Chapter 32: On Tea As On Wine


I can look the sun in the face, but
the friends I have lost - I dare not look at any.

- John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo


The room was all bathed in gloom and moonlight, light and half-light, and in what was left of the day, Demetri could carve out the vague silhouette of a figure – small, thin – asleep on the couch, with a damask woollen blanket drawn over her shoulders and a pillow gently settled under her head, the splay of her hair suggesting that this had been done by someone else. As he drew close, he could see that her eyelids were moving gently in sleep. He wondered what she was dreaming of, if they were sweet dreams, if they were untouched by all that had happened in Layeni.

More than wondered. He hoped.

"I said nothing to the woman I loved," Täj said, "but gathered love's adjectives into a suitcase and fled from all languages."

Demetri kept his voice low, for fear of waking the girl on the couch. "You've learned to read."

"I got sick of looking at the pictures."

The pale man was collapsed into the armchair nearest the door, legs over one arm of the chair, head on the other, book lying open in his hand – Demetri wondered how on earth Täj could read in such dim light, when he still had to strain through the dark to make out the vaguest shape. Nor could he understand how on earth Täj could be comfortable in this kind of contorted position. He had never been able to understand that about Täj – when they were younger, he had been all legs and arms, a long-limbed and lanky teen who had to fold up his body-parts to join Tayna in the back of the truck or fit into one of the cots in whatever camp they found themselves in that night. All that, Demetri thought wryly, and he hadn't even wound up being too tall.

Demetri came around the couch and, after a moment of consideration, sank down onto the ground, just as he had sat with Eden that afternoon, and held her, and wondered what any of them were going to do. He put his back to the couch, and ran his fingers along the pattern of the carpet, and said, "and you decided to read poetry?"

"Yue decided to read poetry." Täj's voice had that tight, strained quality that it always did when he was holding back something more important that he wanted to say. "She dropped it when she fell asleep."

"It's been an exhausting day." Demetri rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes, and stifled a yawn. He hadn't slept in… how long had it been? Forty eight hours? Longer? "A… a long day."

Täj pulled the cushion from under his legs, and chucked it, rather gracelessly, at Demetri's head. Demetri had to stretch to snatch it out of the air, for fear it would hit the sleeping girl on the couch. Some more juvenile part of him, lost for the most part to the war, almost would have allowed it, if it were anyone else – Uzohola, or Tayna, or Wick. It would have been funny, he thought, funny in that way that cruelty sometimes was – because if it was Tayna, woken abruptly, she would try to escape over the back of the sofa before she had realised where she was or what was happening; Wick would have started a fight before his eyes had even opened; and Uzohola would have just slithered down the couch to put an arm around Demetri's neck and go straight back to sleep again.

But it had been a long day. An exhausting day. A bad day.

He could not begrudge anyone a sound night's sleep.

Demetri set the cushion between his head and the body of the couch, and said, in as low a voice as he could for fear of waking her on the couch, "can we trust her?"

"Yue? I don't see any reason not to…."

"Ulpia."

Täj paused. In the dark, Demetri could see the way his pale eyes were glimmering, that sheen that suggested he was considering something. "Ask Thiago."

"Täj –"

"If you ask me," Täj said, "if you can trust a Dunin, you're always going to get the same answer."

Demetri said, softly, "any Dunin?"

And Täj replied, bluntly, "did I stutter?"

For a split second, it felt like old times. Täj, his usual paranoid self, curled up with a book in some strange space, keeping a watchful eye on the girl sleeping as though concerned she might make a run for it if he moved his gaze from her for the barest second – a concern borne more from the fear of being left here by himself, without anyone to complain to under his breath, than of her leaving. And Demetri, sitting on the ground between them, on the cusp of losing his mind with stress.

Ah. Just like the good old days.

He ran his hands over his face. Six months, he thought ruefully, six months since Ysabel and Mordred had tried to blow his face off with the ambush outside Tammins – and he could still feel the traces of it, the tiny swelling by his eyes, the tiny divots in the bone, the uneven texture where stitches had held him together for his long days in the medical camp. He looked better, he thought, when he looked in the mirror. His wrist still ached when he twisted it. It had been his gun hand as well, he thought ruefully. Well, it was a good thing he had Täj with him. It was always a good thing.

He needed all the friends he could get, at this point. How had their Inner Circle been whittled down so quickly, so devastatingly? Just him and Täj, now.

But even he knew that wasn't true. She was still here. And Eden. Liara. Liz.

And Atiena. Sometimes he thought he might still end up marrying her, just to keep things simple, just because it would be convenient, just because they were compatible in that way soldiers sometimes were, but she seemed far too content in her new role as bodyguard and guard that he didn't want to disturb her any further.

"No," he said, at last, knowing that Täj was not waiting for an answer and yet feeling compelled to give an answer nonetheless. "No, you did not stutter."

"I rarely do." Täj paused, and turned back to the book. "You recommended this?"

"Is there a problem with it?"

"It's love poetry."

"It's a Selection," Demetri said, as though it was obvious.

Täj paused. "Yeah," he said, "but it sounds like –"

Demetri cut him off. "It was Raphael's favourite. When a man is in love, how can he use old words? Should a woman, desiring her lover, lie down with grammarians and linguists?"

Täj said, "my poor illiterate heart says no."

"It's okay, buddy." Demetri tipped, very slowly, onto his side, to rest his head against the carpet, and considered whether what allowed of his dignity would allow him to sleep on the floor when there was a perfectly good, and empty, bed next door. Somehow, he thought it might. The ground was cool; the air was warm. The exhaustion washed over him, very slowly, tension leaking from his muscles as blood from a cut artery. "Someday you'll learn to read. I'm sure of it. I believe in you."

