ll level with you, Miss Iye Skal,” Chillion cut her off, tearing open a couple packets of powdered creamer and dumping them into his sludge. “The CPA didn’t run your Death cultivator in on suspicion of any crimes. Though we both know our Technol friends could easily connect him to a certain massacre in the Shinotochi system, don’t we? If I were a betting man, I’d say they’re waiting to spring that little tidbit on you until they see which way the tide is flowing on your candidacy.”

  He swirled the coffee straws in his cup, which did exactly zero to mix in the lumps of creamer.

  “No, what the CPA really wants to know is why there isn’t any record of a Death cultivator named Grady Hake before seven universal months and three universal days ago.”

  “In that case, I’ll level with you as well, Director,” Kest said. “I’m recording everything that happens here tonight.”

  “If you’ve got tech strong enough to override our friends’ Electronic Blackout, go right ahead. The anonymous group that supplements my CPA paycheck will enjoy the challenge.”

  I wiggled my arms some more to get at that spot under the cuffs, but I had even less motion locked to the table like that. Even putting my shoulders into it didn’t scratch anything. Maybe this was some devious form of torture.

  The director was watching me. I stopped moving.

  For the first time that night, Chillion addressed me directly. “Our cuffs aren’t picking up any readings of a universal implant on you, Death cultivator, or traces of an implant that was removed or damaged. The CPA doesn’t seem to have your DNA on file, either.”

  “I try not to spread it around too much,” I said.

  He tapped his coffee straws on the rim of his cup. “Van Diemann is the first place you popped up. I can fathom a saloon gal on a backwater prison planet dumping her meat roach brat without taking the time to get him a universal implant. But the folks who have one implanted later usually do it at a younger age. Facilitates the criminal lifestyle, I’m told.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s a Fifth Amendment in this universe?”

  “To what?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Let’s cut to the chase, kids.” The director sipped his coffee, then grimaced at the taste and set it back down. He raised one of those plucked eyebrows at me. “An untraceable Dragon-affiliated hitman showing up on Selk during the electoral tournament? I can add that up. You Dragons want an inner planet to call your own. The question is, what’s in it for me?”

  Kest and I exchanged glances.

  “Excuse me?” Kest asked.

  “Nobody gets anywhere in Selken politics without the director of the local hub in their pocket,” Chillion said. “I can make things easy for your Death cultivator while he’s on planet, or I can make them infinitely complicated.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I’ve never been a hostage before,” I said. “I thought it’d be more fun.”

  “Nope,” Kest said. “It’s mostly listening to people who think they’re more important than they are demand more than they’re worth.”

  “Oh, I’m worth every credit. Especially in an election year.” Chillion raised his cup like he was toasting her and drank a slug. “Now, I’m asking you what’s on the table besides yesterday’s coffee.”

  Kest’s lacy eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you a Technol?”

  I had assumed that too, because he was an Ylef working in a Technol-infested CPA hub. But the question earned her another Hollywood smile.

  “You should know as well as anybody, Miss Iye Skal, that an open affiliation with a Big Five gang doesn’t secure you a seat in office.”

  Meaning that he either held a ghost rank like she and Warcry did, or he was on the take for the Technols like Rav was for the Dragons.

  “I will tell you this, though,” Chillion said, twisting his cardboard cup on the table. “Some candidate’s affiliation might not be as secret as she’d like it. Not with the bounty on her head and half the Technols on Selk looking to collect. If I were you, I’d make nice with a certain director of the local hub so the only bodyguard I brought with me didn’t have to watch my back and my champion’s. If that director let that bodyguard out.”

  Kest didn’t even blink. “Ask the last hooligan who thought he could intimidate me whether I give in to scare tactics.”

  “The fact remains: you’re going to need friends in high places to get you from Nobody to Monarch of Selk. What’s my friendship and that crown worth to you, Miss Iye Skal?”

  For a minute, she sized him up. Then she got on her HUD.

  It didn’t take long before Chillion’s pinged with a notification.

  “Keep in mind that’s my preliminary offer,” she said. “Just mine. My silent supporters from the outer planets will send theirs along shortly. And if I win this electoral tournament, there’s a silver favor card in it as well.”

  The Director chuckled without looking up from his screen. “I wouldn’t mention favor cards in polite society, Miss Iye Skal. You might give some folks the wrong idea about which side of the galaxy you grew up on.”

  His chair creaked as he leaned across the table and held his screen to the cuffs. He input a long string of symbols and numbers. The lights flashed from green to red, and the shackles clunked open. The suppression disappeared, like a giant fist letting go of my Spirit sea.

  I jerked my hands out and went to town on that itching spot on my wrist. While I scratched, I got my internal alchemy cycling again and refroze the knife scars.

  Behind Chillion, the interrogation room door reopened.

  Agent Rav strode in, followed by a scowling, formerly absentee father.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Kest’s dad thundered.

