The streets of the Lower Ring were, as always, crowded and noisy and dirty; but these things did not irritate Zuko as they once had. Which should no doubt have made him ashamed—could he truly have grown used to, comfortable with, conditions as vile as these?—but he could not quite convince himself that he was.

He had always been taught to appreciate command, control, order: a flame cast from the hand that went where it was aimed; a dozen ships performing a single coordinated maneuver; a thousand soldiers with swords raised in salute, standing in straight lines. These were the things that meant you had power, that meant you were strong. And yet he looked around him and saw children chasing each other and shrieking, women at the fountain washing and bumping each other's elbows, a soldier of the city guard who did not even have a hand at his sword accepting a dumpling and tossing a coin across the seller's cart in return—"order" was not the word it brought to mind, but would order have been inherently better? Zuko was no longer certain. Father fought to rule the world because it refused to rule itself—because without rulership, there was no order, no balance, no true civilization. The world would be brought together beneath Father's fist, united, whole, and it would be better off that way; it would be, it must, or what was any of this for?

"—but he took it!"

Zuko blinked. Jin—he was not crying, only frowning, small fat face screwed up in a tremendous pout, and he was pointing accusingly at Zhiyang; Qingying was kneeling in front of the two of them, and the look on her face was brimming with fondness and annoyance, both at once.

"Then ask for it back," Qingying said, and then directed a stern and eloquent stare at Zhiyang.

"Give it back!" Jin said, stomping his foot.

The rice ball—it had to be about the rice ball Zhiyang was cradling in his narrow fingers, because he glared at Jin and held it closer to his chest.

"That isn't asking," Qingying murmured, singsong, and then changed tactics: "Why do you think he wants it?"

Jin considered this reluctantly. "'Cause it's good and he wants to eat it, too," he offered up, sighing.

"Then maybe you can share it," Qingying said, "and that way both of you get some."

Jin and Zhiyang eyed each other in a way that suggested they were not eager to pursue that particular course.

"Or," Qingying said, airy, "I can just take it and give it to Yanhong—" Who, Zuko noticed, was not in earshot—she and Lan had run ahead to the fountain, and were endeavoring to braid each other's hair at the same time, with fingers that were probably still rice-sticky.

"No!" Jin cried instantly. "We'll share, we'll share—we'll share, won't we?" he said to Zhiyang, who was, Zuko saw, already laboring to tear the rice ball in half.

The rice ball successfully shared, they raced off—no doubt to shove each other into the fountain, Zuko thought, which would surely make one or both of them cry again, but Qingying seemed to have patience beyond all reckoning.

She was levering herself up off the street, brushing off her knees, when he spoke without thinking: "You're—a good sister."

It was a hopelessly foolish thing to say, and he grimaced at himself for it; but she looked up at him and smiled, straightening. "I hope so," she said. "I—want to be."

"You haven't set them on fire," Zuko said, shrugging.

Qingying laughed—she thought he was joking, he realized after a moment. And why shouldn't she? Qingying at the worst Zuko had ever seen her had—what, spoken a little harshly? Had perhaps tugged on Yanhong's wrist too sharply—had grown tired of the noise and the closeness and the tension, and had hid for a while on the roof; that was all. What sort of word was sister, that it could hold both this girl and Azula within it? Involuntarily, Zuko remembered peering out at the Avatar from behind a blue-and-white mask, all those months ago: he's my brother, she had said, and then I won't leave without him.

He'd made a mistake, not laughing—or, well, no, Qingying wouldn't expect that of him; but he could have smirked, at least, as though something really were funny. But he hadn't. He'd looked away while he was thinking, and when he looked back, Qingying was watching him, quiet and intent.

"Did you have a sister?" she said—very low, and then she grimaced as if she hadn't meant to say it at all. "I'm sorry—I'm sorry, you don't have to answer—"

And if she hadn't said that, perhaps he wouldn't have; but as it was, he found himself saying, "Yes."

Qingying looked at him and waited, and something about the plaza at that moment—the sunlight, the noise all around them, the absolute certainty that no one was paying attention except Qingying—made it easy. Zuko drew a breath, let it out.

"Nothing like you," he said. "Nothing like me, either. Good at everything."

"Older?" Qingying offered, gentle.

"Younger," Zuko said—which was true, but he'd never thought of Azula that way, little sister, not really. She had always simply been Azula, and Zuko had been her elder but never her better. The royal sculptors had sometimes made little models to plan out their works—from plaster or wood so as not to waste good stone, with features half-placed; only ever a rough approximation of the true work to come, perpetually unfinished and utterly valueless. That was Zuko.

"You didn't like each other very much," Qingying guessed.

Zuko had no idea what expression ended up on his face, but whatever it was, it made Qingying laugh again; and if she knew the truth, he thought, she'd stop. A peasant girl, laughing at the prince of the Fire Nation—exile or no exile, he should have stopped her, should have set her on fire rather than let her laugh. But he stood there and chose not to; and Father failed to appear in a sudden blast of flame to punish him for it.

"Well," Qingying said, still smiling, "I suppose you probably don't want three more, then. But for whatever it's worth, I heard what Aunt said to you this morning; and you have three more, if you want them."

Zuko stared at her.

Qingying looked back at him, unwavering, and the smile softened, changed, but didn't go away. "I can hardly remember what it was like, without you and your uncle," she said. "I know you might have to leave again, if your duties to the queen take you away. But if that happens, I'll miss you. We all will."

"You will," Zuko repeated.

"Of course we will," Qingying said, calm and serious; and then all at once she grinned at him. "I suppose we'll get by," she added, and her expression became a parody of thoughtfulness, one finger raised to tap her chin. "Maybe we'll put a post in the corner, and I can paint eyebrows on it so it looks like it's glaring at us—"

"Ow!"

"No shoving!" Qingying shouted, turning toward the fountain—where a dripping-wet Lan was, in a righteous fury, about to drag Zhiyang into the water. "On the other hand, maybe you'd rather not have any sisters at all," she murmured, flashing Zuko one last smile; and then she was hurrying away toward the fountain, rolling up her sleeves and reaching for one of Zhiyang's flailing hands.

.*.

Qingying waded into the dispute—quite literally, stepping into the fountain herself to get Lan to let go of Zhiyang's ankles—and with a deftness Zuko could barely follow, got Zhiyang safely onto dry land and then lifted Lan out of the water and wrung her out, plaiting her wet hair and teasing her gently until she began to smile again.