Täj observed him over the edge of his book. "I'm not going to carry you to bed, gavrusha."

"That's okay. You can just leave me here."

Demetri could have bitten his tongue off as soon as the words escaped him. Demetri, we have to go back. We can't leave her. He could see, from what little of Täj's face he could make out, that his old friend was thinking the same thing.

Täj was grieving. Demetri was refusing to. He was refusing to be distracted by it, because he had work to do, and because it wasn't true. Raphael was alive. Agares was alive. Vardi Tayna was alive.

She always was.

Demetri, we have to go back. We can't leave her.

We've never gone back. What's done is done.

"Yes," Täj said, "that does seem to be the habit these days."


Atiena had allowed them a longer sleep than Yue had thought she would – she had half-expected to be awoken at dawn, but it was closer to noon when the girl from Whites became distantly aware of movement in the kitchen and the foyer and the garden, that suggested people were moving, that the house was slowly stirring alive, that there was a touch of warmth coming to the whole place that had been so cold the previous night.

Not literally cold – Yue had been surprised to wake, mostly because she had not remembered falling sleep, but particularly because she woke with a blanket around her shoulders and a cushion under her head, curled up on the couch as comfortably as she had slept in her bed at Raphael's. On the floor beside her, another blanket, more cushions. She must have moved around a lot in her sleep, she thought, to have knocked so many, and wondered what she had dreamed about to sleep so fitfully. On the coffee table beside the couch, the book she had been reading was set neatly beside a cup of cold tea. She picked it up; there was a piece of paper jutting out from the pages, marking, she saw, the poem she last remembered reading.

She couldn't remember ever thinking of Täj as sweet before, but the night before - that was what he had been. Sweet, and kind. She could understand why Liara looked at him the way she did. She could understand why Vardi Tayna struggled to sleep when he wasn't there. She could understand why Raphael and Agares had doted on him so.

Vardi Tayna. Raphael. Agares.

"Yue!"

She scrambled to throw back the covers at the sound of Liz shouting her name. The other girls were in the kitchen, two of them gathered around the stove with a vaguely conspiratorial air, casting glances in Yue's direction when she entered. Liara was perched on the stool by the window with a cup of coffee, looking bored. She always did. Yue's belief in that particular act was beginning to waver.

"What's going on?"

Liz smirked and waved a fork with a vaguely malevolent air. "We're making the king breakfast."

"Well," Liara said. "Eden was making the king breakfast."

"Eden," Liz said, "was gaining an unfair advantage..."

Eden rolled her eyes. "Is this the sound of wanting to win the Selection I hear?"

Liz said, "it's more like, I don't want to lose..." She turned to Yue. "The stores aren't very well stocked here, at least not with stuff I know how to cook. It's kind of an experiment at the moment..."

Liara said, a little abruptly, "you can't include that jam, Eden."

Eden blanched, and looked at the jar in her hand as though expecting to see a skull and crossbones on the label. "Why not?"

"Demetri's allergic to pomegranates."

Such a simple intimacy. Yue had never had that with anyone else, not really. An only child, with distant parents, raised by nannies – she had never even had friends to whom she was close enough to know such simple, elemental facts. How they liked their coffee, what they were allergic to, what they reached for when they were stressed. Liara said it so easily, like it was nothing at all. And it was, Yue thought, it was nothing, and no one normal would think anything of it.

"How allergic," Liz said, "like a bad rash, or regicide?"

Eden laughed and Liara was about to answer when there was the sound of a sharp slap on the kitchen door behind them, and Yue nearly jumped out of her skin. Atiena was there, leaning through the door. She was wearing a similar ensemble to the attendants at the airport – a white shirt, black waistcoat, and black trousers. It made her look debonair, Yue thought, debonair and vaguely dangerous.

"Who wants to learn how to make a garrotte?" Atiena said, and seemed surprised when all four girls raised their hands – Eden with a touch of irony, Liara wryly, Liz enthusiastically and Yue, very shyly, as though afraid of being left out.

"I'll just bring breakfast up," Eden said, "and I'll join you then."

Yue thought again of what Vardi Tayna had said. Something about waking up with someone else and seeing them look incredibly messy and not really caring. She knew that bringing someone a breakfast in bed was not the same, was not what Vardi had meant by what she had said, but some part of Yue twinged that she had not thought of the gesture first, would not be the one stepping into a dark bedroom to see Demetri tired and messy and get to see the little smile of gratitude he always showed at an unexpected gift, like when Yue sent him two books rather than one, or included some of Agares' ma'amoul semolina cookies in her package, or whatever other little gesture she had included to try and earn that little greeting of his, in all of his letters: my dearest, Yue.

And indeed, maybe that was all this was – a gesture.

Maybe not.

So Eden returned to the pan, and Liz shoved on her shoes, and Liara picked up the rope in the foyer and Yue picked up the bundle of willow branches that Atiena had apparently spent the morning shaving, and they all trailed her down to the spot by the guardhouse that she seemed to slowly converting into their place of training – she had pulled out little folding chairs upon which they could sit, and wrestle with rope, under Atiena's eye, and then, when Eden joined them again, refusing to say even whether Demetri had liked the meal, Atiena said it was time for them to learn how to punch.

Yue had thought she knew how to punch. It soon transpired that she was enormously wrong about that, as she was wrong about a good many things. She was just grateful that Atiena was not, despite her threats, having them practise on each other.

Not yet, anyway.

"Ladies?"

The term did not seem to apply to them anymore, but the girls looked over anyway, as the king emerged from the chateau. The day had stretched long - it was afternoon, and they were all milling about the lawn, mid-conversation, Eden trying to force Liara to confirm some tabloid gossip about some minor lord and lady, and Liz showing Atiena one of the quick-release knots that they used to tie horses on the farm, and Yue watching the clouds twist and move in the sky like a great cosmic Rorschach's test.

