When M'yu woke, the house was dark except for a small fire in the sitting room hearth. The flames danced over the glass-top coffee table and set shadows wavering along the paneled walls. M'yu pushed against the couch cushions to sit, and a breath hissed out from his teeth. His ribs ached dully, then sharper as he moved. He ran a hand under his shirt, fingers greeted by clean, thick cloth wrapped around his midsection. He bit his split lip. Someone must have done it while he slept.

A blanket clung to one of his shoulders, and he pulled it into his lap, fingers massaging the fabric. He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken a licking like that and woken up warm, bandaged, and safe. There was always a draft to mind, never enough supplies to tend, and a hiding spot that wouldn't be hidden for much longer.

M'yu's people were still living like that. He pushed off the blanket. The air chilled his lap, but he stood up. He'd gone soft, and they couldn't afford that.

He went to get Ruslan's linkcard.

The walk up the stairs was long, but M'yu just grit his teeth. He'd taken worse beatings before. And some Cap twerp wasn't going to stop him from doing what was right. Tonight, no one was going to stop him.

He pulled the card out from its hiding place between two bricks in the chimney. Someone had brought his coat and shoes back to his room, and he double-checked his lockpicks were still there. His knife went into the pocket as well, and once he'd laced up his shoes, he was ready to go.

At the doorway, he took one glance back. There was the desk he'd pulled all-nighters at for the last month; there was the bed Ashya had read her fairytale from; there was the hearth the maids always kept warm. The wood of the door tugged at M'yu's fingers as his hand ran down it. Every morning for a month, three sharp raps and that gruff, Cap-clear voice: Are you ready, boy? M'yu bit his lip and then bit harder. He didn't want it to have been an illusion. He didn't want it to have been just an act.

But he'd always known better than to trust anything gold.

He thumbed his necklace, pulled his beanie down over his ears, and pushed out of the room. "Up with the innocent."

Aevryn's hover was around back. M'yu pulled out his own card—a replacement Aevryn gave him after M'yu's was stolen. He'd never pressed M'yu too hard about the string of mystery card thefts at school. M'yu had thought it was because his own card got taken too. Now he supposed he just hadn't asked a question he didn't want an answer to.

M'yu swiped it at the door. It opened, but he glanced back over his shoulder at the sleeping house. Sucking on the spot in his mouth where the sore used to be, he dove back into the house for one last thing.

The kitchen was quiet and dark, and M'yu searched by the dim light of his linkcard for the cake boxes Evriss had used to display and transport M'yu's gift for his table. They were tucked against the cold-box, and he pulled one out and popped it into shape, then dug through some of the cabinets for ribbon and tied up the empty box with a nice bow. After pushing a piece of paper with a stub of note under it, he tucked the box under his arm and slipped back out to the hover.

When the map lit up on the console, M'yu drug his finger across the path that would take him to the Prav'sudja.

The vehicle hummed and started off. Tingling pinpricks ran up and down M'yu's chest as his brain played through what if's. Maybe it wasn't Aevryn's hover that got Aevryn through the Prav'sudja gates; maybe it was his linkcard. And the Tsaright wouldn't be expecting anyone this time of night. Was the face of the Prav'sudja always open, or only for events? Even if it was open, what stopped the Tsaright from putting guards there? It had only been servants before, but—

M'yu swallowed, thinking of Karsya in that ridiculous outfit. He could do this.

Searching for the door controls on the hover, he set it to auto-open when it reached its destination. After placing the empty gift box near the door, M'yu tugged open one of the wide drawers beneath the hover seats. He bit his lip. It would be a tight squeeze. Checking his progress on the map, he slid Ruslan's linkcard into the edge of his sleeve where it was easily accessible. Then he ducked into the open drawer, wincing as he scrunched up, and pushed himself back until the drawer clicked into place.

The box was dark, and with the heater on, stuffier than he'd expected. His shoulder dug into the corner of the box; his neck cramped; his rib twanged every time he moved. Not that he could move much. The thought crept in that maybe he was too tightly crammed in to ever get back out; he swallowed his heart back down where it belonged and took a slow, steadying breath. It went sticky down his lungs. He took another for good measure.

Deft fingers slipped Ruslan's linkcard back out from his sleeve. The dim light transformed the drawer from swallowing darkness to a rational, escapable space—four walls and a slatted seat above his head that he could easily push against to open the drawer again. He took a third breath and focused back on the card display.

He pinged against the local buildings, reloading every time the Prav'sudja didn't come up. He was so preoccupied, he didn't even realize the hover had slowed until a creaking came from outside, and then the vehicle sped up again. The gates! M'yu frowned down at the linkcard. How in the world was the building not showing up on his screen if he was close enough to pass through its gates?

The hover began to slow again, and a dread like snow slid down M'yu's throat and piled in his stomach. Desperately, he tried another way to connect to the Prav'sudja, ran through every book he'd ever read thinking of backdoors. He'd expected good security, but he hadn't expected the building's systems to be capping invisible. If he couldn't connect—

The pile of snow in his stomach froze into icy rocks. He might as well walk himself down to the dungeon right now.