Yanhong and Jin were both yawning by the time Qingying was done, sleepy with sunlight and all that sticky rice, and Qingying took Lan by the hand and scooped Yanhong up and onto her hip, and then looked at Zuko with her eyebrows raised. "Could you?"

She was not wrong to ask, Zuko thought, when her hands were occupied already—and besides, Jin was a lazy and stupid child, difficult to rouse. It would be easier to carry him than to deal with his complaining, to keep pace with his leaden feet. Zuko took a step nearer to the edge of the fountain where Jin was sitting; and Jin caught sight of him and smiled drowsily, reaching out with his small fat hands. "Li," he said, indistinct, and wiggled his fingers.

Zuko leaned down and picked him up, a hand at each of Jin's sides underneath his arms, and then copied Qingying as best he could, tucking Jin against his waist. Jin's hands were still wet with fountain water. "If you touch me, I will drop you," Zuko said, sharp.

"Okay," Jin agreed, yawning again halfway through the word, and promptly wound damp fingers into Zuko's collar.

Well—he had touched Zuko's shirt, then, not Zuko himself. Zuko hefted Jin a little higher, grudging, and turned to follow Qingying off down the street toward Pao's.

She was nearly at the edge of the plaza, and he only two steps behind her, when he saw them: three, robed in green, waiting. City officials, he knew—he had seen their like now and again in the streets of the Lower Ring—and the moment he met the gaze of the nearest of them, he knew they were there for him.

Someone had found out—that was his first thought. Someone had learned who they were, had recognized Uncle and his beard and his tea, the scar on Zuko's face; and now the king of Ba Sing Se meant to lock them up for it. To keep them captive, or even to trade them back to Father for a reprieve—unlucky king, Zuko thought, to have found the two people in the world Father wished most never to see again. Perhaps the city could buy itself mercy by offering to keep them.

"Li?"

Qingying had noticed his sudden stillness—of course she had—and had stopped walking, turning to face him even as the city officials drew nearer. There were more of them behind her, Zuko saw, scattered at intervals around the plaza, as though they thought that he might run. But where was there to run to? Outside Ba Sing Se, there was Father, there was Azula; inside Ba Sing Se, he was the enemy. There was nowhere else to go, and Ba Sing Se, surely, was still the safer of the two.

"Li," Qingying said—more urgently, this time, glancing back and forth between Zuko and the city officials. Zhiyang and Lan were watching from a pace or two away, wide-eyed, and when Yanhong squirmed curiously, Qingying set her down, a hand still wrapped around her wrist, and frowned at the officials.

The nearest one was a man, green-eyed, with a long dark plait and his hands tucked into his sleeves. Don't say it, Zuko found himself thinking helplessly, don't say it—he was surrounded by Earth Kingdom citizens, he should have been considering his own safety, but instead what he feared most was that the man would open his mouth and say Prince Zuko where Qingying and Zhiyang and Lan would hear him. What would Wan Liu say to Jin, when Qingying whisked him back to safety and he asked, all innocence, Who's Prince Zuko? What would they think of him—and why, why had it started to matter to him? Why couldn't he make it stop?

The official looked at him for a long moment, and whether it was because he saw something in Zuko's face or because he had been told to be discreet, what he said in the end was, "Sir."

"Who're you?" Jin murmured, bleary, from somewhere around Zuko's collarbone.

"A lucky servant of this great city," the man said, not unkindly, "who must do his duty. Sir: if you would come with us."

Perhaps he did not even know who he was arresting; surely if he had, he would have snatched Jin away, would have told the children to move aside to a safe distance, instead of standing there so patiently.

"He hasn't done anything wrong," Qingying said, "you have to know that—"

"I do only what is asked of me," the man said.

Qingying let go of Yanhong's hand long enough to touch Zuko on the arm. "It must be a mistake," she said.

He met her gaze without meaning to: she was entirely sincere, and he could not do anything in the face of it except nod.

"Li?" Jin said.

"You have to go with your sister," Zuko said, without looking down at him.

"But where—"

"Come on, Jin," Qingying said gently, and took him from Zuko with careful hands; he was staring at Zuko with round serious eyes, and Qingying turned him in her arms so he could keep doing it, damn her.

"Tell my uncle what's happened," Zuko said.

"Of course," Qingying said instantly. "Right away. Don't worry, Li—we'll sort this out, whatever it is. We'll get you back." She sounded utterly certain—of course she did, Zuko thought. No doubt she imagined that it was because of his face, his eyes; that the city did not know him for what he was, and that all he needed was "Mushi" and that queen's seal to set him free. She thought the officials did not understand him; and the officials thought she did not understand him; and after all that he had done, all that he had let himself become, perhaps he did not understand himself.

"Thank you," he let himself say, because—because she'd been kind, and because he wanted to say it, whatever Father might have thought of him for it.

"Of course," Qingying said again, without hesitation, and she hitched Jin a little more tightly against her waist, reached for Zuko's shoulder with her free hand, and, for a moment, held tight.

.*.*.*.

"Come on! You can hit harder than that, sugar queen—"

"Can you tell me to pretend I'm punching you again?" Katara said. "I think that worked really well before."

It was a sign of how far they'd come, Katara thought, that Toph laughed instead of scowling. "I'll tell you anything you want if you straighten out those shoulders!" she said. "I can feel you hunching from here, it's ridiculous," and she turned, stomped a foot, and hurled a piece of the floor at Katara.

There was still a part of Katara that kind of wanted to duck, but Toph had mostly yelled that reflex away. She set one foot firmly underneath her instead, and waited, waited, until—there. Katara slammed her other foot to the floor; and a chunk of floor-stone heaved up in front of her and smashed Toph's rock up into the air.

It didn't hit the ceiling—the palace Earthbending rooms had really, really high ceilings for exactly this reason, along with loosely-set floors and extra-thick walls. Katara reached up for it and felt it, the energy in the stone for a moment an extension of the energy in her hands and arms, her spine, her feet; and then Katara pulled it down out of the air with one fist and slung it back at Toph with the other.

Toph didn't dodge—of course she didn't. She braced herself and tilted her head, listening, and then leapt up and punched in the same motion, and the rock shattered against her fist.

