desenrascanço (v.) the act of disentangling oneself from a difficult situation by using all available means to solve the problem.

The night market was winding up; day was dawning, golden petals unfurling far above the spires of the city to lick at the silvery wounds left behind by slowly-fading stars. Until the sun had risen, the people of the city had been as silhouettes, somehow darker and less clearly defined than they tended to be in full-throated day; he found that he could relate to that, that greyness. Colour was returning to Aizsaule, pastel colour, and the tables were being collapsed back into scrapwood, and the birds were being silenced with a dark cloth over their cages. He had wandered among the stall-alleys for many of the darkest hours of night, close enough to sprint to her if she needed, just far enough that their words drifted to him as the suggestion of conversation. Conclusions eluded him; he thought he was grasping the gist of the discussion, but he also thought he was inclined to think that regardless of how little he actually managed to hear.

He also didn't manage to overhear their farewells, but judging by the expression on the Lover's face, it was a uneasy exchange – not for any reasons of discomfort, but because it was a farewell. It didn't particularly seem like either of them wanted to leave, but leave the stringless man did, retreating down Ne Street while she watched him go, an emotion next to mournfulness marking her face. It was then, therefore, that he spoke, his voice low and incredulous.

"You don't believe him, do you?"

Ina jumped when he spoke, from just behind her – unnoticed until the moment he chose not to be. He wasn't sure if she hadn't seen him, or if perhaps she hadn't recognised him. He seemed to be quite good at blending in when he wanted to; he seemed to be quite good at staying unseen if that was what he wished.

"I was wondering whose thread that was." She exhaled deeply. "Ilja."

Ina was talking about threads again. Ilja chose to ignore this. Curses were odd enough, complicated enough, without developing their own jargon for it all. But there were more important issues at hand than starting that particular conversation again – more urgent matters to deal with for the time being. He said, tiredly, "you didn't answer my question."

"Yes," she said, firmly. There was no doubting this pronouncement; it was so utterly definite. "I do believe him."

He wasn't sure if he was quite projecting enough disbelief, but given the defensiveness with which Ina turned away again, he thought it was probably sufficient. "You were following me?" she said, her voice small. The handle on the door rattled as she unlocked it; for a moment, the key stuck. Ina took a deep breath and said, "how much did you hear?"

Ilja sighed. "What kind of question is that, Ina?"

The lock clicked. Ina pushed open the door, and crossed the threshold into the bakery, which was still doused in the grey shadows of nightfall. The whole place was hushed, like a sacred place; it was still warm, still smelled of freshly baked bread. Ilja had never liked Ina's bakery very much. It felt like… something he wasn't meant to have. And it was quieter than Ilja had expected – he was half-surprised that they hadn't found Zoran pacing outside, awaiting Ina's return. No one ever worried about Ilja like that, he thought wryly, no one was ever that attentive to him when he snuck out at night, no one ever lost sleep tossing and turning and wondering whether he was doing okay. Poor Zoran.

Ina set her key down on the counter. She said, "he didn't have much to say, did he?"

"He said enough," Ilja said.

Ina looked tense, but not too tense to smile a thin smile. "You're going to fight me on this, aren't you, Ilja?"

"To the very end, Inanna." Ilja returned the expression, shedding his brown civilian coat and leaving it on the ground where it fell. It landed next to a pair of straight-edge swords which had been set carefully against the wall, resting against a notch in the stone wall; on the stool next to it, a small gas cannon of the sort typically used by excubitors lay next to a grappling hook wrapped in long wire. Their brave soldiers had returned, then, he thought, or at least one of them had.

Was Kinga still alive? Was Ghjuvan?

As though she had read his mind, Ina said, "they're back early."

Her use of the plural was deliberate, purposeful. It brokered no disagreement. They meant both – both meant all. All safe, all sound. Ilja found himself nodding with her and wishing that he could, for once, be less of a cynical bastard. He hadn't realised that he had tensed until the door to the kitchen swung open, and Ghjuvan said, from somewhere over the threshold, "do you want to tell them what you did or should I?"

Kinga's voice was huskier than it usually was; it almost sounded like her vocal chords hadn't quite transformed back yet, like some small part of her was still more druj than person. She said, darkly, "I did my job."

Following Ghjuvan back into Ina's kitchen, Ilja found Kinga sitting in the wicker chair by the stove. Thick dark brows were knitted over narrow eyes, set deeply in a bruised face. Her hands were knotted before her, her arms resting on her legs – her arms, Ilja was relieved to see, were fine, healed totally, all hints of the wound Hyacinth had inflicted on her erased entirely. Her veins stood out, running black with something that didn't quite look like blood – but that was a small matter, Ilja thought bizarrely, small and easily over-looked, as long as she was okay, as long as she was still alive, as long as she could still fight and as long as she never looked at him again as she had on the wall just a few hours ago. If Hijikata gets to me… it's not me that I'm worried about.

Ghjuvan had changed into a new shirt that was slightly too small, brown cotton without a collar, with broad cuffs that had him constantly, irritatedly, pushing his sleeves back up to his elbows. "How was your date, Ina?"

