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Javul Charn stared at the holographic message that hovered in the air before her face. On the surface it looked just like all the other fan mail she’d gotten in this packet, but her gut told her it wasn’t fan mail at all. It was a warning.

Reading it over for the second time, she used the tip of her finger to select the oddly capitalized words from the text and drag them to a separate line, wondering how it had gotten past Kendara Farlion, her road manager and professional worrywart. Dara was used to seeing quirky holomail, but quirkiness usually had a pattern to it.

This wasn’t a pattern.

Javul looked at the finished sentences hovering before her eyes: Watch Your Back. Coming For You At Your Next Concert. Die-Hard.

Was that last just a throwaway line or something more? A clue, perhaps?

At your next concert, the message said, but that didn’t guarantee that something wouldn’t happen before then. Her next concert was a little over a week away on Rodia, and would kick off a tour that would take them all the way to the Core Worlds, ending on Alderaan.

Panic fluttered beneath Javul’s breastbone and she felt suddenly, unutterably alone. Beyond the door of the luxurious cabin on her equally luxurious private yacht, the Nova’s Heart—named after her first holo-album to sell ten billion copies—her entourage and crew went about the hundreds of daily tasks that were integral to producing and maintaining her seemingly endless cycles of live concerts, holocasts, personal appearances, and travel. And yet—here, in her private sanctum, no less—someone had managed to breach the battlements of her life.

A slender arm the color of burnished bronze thrust over her shoulder, its index finger pointing at the curt warning still hanging in the air. “Chaos Hell, JC! What the blazes is that?”

Javul only just kept herself from falling out of her chair onto the carpeted deck. “Frag it, Dara! Can’t you make some noise when you enter a room? Can’t you ping?” She killed the message and swung around, catching the crestfallen expression on the other woman’s face.

“Since when do I have to ping to come into your office? And—hey—language? You talk like that in front of a holocam, and your name will be mud in households from here to the Rim.”

Javul gestured helplessly. “I’m sorry, but you scared the fr—” She swallowed. “You scared me.”

“I’m not surprised. Who sent that?”

“Sent what?” Javul said innocently.

“Too late. I saw it. Watch your back? What’s up with that? I didn’t see that in your mail.”

“It was part of a longer communication. There were capitalized words that spelled out this—message.”

“Warning,” Dara said.

Javul worried her lower lip with her teeth, reluctant to admit that she’d come to the same conclusion. “I don’t know that warning is—”

“Oh, it is. Trust me on this one, JC.” Kendara’s dark violet eyes were huge. “You have a stalker. What remains to be seen is how serious he, she, or it is.”

A stalker. There—the word had been spoken, and made real. Okay. Deeeep breath.

“Yeah. Looks like it,” she said. “This … this isn’t the first one of these I’ve gotten. There was one in the batch of holomail after the previous concert, too. Remember the black fire lilies?”

“Do I? Yeah, I should say I do. You mean, that wasn’t a compliment?”

Javul shook her head, remembering the rain of the gleaming black, pungently fragrant blooms that had fallen all around her and her entourage as they’d ascended the landing ramp of her yacht after an appearance on Imperial Center. “I think that was a warning, too. He wanted me to know the sort of thing he could arrange.”

“He?”

“I’m assuming—the messages are anonymous.”

“I see. Then all that stuff about cultural relativity and how the black lilies were especially prized by the Elom as—”

“I made it up. I didn’t want you guys to … you know.”

Kendara put her hands on her hips and glared down at Javul, one bright orange curl falling over her forehead. “Yeah, I know. You didn’t want us to know your life was in danger. Which is kinda—what’s the word I’m searching for? Oh, yeah—stupid. Of course,