"Toph! That's part of the floor!"

Toph shrugged, flipping one shard of rock over with a bare toe. "I'm sure it happens all the time," she said, airy. "And it's not like they can't get more rock any time they want, right?" She sniffed and tilted her chin. "Anyway—that was better."

"Really?" Katara said.

"Better," Toph said, "not good—don't get too excited, here," which was just so—typical, Toph was the worst teacher ever, and Katara was about to tell her so when Toph's face changed: she stopped smirking and began to frown.

"Toph—?"

"Shh," Toph hissed, and flattened her feet against the floor, spreading her toes out—she was listening, feeling, but whatever she was getting must not have been clear enough, because after a moment she crouched and put her hands on the floor, too. "There's something happening," she murmured after a moment, still frowning. "Lots of people, their hearts—but they're just standing. Not in the hallway, but somewhere."

"Can you tell which direction?" Katara said, taking a step nearer; and that was when the ceiling fell in.

It took Katara a moment to realize that it hadn't done it on its own—she flinched down away from the noise and the tumbling stone, sheltering her head reflexively, and then Aang cried, "Duck!" and she did. Something shot over her head in a rush of air, and Katara looked up in time to see Toph flip a slab of rock up and over, crushing whatever it was against the floor—a glove? A glove wouldn't have crunched like that—

A piece of the ceiling had landed behind Toph, propped up by the wall into a steep slant; and a Dai Li agent, two, three, came hurtling down it. Everything became clear, all at once: they'd been waiting up there, they'd torn through the ceiling on purpose—Toph had felt them waiting but hadn't known where, with their vibrations coming down through all four walls—

"Watch out!" Toph shouted, before Katara could shout the same thing at her—Katara planted her feet and punched upward, hard, and the chunk of ceiling behind Toph rocked up to follow her hand, the Dai Li agents thrown backwards like they were on a bucking elephant buffalo. The nearest one toppled off the side toward Katara, and she could see, framed for just a moment against the pale green of his robes, the hand-shapes—stone, they had to be—that hung at his waist.

Toph had moved, too, and behind Katara there was a grinding of stone, a chorus of shouts; no stone hands hit Katara in the back, so whatever Toph had done must have worked. Katara didn't waste any time checking—she took the opportunity to cross the floor, instead, and grabbed Toph's elbow the moment she was near enough. "We have to get out of here," she said, and then stopped to yank a chunk of stone sideways into the agent who was trying to sneak up on Toph's other side.

"Yeah, I'm kind of getting that feeling myself," Toph said, slamming a foot into the ground—someone behind Katara yelped, and then there was a thud.

"Come on," Katara said, turning toward the door—but Aang was there, sweeping through the air toward her and shaking his head, eyes wide.

"There's more of them in the hallway," he said, "you'll never get out the door—"

"Then let's not use it," Toph said, blithe, when Katara relayed this. "You wanted to practice, sugar queen: here's your chance. Punch like you mean it." She slid a foot sideways, shoving two more agents away before they could touch her, and then she settled into a stance next to Katara and nodded once. Katara heaved the floor up underneath them, and Toph shoved their little island toward the wall furthest from the doorway; and Katara planted her feet, took a deep breath, and punched.

.*.

They went through two or three walls, Toph heaving the floor up each time to close the gaps behind them before the Dai Li could follow them through; and then they skidded into one last hallway in a shower of rock, Aang darting out overhead in a streak of blue light. Katara shoved their little island up against the hole in the wall, but it was stone, too, and the Dai Li that had come after them were all Earthbenders—it might take them some time to undo Toph's bending, but not that much.

A flicker of movement caught Katara's eye—not Aang, something green, near the end of the corridor they'd broken into—and Katara whirled and raised her fists.

"Most impressive, Avatar," Li Chen said, inclining her head.

"Li Chen," Katara said, relieved, and lowered her hands. "The Dai Li—they attacked us—"

Li Chen's face, already grave, turned graver; she didn't look surprised to hear it. "I came to this wing intending to tell you—two of the Council of Five have been found dead, and the other three cannot be located. I could not have told you I knew who was responsible; but I imagine that you can guess my suspicions."

Found dead—Katara stared. She hadn't liked the Dai Li because they'd lied to her, because they'd made themselves a nuisance and an obstacle and they'd done it on purpose; but they were Earth Kingdom, even if they were wrong about a lot of things, and they'd never quite managed that last leap to "enemy" in her head. Long Feng coming up with some stupid reason to try to arrest her and Toph, maybe thinking he could get the king on his side again—that was one thing. But if he'd really sent the Dai Li to kill the Council of Five—

"Awesome," Toph was saying beside her, blowing her bangs sideways with a huff of breath. "So let's get out of here before they do the same thing to us."

"We have to find Sokka first," Katara said immediately. "And Suki and Yue—they're probably still sparring—"

"We must not leave without the king," Li Chen said.

"Oh, come on!" Toph said. "Are you kidding? They sent like twenty agents just for us—they've probably got him swimming in them."

Li Chen looked up at her, unmoved. "If we are ever to have a hope of stopping them," she said, "we will need the king."

Katara narrowed her eyes. It was probably true; but it didn't seem like quite enough to explain the tightness of Li Chen's knuckles where her hands were wrapped around each other, the sheer rock-solid insistence in her face. "And he's your little brother," Katara said after a moment, gently.

Li Chen glanced at her, and then looked away and let out a slow breath. "And he's my little brother," she agreed, almost wryly; and then she looked back at Katara and spread her hands, all humor gone. "Please."

Katara looked at Toph.

"Oh, what, like you think I'm going to say no?"

"He's going to slow us down," Katara said.

"Yeah, he is," Toph said. "Let's go get him."

Katara glanced up the corridor they were in, and down—she'd gotten pretty good at finding her way around in the palace, but it was still huge, and they'd come out a completely different side of the Earthbending room than usual. "It'll be easier if we can find Sokka and the others first," she said, "so there are as many of us as possible—"

She was interrupted by a shout, somewhere around the corner nearest them. "Oh, great, more of them," Toph muttered, jumping down from their rock to the floor of the corridor—but if it was more Dai Li, it didn't sound like things were working out for them. There were a couple more shouts and then what sounded like a cry of pain, a thud.