And then the king. Demetri was adjusting his cuffs, as though he was wearing a suit, rather than one of his familiar fisherman jumpers. "The palace called," he said, and Liara and Eden exchanged a look between them that seemed to carry more meaning than Yue could divine. "We're expected."

"Now?" Liara asked. Yue couldn't blame her for asking – the reception wasn't due to start until after dusk that evening.

"The message was," Täj said. Yue almost hadn't seen him there; he stood in Demetri's shadow, at Demetri's shoulder, at Demetri's heel. "The sooner, the better."

"And remember – we must be on our best behaviour," Demetri said, and flashed that perfect, warm smile that Yue knew by now to be rehearsed. "Our brothers and sisters will win Illéa. We must win hearts."


The mansa had a home in every nome, but Enhle's palace in the heart of Maṣr was, must have been, the most impressive. It lay in the heart of the Mistram nome, some two hundred miles from Rhakotis, to the north of the immense pyramids of Tipersis, whose shadow reached the very edge of the palace grounds, as though unwilling to cross into the monarch's realm without permission. So it was from that shadow that the cars pulled away, as though melting from the darkness itself, and advanced up the broad, tree-lined avenue which led to the palace.

Liz craned her neck to see the building as they approached; she had never seen a building so immense, not in all her time in Illéa. She had seen photos of the palace in Angeles, but it had never seemed so… so sprawling. It rose seven or eight stories high, a massive canvas of stone pillars and amber stained windows, with something of a textured appearance – portions of the building jutting out at odd angles, as though added much later in construction, and verdigris onion domes rising at intervals somewhere deeper within the compound, as though capping what would have been, in Illéa, spires. There were so few spires here, Liz thought; they had taken a sky train from Rhakotis to Mistram, and glimpsed only a few pointed buildings, more spiky than the slender needles that were so familiar from silhouettes of Angeles. This palace was a rounded, soft building, Liz thought, even the windows stretching wider and in more irregular shapes than windows ought to stretch, more like long oblong ribbons than the square shapes to which she was accustomed. The walls around the palace were low, maybe sandstone, and they passed through under an arch emblazoned with the motto of the Enhle dynasty: كن حذرا من عدوك مرة ومن صديقك ألف مرة

Be careful of your enemy once and of your friend a thousand times.

Uzohola murmured the translation when Atiena asked her about it; it was the first time that the rebel had spoken since they had left the château in Rhakotis. She did not look tired, as Täj and Demetri did, but there was a tightness to her eyes and her mouth that suggested she, although rested, was unhappy. Liz couldn't blame her. She couldn't quite imagine what would drive a monarch to adopt a motto so aggressively suspicious of the world.

She imagined they might learn, sooner rather than later.

This was not their official reception to the Federation, and as though they were afraid of jinxing the same, the cars pulled around the main, grand entrance to the palace and turned the corner towards what she imagined was a more minor entrance – for the servants, maybe, or near the stables. There was some small part of Liz that was dizzied by the sheer scale of everything around her – how high the walls rose, how broad the path was, how long the gardens unfurled from the slight glimpse she garnered as the car turned through a second archway and came to a stop in a courtyard that reminded her a little bit of Layeni. Raphael and Agares had kept a courtyard just like this one, with a case of stairs set into the wall for access to the granary, and cobbles worn down after years and years of wear. But, for the most part, Liz's mind was occupied with the thought is this what a Selection ought to be?

If Demetri had not been a rebel king, would this be the sort of place they would have spent the last six months, rather than in cramped safehouses and sterile bunkers and dusty villages, full of strangers, full of guns, full of fear?

She could see from her expression that Eden seemed to be thinking the same thing.

They slid from the car; in the serene perfection of all that surrounded her, Liz felt rather plain, in the blue dress that had been left for her. It was similar in style to the one Ulpia had worn to chateau the night before, the same golden neck, the same pleated length – she comforted herself with that. It could not be so out of Federation style, then.

Liara was staring up at the windows. Was she thinking of the palace in Angeles? Before Liz could say any word of comfort, Uzohola had, very gently, gestured that they should fall behind Demetri. "Move in twos," she murmured. "Eden and Yue, Liara and Liz. Try to stay in step. If you are addressed by the mansa, just say madha yaqul milkiun."

Liz stared blankly at this consonant-filled jumble of a word. "What does that mean?" she asked, rather helplessly.

"What does my king say?" Uzohola smiled. "It'll keep you out of trouble. Demetri can answer for you then."

Liz thought, will Demetri have an answer?

She said nothing. They were moving across the courtyard, to the entrance Uzokuhlenga had indicated. The nomarch was speaking softly to Atiena, saying something that required rapid movement of the hands to fully explain. The more things changed, Liz thought, the more things stayed the same – it seemed Atiena was fated to be adored by Ndoluvokazis no matter where she found herself.

On the other side of the entrance, a long corridor, one that might have been oppressively narrow if not for the fact that the strangely shaped windows set into the exterior cast the most intriguing shapes and colours across the floors and walls, approximating animals in one moment and then twisting like clouds as someone walked through them to better resemble a flower, or maybe the moon. Beside her, Liara's face was all stained with oranges and greens, blues dripping down her arms like so much gathered liquid light.

They were quiet. Liz could barely see the back of Demetri's head from here. Was he nervous?

If he was, there wasn't enough time to do anything. They had reached the door – a slab of what looked to Liz like obsidian, about six foot tall and as wide as two men standing side-by-side. It slid back as they approached; Täj had to fold his whole body as he stepped through, followed by Demetri, who just bent his head to the side, and then the girls, who seemed a little more hesitant – Eden put a hand, very gently, on Yue's arm as they went together, as though to remind her that they were among friends.

