"Remember," Raymond said, "dinner today at five at our place."

The judges promised they'd do their best to not forget. It wasn't just dinner - they needed to discuss the fact that the prosecution was only offering evidence about the Rebellion proper under Count Three. Did that mean that they had given up on considering the past seventy-eight years as one conflict with an uneasy occupation in the middle?

They walked back to their billets. It was extremely hot today - no surprise there. One disadvantage of the half-days was that she had to go outside at mid-day. Dora wore a wide-brimmed hat and short sleeves, but her feet felt like they were being boiled, as did her legs. A pity that shorts and sandals were not appropriate courtroom attire.

There was more than one reason for the dinner. Today was Juan's birthday, he was sixty. Dora had gifted him some chocolate and legal texts she had found on the black market. The Rolands had promised to bake a cake - out of what ingredients, Dora had no idea.

Dora tried to remember when her birthday was. December fifth. Hopefully she wouldn't have to celebrate it here.

Inside the house, it was just as hot, but at least the sun was not shining. Neither Dora nor Juan were particularly vulnerable to the sun, but it was still wise to be careful. As she took off her shoes, she could hear Sean Roland.

"We have to leave!" he hissed. "The judges are back!"

By the time Dora and Juan were stepping inside the living room, the children were gone, and Sean was smiling in a servile way. "Happy birthday, Mr. Mendez," he said. "Drazen is just starting on your cake."

"Thank you, Mr. Roland," Juan replied. "We ate lunch together, so no need to worry about that."

"Of course. Is there anything you would like?"

Dora shook her head. "No, thank you."

Sean departed down the stairs.

"Alright," Dora said. "The palace should be airing soon." She picked up the newspaper lying on the couch and looked through the schedule. "Channel 2." It would also air today in the evening, but the judges would be occupied then.

Juan flopped onto the couch, flapping the newspaper to cool himself off. The judges, being not exactly young (Rose aside), were all reliant on fans, ice packs, and large quantities of cold water to avoid heatstroke. And it was still only July! "I can't believe this is worse than the 'zal dir bie'." That had been another residence of Snow's, unhelpfully labelled with that cryptic phrase on the wall. An investigation had revealed that illiterate workers from Three, cadets, prisoners, and Peacekeepers had built the residence for no pay. The prosecution would be entering this as evidence of the crimes against humanity of slavery and deportation.

"At least the zal dir bie didn't have toilet brushes that cost more than your house." Dora went to the kitchen to pour herself some cold water. She got another glass for Juan, whose phone rang suddenly.

"Juan Mendez speaking," he said, as if he was using a landline. "Oh, hey, Walt...thank you...thank you very much." That was his son. "Thanks for calling. Love you. Bye."

That was extremely fast for one of Juan's calls - and Dora had to admit she wasn't any more concise. "That was fast."

"He also wants to watch the palace."

It felt strange to watch an investigation about Snow on television. Before, they had all gossiped about his residences and some daredevils had put up leaflets, but a full-length movie on national television? "It's starting," Dora said.

Two hours later, both of them were in complete shock. The promised toilet brushes had, indeed, cost nine hundred dollars each (were they made of solid gold?), and Dora struggled to wrap her mind around couches for thirty thousand dollars and literal loaves of bread made of gold. Just the 'mud storage room' was bigger than the apartment in which Jack had grown up. And the aqua-disco would probably boggle Dora's mind for the next year.

"I can't believe Snow's palace went moldy." Juan raked his fingers through his hair. "I guess that's the answer to how all these people survived NCIA assassination attempts."

"If Snow had wanted to, he'd have built a palace without mold!" Dora played along. Juan laughed. "How much did a plantation worker make in One, by the way?"

"No idea, but it couldn't be more than ten dollars per day."

"Janitors made fifty cents an hour in Ten." Food prices were partially adjusted for income. Medicine was not.

