“What people don’t get about pea gravel is that you can’t just leave it as it is on a footpath untreated.” Viscountess Vikla continues her lecture as yet another would-be rescuer sees that he’s engaged and steps away.

“I see,” Grant says. He catches the attention of Count Tikani and high-beams a distress signal to the Kovikan from his anticompless eyes.

“I tell everyone—coarse gravel base, pea gravel on top.” Vikla demonstrates the layers with her hand and the foot of her wineglass. Grant exhales in silent relief as Wen and Tik fall into whispered council. “And even then, you’re going to be dealing with scattering unless you epoxy.”

“Heya, Prince.” Lady Lakai is at his arm. “That was a really excellent speech.”

“True noblesse.” Tikani shoulders into the conversation and rests his hand on the small of Lakai’s back.

Wenzai scoots in to complete the wall, the Countess-in-waiting on her hip. “Like you’d been born into it.”

“Thank you, Countess. Count. Uh—Lady.” He bows to all three. “Hi, Mava.”

“Majesty.” Mava does what bowing she can from her position in the crook of Tikani’s arm.

“Pardon me, Vikla.” Grant pivots his bow to the almond-eyed Viscountess whose babble has only just been checked, before she gets a chance to reattach. “But thank you for the conversation. I had no idea gravel was in such demand. And so many different types.”

“I haven’t even gotten to all of them, you know,” Vikla says. “Pea gravel alone has so many different grades—”

“I’ve got a lot to learn in all corners.” Grant kisses Viscountess Vikla’s ring and straightens out. “We’ll be relying on artisan experts like you.”

“Oh, Prince.” Vikla’s tail wags rapidly. “Of course. At your disposal. Of course, of course.”

Grant gratefully follows his rescuers out of the gravel pit. “Where’s Ana and Orlo?”

“Day-camp in Ptolek II’s orbit with their podmates,” Tikani says. “Learning about firmament safety.”

“Mava here came down with a case of transparency fever that miraculously repaired itself when it came time to visit Tamion,” Wenzai says. “Who knew?”

Mava carefully coughs into her elbow, which turns invisible.

“She likes volcanos,” Tikani says.

“Well, who doesn’t?” Grant says.

“All the other kids don’t know anything about the firmament and we’ve been there all the time.” Mava keeps herself to an adamant whisper. “Lakai took us just last tenday.”

“That doesn’t count,” Wenzai says. “Lakai teaching firmament safety is like an arsonist teaching a cooking class.”

“Do you wanna maybe go with her again right now, actually? To look at the volcanos?” Tikani scratches Mava’s little bob cut. “Your mom and I have to talk grown-up stuff with the Prince.”

“Okay.” Mava hops to the floor. “Are you going to do a sleepover with His Majesty?”

“Other kinda grown-up stuff, Mav. His Majesty doesn’t do sleepovers.” Wenzai nudges her daughter onward. “Go pick your favorite volcano and take a picture of it for me.”

Mava brightens. “I know just the one. You’ll love it.”

“You’re navigating again, then.” Lakai takes Mava’s hand.

Wenzai kisses the Lady’s cheek. “Be good.”

“Good?” Lakai’s tail taps Wenzai’s butt. “I’m flawless. C’mon, bug.”

The Lady scoops the Countess-in-Waiting onto her hip and moves away through the rubbernecking crowd.

Grant grins over the rim of his amrita. “Auntie Lakai, huh?”

“At the Lady’s insistence.” Wenzai rolls her eyes. “Ah, and here’s her Majesty. Your husband just gave us quite the recitation, y’know.”

“Did he?” Sykora arrives at Grant’s side and threads her tail into its place around his leg. “Quite how? Quite good, I’d hope?”

“Quite excellent.” Tikani passes his wife a drink and squeezes her shoulder. “Wen was just about to hard sell him on the Qarnaq job.”

Sykora plucks a pair of puff-pastried curry rolls from a passing cater waiter. “You’re a rather blunt woman, Countess. Where’s Kymai? Kymai.” She raises her voice to a martial call. “Need your stomach, Quartermaster.”