"Aang," Katara said, but Aang had to have guessed what she was going to say—he was already moving, hurrying through the wall to cut around the corner and waving absently down at Katara.

"I'll go see," he said, and then was gone.

Another couple of shouts, a crunch of stone and a groan. Katara reached out and made the stone under her feet lower her down next to Toph, trying to stay quiet—if it was Dai Li, they didn't need to give themselves away, or at least not any more than they already had.

But the next thing she heard coming around the corner was Aang's voice; and whatever he was saying was indistinct, but he didn't sound unhappy.

"—Suki, it's Suki!" was the first thing she caught as he came back through the wall—and Suki rounded the corner a moment later. She had her fans raised, but not spread; she was holding them the wrong way around, Katara realized after a moment, handles out.

"Katara," Suki said, and she sounded relieved—but not happy, not happy at all, and no one else followed her around the corner.

"Suki," Katara said. "Suki, what happened? Where's Yue? Sokka—"

"Sokka came to find us," Suki said. "We went walking in the Upper Ring—there were Dai Li at the gate, that must be how they knew. They knew we'd gone out there, they knew we weren't with you, and they took the opportunity. They've—" She stopped and swallowed; her hands tightened on her fans. "They've turned against the king because he's listening to you, and they—I was the only one who had anything to fight them with. They've got Yue and Sokka."

"Then we have to get them back," Katara said immediately.

"The Dai Li will not hold them inside the palace," Li Chen said, laying a gentle hand against Katara's elbow. "It is not safe to stay here, and may not be for some time—you should collect whatever you need most from your rooms, and we must retrieve Kuei; and then we must get away from here, because if we too are imprisoned then we can help no one."

Katara squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want Li Chen to be right, but that probably meant she was—this was their best chance to get the king out, after all, and if they left the palace now, who knew whether they'd be able to get back in for him later? They had to do it now.

"The sparring room," Toph said quietly. "Which one were you using?"

"The corner one," Suki said—there were two that were fairly close to the rooms, which Suki and Yue had started calling "the corner one" and "the long one" days ago.

"You guys go get our stuff," Toph said.

"Toph, we don't have time," Katara said, shaking her head; but of course Toph didn't listen.

"Yue always takes her pike with her when you guys practice," Toph said, crossing her arms and tilting her chin up. "It's still there, right?"

"Should be," Suki admitted.

"Her dad gave her that," Toph said. "We're not leaving it here. You guys go get our stuff—I'll meet you there, and then we can go kidnap the king. Okay?"

Katara swallowed a sudden ridiculous urge to laugh, and touched Toph's elbow instead. "Okay," she said. "But don't break down every wall you come across—we don't need to make it any easier for the Dai Li to find us."

"You just don't want this to be any fun at all, do you?"

"Where is Long Feng?"

"He will be here shortly, Your Highness," Chang Da said, as he had the last three times he had been asked, and he turned and bowed low. The king was still the king, even if he was also the reason all this had been necessary; and he sought Long Feng's counsel, after all, so perhaps he could indeed throw off the influence of the Avatar, given time.

"So you've said," the king observed with a huff. "If I'm truly in as much danger as you say, what can he be attending to that can possibly be of greater importance? And after all the times he's chastised me for not attending to my personal safety! It really is too much."

"No doubt he is securing the palace and grounds as we speak, Your Highness," Chang Da said, returning to his previous stance: feet planted, head up, facing the vast doors that led to the throne room. There were already Dai Li lining the walls, and more on the way—and they guarded not only the doors, but the walls, the ceiling, the floor, for who knew which the Avatar might choose to attack? She was not Dai Li; she had not spent years advancing through the ranks, trained by the best Earthbending masters Ba Chang had to offer. But she was still dangerous, and the Grand Secretary had preferred to overestimate her rather than underestimate her.

"This is ridiculous—what did you even say it was this time? Separatists? Anarchists? Moral degenerates?"

"Your Highness," Chang Da began, and he had only just started to turn around again when it happened: the faintest sound, a barely audible scrape of stone as though against a single shoe, and—a breeze?

In a room with its doors closed and barred.

Chang Da whirled, already shouting, to face the space where throne and king had been a moment ago—the empty space, where there was now nothing but a gray flat slab of stone.

.*.*.*.

"Got him!" Toph said.

"Oh, my," said the king.

Even from a few steps away, the vibration of settling stone made him ring clear as a bell to Toph. He was clutching his hat with one hand and one arm of his throne with the other—they hadn't been able to come up with a way to warn him. They were just lucky he hadn't screamed, Toph thought.

"Sorry, Your Highness," Katara said quickly, bowing. "We couldn't think of any way to get to you—"

"—so we brought you down to see us instead," Toph said.

They'd gotten everything they needed from their rooms, and Toph had retrieved Yue's pike from the sparring room without any trouble—or at least not more trouble than she could handle. It had been Li Chen's idea to get out by going beneath the palace. Toph had brought up the part where she really didn't have enough hands to keep the rest of them from hurting themselves in the dark; but Li Chen had told them they wouldn't even need a lantern, and she'd been right. The rock underneath the palace was full of weird chunks of crystal; it had made Toph think of embroidery, kind of, the way their footsteps had rippled out through the regular stone and then struck them, ping ping ping—like running a finger along a thread and hitting a row of beads. Apparently they glowed, too, and Katara said something about having seen them before, in the Cave of Two Lovers down south. Li Chen had picked one up and so had Suki, and obviously Toph couldn't exactly say for sure how bright they were, but nobody had tripped on anything since.

"It's not going to take them very long to figure out that we pretty much just yanked you through the floor," Toph added. "We closed it up after you, but that won't slow them down much. We need to get moving."

"Slow who down?" the king said, letting go of his hat at last to slap his hand decisively against his throne. "Just what exactly is going on here?"

Of course nobody had told him anything—or at least not anything true. Why would they, when they could just keep him shut up in the palace and make him think whatever they wanted? At least Toph had had the arena. The king hadn't even gone outside by himself until Katara came along.

"The Dai Li," Li Chen said, quiet. "They will not let us leave the palace grounds without a fight."

The king shook his head. "Not this again—"

"Listen to me," Li Chen said.

She didn't shout, didn't even say it especially loudly, but there was—there was stone in it, Toph thought, stone inside, even though Li Chen wasn't an Earthbender at all.

