I don't know. I'm sorry. [ Apologies like ripples.

I wonder if it would have put a larger target on my father's back for the Emperor to fear if he knew.

Is he insinuating...? Luckily, Serenity isn't the sort of high-blooded woman to take offense at implication, if she reads it as such. There exists a chance that she doesn't.

She longs, in fact, to comfort him when ghosts of pain cross his features.

Instead, she allows a thought to slip out. ]

I wish Pluto were here. She'd be able to answer each one of your questions. [ Another woman at the keenest position. What would the Bene Gesserit conceive of it? But Serenity registers that she's produced another mystery for him, not a hint to the puzzle.

She waves a hand. ] Out of all of the planetary guardians, she was my mother's closest companion. It's part of her job to mind secrets. [ Our. She plucks that word from a garden of intention.

Why? She couldn't say, herself.

One foot aloft in the metaphorical air, she tosses the last of pretense out with flourish. ]

She glimpses the future, like my mother could.