She turned around in alarm and marched back up the stairs. Fiearius, who seemed to have been dazing off waiting for her, perked up and followed, his mouth half-forming a question that never quite got out. Before he got the chance, Leta demanded of the guard, “What were you just saying?”

The woman looked startled and then embarrassed and then quickly nervous. “N-nothing, miss,” she explained hurriedly. “Just idle gossip, won’t happen again, miss.”

Leta shook her head in frustration. “No, no, it’s important. What you said. Gates slipping out in the last course?”

Now the poor woman simply seemed confused. “Wh — yes, miss. The schedule indicated Admiral Gates would be discreetly departing early as always.”

“Always?” Fiearius asked, finally seeming to somewhat catch-up in the conversation.

“The Admiral tends to always leave these functions early, sir. The first rank guards that watch him are only ever scheduled until dessert.”

The panic that had been slowly rising in Leta hit its peak. “The assassin had to act before dessert–” she breathed.

“Because he’d be gone after,” Fiearius finished for her, eyes widen.

“But now–”

They both swung their heads toward the ballroom floor where front and center, Admiral Gates was back to his duties, already deep in some political discussion with his fellow military brass.

Fiearius was the first to react.

“You two,” he ordered to the guards, “With us.” He marched down the stairs, Leta on his heel. Together they pressed through the crowd, side-stepping guests who were laughing, drinking, singing — they had no idea an assassin was among them.

Adrenaline surged through her and Leta had half a mind to yell to Gates across the room, but then she glimpsed it, in the corner of her eye: a flash of black metal. A gun. It was locked in a man’s hand, at his side, moving in and out of sight as its holder marched toward Gates through the crowd.

Shock bolted through her veins. Her hands reached for Fiearius’ arm, and then, before she could think to do otherwise, she pushed herself forward and seized the weapon and the man’s forearm in one motion. Gritting her teeth, she twisted his hand hard, drawing the weapon away. Fiearius was yelling her name as the guests jumped back, a chorus of screams erupting around her. The assassin wrestled his hand back, growling furiously to free himself, but in the back of Leta’s mind, she knew she’d done it. She’d already drawn enough attention to him.

“Over here!” a  guard yelled over the fray, while another gasped, “Grab him!”  In a flash, the man was ripped  backwards, his grip freeing from the gun. Leta saw that Fiearius had swung his forearm hard against the man’s throat, dragging him away. The assassin struggled furiously against Fiearius, but his efforts died off when the guards arrived, parting the crowd.

Shock drowned out sound in Leta’s ears as she watched, transfixed. It happened in slow motion: Fiearius stepped away, chest heaving hard; the guards withdrew their weapons, then forced the assassin against a wall, and seized his wrists with metal restraints.

Awed murmurs rippled through the crowd — horrified, confused, even some drunkenly excited at all the commotion. But when the guards escorted the assassin from the room, the scene somehow became a lot more chaotic. She lost sight of Gates who was being flocked to in worry by everyone in the room who needed to earn his favor. She even lost sight of Fiearius amongst the clammer.

She was vaguely aware that people were talking to her, clapping her on the back, congratulating her on a job well done. How brave, they said. How selfless. What a relief she was here to act.

But she’d gotten lucky, said the cold, logical voice in her head. That was all. They’d accidentally forced the assassin to act sloppily, and caught him in a desperate act. If they’d been off at all, the assassin would have done his job quickly and quietly in the mansion somewhere, not desperate and urgent in the middle of the dance floor, not sure he’d get another chance before his target disappeared. Dazed, all Leta could focus on was her own breath, still shorter than it should be, and her own heartbeat, still pounding away in her chest relentlessly.

She was also vaguely aware of the gun she’d wrestled away still sitting heavy and cold in her hand. Part of her wanted to just hand it to someone to get it away from her, but another part, the part she recognized as the one that had spent too much time in the company of space pirates on the Dionysian, wanted to grip it tighter.

Slowly, she began to drift out of her daze and then, much more suddenly, she was dragged out of it by a frantic tugging on her arm. Shaking her head, she forced herself back into the moment and found herself face to face with Liam, whose face was stark white.

