convivencia (n.) "living together"; living or working closely with other people with whom you share feelings, desires or a common purpose.

It was late by the time Ghjuvan returned to Septītais Street; the sun had set some hours ago, and the stars were winking into life, hesitantly, as though afraid that they too might be swallowed up by a druj if they dared to shine. After the chaos of the day, the streets were empty; there was no curfew in place, but the people of Aizsaule District knew better than to be out this late. Ghjuvan had shucked his green tagma coat in favour of civilian clothes, all the better to move unnoticed through the streets, but even he found himself glancing over his shoulder to check for something lurking in the shadows, unseen and unheard.

They had cleared all the druj - he knew that. And yet his skin crawled. It felt like he was being watched.

The street was closed up, the windows shuttered and the doors locked; he approached Czarnecki's Carpentry, and was startled by the abrupt touch of fingers, very lightly, against his sleeves. He just about managed not to jump at the sudden arrival. "Hey."

"Hey, Nirari." In the dim light of the street, he could make out only the white of Inanna's eyes; she may as well have been a ghost. "How's business?"

She shook her head. "Surprisingly, druj attacks don't make for busy days at a bakery."

"You must be glad of the break."

"Oh, yes. Nice to have a day away from all the leering." She reached forward, and rapped quietly against the door - her own distinctive knock, two rapid knocks and then a moment's pause and then another two in quick succession, almost like a heartbeat. It did not even take a second to rouse a response; Ghjuvan could hear Zoran at the locks, slowly but methodically undoing his defences. As they waited, Ina turned to Ghjuvan and said, briefly, "don't mention the wall, will you? He's been stressed all week."

"You got it. What's with all the locks?"

"Spate of burglaries recently. Mrs Lanka had all of her jewellery taken, she was in tears all last week."

Ghjuvan said, thoughtfully, "does Czarnecki even have anything worth stealing?"

Ina laughed, very lightly, under her breath. "I think he's more afraid of the thief seeing his workshop... and judging him."

That sounded about right. Ghjuvan had been called to Zoran's workshop only once, early during their stay in Aizsaule, and had been slightly taken aback - and slightly concerned for the other Warrior's mental health - to find that the space had been carpeted in Matthias' notes, each scrap of paper pinned to a different section of the wall so that when you stood by the doorway everything was visible at once. Ghjuvan had known that these were not notes intended for his eyes, and yet he had found himself scanning them anyway, wondering what Zoran was dealing with and finding that they were, indeed, as incomprehensible as the Hierophant had suggested. The one pinned by the doorway had just been letters running over and over into one another, without any apparent words being formed from the resultant mess.

There had been many causes for concerns that week - Zoran had covered all the reflective surfaces in his house, and Azula had stayed in bed for four days straight, and Khalore had thrown a plate at the wall rather than eat the lunch that Ina had prepared for her. Ghjuvan had sat in her doorway for as long as he could risk staying away from the training corps, saying nothing, only listening to her turn outwards as she always did. It was Kinga's fault and it was Ilja's fault and it was Commandant's fault and it was Khalia's fault and it was Grigoryan's fault - Ghjuvan hadn't asked what it was. He didn't think she knew herself. Her arm? Or Mielikki? Or Hyacinth? Or that they were stuck here, playing nice with devils while they tried to compete their mission?

"She's selling them bread." Khalore had spat the words out with a viciousness. "She's feeding them."

"I know, Lore."

"Let them starve. That's what they did to us - left us to starve, left us to die, left us to suffer as Kur." There had been a break in her voice - something that might, given voice, have been a sob. "Those devils."

"I know, Lore."

And privately, some part of Ghjuvan had agreed. He and Kinga slept in barracks with the Illéans; he found himself unable to sleep the night through, knowing that the enemy was so close to him. Kinga hadn't slept for days after their arrival - Ghjuvan had always wondered if she was worried about the same thing. He had, almost against his better instincts, cringed from their touch during their first few sparring sessions. But they had been in luck: they were excused that much, as so-called refugees from the fall of Mønt.

They were excused much, as supposed victims of the devastation they themselves had wrought.

