Jace met Shannon’s ship in the cargo dock, where it sputtered into port on borrowed time. They were probably tittering away in the Space Traffic Control room, Jace thought, though he was wrong: the controller on duty was just grateful for another safe landing, and had no idea why the man with long hair and a leather jacket in the reception area was scowling up at the control room. But Jace Koralewsky, a bit famous in this slice of the galaxy, always felt eyes on the back of his neck.

That was the problem with fame: they really were whispering about you.

There weren’t many solutions he’d ever found. The panopticon’s feelers only really fell away when he was with his friends. Too few and far-between, these days, especially after Spider House had broken up, but he could still count on a few. Prime among them one of his newest friend acquisitions, Captain Shannon Iurno, now bounding off his ship like a simple deboarding was the best thing since quantum guitars.