“–hear me? Leta? Are you okay?” he was saying, grasping her hands in his.

“Fine,” she said. Realizing she’d sounded a bit harsh, said again, more softly, “I’m fine. Really. I–”

But Liam looked as alarmed as she’d ever seen him, his eyes frantic. He held her elbows and drew her closer.

“Leta, you need to listen to me, right now. I found something,” he explained breathlessly, starting to steer her away from the fray. “When you were gone, I followed someone, I found — ”

“Liam, liam, it’s okay,” she interrupted, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all taken care of. He’s in custody. He failed. Everything’s okay. The guards have the assassin.”

But to her growing dismay, his response was not, “Oh thank goodness.” Nor was it any sort of relief at all. He simply knit his brow, confused.

“Assassin? What? No, I don’t know anything about–” He shook his head furiously. “Leta, there was this man that stuck out to me. I shadowed him for a while. He seemed normal enough, but he went upstairs, I thought why the heck not, and I followed him and he made a call. I heard the whole thing.”

“What thing?”

“It was–about you. About Soliveré. That you didn’t know–Something with–Ascendia? And Vescent and Ellegy and –They said things about–” He was stumbling over his words, speaking too fast, but he came to a sharp halt and heaved a deep breath. “He’s a Councillor, Leta. A Society Councillor is here.”

Leta felt as though all the blood in her body had turned cold. Her grip on Liam’s shoulder tightened and she leaned towards him as she hissed, “What? How do you–Are you sure?”

“Positive, without a doubt,” Liam answered without skipping a beat. “I know what I heard. He’s a Councillor.”

“Who is?”

Liam opened his mouth, but words didn’t come out. He frantically looked around the two of them, his head whipping back and forth until finally it stopped and his wide eyes grew wider. “Him,” he breathed and Leta followed his line of sight to, “The one talking to Soliveré.”

Not just talking to Soliveré. Smiling with Soliveré, laughing with Soliveré. The two of them seemed to be sharing some cordial joke or story like any of the vague, polite society acquaintances at this party. And then the man, who looked no more interesting than any other middle-aged man in attendance, reached up his hand and let it drop affectionately on Soliveré’s shoulder. His fingers tightened. And that was when Leta had to do something.

What, however, was another matter.

“Fiearius!” she shouted to him without even thinking. He looked over at her, surprised. So did the man beside him. And before she could even consider reason or logic or the best plan of action, she remembered the gun in her hand. Almost of its own accord, it lifted into the air.

A loud bang and a cacophony of gasps filled the ballroom.

“So I ask again. I’ve built a good relationship with the rebel leader.” Fiearius brought his forearms against his knees, leaning in.  “They’re on our side, they’re ready to take our orders, you signed off on this course of action, so why are you trying to hire a Vescentian tourist as our strategic team’s Ellegian expert?”

Gates met Fiearius’ stare coolly. “Unfortunately, the president–”

“Oh, fuck,” Fiearius growled preemptively, dropping his head in his hands.

“–has deemed the rebel forces on Ellegy too risky of an investment.”

“Of course.” Fiearius slapped the arm of his chair dramatically before rising to his feet and starting to pace again. “Of course, they’re too risky. Because they might pose a threat to your little expanding empire.”

“We’ve been ordered to cease contact with them immediately and any further relay of confidential plans is prohibited.”

“I can’t believe th–no, actually–no, I can believe this. I can completely believe this. I knew you would pull this shit before the time came.” He clenched a fist and somehow held off on punching a hole in the wall with it. “Gods forbid there’s anyone at the end of this who you owe anything to.”

Leta watched Fiearius as he tore across the room, a barely contained tornado of rage, but when she spared a glance at Gates, feeling her own spike of anger (it was going to be just like Vescent, like Ascendia, all over again, wasn’t it?), she didn’t see the man she expected. She thought she’d find Admiral Kaiser Gates, stern, resilient and, as always, uninterested in his counterpart’s opinion of Carthian policies. Instead, she saw Admiral Kaiser Gates, hesitant and thoughtful, like he didn’t really think cutting off the rebels was a very good idea either.