"Tea," was all that Ina seemed inclined to say, "some tea, please – where is Zor?"

"Checking on Belle," Ghjuvan said, "he'll be back in a moment – Ki?"

Kinga rose and went to put the kettle on the fire. She was silent, as was Ina. It set Ilja's teeth on edge; it felt wrong. Despite all the affectionate nicknames, there was a tension thrumming in the room, the origins of which he could not quite discern. Ilja said, at last, more to break the silence than anything else, "and the others?"

"Azula is watching Hyacinth," Ghjuvan said, "Khalore is keeping an eye on Nez – it's fine, Nanna, the place is still standing. The bakery survived four hours without you."

"Five," Ilja said. "Five hours."

Ghjuvan's eyebrow arched. "You must have a lot to tell us, then."

Ina said, softly, "no – no, not much."

Kinga's eye narrowed, but she said nothing as she pulled two clay cups from the sink and set them onto the table. Ghjuvan watched his comrade closely, as though urging her not to say whatever she was thinking – whatever that was, Kinga heeded his silent advice and turned her back to the group, teapot clattering. Ilja leaned against the wall, arms crossed, as Ina sank down to sit on the floor with her arms around her knees. She accepted tea from Ghjuvan quietly; if Ilja had to guess, she was hoping that the conversation would turn from her, and where she had been, and what she had learn. Well, Ilja was always happy to disrupt any attempt at evasion; he said, "it's Eero."

Ghjuvan's head swung; he looked at Ina with something like accusation in his eyes. Kinga's eye similarly bore into the Lover like a drill, but she left her fellow tagma to the talking as Ghjuvan said, "I thought you said…?"

"I know," Ina said tiredly. And she did sound tired. It was as though all the energy had left her when Eero had; she had been smiling right up until she'd had to say goodbye to him. Ilja imagined it couldn't be the easiest way to spend an evening, trying to subtly interrogate your dead boyfriend's long-dead brother. "I know. I thought… I didn't want to be wrong."

"Eero Hämäläinen?" Nez's voice concealed a laugh. She and Khalore must have heard them enter the house; Nerezza stood at the bottom of the stairs, Khalore on the first step. Behind them, Zoran hovered where he stood, wearing the air of a man who rather wished he could go back upstairs without being noticed. "We're being haunted now?"

Zoran said, like he thought that maybe everyone in the kitchen had lost their minds, "Eero Hämäläinen died in training. Years ago."

Khalore said, quietly, "did Matthias send him too?"

"No," Ina said. And then she laughed – an odd, strangled, disbelieving kind of laugh that ripped from her chest. Had she doubted him as well, and only now felt able to show that disbelief, unabated? "No one sent him."

Zoran descended the stairs slowly and sank down to sit on the step third-from-last. In the dark he seemed smaller, thinner. He needed to cut his hair, Ilja thought. He needed to buy new shirts. He needed sleep, quite frankly. "What do you mean?"

She set her tea on the tile beside her, and spread her hands before her, shrugging and smiling helplessly. "He's just… here. Because he wants to be."

"What does that mean?" Ghjuvan's eyebrow had risen again, dangerously risen. He and Khalore and Kinga were exchanging foreboding looks. Ilja rather felt a little left out of the whole silent exchange – until Khalore glanced at him, and he too was able to widen his eyes and adjust his weight and make a face that indicated he had no idea what Ina was trying to say either. How nice, he thought, a little gang of skeptics all. "He doesn't remember?"

"He doesn't really have a reason," Ilja said slowly. Some of their conversation was starting to make a little more sense; he was beginning to stitch it together in his head. Ina looking disbelieving, and insisting on something, and Eero fixing her with that steady-solemn-sorrowful look that he had and insisting no, no, no, she'd heard him correctly, that's exactly what he meant, she had got it right the first time. There had been something blithe about his demeanour, as though he had expected to be disbelieved, and rather welcomed her predictable reaction.

Khalore blanched. She looked rather like Ilja felt. "He's not… there's no plan?"

"He took a boat out," Ina said, "He just took a boat out. And… we always thought…."

She looked at Ilja, as though appealing for help to put the words together. He wasn't sure it would make any more sense if he said it – and he wasn't sure why she was appealing to him rather than to Zoran, as she usually did – but he gave it his best shot. "He just... came here…. for the hell of it?"

Was that really the answer? That it had been – what? A curious boy torn from what he thought was his destiny looking for a new sense of fate, a callow youth determined to assert himself and leave a legacy by becoming the first Irij to ever put foot on Illéa, a fisherman blown astray onto an island of monsters by chance alone? Nez said what everyone was thinking when she said, in her usual cool and amused tone of voice, "oh, he's definitely lying."

"To what end?" Ghjuvan asked, at the same time Khalore said, "how can we be sure he's really Eero?"

Ina said, "it's him. It's definitely him. I just think…" She sighed. "He's hiding something, of course he is, he's hiding something, whatever reason he came here, and I don't know why. I'm just not sure that it matters."

"Of course it matters," Zoran said. His voice sounded like splintering glass; everything about him seemed so hollow in that moment, like the words alone had emptied him out. "It always matters."