Among friends, Liz thought. Hopefully.

The room on the other side resembled a very small throne room or a very immense tearoom, Liz thought. The floors were wooden, from what she could see, and she could see little – for the most part, they were covered in broad, thick rugs, like those in the chateau. In the centre of the room, the floor rose, two steps high, to a small dais, on which was sat two low linen-cord chairs, with broad seats and backs. They were like something Liz had seen in school trips to museums about Ancient Egypt. On two walls, what Liz thought was north and south, hung immense works of calligraphy, the overlapping script seeming more like abstract art than anything that could be easily legible. The east and west mirrors were mirrored, so that the man in the centre of the room appeared to have a thousand twins, stretching further and further into the wall.

Inkosi Enhle was a leaner man than Liz had expected. The image of a mansa in Illéa was that of a gluttonous tyrant bedecked in silken robes and precious metal jewellery, but the man before them was tall and narrow, dressed in plain dark navy cotton robes and a similarly coloured kufi embroidered with the narrowly curling shape of Ajami script. Enhle had a tightly cropped beard, a broad, flat nose and darkly intelligent almond eyes. He was not much older than Ulpia Dunin, Liz thought, and that surprised her, though she wasn't entirely sure why – she supposed that she had imagined him to be a much older, more established sovereign, to explain why he had felt so brazen in inviting these refugees across a broad sea to dwell in his kingdom and take advantage of his hospitality. But, no. He could not have been older than Liz's father would have been, if he had lived.

They approached the mansa, and, for a moment, Liz recognised a situation with considerable potential for tension – did a king of Illéa kneel before a mansa of the Federation? But it appeared that both Demetri and Enhle were aware of, and keen to defuse, this issue, for in the same moment that it struck Liz as a problem, Enhle had stood and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. "I would call you nephew," Enhle said, "but I don't wish to seem overly familiar."

"Familiar is better than strange," Demetri said smoothly.

"Come," Enhle said, "sit. I would discuss with you tonight's reception…" He had a pleasant speaking voice, Liz thought, and an accent that reminded her of the baker in her village at home in Midston, who had originally hailed from the Kalahari Republic, somewhere south of the Federation. An earthy sort of accent, with short vowels and drawn out consonants, which made his words seem almost like a rumble. It was reassuring, warm, somewhat friendly without him needing to say any friendly words at all. "And my wife may accompany your harem to dress in the Women's Quarters."

"Not harem, umyeni," Ulpia said, a note of wry amusement staining her voice, as though they had shared this discussion many times before. Liz had not spotted her; she had entered the room behind them, wearing a duplicate of her dress from the day before, although today's was a light lilac and its neckline was silver rather than gold. "Selection."

"Yes," Enhle said. "Of course. Selection."

He indicated the chair again, and Demetri, with a quick look and a nod at the girls, moved to join him on the little dais upon which the seats were raised. The nod seemed mostly indicated to Atiena, who took a step back as though to guide them all out of the room, but whose movement was sharply arrested with a gesture from Enhle.

"A bodyguard is not a woman," the mansa said simply. Beside her, Liz felt more than saw that Atiena was bristling slightly at this pronouncement. "You can keep your guards here, umshana. For my comfort of mind, as well as your own. I would not be known as the man who asked Demetri Dunin to speak with me undefended."

Demetri arched an eyebrow at this statement, but nodded. "Uzo, will you please accompany my aunt and the Selected girls to the Women's Quarters?"

Uzohola blanched slightly, and looked briefly nervous, but nodded. Täj and Atiena fell back from the group to stand silently by the doors through which they had entered, Atiena's eyes darting about. Her hand was resting on her belt; Liz, remembering their gun lessons from the previous day, wondered how long it would take her to draw, if the moment called for it. But Enhle had no soldiers with him, no apparent guards. It seemed almost unfair, Liz thought, almost unbalanced, but then Demetri looked at them again and Uzo indicated that they should retreat from the room – not the same doorway through which they had entered, but a smaller door set into the corner of the room, behind the seats.

As they passed, Demetri locked eyes very briefly with Liz. He seemed to be trying to tell her something; she wasn't sure what that was, what that could be.

She could only smile. and hope that it wasn't anything urgent.


The Women's Quarters were not a room, or even a set of rooms, as Liara had expected from her experiences at the Angeles palace. No – it was its own wing of the enormous palace, corridors unfurling like ribbons, apparently at random intervals, to a library and a banqueting halls and vast chambers which seemed to serve no role other than as a place to sit. Ulpia led them through the halls, which had lower ceilings than she had expected, and guided them to a smaller chamber – smaller, Liara thought ruefully, but probably ten times the size of the room she had shared with Atiena at Raphael's house.

If Liara had to describe this room, the only word that would have leapt to mind was bronze. It looked like an artist's rendition of a pharaoh's lounge – and, indeed, there was a bust of Parmys on one side of the door through which they entered, a bust of Satiah on the other. At least, Liara thought, they were so labelled – she was no expert on the history of Kemet. The wall was higher here than in the halls, and the edge of the ceiling was fretted with bronze filigree and tessellated patterns of flowers and crowns, overlaid with delicate Ajami script. Golden récamier chaises lined the walls, divided by obsidian sculptures that Liara thought were meant to be abstract renderings of cats; the space between them spanned by a floor which seemed to be made of brown glass, so perfectly polished and uniform was the ink-black wenge flooring. There were broad rugs with geometric patterns, as there seemed to be everywhere in Maṣr, and plants placed at intervals to give the whole place a refinedly green appearance. The windows here were tall and narrow, their stained glass alternating bronze and silver, so that the whole place appeared to be simultaneously half-bathed in moonlight, half-bathed in dusklight.