"Li Chen—"

"Whatever they told you," Li Chen said, "it was a lie. They have killed the Council of Five, they have killed half the palace guard, and they will not let you leave this place if they can help it."

"Impossible," the king said; but he was leaning toward Li Chen uncertainly, and his heart had started to pound. The word came out not like something he believed but like something he was saying from memory.

"Long Feng has always said he would do anything for this city," Li Chen said, "and you have always believed him. Why do you doubt it now?"

"But that isn't—Li Chen," the king said helplessly. "Why would he—"

It was totally understandable that it would be hard for him to really get it, Toph knew that. But if the Dai Li caught them while they were still trying to talk him through it, it wasn't going to matter whether he ended up believing them or not. "Look, seriously, we really don't have time for this," Toph said. "If we get out of here now and you find out we were wrong, then everything will be fine and you can go right back in and give Long Feng a hug."

The king didn't move.

"Kuei," Li Chen said, quiet.

It took Toph a moment to realize she was talking to the king—she'd hardly ever used his name in front of them. But the king didn't yell at her for it, or tell them to put him back in the throne room. He just sat there.

"I do not know what to think," he said at last, "but I suppose I will find out the truth soon enough," and then—finally!—he stood and stepped down from his throne. "Now what?"

"Now we get away before they catch us," Toph said, and knelt down to jam her hands into the stone at her feet. "And then we can—"

She stopped talking without even really meaning to, frowning down at her wrists.

"Toph?" Katara said, behind her.

Toph ignored her, just for a moment, and shoved her fingers in deeper, trying to figure out what it was that was bothering her. There was—there was something wrong, something funny about the stone underneath them. Sometimes, like with the crystals, there were veins of some other kind of rock, or hunks of metal, that felt all different when she touched them; but this wasn't like that. A few inches past her fingertips, everything just seemed to stop. "There's something here," Toph said, and she curled her fingers in and pulled the stone up with her hands like it was a rug. She tossed the rock she'd ripped up away and dropped through the space it had left, and the instant she landed again, she almost wished she hadn't.

They'd left a rough tunnel stretching out behind them in the direction they'd come from, just tall enough to walk through if you didn't mind hunching a bit—they'd been in kind of a hurry, so they hadn't really taken the time to make it pretty. But the tunnel Toph was in now wasn't like that at all.

It was huge, for one thing. The king wasn't even going to have to take off his hat to walk around in here. And it was solidly built, smooth-sided, with a level floor—nothing anyone had Earthbent in a hurry or an emergency, not something an escaping unit of palace guardsmen would have left behind.

Maybe it was part of the palace; but there wasn't any water running through it or anything, whether for heat or for washing or for anything else. Toph wouldn't necessarily have put it past Ba Sing Se to be storing royal air, but—

"This should not be here," Li Chen said, somewhere over Toph's head.

"I was kind of afraid you might say that," Toph said.

.*.*.*.

A couple of tugs and a crunch of stone, and they had a reasonably smooth ramp down into the tunnel Toph had found. Katara was the last one down, Suki ahead of her with one of the crystal lights, and she stared into the long echoing dark of the tunnel and wanted to shiver.

"There are escape tunnels and stuff, right?" Toph was saying somewhere ahead of her. "For the royal family?"

"There are," Li Chen agreed. "And most of the palace maps do not include them; but there is one that does, the one that was used to plan them out. And this tunnel is not on that map."

"Then who built it?"

Nobody wanted to answer Suki's question—the best answer was probably some really paranoid king, maybe at the start of the War, but one of the worse answers was the Dai Li, and they all knew it. Maybe this was even some kind of trap, Katara thought. And maybe the Dai Li didn't know they were down here yet, but soon enough, they were going to—

"Katara!"

It was Aang—he'd gone up through the palace floor, to keep an eye on the Dai Li while Toph opened up a space for the king's throne and pulled him down. Now Aang was drifting down halfway through the rock, not bothering at all with the ramp, and his glowing face was tense with urgency.

"Katara, they're coming—they're not here yet but they're on their way down—"

"It doesn't matter," Katara said to Suki quickly. "It doesn't matter who built it—it's here and we need to not be. We have to get Yue and Sokka—"

Suki shook her head. "We have to regroup," she said. "We don't even know where they are, and we can't carry all this stuff around with us while we look for them."

It was a fair enough point. Katara was carrying her own pack and Sokka's, and Suki had Yue's things slung over her free shoulder and Yue's pike in her hand—Toph had needed both hands free to bend all the rock underneath the king's throne out of the way.

"And we need somewhere safe to leave you guys," Toph added, tilting her chin toward Li Chen and the king. "I'm guessing the best way to keep Your Highness safe probably isn't going to be bringing you along while we break into some Dai Li prison."

"The university—"

"We cannot go to the university," Li Chen said. "Long Feng knows very well that you stayed there for a time. It is surely one of the first places the Dai Li will look for you, when they cannot find you within palace grounds."

"And it's definitely the first place they're going to look for her," Toph said, hooking a thumb at Li Chen. "Think about it, Katara—"

"Then where?" Katara said, more loudly than she'd meant to. "Where else can we go?" The tunnel floor was solid level stone, but it might as well have been summer ice cracking away beneath her for all the steadiness she felt. This morning she'd been sitting in a Council meeting, thinking everything was so well-settled that she might as well go visit Father, and now—the Dai Li were after them, they'd stolen the king right out of his throne room; the palace wasn't safe, the university wasn't safe; Sokka and Yue were gone, taken, and if Katara couldn't get them back—

"Actually," Toph said, slow and thoughtful, "I think maybe I know a place."

Mikama took a deep breath and pressed her forehead against the wall—or tried to, except all she got for it was the dull clank of her helmet against metal and a lock of hair crushed into her eyes.

They had developed a rotation to care for their Earth Kingdom prisoners—to share the responsibility, certainly, and to keep the prisoners from getting too good a look at any one of them in particular. But also, Mikama thought, because they all absolutely hated doing it, and not just because it meant putting on a Fire Nation helmet.

They had talked, again and again, about letting the prisoners go, and if there had been any simple way to get them safely off the ship, to make sure no one would notice their absence or come for them and not find them, Hakoda would have ordered it done days ago. If there were a way for them to get the ship out as a whole, with the prisoners aboard, that would be even better. But none of them had yet been able to come up with a plan that was solid enough, something that would conceivably end in some way other than their deaths. And in the meantime, the pretense had to be maintained, and the prisoners needed to be cared for. There was no way around it.