  “Chairman Iye Skal, always a pleasure,” Director Chillion said, pushing back his seat with a shriek of metal on tile. He stood and bowed the bow of a lower-ranking official acknowledging a higher-ranking one—hands at his sides, bending almost ninety degrees.

  The Chairman ignored it. “Director, I demand to know why you dragged my daughter downtown in the middle of the night the same day she registered for monarchal candidacy. She’s got no criminal record, and from what I saw of the footage that’s spreading across the hyperweb like algal tide, she was detained entirely without demonstrable suspicion.”

  “Sorry to say, Chairman, but being in the company of a Death cultivator is enough to cast suspicion on anybody. Even the spotless child of an esteemed city councilman such as yourself.”

  “Tell it to our attorney—she’ll be here shortly to drown every badge in this hub in Public Defamation paperwork.”

  “We don’t share an attorney, Chairman,” Kest said icily. “I handle my own legal affairs, and I’ve already finished handling them here. Hake, are you ready?”

  “More than,” I said, hopping up.

  “It was a pleasure discussing your campaign, Miss Iye Skal,” the Director called after us. “Good luck with it. And come back any time. The CPA is always glad to welcome an upstanding citizen.”

  Rav and Kest’s dad caught up to us halfway down the hall. By unspoken agreement, they went for the divide-and-conquer play, the agent flanking me and the Chairman going after his daughter.

  “I thought we agreed to keep our heads down?” Rav hissed in my ear.

  “Yeah, that wasn’t really an option.”

  On the opposite side of Kest, the Chairman was telling her, “This is exactly the sort of trouble that follows these Big Five menaces around—”

  Death cultivator wants everyone gone but himself and the Metal cultivator, Hungry Ghost croaked. Death cultivator could empty the planet of these fools, if he chose.

  I could. That was the thing. I could wipe out everybody but me and Kest and we wouldn’t have to deal with this crap.

  So why does Death cultivator play their petty games?

  Rav shoved open the door to the street for us. “Well, you made our job that much harder.”

  Why listen to this coward’s talk? Show him true power, Death cultivator. Quiet him for good.

  The Chairman shook his head. “You’d think losing your arm because of this guy would be red flag enough. If your mother could see you now, running around with—”

  “Don’t you dare talk about Mom!” Kest finally blew her stack. “You left us behind for a pardon and a cushioned seat on a city council. You gave up your right to be our dad when you disappeared and never sent for us.”

  “If I’d known you were going to turn out like this, I would have sent for you the day I returned to Selk. I can only imagine what your brother must be like now.”

  He’s hurting her, Death cultivator. Twisting knives in wounds she can never heal. Stop him.

  “I can still swing it,” Rav said in my ear, “but it’s going to take me a day or two before we can shrug off the surveillance enough to get to work. If you know what I mean.”

  The only purpose fools serve is Miasma. Kill them, Death cultivator. Kill them all. Use them as fuel to rebuild this world for you and your Metal cultivator alone.

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Everybody shut up!”

  They all stared at me.

  “I’d have to be braindead not to know what you mean, Rav,” I snapped. Then I rounded on the Chairman. “And you, leave Kest alone. You don’t get to desert your kid and then waltz back into her life and act all superior. Both of you go find somebody else to bug if you want to survive the night.”

  A beat of stunned silence passed.

  Rav’s face twisted in a pained smile. He shrugged, pulled out his cigarette, and lit up.

  “Well,” he said, watching the electronic embers in the cherry redden. “Sure. You’re having a rough night. I get it. I’ll smooth things over here and let you know. Don’t sweat it.”

  The Chairman took a sharp step my way, index finger poised for a serious wagging.

  “I don’t know where you grifted the gall to speak to me like that, you prison planet trash—”

  “Let’s go, Kest.”

  “I already flagged the rickshaw,” she said, tapping a flashing icon on her HUD. “That’s ours, pulling up now.”

  I grabbed her cinnabar hand, and we jogged out into the street to meet our getaway cart. Rav leaned against the hub wall and watched us go through a curl of smoke. The Chairman yelled something at us, but didn’t try to follow.

  “Sorry,” I told Kest as we pulled away from the hub. “I shouldn’t have blown up in public like that. Some paparazzi bots probably got shots of that, too.”

  “I hope they did.” She snuggled into my side. “I’ll ask them to send me the footage of the look on my dad’s face. You really scared him for a second with that death threat.”

  “Death threat?”

  Real fast, I ran back through everything I’d said.

  “If you want to survive the night,” rang like a fire alarm in the middle of it all. What kind of psycho threw around death threats like that?

  “I didn’t mean it,” I said, swallowing through a dry throat. “It just slipped out.”

  “They sure believed it.” Kest laughed like the whole thing was a big joke.

  I tried to laugh with her, but couldn’t force the sound out.

  The problem was, I’d believed it when I said it, too.

  e