“I am a blunt woman. And a Ptolek woman. I know exo, and I know exo refining.” Wenzai redirects her words from Sykora to Grant. “To be fair, I work with condensers. Mobile fleets, not permanent stations, and the gas I’m used to mining doesn’t run the risk of blowing its top like exo does. That’s why I avoided deeper investment. Exo is cutthroat, and it’s dangerous, and it’s a sure way to make tens of thousands of imperial marks, and an easy way of losing them, too, if you’re careless.”

“But you want to go into the business anyway?” Grant accepts half of a flaky hors d'oeuvre from Kymai’s meekly offered tray. “Why’s that?”

“I want to go into the business of working with the Ruling Family of the Black Pike sector.” Wenzai taps the side of her dainty round nose. “So if it’s you, Majesty, I’m down. You’ve done it, you get it, and I think you want someone who isn’t gonna try and talk down to you or change the way you run your world. Which at a guess is going to be way worker-friendlier than the Ptolek refineries. Am I right?”

“I haven’t gotten that far,” Grant lies.

“Well, however you end up, I’m good for it. Ask the union reps about my contracts. I don’t screw around and try to weasel points out of their pieces. Don’t have the patience for it, when there’s real work to do.” Wenzai swirls the ice cubes in her gold-flecked cocktail. “You’re gonna hear from a whole brace of broads, trying to get in your little round ear. Some of them are gonna be Marquesses, and I’m just a Countess. Some of them are gonna have more experience with this industry than me. I’m sure of it. I’ve been on exo boards, but never the big chair. But you’ve never been a Prince. And you learned on your feet.”

Grant twists one of his rings with his thumb. “You’re good at this flattery thing, Countess.”

“The best, if I may flatter myself. May I borrow your personal space?” Wenzai gestures him to a kneel. He obliges. “I remember having a conversation with you in my kitchen about how rotten and unfair it was that you couldn’t have kids,” she murmurs. “And now you’ve got a re-encoding on the way. And I am so fucking thrilled for you, and for the sector, because I think shit is changing fast, and that is really fucking exciting to me. What I know of you—which isn’t as much as I’d like—but what I do know is you don’t have all that much respect for tradition when it stands in the way of what you need. Is my mushroom growing on your log?”

Grant chuckles at the half-familiar Taiikari saying. “I believe it is.”

“These other ladies will make really lofty promises or list off their bonafides and all the experience they have. But they’ll say most of that stuff to your wife. And I am saying all this directly to you. No offense meant, Majesty.” She fires a quick bow off to Sykora and steps back from their quiet counsel.

Sykora’s lips quirk up. “None taken, Wen.”

“I’m employing what nepotism I can, here,” Wenzai says. “On account of I’m friends with your wife, and you’re friends with my husband, and I think we’re all friends, basically, and I bet our kids would get along. But even if you go with someone else, I want you to know—the House of the Black Pike is always welcome at Korak. Or my operation at Tavelei, for that matter. It’s a pretty early-days setup, still, but the condensers are up and running, and there’s some excellent skimming to be had.”

“That’s kind of you, Countess.” Grant clinks his glass against hers. “I don’t think I can decide now, but—“

“Of course not, Majesty. I’d be weirded out if you did. Play the field. Hear the ladies out. Maybe I’m wrong and you’ll jibe better with someone else. Just keep me in mind as a girl who’s planted her spear on the hill, right?” Wenzai spreads her hands. “All I can ask.”

“You know I will, Countess.” Grant raises his voice over a rising swell of music from the ballroom.

“Wonderful.” Wenzai grabs Tikani’s arm. “Now if you will excuse me, that music means it’s socially acceptable to grind on my big green husband in public. Let’s go get sweaty, Tikky.”

“Let’s.” Tikani picks Wenzai’s drink from her hand and finishes it. “See you on the floor, Majesty?”

Grant excuses the noble family of Korak with a nod and a wave. He leans down to Sykora’s ear. “This is the Fugue of the Frontiers, right?”