And there were plenty of reasons to hate it. Bato did not like it—partly because none of the Fire Nation helmets fit him well, but much more because of what the helmet represented. He had always been a straightforward man by nature, honest; and covering himself in the uniform of the enemy to trick that enemy was tactics, but doing it to trick allies—that was not the same. Even though it was necessary, Mikama could see that it felt to him like a lie, and he hated it.

Ukara hated it because it was not practical enough for her. Oh, they had managed well enough for the past ten days, but that was because they were lucky, not because it was a good plan. Sooner or later, someone would make a mistake—would use the wrong word for a part of the ship or for one piece or another of Fire Nation armor, would call Hakoda by his blatantly Water Tribe name instead of remembering to say "sir", and then what? No, she did not like it at all; and every time it was her turn to go below and ladle out water and rice porridge, Mikama could see her mouth go flat and thin.

Takka hated it because of the risk—of course every moment they spent on this ship, in this sea, surrounded by this fleet, was full of risk, but this was even worse. When he was sent down, it was he who posed the risk, his every word and action where the prisoners could hear and see him; and he was a man upon whom that thought weighed heavily.

On and on and on—Tima hated it, Akkaro hated it, Pakura and Soshori—Hakoda did not have to do it, he was supposed to be their commanding officer, but if he had, he would have hated it. Mikama hated it: it was uncomfortable, stressful, unpleasant. How could she not?

But today it was her turn. She straightened up, swallowed, and turned the small metal wheel that would let her open the door.

The ship was small, and had a small brig—there were individual cells, but all next to each other, and only barred, not walled, so every prisoner could see and speak to every other. The bars were metal; if they had been made to hold a Firebender here, they would have had to post a constant guard. They were lucky, really, to have been given Earthbenders instead.

And they were Earthbenders—or three of them were, at least. Mikama had seen them, flicking stray pebbles they had found against the walls without touching them, or to each other, simply to keep their minds occupied. The other two might only have declined to join in; she could not be certain.

There were no pebbles flying around today. Two of them were sitting, three lying down on the narrow cots built into each cell, and all five of them looked at her when she came through the door.

"Water," she said shortly—not unkindly, but like a woman who had better things to do and would rather be doing them. The first day, she had tried much too hard to be gruff; it had been half nerves and half sheer uncertainty, trying wildly to guess what Fire Nation soldiers might sound like when they were not killing anyone. She was better at it now.

The prisoners had a bowl apiece, and that also metal—if she were serving them a meal, they would get the food first, and then water once they had emptied their bowls. But that was morning and evening; at midday, she only had to give them water.

They knew the routine by now, and by the time she had pried the top off the water barrel, there were five bowls on the floor. She collected them and filled them, and this part she did not mind—it was almost soothing, the steady rhythm of it. Four full scoops of the water-dipper filled a bowl, and then she edged it away and filled the next.

But then she had to give them back. Snatching an empty bowl from the floor was easy; but when they were full, Mikama had to move slowly so as not to spill them, and she could only carry one at a time. The leftmost prisoner had looked at her strangely the first time she had knelt down on the floor and set his full bowl down for him, sliding it back through the gap in the bars. But she hadn't been able to decide how else she ought to do it.

At least now he only watched her with narrowed eyes, instead of gaping. She set his bowl on the floor and pushed it to him with a scrape of metal, and he leaned down and took it and never stopped watching her.

The second man and the third man were easy—they were the ones she hadn't seen doing any Earthbending. They were both tall and quiet, maybe brothers; and they both tended to mostly keep their eyes on the floor. She slid them their bowls, one and then the other, and they nodded to her in thanks without ever looking up.

The fourth man was narrow and unpleasant—even the other prisoners seemed to think so. The first time Mikama had had to take her turn at this, he had spat on her when she knelt to push his bowl back to him; the man in the third cell had glared at him and then had pointedly apologized to her for it, which was the only time he'd spoken in Mikama's hearing. But there was no spitting today. Mikama pushed him his bowl, and he sneered at her through the bars and made no move to take it.

The man in the last cell was the most difficult of them, for all that he'd never spat on anyone. He'd shouted at them a lot during the first few days, slammed his hands against the bars and demanded to be let go; he did not do it so much anymore, but he liked to pace restlessly. He was badly suited to captivity. Today he was seated by the gap in the bars—he'd been sitting up even before she came in, and had stayed there the whole time she was dipping water.

He watched her intently when she brought his bowl to him; perhaps he had already decided what he would do or perhaps he simply took advantage of the moment, but either way it happened. She pushed his bowl in perhaps a little further than she ought, and before she could pull her hand back, he had grabbed it, quick as a strike of lightning.

She tensed and pressed her free hand against the bars, bracing and leaning away—but he didn't break her wrist, didn't try to grab through the bars for her hair or the collar of her uniform. Mikama almost met his gaze by mistake, but when she was this close it would not do well to let him get too good a look at her eyes. "Let go," she said, sharp, and he did.

"You did not burn me," he said, almost accusingly, as she straightened up and backed away.

The other four were staring at her, too. Were they suspicious—enough to say something to someone on the ship that would come to get them? Or simply hoping to escape—trying to work out how many Firebenders they would have to face to do it? "I do not need bending to serve the Fire Lord," Mikama said, turning away to reach for the water barrel so none of them could see her face; it felt so utterly ridiculous to say that it almost made her want to smile.

"I suppose not," the man said, after a moment.

Mikama jammed the lid back onto the water barrel, and took a deep breath. Ukara would have the evening shift; Mikama would have to tell her to be careful of the fifth man.

They were trapped in the middle of a Fire Nation fleet, in the middle of a war, next to a city they could not warn, with prisoners they could not free. They needed an escape route, a distraction, both; this endless waiting could not last, something was bound to give, and when it did they were all probably going to die. Ukara kept saying Mikama had nothing to smile about—but at least, Mikama thought, at least after this she would not come up on the rotation again for three whole days.

She grinned down at the door-wheel, and wondered what the prisoners would think if she started to laugh.

Yin stared down at the brush in her hand and wondered how it was that now—now, of all times—her head should find itself empty of words.

