“No.”

Leave it to Natsuno to get straight to the point. In the broad sense, Pal knows rebellion is a reasonable word for what he’s doing. But Palamedes Sextus is Sixth to the tips of Camilla’s distal phalanges, and in this, above all things, he insists on precision.

The trouble is, it isn’t a very precise situation.

“Well, yes. Sort of. But it’s legal. The Sixth has something called a break clause written into its administrative documents. For millennia it’s been considered an antiquated footnote; I need to check, but I’m pretty sure the last paper that even cited it was published twelve hundred years ago. But these people,” he jabs his finger towards the door, “know about it. Isn’t that remarkable?”

Pal thinks he can feel Natusno waiting for him to get to the point, or maybe it’s that he can perfectly imagine Cam standing beside, lifting a pointed eyebrow when he’s gone on too long. “I think we can pass you off as a non-adept if we’re careful. In two days we’re landing on a planet that’s BoE territory. We can say you’re a stowaway.”

“And then I convince them to take us to the Sixth.”