Did Kinga feel guilty about that? He wasn't sure. He doubted it. He wasn't sure if he felt guilty, for he knew that Khalore did not. They had set druj on a city, but the real ruination had been wrought by that enormous stone monster, the druj that had broken down the walls - and that had nothing to do with the Warriors from Irij.

Had it?

Zoran opened the door; he was looking better-rested now than he had the last time they had scheduled such a meeting. His hair was growing long, touching his collar; Ghjuvan almost envied him. His own head had been shorn again upon admission to the training corps. He wasn't sure if he would grow it back again; it was so practical like this, even if it looked atrocious.

"You survived," Zoran said with a smile, and Ghjuvan lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.

"It really was just a stretch of the legs. Hijikata's squad had most things under control by the time we got there."

"I thought he was western corps?"

"Apparently he had business in Ganzir."

They were admitted into the gloom of the house; Zoran had not bothered to light a lamp. He gestured that they should climb the stairs, and they did so. On the third floor, there was a window on the landing which granted them access onto the roof. It was a pretty little space, one that Zor had cultivated into a little reflection of his own personality. It was surrounded on three sides by the gable of the surrounding buildings, so that there was little chance of being spotted by anyone on the street; Ina had painted little flowers on the western gable, little camellias with big round petals. There was a very deep soil-box set against the northern gable, where there were a few tall sunflowers swaying gently in what little wind had escaped the walls that night. Here and there, Zoran had left unfinished projects and unread books; Ina stepped around them carefully as she moved to embrace the man waiting for them at the edge of the roof.

Her voice was soft, even though there was no chance of them being heard. "Kaasik couldn't make it?"

"Oh," the man in the grey coat said softly. He was sitting on the metal folding chair that Zoran had set against the low wall which ringed the open side of the roof, positioned so that the carpenter could observe the sunset nightly. His fingers were laced together. He looked tired; they must have been working him hard in the palace. "I wish that were the case."

Speak of the devil, Ghjuvan mused wryly – well, maybe not the devil. Hiss. This must have been the Moon of Kur arriving, he thought, and he was correct – boots hit the edge of the roof, green coat whipping; those two black-stained blades, earlier glimpsed from afar, bit deeply into the soil of the cultivated sunflowers as they were hurled there with an air of irritation. "What's this I heard," she said, utterly without preamble, "about the Selection?"

"Nothing," Inanna said ruefully, "stays secret here for long, does it?"

"We're friends," Kinga said, with a raised eyebrow. She had fresh scars on her face, three jagged wounds on her cheek that cut across her lips and muffled her words very slightly, like she was pronouncing around a blade in her cheek. Ghjuvan was surprised they had shown up this starkly this soon - but then, her fall had been exceptionally bad. Even now, she moved her right arm stiffly. "You need to keep secrets from your friends?"

"Comrades," the grey man corrected them tiredly, but it was clear that no-one was really listening to him. The grey man – it suited him. Ghjuvan couldn't believe they hadn't thought of the epithet sooner. Ilja Schovajsa seemed to have lost all of his colour in the six Mønths since he had left Vanth for Ganzir; his hair seemed greyer without quite being grey, his skin whiter without quite being white, his eyes paler without quite being pale. The palace didn't seem to suit him, though Ghjuvan had always found him difficult to read. "Not friends."

"I think the lady doth protest too much," Inanna murmured, and was rewarded with a low and mirthless snort from Kinga as the younger Warrior lowered herself into a crouch on the very lip of the roof. It was a distinctive stance that she adopted frequently; Ghjuvan could remember her doing the same during their assault course in the forest at home in Opona.

"It's okay," Kinga said, "I wasn't talking to you anyway, Schovajsa."

"I'm surprised you're alive," Ilja was saying. He might have called this meeting, but he seemed in no rush to share his news with the assembled group. Ina had knelt down near the sunflowers, setting down her basket and unpacking its contents slowly. She handed Ghjuvan a large and flat piece of bread stuffed with mince, saying something about being too thin, as Ilja continued, "given the stories running around the palace about today's display – you do know we're meant to be laying low, right?"

"I can lay low," the one-eyed girl replied, "or I can qualify as an excubitor. Do you have a preference?"

"I thought you and Mannazzu were becoming scholars – or did your rampant illiteracy impede that?"