The orders were away, copied and stamped and sealed; she could not have done otherwise. Even putting aside the chance that she would have been found out too early if she had not sent them, it would not have been fair. She was a sub-admiral, that was true, and had been given the authority to order men and women to their deaths—men and women who had agreed that there were things worth being ordered to their deaths for, because they believed that they and their commanding officers had the same essential definitions of what those things were. To change those definitions without warning, without giving them the chance to agree or disagree—to not even ask, but to make them die, for an idea they hadn't even had the chance to consider—

No. She could not present every single sailor in her fleet with this choice, it simply wasn't possible, but she could at least allow her squadron commanders to make their decisions with clear eyes. The orders had been sent on. Kishen had taken them away to be recopied and had let her know when it was done.

And now—now she only needed to—what? To ask them to consider whether they wouldn't perhaps like to give their fellow sailors the chance to set them on fire? And for what? Yin could not afford the luxury of illusion. There would still be death, there was no doubt of it. Oh, she would not face every ship in the South Yellow Sea; refugees from Ba Sing Se would flee toward the Serpent's Pass, most likely, hoping to cross more quickly than the ferries, which would no doubt be overtaxed in any case. Only the ships within range would even be permitted to fire, in the end—but that still meant that she set herself against a hundred ships at least. Even if every ship under her command chose to follow her in this, she would still be at a disadvantage, and the catapult fire—what could she do? Try to make the missiles hit her ships instead? Have her Firebenders drag them down into the sea? She would never be able to stop them all.

Yin gazed at the brush, and then the page. It would be honest, at least, to write that. Turn against your nation, your king, your fellow soldiers; lose or destroy your own life forever, for the sake of people you have never met and cannot hope to wholly save even if you try, because it is what I think is best—

"Sir?"

Kishen said it as though it were the third or fourth time, and perhaps it had been. Yin set her brush back down, slanting it into the well of the inkstone, and turned her head to glance at him inquiringly.

He had closed the door to the bridge behind him, and now that she thought about it she felt she could almost remember having heard the sound. He was standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back, and he was looking at her with quiet amusement. Not enough to be rude or to make her want to get angry—only enough to make her aware that she had been sitting alone in the bridge staring tragically at a blank sheet of paper, and that it was indeed a little bit ridiculous.

"You seem to be having some trouble, sir," he said.

Because it was Kishen, she let herself sigh. "I don't know how to say it," she said.

Kishen raised his eyebrows. "How to request their presence on the ship, sir?" he said. "Because that is the only thing you were willing to commit to paper, this morning—"

"And when they come," Yin said, "as I have asked them—what then?"

"Then you will say to them what you said to me, sir."

Yin shook her head slowly, rolling the handle of the brush back and forth between her fingers. It seemed like the sort of thing that ought to be done well—but what could ever be the proper way to ask for the impossible, to ask for a thing no one had the right to ask for?

There was quiet for a moment; and then Kishen shifted a little nearer, so that his forearm almost brushed her shoulder. "Are you so very certain, sir," he said, low, "that you are the only one?"

Yin tilted her head and looked up at him. "And what are the odds that they all are reading my orders as we speak," she said, "and thinking of me what I thought of Paozun?"

"Perhaps not all of them," Kishen conceded, quiet. "But there may be some. You sent them the orders because you wanted them to have a choice, and perhaps they will still make that choice the same way you did even if they think they are alone—but they aren't, and it is better that they know it." He hesitated for a moment, looking away, and then met her gaze again and smiled a little. "Not everyone is as brave as you are, sir."

"As stupid as I am, you mean," Yin said; and she expected the smile to widen, but instead it vanished entirely.

"No, sir," Kishen said, very low. "That isn't what I mean at all."

He bowed and then turned and walked away, opened the hatch to the bridge and closed it quietly behind him, all without looking at her again. She stared at the hatch for a moment after he had gone, and then turned back, picked up her brush, and began to write.

.*.

It was not unusual for a fleet commander to invite subordinates to dine aboard a flagship, especially on the eve of a day when there was likely to be action. Ancient convention, to eat well the night before a battle—to go to your death, if that was what waited for you, full and fat and happy. Some soldiers liked to say it meant you would be born full and fat and happy into your next life; Yin had always thought it simply made sense. Fighting a war was difficult enough—why would anyone want to do it on an empty stomach?

She had them brought to the bridge; she had phrased the invitation so that they would come early, for what they expected would be a dull but necessary discussion of the state of the fleet, the strength of their armaments, the logistics of tomorrow's maneuvers. Supper would come later, and perhaps a little drinking. Not enough to leave them ill, no officer would risk such a thing—but all told, their command staff would not be surprised to see them back early tomorrow morning rather than tonight. No one would ask any questions, or at least not until it was too late.

Arun was the last one in; Yin followed him through the hatch with Kishen a step behind, and then Kishen closed the door behind them. There was murmuring, shuffling, a quiet laugh, as the six of them seated themselves around three sides of the table, and then Yin stepped up to the remaining side and they all went quiet.

There was no point in talking around it, now that she had them here. Yin took a deep breath, let it out, and then said, "I lied to you, and I apologize. I did not bring you here for any of the reasons I gave you."

There was a shift in the air, somehow, in the quality of the silence; but none of them leapt up and ran for the door. Arun looked at her inquiringly, and Chan Dan and Yen Li exchanged uncertain glances. Nusha's face was blank, impossible to read. Ozan simply looked confused; Baoyang was the only one who was frowning.

"Sir?" Arun said, after a moment.

"The things I wish to say to you are not safe things to say," Yin admitted. "From a certain perspective I suppose they are treason, although it is for the sake of the Fire Nation that I say them. If I say the things I wish to say and you do not agree with them, no harm will befall you—I'll swear to that on anything you like. But you will not be allowed to leave this ship until morning."

"You can't be serious!" Baoyang said. "Sub-Admiral—"

"Orders were sent to you this morning," Yin said. "Unless you have gravely neglected your duties, they have been passed on to your command staff, who will prepare for them to be carried out even in your absence. You will not be accused of dereliction of duty—unless, of course, you genuinely choose to be derelict, which is precisely what I have asked you here to discuss." She set her hands flat against the table and looked at each of them in turn. "I wished to be as fair as I could," she said. "This seemed like the best way."

"The best way?" Ozan said, sounding bewildered.