It was beautiful, and opulent, and Liara surprised herself by being uncomfortable. She was from Angeles, she thought. She should have been at ease here.

And yet.

Ulpia gestured. "Please," she said. Her accent was at once so familiar and so foreign – Angeles, and yet long and far from Angeles – that Liara still found it a little surprising. "Make yourself at home. I will have the maids bring you the dresses I picked out for you all – although, of course, if you wish for anything different, our tailors can make sure it is brought to you before this evening. And, of course, food will be brought to you shortly."

Uzohola bowed. "Thank you, your Highness."

"It is my absolute pleasure."

Uzohola checked her watch. The reception was due to begin at six, Liara thought; they had perhaps four or five hours to swallow up yet. She was surprised that the place was empty – she had expected that they would be meeting some of Enhle's other wives, or maybe his daughters – but she couldn't complain either. Some time to collect herself was to be welcomed.

She was not nervous, and she could see that Eden was not either. Between them, they must have attended a thousand such events in the past, Liara thought, and Yue must have seen her fair share of receptions and swanky dinners to celebrate her various wins. But she was… apprehensive.

She had never before attended a ball as a refugee, a fugitive, a traitor.

Liz moved to sit on one of the chaises, and was joined shortly by Yue, who was worrying the hem of her dress between two pinched fingers. Eden was examining the bust by the door with an expression that suggested she was more interested in finding something to do than in the statue itself, and Uzohola was speaking softly to Ulpia with the kind of reserved, respectful tone that Liara usually heard reserved for advisors speaking to Mordred or Ysabel when they had bad news to dispense. After a moment, more for lack of anything to do, Liara went to sit on the chaise nearest the other girls, and crossed her legs, and thought.

She had a lot to think about, but nothing that she particularly wanted to think about. So many of her thoughts felt off-limits at the moment. Pandora's box, full of wispy monsters and dainty nightmares if she dared to open the lid.

No. She would do nothing good by thinking such thoughts.

She remembered the look of apprehension on Atiena's face, when she had seen that the mansa had no guards there to correspond to Demetri's entourage, that she and Täj had no doubles on the Federation's side. Was it a trap of some sort? Liara wanted to dismiss this thought as paranoia, but it stuck, clung, stubbornly, like a burr. Were they safe here? Was Demetri safe with Enhle?

Was Täj safe, guarding Demetri?

No, she thought again. She would do nothing good by thinking such thoughts.

Liz was saying, softly, lest Ulpia take offence, "we stick together tonight, right? Look after each other."

Liara said, her voice aloof to hide the fact that she had just been thinking similar thoughts, her words harsher than she intended as she tried to comfort herself as well as the others, "it's a fancy dinner, Liz, not a battlefield."

"You're right," the farmer girl said grimly, "it's worse."

Yue laughed. Liz was clearly playing up her discomfort, trying to put people at ease. Liara appreciated her for it. Between Liara, and inward-focused Eden, and shy little Yue – well, Liara thought, having someone who wasn't afraid to speak her mind might come in handy.

"Sounds good," Yue agreed. She was picking at her skirt, like she was trying to unravel a loose thread that wasn't there.

Liara nodded in agreement, and then looked over at the entranceway, as there was a knocking at the open door and Ulpia glanced towards the hallway and smiled. "Ngena!"

Two figures slipped into the room, and stood beside Ulpia. Uzohola stepped back, so that she could bow, and Ulpia gestured to introduce them.

"May I introduce Inyoni Enhle, fourth wife of the mansa; Biryoshye Enhle, third heir of the mansa; and Nyguzi Tewedaji, of Manden."

Inyoni was a dainty, pretty girl of maybe twenty four, with dreadlocks that came almost to her waist, holding a little girl that might have been only one or two years old. She wore the same sort of pleated dress as Ulpia, though the fabric was a richer pink, with a bronze neckline, and the hem was slightly shorter, coming to mid-calf rather than ankle. She was barefoot; when she moved, an emerald-studded anklet shone from her left leg. "I'm so delighted to meet you all," she said. Her English was not as polished as her husband's, a little stilted as she searched for the right word, though their intonations and accent were similar. She had the slightest twinge of an Angeles accent, that suggested she had learned the language, in part, from listening to Ulpia. "I'm so delighted you all are safe!"

Nyguzi Tewedaji was a tall, thin girl, about Liara's age, with slightly wild natural hair, less curly than Uzohola's or Atiena's when the Illéan women let their hair grow long, stray strands sticking out in every direction. She was wearing a sleeveless black jumpsuit; when she moved, tiny veins of gold rippled along her arms and neck. "A pleasure," she said. She had a refined Albion accent, Liara thought; if she shut her eyes, she could have believed that this was the daughter of some London diplomat. There was no smile on her face or in her voice as she said it, and Tewedaji did not leave Ulpia's side, unlike Inyoni, who was bouncing into the centre of the room towards the girls.

"Ishtar wanted to meet you all as well," Inyoni was saying, as Liz gave the little girl a smile that was reciprocated with a broad grin and reaching hands. "But she had to meet with the Russians… Shye, urashaka kugenda?" She addressed the toddler with the same sweet, higher voice which seemed to be, Liara thought, universal. "Oh, she wants to! Do you want to hold her, Lady Tucker?"

"Oh!" Liz smiled. "Yes, if that's alright..."

"Of course, of course – my arm gets tired! Just, careful, she wriggles..."

The exchange was made. The little girl seemed fascinated with Liz's hair – Liara supposed having Ulpia around meant that Liz's pale skin was not such a novelty, but the red colour of Liz's hair, and her freckles, seemed to absolutely hypnotise the tiny princess, as she patted her hands against it. For her part, Liz seemed quite content. It must have been somewhat like being back at the orphanage, Liara thought, back at the orphanage and back with Saran.