Ghjuvan shook his head, and reclined against the gable, folding his arms. He did enjoy these little talks they had, though he wasn't sure if they were typically of any great strategic value. Sometimes it was nice just to know you weren't in Illéa alone, no matter how it felt in the moment. "Just me. Kinga decided she liked swords better than books."

"Kaasik," Ilja said, sounding tired. He always used their false names - it was like he was trying to convince himself to believe in their cover identity. Ghjuvan was similarly Ghjuseppu as far as the Chariot of Kur was concerned. "If I asked you what motivated this change of heart, would your answer rhyme with mevenge?"

She slung her arms over her knees, picking at a loose thread in her green coat. Her hands were bandaged; Ghjuvan knew without asking what had happened. She always held her swords so tightly that her knuckles split when her blade struck true. Was it hard for her, adjusting to a lower position in the rankings? Sometimes Ghjuvan thought she purposefully kept her uniform in poor condition so that Edző would always keep her low, no matter her performance. "No."

The Chariot of Kur cocked his brow. "How would you justify it?"

"Mayback," she said simply – and then grinned widely at the frustrated expression which flitted across his face. There was a razor edge of mirth in her voice. "Mengeance."

"Metribution," Ghjuvan added helpfully.

He had to turn aside to hide his smile as Kinga made a wild gesture that might have been appreciative; he could sense Inanna glancing at him reproachfully. "Don't you encourage her."

He had to sound remorseful, with the bread warming his hands; he was loath to find another bakery to frequent this late into the mission. "Yes, Nanna."

"Are you sure you'll be able to qualify?" Ina had turned her golden eyes upon the other girl, and the other girl was clearly not happy about this fact, given the fixedness with which she was currently regarding her own hands. No one wanted to be the person to disappoint the expectations of Inanna Nirari - especially when they were on a roof. What had happened to the last person to piss her off while they were at a height? "...Kinga?"

The dark-haired girl shrugged cautiously. "Well," she said. "Hijikata does hate me."

"To be fair," Ghjuvan said, slowly, feeling rather like he was ratting her out. "You hate him as well."

"Yeah," Kinga said stubbornly. "But I'm the only one who knows why."

Ghjuvan chuckled. That was about right. Kinga had mostly managed to hold it in while taking orders from the captain earlier that day, but she had attacked the druj with a particular viciousness every time she left his company. If there was one thing Ghjuvan appreciated about their training, it was this: the familiarity they were now gaining with regards to the druj. True, those that had entered Aizsaule earlier that day had been smaller than most, but Ghjuvan was getting better at ignoring the unreality, the awfulness, the unnaturalness of the beasts. He had learned how to focus on, quite simply, getting rid of them.

Ghjuvan turned to Inanna. "Her kill count is nearly twice the other cadets'. I don't know how they could turn her down."

"If it was up to him, he'd find a way." She sounded bitter. "But Apusean in the northern corps will take me for sure..."

"Well," Ina said. "There's always a place for you at Kivi... washing dishes, maybe."

"I wouldn't trust her not to eat the soap," Ilja murmured.

"And you, Ghju?"

Ghjuvan smiled. "I should be fine to qualify, but I'm not sure how much the scholars will know about the radiance... it's a long shot."

"I have faith," Ina said, but her voice did not sound as optimistic as it usually did when they discussed such matters. Ghjuvan couldn't blame her; it had been a long few months, with little progress to show for it. At least Azula and Ina were bringing in the money at the bakery while the Warriors put their pieces into place; extra cash could never hurt.

Zoran climbed through the window behind them, accepting a diamond-shaped piece of samoon from Ina, who was focusing on Ilja with typical laser precision, like she could tell that he was not telling them something important. He was doubting himself, Ghjuvan thought, and that was most unlike Ilja. "What's this," the Hierophant said, "about the Selection?"

Ilja reached into his coat. When he moved like this, the crest of the Schreaves was apparent on his bicep, elegant in its simplicity. "The draw took place tonight - I came as soon as I could, hopefully Morozova doesn't notice that I'm missing. It'll be published in tomorrow's Report, but I have a copy with me here..."

Ghjuvan frowned. "That's not your good news face, Schovajsa."

Ilja nodded, and spoke hesitantly. "None of our Warriors were drawn."