He did not get any further before Baoyang slammed his hands against the table. "The best way would be to obey the orders you are given! Are you mad?"

There was a moment's silence—and here, Yin thought, this was the tipping point. This was the moment when they might all decide she was mad, unless she could convince them that it did not have to be so clear-cut as Baoyang made it sound; but the words caught in her throat. How could she ever explain? How could she ever expect them to stand where she stood, when it had taken her months and months, a thousand different moments, a hundred different choices, to get here herself?

And then Arun spoke. "Bad orders," he said, quiet but certain, to Baoyang. He met Yin's gaze and lifted his chin, and she knew he had decided.

"Bad?" Baoyang spat, looking incredulous. "Are you listening to yourself? Orders don't come in good or bad, followable or unfollowable. They're orders—and we are soldiers. What can there possibly be to discuss?"

"There is always a choice," said Nusha evenly.

"A choice—"

"There is a choice," Yin said to Baoyang, before he could say any more. "It is only that you look at that choice and see one half of it as inconceivable, unfathomable, so that it does not look like a choice at all. I see it the same way; but I am looking at the other half."

Baoyang stared at her for a long moment, silent, and then began to shake his head. "I like you well enough, sir," he said slowly. "You're straightforward and you're careful, and you've been a good commander. But I can't—I can't follow you where you're going."

"And that is fair enough," Yin said, inclining her head. "You are not wrong to say that we are soldiers, that we have been given orders and are expected to follow them; and I will not punish someone who is not wrong."

She turned her gaze to Ozan, next to Baoyang; he still looked mostly baffled, but he met her eyes and shrugged uncomfortably, shifting in his chair. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "I—I don't think I can—"

"Fair enough," Yin said again, and then, to him and Baoyang both, "I still cannot let you go until the morning, and you may as well stay here as anywhere else aboard this ship. Admiral Paozun will surely ask you for an accounting of our actions when it is all over, and by then it will be for the best if you are able to give him one."

Nusha was next; she looked back at Yin with calm dark eyes, considering, and then said, "I don't know, sir. I would like to hear what you propose to do before I decide."

Yen Li, beside her, glanced at Nusha and then at Yin and then at Arun, and drummed her fingers for a moment against the table. "No one's actually said it," she said, "but I assume we're not here about being ordered to run catapult drills. And I hadn't thought—I suppose I hadn't thought as far ahead as you have, sir, but when I read the princess's orders, I thought—" She pressed her fingers flat against the table and bit her lip. "I—I didn't enlist in the Navy to do things like that."

Chan Dan shook his head and then, startlingly, laughed. "At the absolute best," he said, "I hoped you were going to tell us we'd be off away from the coast, or maybe heading back down the river—that it wasn't going to be us. I hadn't even imagined you'd say anything like this."

Down the river—Yin hadn't even considered it, hadn't even thought about trying to get away instead. "I should tell you now," she said slowly, "that I—it is only if you do not wish to do what I ask that I can guarantee no harm will come to you. I do not know what will happen to us, or what will become of us after we have done this if we are not already dead."

"After we've done what, sir?" Arun said, without even batting an eye; and Yin leaned forward over the table and told them.

There were three left.

There had been six, to start with; the first two were probably still in the back room on the floor, and the third had only just finished sliding down the wall Iroh had kicked him into.

Iroh had not fought Earthbenders for a long time—had hoped never to do it again, in fact, and it felt like losing something, like surrender, to admit to himself how quickly and easily it had come back to him. Earthbenders did not dodge, they were not taught quickness. It was a trap many benders fell into: the simple assumption that just because stillness or speed or attack was the essence of their element, that was also the only way it could be used.

And these, like all Dai Li, had been trained with a particularly conservative Earth philosophy—in all ways, not just in bending. They had spoken to him when they first entered Pao's in precisely the same way they fought him now, without thoughtfulness or flexibility or even any particular caution. He might very well have gone with them if they had had an even slightly more delicate touch; but as it was they had walked up and told him he was under arrest. They would not tell him what complaint had been lodged against him or who might have lodged it, and they had called him "you" and "peasant" but not the title this city knew him best by—and that, in the end, was the thing he had not been able to let go of.

If the Dai Li knew who he was, they had no reason to hide it, and if they did not know, what were they arresting him for? They had been told to do it, he inferred, either by someone who did know who he was but had not wanted it shouted across the city; or by someone who did not know who he was but wanted an old Fire Nation man for something, perhaps even one they thought would not be much missed. Neither option boded well, and so the conversation had ended with two of them on the floor and one kicked into a wall.

And now there were three left.

The two nearest both launched stone fists at him; and Iroh ducked low and then darted in, sweeping a foot out. It was as quick and as deft as an old tea-man could make it, and these were as conservatively taught as the others: neither of them were expecting it. One managed to stumble back a step, out of range, but he caught the other just below the knee, and the woman toppled with a shout and landed hard. If he was lucky, she'd struck her head on the floor, and it would take her longer to steady herself and get back up than it would take him to deal with the remaining two.

The one who had stumbled went back another step and then recovered his balance, just in time for Iroh to deliver a solid strike to his side. He curled over Iroh's fist, gasping, and Iroh brought his free arm down over the man's back and knocked him to the floor.

And the third—Iroh lifted his head to look for her, an instant too slow, to find that she had chosen her moment well. She had aimed her stone hand not for his wrist but for his ankle, and it clamped his foot in place with a thunk and a scrape. She was already moving again, this time to hurl a chair at him, and he knocked it away with a short blast of flame—he would not set her on fire, not for anything, but he felt less strongly for the chair.

He lost sight of her for a moment behind the chair and the flames, and there was a sound—a shattering of crockery?

The chair clattered to the floor, the fire died away with a whoosh; and Iroh looked at the Dai Li agent on the ground, at the shards of pottery scattered around her, and then at Qingying, standing over her, with half a teapot still clutched in her hands.

"Mushi," she said, wide-eyed, and swallowed.

"Qingying," he said. The stone hand had come loose from his ankle, with the woman no longer bending it there, and he stood.

Zhiyang was clutching Qingying's elbow, and Lan, behind him, had Yanhong and Jin each by the wrist; but there was no sign of Zuko, and so even before Qingying spoke again, Iroh knew what she was about to tell him.

"Mushi, they—they took Li."