She hadn't even known Saran very well, but she missed her.

"Please," Inyoni was saying, "Call me Yoni. This is an affectionate name. Ulpia calls me Yoni, do you not?"

Ulpia was smiling, like Yoni was a favoured little sister. "Among other things."

"And her name's Ber- ber – berya..." Yue smiled slightly bashfully, as the little girl clapped hands together and babbled something that did not seem to be any language spoken in the room.

"Shye," Yoni said firmly. "Do not worry. I find Biryoshye difficult for shouting when I need. I did not get a say in the name – but I got a say in your dresses for tonight." She smiled broadly, like this was an acceptable trade.

"Is Ishtar your daughter as well?" Liz asked.

"She is the third wife. She would be here with me, but she is welcoming the Siberian trade delegation – Yahontova's crowd, you know."

Liz nodded like she understood. Liara was quite certain that she did not. Well, it would be interesting. She had encountered the Russians at a few palace events in Angeles, and she was not sure anyone forgot their first encounter with the terrifying Zaria Yahontova.

"I would have brought my son," Yoni continued, "but the Women's Quarters are totally forbidden to men, or boys older than three years old... once they outlawed eunuchs during the Inguquko dynasty, of course. It is a sanctuary for wives, and for women."

Uzohola smiled, very slightly, behind her hand, and the other girls smiled to see her smile. She had been nervous the whole journey to the palace – Liara had written it off as some legacy of the tension that still hung between her and Demetri, but it was apparent that some small part of it had been stress about whether she would be accepted into these chambers. Ulpia had set a hand on her shoulder, and smiled as well.

"So you must be the second wife," Liz was saying to the tall, thin girl from Manden, still standing beside Ulpia.

A razor-thin smile curled her lip. "No," she said, simply, and said nothing more. Liz flushed slightly with embarrassment, just at the tips of her ears as she always did when she had been caught out not knowing something, and Yoni seemed eager to jump in and explain.

"Nyguzi Tewedaji is the second ward of the mansa of Manden," she was saying, and Liz was, to her credit, very good at pretending that these words meant anything to her. "Nyguzi Kifu, who is the mansa there, had no suitable heir. And so she adopted Daji and her brother, Maseli, to be her heirs." She grinned. "Many of the mansas wanted to greet you to the Federation, and if they were busy, they sent delegates to do so."

Liara thought it didn't particularly look like Daji wanted to greet anyone. The girl from Manden reminded her slightly of some of the Angeles girls she had known in childhood – the aloof, beautiful girls, with wealthy Two parents, who would hang around aristocratic events in the hopes of seeing Mordred, and spurn the attempts of everyone around them to be friendly or welcoming until the prince had appeared. She had the same sort of expression – at once faraway and impatient. Liara didn't think that she could blame her unduly – maybe the King of Dust had been a subject of much fascination, prior to their arrival – but her rudeness… well. Liara had a reputation for aloofness, back in Angeles, but she had never been rude.

She almost smiled at her line of thought. God, it was easy to slip back into an old skin, like nothing had changed, like nothing had happened, like she had never been a part of the Selection and had never met any of these strange, sweet, wonderful people…

And that surprised even herself, at least a little. Strange, she thought, strange and sweet, strange and sweet and wonderful.

How had it all ended up like this?

She still missed Mordred. Missing Mordred by now was like a splinter wedged under her skin - always there, always twinging, although she didn't always care to interrogate it. Right now, she worried at that splinter, and she missed him more than ever. This had always been her favourite part of these kinds of events, she thought, the way the other girls would hang around and hope to be noticed and try to be cute, and he would just search the crowd for her, look straight at her when she approached, and speak to her as though they were alone.

So, yes. She knew Daji's type.

Yue was looking a little bit overwhelmed at all of these names and new information, but to her credit, someone who did not know her would not have been able to tell. "Manden is in the west, isn't it?"

Yoni nodded. "It is. We share a short border, but Manden and Kemet are very closely allied – our husband and Kifu are cousins, through their mothers, so Daji is a part of our family. I suppose as you girls are now, no?" She smiled. "The wives of our nephew are our nieces also."

She said it, but Liara could not deny that it sounded slightly hollow. Yoni was friendly, of that there was no doubt, but friendly because she seemed to be a friendly person. They had not earned any particular goodwill, not yet.

"They are not wives, Yoni," Ulpia said, rather patiently, from the doorway. Daji was still smiling that thin smile. "They are merely candidates for marriage. My nephew faces a very difficult choice indeed."

"Very difficult!" Yoni smiled, and reached out her arms for Shye as the little girl seemed to tire of being in the arms of a stranger. "I suppose he probably has his favourite. All men do."

Liara did not ignore the looks exchanged by Eden and Yue, or the way Liz was looking at her. Did Demetri have a favourite? Could he?

It wasn't her. She felt secure in saying that by now, felt secure for a moment, and then thought again of their discussion in the cockpit all those long hours ago, and was unsecured all over again.

Imagine if we had stayed.

She didn't dare imagine.

"Yes," Eden said, her first words since the other women had entered the room. "I suppose he does."

And then, abruptly, the whole mood in the room shifted, for there was a knock on the door from a maid asking if she could bring food in, and behind her, a row of female attendants, dressed as Atiena had been, with racks of dresses. Liara had thought that the Enhle wives had selected dresses for the girls to wear, but it seemed they had just narrowed it down to a range of dresses – it looked like maybe a rack each, with a dozen colours represented. It shouldn't have felt like so much to a girl from as privileged a background as Liara Lee, but it did. After so long with so little, it was almost overwhelming. She was not alone - she could see that Liz looked vaguely alarmed at the sheer scale.