"I have no idea how Dr. Able managed to clean out these Augean stables," Juan said. "I don't know how to describe the economic system under Snow. It was a bizarre combination of letting corporations do whatever they wanted and fixed prices on grains that were different in every District."

"It was Snowism," Dora said. "I wonder if anyone tried to steal one of those toilet brushes and sell them. In Three, you could probably buy an apartment with that much money." The movie had featured interviews with construction workers, prison inmates and victims of trafficking who had not been paid a cent. Several had managed to take photographs of themselves lying on Snow's couches.

"Or a cushion," Juan said with a giggle.

"On second thought, who would you sell it to? Who even made them? Is there a workshop somewhere out there where people made toilet brushes for nine hundred dollars?"

Juan scratched his head. "I wonder what they're going to do with it now. The place is just as ugly as Chaterhan's villa, but it's three times as big. And moldy." Dora couldn't get over the fact that under Snow, they couldn't even build a palace without having it go moldy.

"Sell it piecewise to oligarchs abroad and knock down what can't be sold?"

"I guess."

"I wonder what people are saying on the Web about this," Dora said. "Hold on, let me get my laptop." She went to her room and got her computer. Back on the couch, she looked up the investigation and read the best comments out loud.

"So that's why Three had water shortages the past decade - it all went to the aqua-disco."

"I earned ten percent of a toilet brush per month."

"If even Snow had mold in his house, what chances do we have?"

"That feeling when a toilet brush is worth more than everything I own put together."

"No toilet brushes will be enough to clean up the mess Snow left behind him."

"I also have a room for mud in my apartment - it's called my room."

"In Snow's palace, investigators have found District Three."

"And he said every year - life has become better, life has become merrier."

"The entire country is a giant room for mud."

"So that's where my pension went!"

"There's also a bunch of comments explaining what the pole in the lounge was for," Dora said, barely stifling her laughter. "It was a mistake in the planning and they had to have the hot-water pipe go through the lounge. It's to make a giant shawarma. It's where judges applied for their jobs. It was for Snow's granddaughter to slide down. It was where officials asked for raises. It's where rebels were impaled. It's a flagpole. It's a perch for the Lark."

Juan was lying on the couch and laughing his head off. "Giant shawarma?" he said. "Now I want a giant shawarma."

Dora was too busy trying to chase away the mental image of Lark and the pole. "That would be nice," she said, playing along. "Imagine lying on those couches that cost forty thousand dollars, discussing the great deeds you're doing for the country, and munching on a fresh shawarma."

That was enough to make Juan fall back into peals of laughter. His phone rang again. "Juan Mendez speaking...oh, hey, honey! Yeah, I just watched it. What do you think of the giant shawarma pole?.."

Dora's phone also rang. It was, unexpectedly, Jack. Maybe Ashley was in the library. "Hi!" she said.

"Did you watch the investigation?" Dora could feel the warmth of Jack's voice.

"Of course. Your bread loaves are better than Snow's, that's for sure."

"What - they're theoretically edible?"

Dora laughed. "Don't sell yourself short. The kitchen is the size of Snow's dinner table, you don't have much to work with."

"Bedside table, more like. Can you believe that lounge? The neighbour dropped by, said it was where the industrialists offered bribes."

"Honey, you know it's improper for me to laugh at jokes about the people I'm trying."

"As if you're not more impartial than the rest put together," Jack said breezily. "Ooh, another good one. Now that I know Snow also had mold in his bathroom, he is suddenly relatable."

"But do we have toilet brushes for nine hundred dollars?"

"No, but we have a room for mud - the entire house when the grandkids come back in from playing outside."

That was very true. "We don't have a giant pole, though."

"Don't remind me." Jack had once tripped and sprained his ankle trying to dance around a lamp. "What would we do with it? Decorate it for New Year's instead of a tree?"

"Is that another one from the Web?"

"Of course - since when am I funny?"

Dora smiled. "How are you doing, aside from the palace?"

