“I don’t understand what you want from me!” Kella slammed her teacup down into its ornate saucer. The table rattled beneath the force of her reaction, but she paid it no mind. She kept her clear emerald gaze trained on her stupid, stupid fiancé.

  Graham Vilter ran a hand through his perfectly-quaffed hair. “I am not here to upset you, my darling,” he was saying.

  “Why can’t you understand that I don’t understand you, you overpruned mushroom?” Kella spat. “You come here, you demand my time, you prattle like the monkey you are-”

  “I simply wish to discuss the terms of our marriage, regarding your title-”

  “I hate you. I hate your hair, which looks like a slide for little sun demons to play on-”

  “-and, as your father mentioned, if there is a transferral of title once we marry? I also wished to discuss where we would live-”

  “I hate how you dress like you are about to be hollowed and stuffed for a five-course meal. I hate how every time I speak you talk as if I am invisible. I could be dancing naked-”

  “Because there always is the option of staying in Port Havre, of course, but I am sure you would wish to enter Eidrian society with the rest of your family-”

  “-for all you care. I could be at home, eating moon-fruit and flirting with a beautiful lover, but no. I get to be here with you.”

  “-and I would be thrilled to be there with you.”

  Kella had had enough of her husband-to-be’s useless prattling. She was sure he was here to discuss the terms of their marriage — she’d been able to make out that much, at least — but the boneheaded baboon hadn’t even bothered to bring a translator.

  For all she knew, she was signing away her firstborn to be sacrificed at a barbaric Terran festival. So, she did what she did best.

  She argued.

  After a long moment of staring at each other, the infuriating man just said, “Well?”

  Kella’s tension melted, and she smiled her most dazzling, royal smile. Wel, she understood. Wel was a common farewell in her people’s culture. At last, her fiancé was starting to understand.

  She moved to the door of her drawing room and opened it. In the hallway beyond, an attendant snapped to attention. “Bring my fiancé’s things,” she said, her tongue curling around the Tzannic words, “he is leaving.”

  And then she looked at her fiancé, who still sat in his chair, looking rather puzzled. He tugged on his tie. She waved at the open doorway. “Wel?”

  He had the gall to look affronted. Graham Vilter shot to his feet and brushed invisible wrinkles out of his perfectly starched coat. “Well then,” he said.

  Wel ten? This must be a dialect she hadn’t heard, or a Terran addition to the Tzannic phrase. Kella just nodded, and gestured again at the door. “Wel ten,” she echoed cordially.

  ***

  Payton wasn’t eating. She wasn’t sleeping. It had been fourteen days, and no one had heard anything about Davi. She had visited the Courthouse every single day, before she left to open Mercey’s. Each day they told her the judge wasn’t in.

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  She knew they were lying. And she hated them for it.

  But still, no news of Davi. Louis Edmara was equally distressed, but the old man found it hard to leave their apartment on a good day. With Davi’s fate unknown, no day was a good day.

  And so, Payton had taken to hanging around the Courthouse as long as she could before someone asked her if they could help her. Maybe, just maybe, she’d hear something of use.

  And then, on the fourteenth day, she did.

  “He’s going to meet his fiancé,” one of the secretaries had murmured after a tall, suited man strode out the main doors.

  “The Tzannic royal?” Tzannic royal. Payton’s head shot up. That must have been the Consulate Judge!

  “I’ve heard she doesn’t speak a lick of Terran,” another secretary shot in.

  “She doesn’t. I met her once, when the boss sent me to her apartment on Maresil Street. Just stared at me with that confused look, then slammed the door and I-can I help you?”

  Payton’s eyes went wide as she busied herself with pushing to her feet. The three secretaries eyed her with suspicion. “No,” she said quickly. “I’m just going.”

  And she hurried out.

  ***

  And that was how Payton ended up pacing the length of Marisol Street, spinning on her heel, and pacing the other way. She got a few stares — her humble work dress a far cry from the opulence of those who lived along this stretch of the station. She ignored them.

  And waited.

  And paced.

  And waited some more.

  She hoped, wherever Davi was, that she was okay. She knew it was foolish, but some part of her held onto that thin sliver of a dream. As long as she continued to hold it, her heart whispered, then maybe everything would be okay.

  I never got to tell her I love her.

  You will, her heart whispered. You’ll get that chance. You’ll see her again.

  Will you?

  She shook off the maudlin thoughts as a figure stepped out of an open door, three houses up. It was the gentleman she’d seen leaving the courthouse. That’s him.

  “Judge Vilter?” She hurried her steps to catch up to the man. He half-turned at the sound of her call. “Consulate Judge Vilter! A moment, please!”

  The man sighed a very weary, mature sort of sigh, and paused. He turned to face Payton fully, taking in the teenage girl. She suddenly felt far underdressed for this conversation.

  She steeled her chin and continued on. “I’ve been hoping to speak with you about a case you took two weeks ago? With Davi Edmara?”

  The judge’s weary expression carefully blanked. “Davi Edmara… Davi Edmara…” He shook his head. “I am afraid I take many cases every day-”

  “Many treason cases?” Payton challenged. Surely this man, this judge who had distrusted everything about her life, couldn’t have forgotten.

  “Treason? Oh, well… I suppose I do remember one such case.” Judge Vilter’s eyes flitted up and down the street.

  Looking for his carriage, Payton supposed.

  “It’s only that, well, we haven’t heard anything since that day. About where she is, or what happened? Her father and I… we’re awfully worried.”

  Graham Vilter finally paused and gave the young girl his full attention. “Are you her sister?” Good stars, please let this not be the girl’s sister.

  Payton shook her head soundly. “No, no. I’m her-” Her what? Lover? Best friend? Best friend-turned-lover-but-they-hadn’t-actually-talked-about-it-yet? “Do you know where she is?”

  The judge simply shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Please.”

  And it was in this moment, with Payton Ladrón’s hopeful eyes gazing up at him, that the first niggle of regret wormed its way through Graham Vilter’s chest. “H-her case was transferred. To another station. That is all I know.”

  The young girl deflated. “Oh, okay.” She held out a card. “Well, if you hear anything more, will you let me know?”

  Graham Vilter took the card with a sound that he hoped came across as agreeable. Then the young girl walked away, and Vilter almost called after her. To do what, he didn’t know.

  He didn’t have a chance to find out, because just then the door to his fiancé’s apartment swung open and the infuriating woman strode out. She stuffed something into his hands — his hat, which he must have left behind in his desperation to escape the cloying drawing room — and spat something poisonous-sounding in her beautiful language.

  “Well then,” she said firmly. And she was striding back up her front steps.

  The door to her apartment slammed behind her.

  Graham Vilter shot the closed door a simmering glare, before starting off down the street, back to the safety of his Courthouse, all thoughts of Payton Ladrón and Davi Edmara swiftly discarded.

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