The hover came to a stop, and on its programmed cue, the door whirred open and the air kicked off. Changing tack, M'yu pulled up a different map, the one that showed people's linkcards. Two dots lit up nearby, and he clicked them to get their profiles: Private Xo Mue'd, Private Nblon Te. Soldiers, and one of them was getting closer. M'yu held his breath, running a new command on the linkcard.

A heavy shoe thudded against the metal of the hover, and the craft rocked slightly. "It's just delivery," the closer one—Xo—said.

"You'll have to take it for sweeping," Nblon called out further away.

"And end up like Snars, with his brows singed off and his eyes half blind? No thank you."

"Shut it," Nblon hissed. "There could be a recorder in there. Just grab the box and go."

"If you're so desperate, you grab it." The hover rocked again as someone stepped out.

M'yu bit his lip, holding back a laugh. He'd just meant the box to explain the empty hover; he hadn't known an empty box could cause all this ruckus.

"Fine, coward. I will." Despite the confident words, there was a long stretch of nothing, and M'yu finished running his command. The screen lit red. PORT ACCESS GRANTED TO: Xo Mue'd. Xo's card displayed in miniature on M'yu's screen—and more importantly, so did all the math running behind it.

M'yu's eyes widened as he scrolled through the numbers. He could transfer all this man's money to his own card and be set for life. He'd never been able to keep the cards of the aristocracy when he'd stolen before, only able to buy one load of goods before the card would be tracked back to him. But this—after the initial transfer, this would be almost legal. Nearly untraceable. He could go back home. With this much money, surely his mother would forgive him. Surely he could buy her pardon if he could just take care of her and all the kids she took in.

The screen went back to its normal blue. ERROR: port connection out of bounds.

M'yu scowled, hastily pulling back up the linkcard map. Only one dot showed now. Xo must have left with the gift while M'yu was busy ogling his money. M'yu's face contorted, and only the fear of getting caught kept his curses silent. What was he? A rotting Cap? His heart twanged in jealousy, in longing, and M'yu shoved the feeling down like he'd shoved the Vulture to the floor—hard enough to stay there. Him and Karsya, they had a plan. And he was not selling out.

He ran the connection command a second time, and when his screen lit up red, he went directly to what he was looking for—Nblon Te's local ports. Buried somewhere in all this code had to be the Prav'sudja's address. It couldn't be invisible to the people who could open its doors, could turn off its lights. Nblon might not have the same reaching access that an engineer—or a tricked-out card like Ruslan's—had, but he had the location. Right now, the location was all M'yu needed.

The address was a long string of hexidecimals. M'yu stared at it until it imprinted on his brain, then exited out of Nblon's card and manually searched for the Prav'sudja's port, typing in the address character by character. He bit his lip. Here goes nothing, he thought, and hit enter.

LIMITED CONNECTION GRANTED.

M'yu frowned. He'd never seen that message before. Usually he was either in or out, and that's all there was to it. He searched for the building's map of lights, doors, and locks; that pulled up easily enough, so he wasn't sure what he'd been locked out of.

A chill ran over his skin, and his lip twitched up. Maybe he'd been locked out of something more important than lights—something like the central linkcard system. But every lock could be picked. All M'yu needed was to find his way there.

His eyes flicked over the screen, searching for the streams of energy flow through the Prav'sudja. Consoles get hot, and they would need a lot of consoles to keep track of every single linkcard in the city. The central system would be a lake of electricity, with plenty of rivers feeding into it.

The hover rocked, and M'yu froze. "Did they not tell you to go back home?" Nblon muttered. The hover's console dinged, as if someone had touched it.

M'yu tapped desperately at the Prav'sudja's light map.

"What in the—" The hover rocked again as Nblon stepped down. M'yu scrabbled at the slats above him, pushing the drawer open. His ribs protested as he tumbled out, and he bit back a cry, shoving the drawer closed. Past the hover door, a hall light flickered on and off, still catching up with M'yu's rapid fire commands. A hulking shadow that M'yu hoped was Nblon ran in that direction, sword hovering in the air before him. He slammed a button on the wall. "Monitors, can I get a read on—"

M'yu scrambled down, rolling beneath the hover and desperately running the command to freeze camera feeds in the area.

"—Entry Hall 2A," Nblon continued.

M'yu unfroze the camera feed for Nblon's hall. If Nblon looked like a statue, the monitor techs were sure to notice. He rapid-tapped the lights in that hall again for good measure, then scooted out to the other side of the hover.

A voice crackled over a speaker. "We're reading a simple command anomaly in the area. Should clear up in a minute. It was probably one of the slaves again."

M'yu groaned as his feet took the full weight of his battered body, and he caught himself against the hover.

"Hold that thought," Nblon said.

Gritting his teeth, M'yu ran for the opposite hall, ribs stabbing him with every breath. He slid into its mouth, dashing down the first turn he could make, turned again, feet pounding to put as much distance—

He bumped into something and called out, staggering back. A girl whimpered, holding her hands in front of her face, cowering. "I'm sorry, sir, please, I'm sorry." Cleaning materials scattered the floor, askew like they'd been dropped.