Jack shrugged. "Same old, same old. Spending most of my day in the backyard. Apparently I remember how to can. When you get back, I'll treat you to my homemade pickles."

"Sounds delicious."

"I just hope they'll be botulism-free. Do you know how the kids are doing?"

"I was going to ask you that. Last I talked to Bull, he was saying how overloaded the Depuration courts are. That was a month ago."

Jack sighed. "Keisha called me three weeks ago to tell me a funny story about how she was assigned to be a prosecutor on a case where Bull was the judge. Also, she said that Dasha loves the plush giant prehistoric millipede you got for her birthday, refuses to sleep without it, and already finished the book on paleontology. Since then, silence."

That was par for the course for the kids. Dora often wondered if they had done something wrong, to make them so reluctant to call. At least they appreciated the gifts. While normal children either thought bugs were gross or thought eating bugs was funny, Dasha thought they were 'so cute' with their 'little legsies', so plush Arthropleura it was. "Ashley says she made a new friend."

"Friend?" Jack asked hopefully.

"It's Ashley, so it's just a friend. I wish she could just make up her mind. If she said - Mom, I'm not interested in having relationships, that'd make sense and I'd stop bothering her. But she keeps on saying she's looking, and every time I ask, there's nobody!"

"Yeah," Jack sighed. "I'm starting to think she just doesn't want to admit to herself that romance doesn't interest her."

"But why? I told her it would be fine."

"Oh, you did?" Jack sounded relieved.

"When she was in her last year of university. I pointed out that the older ones all had relationships by that point and asked if maybe she just wasn't interested. Made it clear it would be fine."

"That's good. I was worried that maybe we pressured them too much."

Compared to her parents, Dora had put no pressure on her children at all. All she had done was inquire about whether they were seeing anyone and how it was going. Remembering the interrogations she had been put through because of Jack, she never tried to convince any of the kids that they should stop seeing their significant other. As it was, all three of her eldest had chosen perfectly respectable people to date and marry.

"What's done is done," Dora said. "Have you seen any of the grandkids recently?"

"No," Jack said sadly. "And it's like they don't know how to use the phone. And one of the neighbours just got depurated, so he's going around setting everyone against me."

"Which one?" If only she was there! Nobody would have dared mess with her.

"Stevenson."

He had been a judge in the same Justice Building as her, but with much fewer scruples about judging in favour of not the one who had the law on their side, but who could pay the most. "What did he get?"

"Offender."

"So high?" That was surprising. "And they didn't put him in prison?"

"I was also shocked - thought he was a shoo-in for fellow traveller. Apparently someone's secretary's sibling was once framed by him for murder because some major wanted a new star on their shoulders, so that soured everyone on him. Lifetime ban on practicing law in any way, shape, or form, cottage, second apartment, and cars confiscated, massive fine, some absurd amount of community service."

Lifetime ban sounded just right for someone more worried about what was in his pockets than about the law, but it was still very strange to be on the other side of the barricades from someone she had worked together with for decades. She and Stevenson had gone to barbecues together, attended the same weddings and funerals, their children had grown up together. And now her name was splashed across the papers internationally and he was a depurated nobody.

"Anyone else in the area?"

"Nobody since the last time, but Kadri's hearing is in a few days."

Kadri had never been one for following the law, either. "I hope she gets what she deserves."

Jack laughed. "Diplomatic."

The Depuration courts were careful to not go after too many people, because an actual fair proceeding would result in ninety-five percent of judges being fired at best, but it still felt to Dora as if she'd come back, and all of her old colleagues would be gone.

And what even separated her from Stevenson? Despite trying her best, Dora still felt horribly insecure about her position as Ten's representative. Yes, she had stuck to the letter of the law, never taking a single bribe in her entire career. But why? What had made her that way? Was she just too meek and obedient to do something she was officially not allowed to? Clearly she wasn't just a slavish rule-follower if she married the courthouse janitor, but then why did she reject vast sums of money to follow the law, which, in hindsight, had been horribly unjust?

