To be trusted with humanity's confession, she must first file her own.
Eleven years ago, Dr. Yara Osei wrote a record in which every single fact was true. A woman named Elin Kade read one half of it, lost everything, and hanged herself.
Yara has never filed the death. Now the oldest institution in the galaxy — which has been reading her work for eighty-six years — will not admit her until she does.
So she files it. And it costs her exactly what she needs.
Within four days her cases are reopened, her convictions vacated, a guilty man walks free, and her standing collapses at the worst possible moment: because humanity has one hundred days to constitutionally admit its founding lie — and the founding lie is worse than anyone knew.
When the truth is entered, fourteen systems will be legally orphaned. The relief convoys will stop. Renash Tor has run the arithmetic. Most probable figure: four hundred and eleven dead.
He has never been wrong before.
What is a species willing to pay to be honest — and who gets to send the invoice?
The Honest Machine, Book Three. The conclusion of the trilogy.