“It is.” Sykora’s ears perk. “Our hostess is laying it on pretty thick, I’d say.”

“Well. I’m actually hoping to get some ass-kissing in myself, y’know.”

Her smoky giggle twinkles over the music. “Oh?”

“The thing is. I’ve never actually gotten to dance with someone at one of these shindigs. And I’ve been training pretty hard.” He takes a knee. “And I was wondering if maybe there was an unspeakably hot Princess around somewhere who might be looking for an enthusiastic amateur.”

“Hmm.” Sykora’s feet tap light against the hardwood as she takes a swaying step forward. “It just so happens I’m on the prowl.” Her tail swivels and swishes. Her hand extends outward. “And I hear rumors of this fantastic new Prince.”

He takes her tiny hand in his and kisses its knuckle. “What kind of rumors?”

“They say he’s massive, and handsome, and brilliant, and he absolutely killed his first speech,” she says. “They say he’s got the entire peerage salivating to work beneath him.”

Grant’s hand departs Sykora’s and traces the line of her abdominals. He feels their ridges beneath her dress. “There’s only room for one Taiikari beneath me, I’m afraid.”

She steps out of her shoes and leaves them in the semicircle row that stands before the dance floor. The tuft of her tail brushes against his chest. “Then I’d better nail the audition.”

The music swells; the tightly choreographed motion begins. Grant lets the love of his life lead him through the turning, twirling crowd.

They try again, the coterie, to catch his attention, to pitch themselves. To dance their little dances with him. But there is only one person in the entire firmament he wants to dance with.

Grant thought, when he was first learning the steps, that he’d never manage it. It was harder than it looked, being the brace for the graceful motions that Sykora makes. And a lot of moves expect you to have a tail.

The more he learned it the more he loved it. One reason for that:

If you don’t have a tail, your hands are on your partner constantly.

His hands are what catch and turn Sykora on her sinewy pirouettes; his palms slide along her thighs to support her stretchy Arabesque. The same thrill that comes to Grant now when he flies, the same sureness of motion, animates him as his wife slithers up and past his shoulder and down through his arm again. Sykora’s clutching him tight, tighter than at practice, even tighter than she used to when he didn’t know what he was doing and occasionally dropped her.

She shivers when his fingers spread across her stomach or couch her calf. The need in her is rising with every turn and catch, to such a conflagration that her mouth is hanging open, panting heavy, overheated breath into his ear whenever she’s close to it.

They reach the song’s apex. Grant braces into high position and boosts Sykora into the air. His hands wrap around her stomach where her belt criss-crosses her sleek dress; her tapered waist fits perfectly in the scope of his hands.

Around them, other couples execute the twirl that’s supposed to come next, with varying degrees of grace. But Sykora is stock-still. Her chest is heaving. Her stockinged foot stays on his thigh. Her toes curl. She gazes down at him in a state of carnal hypnosis. He lets her slide down his grip, until his hands are couched under her armpits.

The shining tips of her horns are visible in her hair. She’s practically gasping with the effort of keeping them from growing any further. Her throat swells against the collar she wears to every party now.

“Take me to bed,” she whispers, “and fuck me until I break.”

He kisses her forehead and puts her on the ground. “Let’s find our hostess and say good night first.”

A feline whine rises in Sykora’s throat. “Fine. But only because I don’t know where our bed is yet.”

They find Sykora’s stiletto heels, and locate Reka at the periphery of the dance. The Marquess is nodding absently into a small conversation circle as she watches their approach.

“Marquess. The Prince and I find ourselves tired from our long journey and would like to retire to our room, now.” Sykora’s tone is strained and terse. “If you could point us the way.”

“Of course, Majesty.” Reka breaks away from her conversational partners as if they’d just turned to dust. “Of course. In the morning, I would love to discuss Qarnaq with you. I’ve had a great many thoughts on the best ways to work with our Eqtoran partners, you know. My foundry partners import so many of our components from the Saktei, and in my dealings with that civilization I’ve learned so much about xenodiplomacy—”

Sykora tosses the drape of her glossy black hair over her continually cresting horns. “In the morning. Yes.”