"Please," Yoni said, "eat first – then we can prepare you for the reception."

Liz murmured, to Yue's quiet delight, "I'm sure she didn't mean that to sound like a threat…."


It had been relatively easy to slip away from the Women's Quarters; there did not seem to be any guards here, or at least none that Eden recognised as such, only those uniformed attendants who seemed to be omnipresent but who did not stop Eden from slipping quietly from the room – only asked her if she knew where she was going.

Of course, she had lied.

She had found her way to the lavatories, just to provide herself with some plausible deniability in case she was challenged, and then moved onwards. She wasn't searching for anything, or investigating anything, or really doing anything other than moving. She had just felt it descend upon her, as the other girls had broken bread with the Enhle wives, and laughed, and exchanged small talk – the same as the night before, the sensation that if she did not give herself something to do, something to engage with, she was at risk of falling apart. Fresh air, she thought, fresh air, to settle herself, and then she could face this night as she needed to, as Eden Lahela, scion of the Axiom, she who was determined to survive.

So, maybe that wasn't true. She was doing something. It had settled on her, the evening before, with Demetri's arm around her and her face pressed into her shoulder.

Axiom was gone. Maybe her whole family was gone. She didn't like that thought, but she gave herself over to it nonetheless. She had to. Maybe her whole family was gone. Maybe.

She was still here. She was still, desperately, clinging to this, to all of this. She could not give up, not now, not here, and she was not in a position to turn against the rebels, not now, not here. She could only pit herself, marrow and mind, to this cause, and salvage herself, salvage whatever was left of her family and friends in the Crown territories, and see to it that the girls with her – Yue and Liz, the only ones she could trust, insofar as they were not capable of hurting her further – were salvaged also, see to it that they were safe, and that they stayed that way.

She was doing what she always did. She was going to ground. She was digging in, and she was going to make sure she saw the other side.

"Lady Eden." Demetri's voice was no less warm for the stress of all the had occurred, and Eden turned, hastily arranging her features lest any sign of her turmoil show, to see the two men – king and mansa – walking down the hallway. They were similar heights, she saw, but the mansa had an inscrutable expression, while Demetri had his usual slightly rueful smile as he greeted the Selected girl. "You're not lost, are you?"

"No," Eden replied, and then, glancing at Enhle, added swiftly, "your Majesty. I'm not lost."

"You're actually just the person I was hoping to see," Demetri said. "Inkosi, would you mind?"

Enhle shook his head. "Of course. I'll leave you in peace – I must, in any case, prepare myself." He addressed Eden directly. "My wives are treating you well?"

Eden spoke the words Uzohola had taught them earlier, hoping that this was the appropriate course of action. It was an unwieldy word; it felt like she was trying to speak around a mouthful of gold coins. "madha yaqul milkiun?"

"I didn't ask your king." He was smiling. He had exceptionally white teeth, whiter again against the dark shade of his skin. "I asked you."

Eden paused, and glanced at Demetri. He met her gaze quite levelly, without wavering, and there was understanding there, as though between them they were calibrating her response together, calculating how much could be said and how much must be kept back. "Your wives are delightful, your Majesty, and your hospitality is… utterly, overwhelmingly, generous." She paused, and smiled, quite measuredly. "And, of course, your daughter is a delight."

"Oh, you met little Shye? She takes after her mother." He sounded almost rueful. "Well, I do hope preparations for tonight are running smoothly. Lady Lahela, if ever you need anything – you mustn't hesitate, for even a moment, to let me know. Or Ulpia, or whoever is nearest. You must promise me this."

"I promise," Eden said, and the mansa smiled. He shook Demetri's hand ("you won't forget what I said?") and bowed to Eden, as Uzohola had bowed to the Enhle wives earlier, and then retreated down the hall, turning down the corridor opposite the one that led back to the Women's Quarters, in the eastern wing of the house.

"Would you like to get some fresh air?" Demetri asked, and Eden nodded, rather grimly.

"You read my mind."

They were silent as they walked; the halls looked mostly like one another, but for the different portraits and busts that lined the walls of each one, but Demetri seemed to know his way. Eden supposed that they had nothing to say to each other, not after the previous night and the morning, when she had brought him breakfast. She had not asked him about the Axiom, though she supposed he must have known that she knew. She had not asked him to leave the Selection, and she had not asked for an explanation, and she had not apologised for how close she had come to breaking down.

She had only thanked him. She still wasn't fully sure why.

It had been strange. He had looked so much younger than he did now, as though the years could not have hold on him in the morning hours. He had been sitting on his bed, reading, and had asked her to share the breakfast with him, but she had retreated quickly from the room, unable to muster the words,

That wasn't like her. She hated this part of herself. Weakness, that's all this was. She had to focus.

They had reached a courtyard. Not the one they had come from earlier, where the cars had been parked, but another, set like a jewel into the crown of the palace. It was spanned by stone cloisters on all four sides; in the centre, a neatly arranged stone fountain, tiled with quartz, and undulating rows of red and green and grey flowers, intermingling in a chaotic blend of coloured lines. Demetri leaned against the diamond-shaped window of the cloister onto which they had emerged, and Eden moved to lean beside him and said, "what was it?"

"What was what?"

"You said you were looking for me."

Demetri nodded. His gaze seemed to be following the arcing path of the water in the fountain below. "Yes." He looked at her, and rather than answer, he said, "you seem tense."

Eden raised an eyebrow. She was quite certain she hadn't allowed any hint of stress to betray her facade. "Oh?"

"Is everything alright?"