Dora was the worst of both worlds. She strictly followed an unjust law and thought it made her a good person. At least the Stevensons of the world would have been good judges in a good system. In a good system, Dora would have been called unreasonably strict. No wonder Keisha always said Dasha had taken after her. She followed the written rules to the letter, but had zero understanding of unwritten ones.

"What are you thinking about?" Jack asked.

Dora realized she had been staring off into space. "Stevenson. It's a little bit funny that we worked together for so long, but look at us now."

"That's because you're amazing."

"Why do you think that?"

Jack thought for a second or two. "Because only an amazing person could look at the rat-faced janitor and think 'you know what? I want to have babies from him.'"

He was partially right. Yes, most of her fellows wouldn't have looked twice at the hunched-over young man sweeping the floor. But then, why had she been so harsh on people like him? "I like your confidence," she said. Once, she had weakly insisted to Jack that he didn't look like a rat. He very much did. And he was still very handsome. Most people didn't understand that.

"Thank you," he said primly. "By the way, I hear rumours it'll be close to the New Year when the trial ends."

"We'll see."

"Is there any chance-"

"Even the prosecution Chief of Counsel had to leave her husband behind." If that leaked conversation was any indication, she wasn't letting that get to her.

"Aww." Jack pouted. "At this rate, rationing will end before you're home. Ooh, I just read a funny comment. Someone suggested the palace be turned into a museum, and someone else asked - a museum of mold? And someone else joked that in paintings, monarchs hold scepters, but Snow should have been depicted with a toilet brush."

That was an excellent mental image.

Angelo's apartment was tiny. There was one bedroom, the floor completely covered with mattresses, and a living room, where fold-out cots stood collapsed against the wall. Despite the amount of people living in such a small space, it was tidy. Or perhaps sparse would have been a better description. "It's very nice," Stephen said approvingly.

"We have nothing to cause a mess," Angelo quipped.

"Don't sell yourself short," Stephen said, squeezing his hand. "You should see how messy some of the prisoners are despite not owning anything."

For the first time, they had a window of a few hours where Angelo and Stephen were both off work and the rest of his family was out. Stephen took off his shoes, hung up his cap, and walked towards the balcony. Angelo lived on the first floor, giving Stephen a good look at the people working in the courtyard, which had been converted into a vegetable garden. The curtains were sheer - Angelo had no electricity right now and depended on natural light. As it was, everyone would probably know he had a soldier over. Hopefully, they wouldn't know which one.

Stephen turned around and saw that Angelo was already lying on the couch. He set aside his jacket and practically dove into his arms, enjoying the cosiness. Finally, some proper cuddles.

"You're so muscular," Angelo muttered wonderingly.

He was? "Well, I exercise every day."

"Maybe I should start exercising."

It was so cozy in Angelo's arms, Stephen fell asleep almost instantly. When he woke up, it took him some time to remember where he was. He hadn't felt so good in a long time.

"You awake?" Stephen whispered.

"Mmm-hmm. You're warm. Can you be my heater during the winter?"

"I can be your anything." He kissed him lightly on the mouth.

Angelo looked at his wrist. "Oh shit, my cousin's coming home in fifteen. If you don't want to put up with jokes-"

"I've heard it all. Officers first take you to dinner and then sleep with you, enlisted ranks do it the other way around?"

"Too true." With a sad sigh, Angelo sat up. Stephen's back felt very cold, so he sat up as well and cuddled up against his side. It was boiling-hot in the apartment, but he couldn't get enough of Angelo's warmth. It felt so good to have his arms around him. The touch was intoxicating, making him crave more. "What do you have now?"

"Short nap and then the night shift."

"You went to see me instead of sleeping?" Angelo looked like he was going to melt. It was so adorable.

"Of course I did," Stephen said, kissing him on the cheek. "And I did sleep."