“–waiting for the day it’s my turn,” Fiearius was still ranting across the room. “When’s that order going to come from the president? Put Soliveré on the chopping block, he’s ‘too risky’, he’s–”

“Fiear,” Leta interrupted, softly, but he heard her. His fists were still clenched in frustration when he turned to look at her, but his anger lessened in her gaze. He glanced at Gates who met his eyes firmly, then back at Leta whose mouth tightened a little at the corner, and then finally he turned away entirely.

“This is ridiculous,” he declared. “The assassin’s probably long gone by now. He failed his mission over an hour ago, I’m not waiting here any longer.”

This time, no one argued as he marched towards the heavy security door, unlocked the bolts, swung it open and walked out.

Leta stayed where she was another long moment, watching the man still beside her, unflinching and unmoving. She released a small sigh before rising to her feet and following Fiearius back upstairs.

——————

Fiearius stood on the edge of the party, jaw tightened, expression unreadable as he leaned his shoulder against a pillar. Leta stood beside him, silent for several minutes as she watched couples glide through the dance floor, though she wasn’t really seeing them. Her mind was back in the panic room, considering what Gates had said.

“What do you think changed their mind?” she asked finally, her voice an undertone.

“They found out,” Fiearius answered. He didn’t look away from the dance floor as he spoke.

“About the rebels meeting with Dez?” Leta guessed. “How?”

“Who knows? They’ve got spies everywhere. On Ellegy, surely. Could have planted one inside the rebel cell itself. Hell, maybe even my pretty you-clone watcher’s been digging through my messages when I’m not looking, what difference does it make? If they know, that alliance is dead,” Fiearius growled under his breath. “I told him not to. I told him it was too big a chance.”

“But he met with them anyway,” Leta sighed. “And now Carthis thinks the Ellegian rebels are in league with terrorists.”

Fiearius groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you, Dez and his people–”

“Aren’t terrorists, I know,” Leta cut in. “Weren’t responsible for the bombings, didn’t cause the transit meltdown, are just easy scapegoats, I know, I know. But you told me yourself what they have done.” She raised her brows at him pointedly. “And none of it Carthis would approve of. So I’d venture a guess that the Ellegy meeting–”

Fiearius was already shaking his head and sighing. “Not good. Yeah. I know.”

They fell into a thoughtful silence again before Leta mused, “Do you know what they’re planning?”

“Not a clue.”

Leta paused. Then a smirk twisted her lips. “Well, maybe when we get back to the ship, we should call the rebel leader and ask.”

Fiearius shot her a look of amazement. “Call the rebels? Despite Carthis’ very clear prohibition on contacting them? You, newest member of the strategic team, breaking the rules? Already?”

Leta blinked slowly, full of innocence. “Prohibition? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never got any messages mentioning a prohibition, did you?”

Fiearius barked a laugh and then wound his arm around her, drawing her to his side warmly. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

Leta grinned, dropping her eyes to the floor. After a moment, her brow creased and she ventured, “About that me-clone spy. You haven’t…?”

Fiearius glanced down at her wryly. “Just who do you think I am?”

“Well then, that was a nice break.” Leta glanced back at Gates just as Fiearius let his arm drop to his side and took a step away. The older admiral looked between them, a little too knowingly, Leta thought, before walking straight through the space Fiearius had left beside her. “Back to work then?”

“Back to work,” Fiearius sighed in agreement as he and Leta followed the man back out of the hallway. Still standing by the entrance were the guards they’d had posted there before secluding themselves.

“Anything weird happen while we were gone?” Leta asked the woman and she dutifully shook her head.

“Nothing out of the ordinary at all, miss.”

“And isn’t that a relief,” Leta muttered under her breath. Fiearius snorted his agreement and held out his arm for her to take as they walked down the steps towards the main ballroom.