And there it was again, the same feelings as the night before – the tumbling dervish of thoughts, bouncing off every surface of her skull, almost with a violence. She cast her eyes downwards, towards the flowers, and said, "is there a reason it shouldn't be?"

"Eden." She was still, so often and strongly, taken aback when he said her name like that – so casually, like it was nothing. It sounded nice in his voice. It was soft. "We should have spoken sooner about this all."

"About…?"

"The Axiom."

"I wasn't aware there was something to speak about," she said, trying to inject some puzzlement into her voice, and could see by the look in her eyes that she had not been successful.

Who was she trying to fool? He knew a construct when he saw one, just as she did. They were two actors in the same play.

"I just wanted you to know." He kept his voice low. "Ulpia has spoken to.." He paused, and seemed to rethink this approach, continuing instead with, "I've been in touch with Thiago."

Eden surprised herself and Demetri with the question that spilled from her, almost without warning. "Is Marjorie alright?"

"She's safe. Thiago told me he's keeping an eye on her."

Eden nodded. "Good."

She was an idiot, she thought. They were not discussing Demetri's spymaster to get an update on an eliminated Selected girl. This was, she thought, this must be, about her family. Her mother. The Axiom.

"And he also told me..." Demetri paused. "Eden, I don't wish for you to get your hopes up. Your father is safe." Eden had not realised how tightly all her muscles were corded until they relaxed, very abruptly, at this statement. "And we believe it is likely your mother is safe also. But I promise you, we will find out for sure. We haven't been able to confirm her status… but there were only minimal casualties from the Axiom attack. Less than a dozen. Journalists working late, cleaners, contractors."

"Casualties," Eden said, "or fatalities?"

His silence was all the answer she needed. Did he think this was better? Eden knew the name of every person who worked in that building, had attended their weddings and babysat for their children and stayed up late writing last-minute articles with each of them and brought them tea while they worked. Did he really think it was preferable that it was the people working late who had been hurt, rather than the executives who knocked off early? Some of them were, she thought, every bit the family that her mother was, every bit as important.

But maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Fatimeh. Brooks. Maldonado. Their names ran through her mind like a prayer.

"Why so few?" Almost instantly, Eden answered her own question. "You were aiming for infrastructure… not people. You knock a mostly empty propaganda office, the Crown commits a massacre in a peaceful Anchorite village."

Demetri said, "if not for the burning of Layeni… I do not know if the plan would have been the same."

Eden looked at him, and wondered whether Saran had been right. Was Demetri some hostage of High Command, same as them, a puppet king intended to give meaning and legitimacy to a rebellion that had been roiling for longer than any of them had known? Or was he, now, looking her in the eye, her mother's murderer, the maker of all her family's undoing?

She didn't have an answer for that, and oh, how uneasy that made her.

And then Demetri said, "I'm sorry."

It was so simple, those two words – simply said and simply spoken, but she could not quell whatever small part of her sweetened to hear them. It was so slight a gesture and yet, she thought, it was an unnecessary one. He had sought her out. He had told her. And he had promised to find out for sure.

It was so stupidly simple, and yet she was stupidly, stupidly, grateful.

But her pride would not allow her to accept this apology.

"Well," she said, "I take it that's what you wanted to talk to me about?"

"One other thing."

She raised an eyebrow. "You tell me my mother might be dead and that's not all?"

"I tell you your mother might be alive," Demetri replied. "And that's not all." She didn't seem to be able to rattle him, she thought ruefully. "I wanted to ask you about this evening."

Eden's legs almost buckled. His words were still working their way through her mind. Alive. Alive. Alive.

She paused. Probably alive.

She made sure that her voice did not shake as she said, "Oh?"

"I wanted to ask if you would do me the honour," Demetri said, "of accompanying me to the reception this evening."

Eden frowned. "I thought we were all going?"

"Yes," he said, "but I can't exactly have all of you on my arm when I'm introduced. We'd look ridiculous."

She laughed – genuinely, almost unbidden. It was the first genuine laugh she had allowed herself since… since the festival, she thought, or maybe even before that, maybe with Pa. "How does the mansa handle it?" He had four wives, she thought, and Demetri had four girls with him. There was some sort of nice symmetry to that.

"They have a... hierarchy. Usually the willow gets preference."

Eden cocked her head. "Willow?"

"That's how they list the wives here, by flower and tree. Enhle has four – the willow, the lily, the sycamore, and the daisy."

"Which one is Ulpia?" Eden asked, her curiosity seeming to have shucked the manacles of her half-realised grief. Her heart was still beating out that same tattoo: maybe, maybe, maybe. She was not an optimist, not by nature, but right now, she was willing to be delusional.

"Willow. Oldest. First. Most beloved."

Eden said, "as though the others are not?"

Demetri said, "I think you'll find that beloved is different to loved, Lady Eden."

"I'll take your word for it." Eden nodded. Her mind was rolling over the possibilities, the ramifications, the optics. And she thought again of the letters, and how much emotion he had put into them, emotion Eden had not known he was capable of holding, let alone expressing. "Then… yes, I would be honoured. But, Demetri, this doesn't qualify as a date."

"It doesn't?"

"No," she said, "you'll only need me for the introductions…"

"I'll need you," he said, and she wondered whether he knew what that sounded like. "For a little longer than that, I imagine."

"To make pleasant small talk?"

"And laugh at any unfunny jokes."

"I wouldn't have imagined otherwise." Eden shrugged. "But all the others will be there as well."

"I would agree that this is disqualifying for a date," Demetri said slowly, "but I can't deny that I'm surprised you'd want any more alone time with me, Lady Eden. You're not sick of me yet?"

"Oh," Eden said softly, "I imagine I can put up with you for another hour or two, if you ask nicely."

"Tell me that again," Demetri replied, "at the end of the night."