"You're the best." Angelo wrapped him in a tight hug. Stephen was average-sized, but his boyfriend had long arms that enveloped him fully. When was the last time he had had someone to hug him like that? If familial hugs counted, it had been months ago, when he had been in Thirteen for the last time. And as for romantic hugs? Stephen didn't want to think about how long it had been.

"No, you're the best."

"No, you are. Even if you refuse to buy me black-market margarine."

Each packet of margarine a black-marketer sold was one that would not go to orphaned children, the elderly, and hospital inpatients with no relatives. "Margarine is bad for you," Stephen said instead. There were different approaches for different situations. "You get enough fats in your rations in any case."

"Please?"

Stephen couldn't help but smile. "No."

"Fine," Angelo grumbled good-naturedly.

He really had to get going before Angelo's cousin showed up and informed half the world. "I'll see you next week," Stephen said, reluctantly disentangling himself from his boyfriend and putting his jacket on.

"I'll look for you on television." Angelo claimed he looked hot in the uniform. Stephen thought the shiny helmet made him look like a beetle.

"Of course you will." Stephen pulled on his shoes and cap, gave Angelo a farewell kiss, and left the apartment. Night shift awaited.

Drazen had baked a very impressive cake. Dora wasn't sure how they were supposed to carry the tray all the way to Raymond's place.

"Where did you get the ingredients?" Juan asked, studying the rectangular cake and letting all the cold air out of the fridge. The cake was quite tall and covered in a thin layer of light-blue buttercream. There were delicate chocolate decorations on top.

Drazen smiled. "Those shoes you were going to throw out."

Juan looked up, surprise evident on his face. "They were unwearable."

"For a judge, maybe." Drazen looked around. "Sorry we didn't get you anything else," they added.

"Oh, no, it's amazing!" Juan said, going back to staring at the cake. "Is it time to go yet?"

"We'll be a bit early. Let's go get ready?"

In the end, they decided to take turns carrying the cake. They walked under the boiling sun, total devastation side-by-side with untouched houses as if a deity had deliberately decided to show mercy to a random shred of Lodgepole. The rubble-people didn't look up at them as they worked. Dora noticed that very small children were also working. She couldn't watch these scenes for long - after all, it had been her side that had turned Lodgepole into a pile of rubble. Or had it been? She certainly hadn't lifted a finger for the liberation of Ten.

Dora's thoughts were cut short when they reached Raymond's house. Rose opened the door and grinned when she saw the tray Dora was holding. "We've got everything but the cake."

"Are we seriously having a birthday dinner for me?" Juan asked.

"Why not? We had one for the others." With thirteen judges, there was always a birthday coming up.

The cake was securely stowed in the fridge. Dora shook out her hands as she sat down in her customary seat in the living room. Daniel was already there, writing in his notebook.

"How are you feeling?" Dora asked. He had been complaining of flareups recently.

"Fine."

"We need to decide what counts as war and what doesn't," Dora said. "They're only offering evidence pertaining to after the firebombing."

Daniel nodded. "Which makes me wonder what Count Five is going to be, then. If they want to have it be just the firebombing, I'm ready to be convinced, but if it's anything broader, I doubt it'll work."

War crimes were, by definition, breaches of the laws of war. There were no useful precedents for trying people for war crimes committed during a civil war. What had the Treaty of Treason been, legally speaking? Could it be claimed that it had not ended the war, merely established a lengthy occupation? Given that the country was still whole, despite how strained relations between Districts currently were, that would look very odd. "I'm just worried about the time scale," Dora said. "I'm not comfortable for stretching the conspiracy so far. It would be like something out of a political trial."

Daniel's hands twitched. Scarred and crooked, they looked nothing like Dora's smooth ones. "And saying that Slice and Thread were part of the same conspiracy isn't?"

"No. That's completely different. One justified the actions of the other."

"They never even met!"

"But they were still linked."

"I disagree."