All of the girls had sent in applications, even Ina, who otherwise held herself out as a widow. As far as the people of Aizsaule District were concerned, her family had been killed in the fall of Mønt, and Inanna had escaped here as a refugee with her husband's little sister. In a sense, Ghjuvan mused, they had rather shot themselves in the foot with all of their choices and mistakes - Khalore and Kinga, physically mutilated as they were, had never really stood much of a chance at winning a place, and Ina, despite her beauty, didn't adhere to the purity requirements. That had left Azula, around which there had been much consternation and argument, with Ilja insisting that he would be at the palace to ensure that nothing untoward came to pass and Ina arguing for the girl's youth. She's a child, Iliusha. In the end, then, it hadn't mattered - she hadn't been chosen.

"It's a good thing we were prepared for this eventuality," Zoran said. Some invisible communication was passing between him and Ina; Ghjuvan hated when they did that. "The Selection was always going to be a long shot for us."

"It's not that simple," Ilja said, with a shake of his head. There was a look in his eyes that Ghjuvan couldn't quite read. "I said none of our Warriors were drawn..."

Kinga interrupted him abruptly. "Na, is that qaymer I see?"

Inanna smiled, looking slightly bemused at the sudden change of subject. "Fresh."

Kinga jumped down from the edge of the roof and walked over to the ersatz widow, plucking a piece of samoon from the basket Ina had set in front of her. "I haven't had this in years."

And Edző didn't feed them well; that was what Kinga wasn't saying, because it would do no good to say it. It would only worry the others, more than it had already worried them to see how much weight Ghjuvan and Kinga had lost in their time with the tagma – not that either of them had much to lose in the first place. It was hard to justify decent rations for the military when so many in the outer regions were starving as a result of the farmland lost in Tiamat. Some of the outer districts, those contained near Wall Alliette, had been all but cut off from the rest of Illéa due to the druj infestation of the inner ring. The food supply to the inner districts had been carved to a fraction of what it had once been.

For the simple reason of impeding starvation, reclamation of the valuable arable land in Tiamat and Mønt was the first priority for the excubitors, and Ghjuvan knew that Hijikata and Apusean and the other captains would select their recruits with this in mind.

As much as Kinga muttered about it, he knew she would have nothing to worry about when the time came. She was similar to Khalore in certain ways; Ghjuvan suspected this was part of the reason they managed to work so well together. But the longer they worked together, away from the other Warriors, the greater a gulf he saw stretching between his friend and his comrade. Khalore was a little spitfire, a cracked vial of acid, all fury and wrath turned outwards, blaming the whole world for her pain. Kinga was a well-oiled machine who turned blank eyes upon you whenever you mentioned a world outside the curses, any nascent identity weighed down by the ghosts of her sister and cousins before her. The beast contained within her – Ghjuvan still had not quite forgiven her that slip, that little whispered "run" – had always seemed, and seemed still, a totally separate entity, like an inherited shadow.

That had surprised him, when he had first recognised it. The second thing he had recognised, almost reluctantly, was that he quite liked her. She was an easy person to spend time with; she demanded little effort to pass a peaceful hour or six on watch.

And the third thing was something Ghjuvan hadn't noticed until recently – the quiet twitchiness and hesitation when they were ordered to stand down. Kinga Kaasik was at her most content when she was in motion – when she was killing druj. She seemed almost at a loss for what to do with her hands when they were not otherwise occupied. Had Kinga Szymańska always been the same way? Ghjuvan thought he would have noticed this earlier if that was the case. Or was it an inherited grief that occupied her hands, a promise that had gone unfulfilled?

She hid it well now, if that was the case; she was poking absently at the hummus that Ina had brought with her from the bakery, and Ilja was rolling his eyes at the way that she was acting. "Did you hit your head today, Kinga?"

Kinga was utterly straight-faced. "Yeah."

"Hard?"

"Pretty hard, yeah."

"In her defence," Ghjuvan said, stoically, "it was very funny."

"It was," Kinga agreed, "very funny."

"She forgot she was anchored to a druj's jaw," Ghjuvan said, tearing the erook in his hands into chunks. "When she decided to behead it."