M'yu bent down and picked one up, gently placing it back in her hand. She flinched, then looked up at him.

M'yu swallowed hard. She was young, eleven, twelve maybe. Lania's age. "You need to get out of here," he told her, Cap accent gone. "The guards are looking for someone to blame, and I don't want it to be you. Okay?"

She blinked at him. A curl of hair fell out of her loose braid. M'yu glanced over his shoulder, then pushed her gently. "Go on. You don't want to be here. They've done enough to us already."

That seemed to shake her loose, and she took off, forgetting one of her cleaning cloths. M'yu bit his lip, nudged it down the wrong hallway, and then took off again himself, this time pulling out his map. Nblon wasn't close enough to register on his screen anymore, but there were other guards moving around, and the younger girl didn't register at all. Slaves don't have linkcards, you idiot. They might have some sub-linkcard device, maybe, that let them control lights and doors—the monitor techs had said as much. But whatever they had, it didn't show up on Ruslan's scans.

The guards' sweeping search did, though.

M'yu doubled his pace, breath hissing past his lips at every stabbing step. He slid between monitoring the guard's movements, freezing local cameras, and trying to navigate to one of the energy sinks on the map. There were three. One he was fairly sure was where court was held, if he'd oriented correctly. Which, after running through the halls, was a big if. The other two, though, were a coin toss. Swallowing hard, he chose the closer one.

If that's not it, though...

He shoved the voice of doubt away. He could get past guards. He had the building itself in his hand. He could check out both spots.

On the map, a guard changed path, and M'yu cursed, deviating so as not to cross into him. His rib twanged, and he screwed his eyes shut, catching his breath against the wall. Then he was off again, no time to spare, because there was another guard coming up behind.

He let them chase him through the halls like a rat, brain pushing out the pain, while he angled closer and closer to his goal. The halls got darker as he went, dustier, as if this place was on low power mode and hadn't been visited in a while. He bit his lip, glancing over his shoulder, worrying he picked the wrong sink. The guards didn't even seem to be angling this way.

They think they're chasing a scared slave, M'yu reasoned. Not a revolutionary.

But nothing blocked his forward movement other than time. Chasing down the other sink would take another rigorous dodge of the guard's net, and it was halfway across the Prav'sudja. And then what if that was the wrong one?

Jaw tight, M'yu continued along the half-lit halls. He walked slower now, giving into the angry cries of his ribs. No one's chasing me anymore. I've got time. He hoped the girl had gotten away.

Reaching a large, locked door, M'yu hesitated, searching the system for alarms. There weren't any that he could see, but the message from earlier flashed in his mind: Limited connection granted. Drawing a shallow breath, he resolved to be quick.

The door resisted his first unlock command, and he stuck his tongue out the side of his lips as he maneuvered through a tricker one. Not just anyone could get into this room, and M'yu's skin tingled. They had something to protect back here.

He hit enter, and the door hissed open.

He stepped through, and the anticipation drained out of him. The room was empty, just a big, hollow antechamber. Plenty of energy ran through it, sure—funneled directly into the room behind, with another door waiting to be unlocked.

With a groan, M'yu hurried over to it, searching his screen for alarms and again finding none. He bit his lip, then tapped out the unlock.

A light flared to life, and M'yu stumbled back. It coalesced into a holodisplay of Peitros's face, hovering in midair. "For access to the bridge, please identify yourself."

M'yu tugged his beanie down from his head to cover his face. What in the world was this? Security didn't talk to you, not unless you spoke the language of math and code.

"Current settings allow only the line of the Tsar and the Tsaright to enter the bridge," said AI Peitros. "Please, identify yourself."

With a sinking feeling, M'yu wondered what kind of reads the monitor techs were getting right now. Rot it all, he thought as he stepped forward. Pulling his beanie down and presenting his personal linkcard, he announced, "Mykta z'Daras, son of the House of Gold, heir of Duke-Prince Aevryn z'Daras."

The AI stalled, and M'yu tapped his foot, fingers curling around his beanie. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Please insert your identification card for inspection, Mykta z'Daras." A slot opened on a podium near the door.

M'yu hurried over, fighting a limp, and inserted his linkcard. The podium ate it, and his chest panged, not knowing if he was going to get it back. What does it matter anyway?

"You have a trial pending, Mykta z'Daras. Should you be found guilty and none stand in your place, you will be denied your heritage right to access the bridge. Do you understand?"

M'yu glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah, got it."

"My apologies, but my capacities are limited. I did not quite catch your response. Do you understand?" it repeated.

M'yu put a hand to his lips, blinking at the display. You've got to be kidding me. In his best Rightspeak, M'yu said crisply, "Yes, I understand. Now can I get in?"

M'yu's linkcard popped out of the podium, and he snatched it up.

"You are granted entry." The doors hissed open, and Peitros's display disappeared.