At that moment, Cora walked into the room. "Did you watch the palace?" she asked.

"It's an outrage," Moira said from the corridor. Her voice got louder as she leaned into the room. "All the horrors from the morning, and everyone wants to know about Snow's moldy palace."

"Of course they do," Cora said, leaning against the door frame with arms crossed on her chest. "Thinking about how their money was stolen to buy toilet brushes for nine hundred dollars is easier than thinking about how they enabled atrocities."

"Not just that," Dora cut in. "Look at how the newspapers cover the return of prisoners of war and how they covered the testimony about the mistreatment of POWs."

"Exactly!" Moira said. "Paylor's encouraging everyone to consider themselves victims of Snow and his gang. On one hand, that means there won't be any revanchism if everyone hates Snow. On the other, the differences in how the Capitol and the Districts were treated get brushed over and allow for anti-District prejudice to keep on going."

"I haven't noticed any," Cora said.

"That's because of your accent," Dora pointed out. "Try speaking how you speak at home."

Cora shook her head. "I was raised speaking like this."

"Oh, wow," Daniel said, writing in his notebook. Dora suspected that if the journalists ever laid hands on one of his notebooks, none of them would ever be able to hold up their head in public. "Even my parents weren't so class-obsessed."

"Why do you think I'm so out of place here? The media would be better served by worrying I'll be too lenient on the defendants. The only reason I'm here is because my boss overreacted to that incident with the drunken prosecutor." Cora flopped into her armchair.

"Cora," Moira said firmly.

"Yes?" Cora sat up slightly.

"Stop it. You're always lowering yourself when I'm around. This isn't making me feel better, it's making me want to hide under the table."

"I'm just being honest!"

"If you were honest, you'd have admitted every defendant in the city hoped to have you as judge because you were the only one who actually cared about what was written in the Criminal Code!" Moira tapped her fingers against the wall. "Telephone aside, when you were left to your own devices, you were a great judge. And there won't be a telephone here."

"But I wasn't left to my devices," Cora insisted. "Had I not been picked, they'd have booted me out of the judiciary." Dora doubted that. There were too many judges who never made good decisions that needed to be fired, and someone who was aware of what the law was would have been too valuable, telephone or no telephone.

"Stop putting yourself down. You think I'm any better of a choice? Me, a decorated Rebel? Half the media in Six are worrying about how I'll wreak vengeance, and the other half is ready to cheer me on as I do it."

Dora had read foreign media. In the beginning, they had been unanimous in thinking that the twelve District judges and the defector would send everyone to the gallows within the week. They had changed their tune by now, but were still convinced that the punishments meted out would be extremely harsh.

Footsteps sounded and Rosalinda walked in. "Where's the birthday boy?"

"Hiding somewhere," Dora said.

"I'm right behind you!" Juan appeared in Dora's line of sight.

"Happy birthday!" the others chorused unevenly.

"Dinner's ready!" Raymond announced from the dining room.

Daniel looked around, confused. "Everyone's here already?"

It turned out that they were. They sat around the table, ate the delicious dinner cooked by Raymond's housekeepers, and argued about what kind of conflicts counted as war for the purpose of applying the concept of war crimes. The cake was great, but Juan was unable to enjoy it, because he had too much wine and fell asleep at the table. Good thing it was a Sunday tomorrow.

A/N: The title of this chapter is a bit of a blast from the past, being a reference to the unholy trinity of Lukashenko, Yanukovich, and Putin and their respective palaces. Why Lukashenko's residence was labelled as 'цал дир бие' remains a mystery, I do not remember what happened to Yanukovich's gold loaf of bread in the end, and Putin's palace is exactly as moldy as described in this chapter. I suggest everyone watch the video with the investigation (look up 'Putin's palace' on youtube), there's English subs. The jokes Dora reads online are direct adaptations of actual jokes I've seen on Russian-language social media. 'In Putin's palace, investigators have found Gelendzhik'.