“Yes. Of course.” Reka bows energetically and then raises up. Her eyes flash. “Attend, Simund.”

Grant feels a lurch of contempt, but the servant she’s just flashed is anticomped, he sees, as the man approaches with a gliding trot. Just reflex from her, he supposes.

“Majesties.” Simund places a gloved hand on his boxy cap to hold it in place for the bow. “Milady.”

“Show the Prince and Princess to their accommodations, please, Simund.” Reka bats her lashes at Sykora. “I do so hope you enjoy your stay, Majesties. I’m sure you will. But if there’s anything you need—” She’s raising her voice now to reach Simund as he glides off with Grant and Sykora in their wake. “Do not hesitate, yes?”

Sykora waves with iron-riveted cheer. “Obsequious little tart,” she whispers to Grant, from the gritted corner of her fake smile.

Simund leads them to the bismuth-patterned door of their guest room. Sykora pushes a credit into the butler’s hand. “No wake-up knocks in the morning, please,” she says. “No knocks of any kind. His Majesty and I will operate on our own schedule.”

Simund bows and melds into the igneous dark of Reka’s manor.

Sykora shuts the door with a slamming haste and leans herself flat against it for a moment. She takes a deep, decompressing breath. “Right.” She stands. “Where were we?”

Grant peers around their guest chamber. Like the rest of Reka’s manor it is sleek, dark, and minimalist, with a tinted view of the distant magma and a nested Taiikari bed, round and draped with black furs. A red light shines in a dim corner. “Is that a camera?” he asks.

Sykora shakes her head as she digs into her bag. “Infrascope painter. Alarm for any invisible interlopers.” She pulls out a silvery orb-shaped thing and twists it; the hemispheres divide and a strip of pale light emerges in the crack.

Grant is tugging his boots off. “Is that for ambiance?”

“That is a dazzler,” she says. “For the actual cameras.”

“Why do we need it?”

She doesn’t reply. She moves further into the room. He follows a few feet; she turns around.

“Stand right there.” Her tail twists upward and straightens out. “Stay.”

He stays.

Sykora stands at the canopied lip of the bed. She lifts her dress over her head and lets it drop to the floor like a satin shadow. The soft blue flesh underneath is caged in lecherous lace—a corset, a suspender belt, a familiar pair of sheer stockings.

Sykora lifts her cinching belt from the discarded dress. It unwinds twice, thrice, into a long strip of leather. At its end is a golden clasp.

His wife has been wearing a leash around her waist all night.

She opens the clasp and threads it around one of the metal decorations on her choker. She clicks it into place. She turns back around to him. Her stiletto heels clack on the floorboards. She holds the other end of her leash out and up.

Grant takes it with the reverence of a prophet receiving a miracle. They stare at one another across its leather length. The tendons in her neck shift with her swallow.

He gives the leash a gentle tug.

Click, click, go her heels, as she steps into the pull. Her cheek nuzzles against his groin. She gazes up at him, eyes wide and shining. Her nipples are dark and firm as lapis where they peak against the lace.

“Say it,” she says.

“Good girl,” he says.

She undoes his belt.

***

Grant opens his eyes in the deep cherry dark of their room. Sykora lies in his arms, sighing into her dreams. Her chest rises and falls under his palm.

A flood of sleepy contentment pulses from his heart, where it beats against his wife’s muscular back. It loosens his limbs and lowers his eyelids. He breathes deep and begins his descent back into dreams.

His eyes snap wide open. What’s wrong? Something is wrong—

And in the next second, he realizes what it is. The little red light in the corner is out. The infrascope painter is off.

Sykora lets out a minuscule groan in her sleep.

Adrenaline spikes Grant upright. His leg lances out in a wide, blind arc. It connects, with bruising force, into the invisible assassin standing over Sykora of the Black Pike.