Jainan nodded. His expression hadn’t changed at all, and Kiem wondered if he even believed what Kiem was saying. If he were Jainan he wouldn’t have trusted anyone from the palace as far as he could throw them. Now Kiem thought about it, he realized Internal Security hadn’t even given them an excuse for the fake crash data. They’d just tried to threaten Jainan into deleting it, and there wasn’t a damn thing either of them could do about it.
Kiem tried to take stock. “We can ask Aren’s people about the crash data,” he said. “Someone must have swapped it out before it reached us. I’ll get in touch with him.”
“Yes,” Jainan said. They were nearly outside their rooms now. “So,” he said tentatively, “I only need to clear my contacts with you?”
“What?” Kiem said. What had he missed now? “Why would you need my opinion on who you call?”
“Because … I thought that was the agreement we came to?” Jainan’s inflection turned it into a question.
“No! What? No! I’m not going to track who you talk to!”
“Sounds wise,” said Bel’s voice, as she came in from the study. “Everything okay? After that call I was half expecting to have to go and bail you out of a Security cell.”
“Everything’s fine,” Kiem said. “I mean, it’s not—Internal Security is being cagey with us, and Taam’s crash might not have been an accident—but neither of us have been arrested yet. Am I late for something?”
“You’d better fill me in,” Bel said. “You’re not late if you go and change now. Terraforming Assistance donor gala, remember?”
“Right, right,” Kiem said. “I’ll change. Jainan, do you need the bedroom?”
“I’m going to call Ressid,” Jainan said. It sounded like a tentative challenge.
“Please,” Kiem said. “Study’s all yours if you want the vidchair. Or the bedroom’s yours, of course. Or here—I don’t need to change, I can just go out. I’ll go out.”
“No,” Jainan said, stopping him in midflow. “Thank you.” Before Kiem realized what was happening, Jainan stepped in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, light and swift.
Jainan turned away to the study, which was a good thing, as he didn’t see Kiem raise his hand to his cheek like an idiot before he caught himself.
Kiem turned away too. “Bel, he’s not to be disturbed unless the palace is on fire.”
“Noted,” Bel said. Her eyes followed Jainan curiously.
Jainan hadn’t remembered to close the door. As Kiem moved to fix that, he could see the screen inside already lighting up with a connection. A face flickered into view: the Thean noblewoman who had upbraided Kiem the morning of his wedding. Now her expression was softer, more shocked than anything else. “I didn’t believe the ID,” she said. “Jainan, why are you calling now? Is everything all right?”
“It’s. Yes,” Jainan said. What Kiem heard in his voice made him reach more hastily for the switch: it felt like more of a violation of Jainan’s privacy for Kiem to overhear that raw, unguarded note than anything Internal Security had done. “Yes,” Jainan said again, and swallowed audibly as the door started to slide shut and hide him from view. “I’ve missed you.”
CHAPTER 12
It took Kiem all ten days of the next week to nail down Vaile. In the meantime, he sent a series of increasingly exasperated messages to Internal Security and to the military’s Signals HQ, which was supposed to be in charge of log transmission for flybugs like the one Taam had flown. It was like sending messages into a black hole.
Jainan worked on his Imperial College project and accompanied Kiem to events with the same detachment as before. He didn’t volunteer any information about his first conversation with his sister, and Kiem would rather have set his own hair on fire than ask. Jainan didn’t seem to blame him for failing to get an answer about the crash data. Occasionally Kiem caught Jainan watching him with a slight frown, as if Kiem was an unpredictable cog in an otherwise orderly machine.
Some things coaxed Jainan out of his shell. Professor Audel or one of her students seemed to call him every day for animated discussions about their deep-space mining project. And on the day that Vaile returned from orbit again, Kiem found Jainan in the gardens outside with that Thean student, Gairad, who was also part of the Feria clan. Kiem had been trying to figure out clan etiquette from talking to Jainan and the few Theans at the embassy who seemed approachable, as well as reading the occasional memo from Bel, but the whole system of clan relationships took some effort to get your head around.
It looked like some kind of lesson: Gairad held a quarterstaff above her head while Jainan stood in front of her and corrected her grip. His own quarterstaff leaned against a tree a little way away.
“—can’t get it,” Kiem heard her say.
“You will. Try again.” Jainan took up his own staff and turned it crosswise in front of him. “Ten!”
It seemed to be a code word. Gairad spun in the melting snow, brought her hands together on the staff, and swung it at Jainan’s stomach. She obviously had grounding in the techniques, but the strike was slow, and Jainan blocked it easily. “That was better. The farther down you can get your grip, the more momentum you’ll have.” He finally caught sight of Kiem standing in the doorway and broke off.
Kiem waved and came forward, seeing as he’d interrupted them anyway. “Looks like fun. Can I join?” he asked, half-jokingly.
“Oh.” Jainan seemed surprised, but instantly recovered. “Of course. Please.” He handed Kiem his own bronze quarterstaff. Kiem took it gingerly. It was much heavier than he’d expected but couldn’t be traditional metal, since it wasn’t cold. “Ah, not quite.” Jainan put his hands over Kiem’s—for once without diffidence—and shifted his grip. “You want to hold it here.”
His touch was warm. Kiem tried not to think about that as he settled his hands around the staff. “Didn’t mean to hijack your lesson,” he said. “Just show me one move.”
“Jainan, the pair forms,” Gairad said. She seemed refreshingly unbothered by the fact Kiem was a prince. “Can we try form five?”
“Yes. Kiem, would you mind?” Jainan picked up a white handle from the ground, which folded out into something like the quarterstaff Gairad was using, cheaper and flimsier-looking than his own. “Traditional quarterstaff has twenty basic moves, and one to six are for fighting with an ally. Since we have three people, Gairad’s form five could do with work.”
“I haven’t had anyone to practice with,” Gairad said defensively. Kiem spun his staff experimentally beside her, fumbled it, and lost his grip. It clattered to the ground around Gairad’s ankles. Gairad picked it up and handed it back to him with a martyred air. “At least I can be better than you. That’s motivating.”
Kiem grinned at her. “My form five’s perfect. Legendary, even. Angels weep.”
The corner of Jainan’s mouth twitched. “Of course,” he said. “But Gairad needs to practice.” Had that been a smile? Kiem wasn’t sure.