“I suppose I’ll have to look into the who’s, what’s and how’s of this little ordeal, but for now I’m thinking a drink is in order,” he said, faking a posh nobleman’s accent as best his working-class Satierian tongue could manage. “Do you concur, dear lady?”

“A drink wouldn’t go amiss,” Leta admitted though she paused halfway down the stairwell to peer out over the crowd. “I should probably find my date though.” Fiearius made a sort of disgruntled noise, but fell obediently silent as she searched the room for a sight of Liam. Hopefully he would forgive her for abandoning him for so long in the middle of a gala. Maybe he’d be more willing if, as soon as she found him, she told him they could leave the gala.

She had just thought she caught sight of a familiar face when a voice behind her slowly drifted into her conscious awareness. “–whole schedule’s off now,” the voice was saying. One of the guards she’d just spoken to. “Admirals need a lot of protecting I guess so the first rank’s gonna be pulling overtime to accommodate. And you can guess how happy Lady Illusán about that.”

“Not,” said the other guard with a snort.

Leta didn’t understand why she suddenly felt a need to listen in on this conversation about the budget and schedules of the hired security. It certainly wasn’t interesting, but something compelled her to pay attention when the first guard went on, “Precisely. I mean the lot of them were supposed to be let off-duty when Gates slipped out in the last course, but now–”

And just as suddenly, Leta was very glad she did.

“So you think he’s after Gates,” she concluded, not in the mood to humor his ego. “Who’s still milling about with those majors near the bar, by the way. And I think he’s after you. We now have less than ten minutes to figure something out. How about we agree to disagree and work on the contingency that it could be either?”

“Fine,” Fiearius agreed, back to business at last. “You got an idea?”

Leta smirked. “I do. But you’re not gonna like it.”

—————–

Liam half-walked, half-ran down the hallway. Walked only because he knew it was in everyone’s best interest to stay quiet and undetected, but ran because he absolutely had to find Leta and Fiearius as soon as physically possible. He’d known something was fishy about the ordinary-looking man who’d been staring at them from across the room, but despite his suspicions, the worst he’d expected to uncover when he followed him upstairs to his guest quarters was a wealthy Carthian with a particularly nasty grudge against his cluster’s second admiral. The truth, he’d found in his years of reporting, was typically droll.

Not this time.

When he reached the stairs, he barrelled down them, no longer caring who heard. There wasn’t time. This go-around, one of the guards let out a semi-scolding, “Hey–” but Liam was already out of the stairwell and into the ballroom before he could manage much more.

For all he knew, this discovery was the exact thing Leta and Fiearius had been so worked up over when he’d found them earlier. But they had been in a different room. And if they knew what he knew, shouldn’t he have run into them during his investigation? If they knew, where were they now?

He stumbled to the edge of the dance floor, paying no heed to the group of women who glared at him for nearly bumping into them. Hurriedly, his eyes scanned the room. The two of them shouldn’t have been hard to spot. Both were tall, which helped and Liam had never met anyone else with hair as ridiculously iconic as Admiral Soliveré. If they were in the ballroom, he’d see them. And he didn’t see them.

Abandoning the dance floor, he started to race through the support hallway where he nearly ran into a parade of waiters carrying ornate dessert platters towards the main hall, but still no sign of either Leta or Soliveré.

Next he tried the foyer, the entrance hall, the vestibule. He even attempted to head back towards the stairs until the same guard that had called him out before pointed a finger his way and growled, “That’s the one! Been sneakin’ around–” Liam quickly hurried the opposite direction.

He was running out of places to look. Most of the ballroom was sitting down to eat their elaborate single-serve cakes, but the two people he needed, the two people he absolutely had to tell this news, were nowhere.

Where were they now?

He watched her retreating back as she followed after the tall redhead plowing through the crowd, but something else caught his eye. He wasn’t the only one watching them. A perfectly average-looking middle-aged man stood near the edge of the dance floor, seemingly engaged in a conversation with a group of socialites. But whatever the topic of conversation, it clearly didn’t interest him for his eyes were fixed on Fiearius and Leta as they moved across the room.