He could see that Ilja was picturing this with some relish. It had been amusing - the split-second recognition in Kinga's eyes that she was no longer attached to anything, right before she had followed the head down. She had fired her hooks for a last-second save, but a few moments too late, not avoiding the ground so much as she had skidded along it at a right angle, flipping in a twelve hundred degree rotation hat had left the arm of her coat in shreds and torn open her skin from shoulder to elbow.

She had left streaks of blood and scraps of cloth all the way down Sešpadsmitais Street, and Ghjuvan had barely managed to stop laughing to check that she was still alive.

"Have we considered," Ina said, in that sweet voice of hers that made even barbs sound vaguely soothing. "That Hijikata simply doesn't want to recruit Kinga... because she's a moron?"

"It's a theory we're working on," Ghjuvan replied.

Kinga muttered something about an eye for an eye, and Zoran cleared his throat, looking slightly baffled at how quickly things had descended into bread-mutilation and moon-bashing. "Ilja," he said, "you were saying…?"

"The Selection," Ina prompted gently. It was always so - trying to keep them on-topic was like herding cats sometimes. At the start of these six months, each meeting had been crisp and deliberate and focused. Now, Ghjuvan sensed that everyone involved was rather desperate for any excuse to stay on the roof and keep eating bread together. It was like they were young again, accorded some rare day off training to relax by the lake and share strawberries and swim. He missed those days; he missed Myghal; he missed the children that they had been.

"The draw," Ilja said, and pulled a sheaf of parchment from inside his coat. He handed it to Zoran, who unfolded it with some reverence. "Tell me if you recognise any names."

He said this, Ghjuvan realised, rather than tell them the name he meant - because he was afraid that he was wrong.

Or maybe he hoped that he was.

Zoran was scanning the list cautiously. "Aizsaule District – Henryka Meijer. Vanth District – Lāsma Bērziņs." He passed the list to Kinga, who stuffed the samoon in her mouth and wiped her hands on her trousers to accept it.

"Mrs Meijer buys her bread from me sometimes," Ina said thoughtfully, "she's a lovely lady. Her daughter is a milliner, I believe..."

"I've fixed a table for the Bērziņs," Zoran added. "Nice family...""

Kinga laughed, loudly, almost like the sound had been startled from her, and glanced at Ilja with an eyebrow raised and a bruised finger pointed at the parchment.

"This is a typo," she said, "surely?"

Ilja shook his head. His voice was fond as he spoke, almost against his will. "Now do you regret interrupting me, Kinia?"

She shook her head. The laughter lingered on her wounded mouth. "Not even a little bit."

Ghjuvan leaned back to look at the parchment still pinned between Kinga's fingers. He was getting quicker at reading the narrow script of the Illéan people – they had learned it in history classes before, with Tofana sounding out each little character over and over again, but upon arriving in Kelch, he had feigned illiteracy to ensure he could avoid any slip-ups. He had not been alone; Edző seemed to expect about two-thirds of each intake to struggle with reading and writing. Six Mønths in the training corps had made Ghjuvan much more comfortable with it – he scanned the page quickly now, helped by Kinga gesturing to the lines to which he should turn his attention. The shapes of the Illéan script were jagged and harsh: ᛖᚢᚾᛒᛖᛟᛚᛊᛖᛟᛟᚠᛗᛟᚾᛏ…

He had to sound it out slowly. "E-U-N B-Y-E-O-L S-E-O O-F M-O-N-T," Ghjuvan pronounced finally, and was rewarded with another laugh, barely contained beneath her breath, from Kinga. "Eun Byeol Seo of Mønt?"

"Eunbyeol," Zoran said slowly. "Isn't that..."

"Belle's Nawia name," Ilja said, his tone dark and slightly wondering. Ghjuvan couldn't blame him; he wasn't quite able to believe it himself. It was impossible – more than impossible, it made no sense. She wasn't a xrafstar; she wasn't a Warrior; she wasn't anything but Belle. Citizen, as Commandant would have said. "Belle has been Selected."

"Belle," Ina said, sounding slightly dazed, "is in Illéa?"

They looked at each other in silence. Around them, the dark seemed quieter than usual, free of even the usual soft whisperings of moths in the street or the creaking of the building beneath. Somewhere beyond Wall Szymański, Ghjuvan could hear that the druj had begun to bellow again for blood.