Liam might not have thought anything of it, had he not just been abandoned by two people who clearly thought something was amiss. But as it so happened, there was something about the man’s stare that bothered him. Something far too intense, far too meaningful, for simple curiosity.

Well, he hadn’t become an investigative journalist for nothing. He straightened his jacket and slipped into the crowd.

————-

Leta followed on Fiearius’ heels, weaving herself through the throng of guests. She felt a stab of guilt at leaving Liam behind again, but she had something far bigger to worry about: finding the assassin that had infiltrated the party.

Fortunately, Fiearius seemed to know what he was doing. Or at least he was walking as though he did, stalking with the utmost importance through any clusters of people standing in his way. No one was foolish enough to try and stop him.

“What’s the plan here?” she asked, ignoring the strange looks she was receiving from the gowned women and suited men they passed.

“Well. The message said the deed had to be done before dessert’s served, right?”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“No idea,” Fiearius admitted, finally leading them off of the ballroom floor and into one of the support hallways that looped around it. “But it’s a starting point.”

“And a time limit,” Leta added.

“Right.”

Without hesitation Fiearius pushed open a set of double metal doors that led to the kitchen. Inside, wait staff flooded by with trays of drinks, entrees and horderves. Fiearius didn’t wait for one of them to notice him before he demanded, “When’s dessert?”

The sudden barking question startled a few of them. Confused a few more. Finally, a woman answered, “Fifteen minutes, sir. We’ll be happy to bring it to your table if you–”

But Fiearius had already stopped listening. Leta rushed after him as he abandoned the kitchen and started down the hallway again. “Then our assassin’s running out of time. We need to find him.”

Leta nodded, but of course, that was the best solution. Track him down before he’s able to act and put a stop to it. But as they passed by an archway that looked out onto the ballroom, she found herself slowing to a stop and staring.

“There were pictures in the file, I think I’d recognize his face,” Fiearius was saying, his voice ever growing quieter as he continued to walk away from her. “Maybe we can get some guards in on this. No, I don’t want to cause any panic. We need to be subtle, remove the threat, don’t let anyone notice. You and me can split up though, cover more ground, are you good at face descriptions? Am I?” Finally, he seemed to notice he was alone. “Leta?”

It was true, what he’d said. The assassin was running out of time, but so were they. And as Leta watched the masses of people flit and mingle and dance across the ballroom, it became abundantly clear that they didn’t have enough.

“Fiear, there’s no way we can find him in time,” she pressed quietly as she felt him rejoin her in the archway. “He’s only got fifteen minutes, he’s probably not going to wait til the last second and he’s likely not even on the floor anymore. We need a better plan.”

Fiearius faltered. “We could look for the weak points. Where he could make his strike. We could–”

“Fiear,” she cut him off, “There’s no time. This mansion is huge.”

Furrowing his brow, he moved his gaze to the dance floor. “We’re not too late, are we?” he breathed, sounding more fearful than Leta had ever heard him.

For her part, she didn’t understand. She’d never known Fiearius to be worried about potential assassins. Usually, he’d scoff at such a threat and dare them to try, but perhaps there was something she didn’t know here. Perhaps in their years apart, he’d experienced something that shook him. Perhaps he had reason to not be as confident as he used to be. Regardless, she didn’t like the look on him. “If we were too late, you wouldn’t still be standing here,” she pointed out gently, laying her hand on his arm, hoping he’d find it comforting, but suddenly he regarded her with a sharp, confused stare.

“What? What does that have to do with anything?”

Now she was certain she didn’t understand. “If it was too late, you’d be dead,” she elaborated more clearly, feeling a little less sorry for him now.

“Why would I–,” he began and then promptly shook his head. “You think he’s after me?”

“Of course. The note said something about a five-star funeral, it’s obviously referring to an admiral.”

“There’s more than one admiral here,” Fiearius said. “Why would you assume he’s after me?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and regarded him impatiently. “Who doesn’t want you dead?”

 “But who’s stupid enough to try and off me?” he barked, apparently amused by the notion. There it was. The Fiearius she recognized. All shreds of sympathy left her.