"It's Eero," Ina said. "I've known him… for my whole life."

"You've known Nez your whole life as well," Ilja said, "all of us have – but we've spent the last two days treating her like a threat."

He threw her a look, askance, to check that no offence had been taken. For her part, she shrugged it off. "A reasonable precaution," Nez conceded drily. "I'd think less of you if you didn't."

Ilja hated it when she agreed with him.

"It's not the same."

Zoran's gaze was boring into Ina, disagreement painted clearly on his face, but he wasn't saying anything. Ghjuvan was furrowing his brows now, clearly trying to stitch the situation together, clearly trying to parse the whole story. "Eero… just came to Illéa… when?"

Ina said, "four years ago."

"So he was just hanging around in Irij in the meantime," Khalore said flatly, "dead."

"He was at the chancellory," Ina said, "he said they brought him there when he…"

She shrugged, helplessly.

Zoran said, looking like he was hoping this whole conversation was something he could wake up from, just a nightmare that seemed real, "they brought him to the World."

Ina nodded. "That's what I thought as well."

Ilja frowned. The World? The most mysterious of the stolen curses – if the Champions knew who held it, what become of it, where it lay, what it did, then no one had ever cared to make any of the Warriors privy to the same. Long ago, the xrafstar who held the World had been the very first to turn against the Schreaves and their empire, back when the people of Irij had been armed with only pitchforks and fiery sods of turf. The first devil to tire of devilry, Frida Tenkrát had always said, the first devil to understand, truly understand, what it was and to seek to redeem itself through fighting its kind and kin. The first Warrior.

Repent. Atone. Salvation.

He said, "what could the World do?"

"I don't know," Zoran said, "but that… they talked about bringing Pekka. Before they realised."

A breath caught, audibly, in Ina's throat. To spare her speaking more, or speaking now, Ilja cut in to add, "I suppose he won't have anything against meeting with the rest of us, then. If he bears us no ill will. If he's on our side."

"He seemed keen," Ina said. "To meet the rest of you. To see other Irij." She smiled slightly. "I think he's been lonely."

And really, Ilja thought, who could blame him. Did this mean he had crossed the sea of monsters, the forest full of druj, the walls manned by tagma ready to kill anything that so much as stirred in the land beyond the kingdom? Questions and suspicions bristled in his chest, but he said nothing. Nothing for now. Ghjuvan was happy to take up that task for him, saying, shortly, "and he has no curse?"

"None that he told me about," Ina said. "But he's… stringless."

Zoran still hadn't taken his eyes from her. At his elbow, Khalore said, cautiously, "doesn't that just mean he's not… friends with anyone here?"

Ina shook her head, but it was Zoran who spoke. They were like one another's reflections, connected by something somehow less tenable than even Ina's imaginary threads. "It's a little more complicated than that."

"Right," Khalore said, sounding unconvinced. "But it means he's a bit… unreadable."

"Unreadable," Ghjuvan agreed. "Untrustworthy."

Ina said, sounding rather like she was too tired to get into a disagreement with the rest of them, "yes, I suppose so."

They were still brimming with questions, Ilja could tell, but also unwilling to push and probe further. His own mind rather spun with them, but he wasn't sure what good it could do to voice them now. Half-spun threads of ideas seemed to pool at the base of his skull; he thought to himself, did Eero come here to join the Schreaves, resentful of his treatment in Irij? Is he here for the Radiance, like we are? Is he here for us?

He did not bother blaming Zoran for not seeing this; he could tell that Zoran was too busy blaming himself, probably enough for the two of them. Six months in, and they were still probing at the edges of their curses, still nascent sorcerers, xrafstars in name only. Ghjuvan and Kinga and Ina seemed to be the only members of the group comfortable with their curses – perhaps Nez as well, if one was inclined to include her, and Ilja was decidedly not so inclined.

As if he had read Ilja's mind on this point, Zoran said, "I've been thinking about what Belle said. About not having a curse."

"It doesn't make sense," Khalore said – and Ilja silently agreed. Khalore was in her usual place, perched on the edge of the table, one foot braced against the back of the chair in which Nez was sitting. Despite its rakishness, she somehow made it look like a threatening stance, like she was ready to leap into action at only a moment's notice. "Why would Matthias send her if she's useless?"

Nez said, "she's not useless."

Khalore said, stiffly, "she's not a xrafstar, and neither of you are Warriors. That's uselessness in my eyes."

Zoran spread his hands in a kind of appeal. "...maybe that's the point, though. If the Radiance can detect xrafstars… and Belle was always intended to go into the Selection... Which would rather scuttle my idea..."

Ghjuvan said, softly, "but Azula's going into the palace as well."

Ilja said, "I've been there for six months. So if they can detect us, they don't seem inclined to do anything about it."

"Or they just don't see you as a threat," Khalore said lightly. "Who could blame them?"

"Fourth ranked, Angelo – how did you do again?"

Ina said, patiently, with an expression that suggest this all felt rather like herding cats, "what was your idea, Zor?"

Ilja half-expected to hear a darling appended to the end of that sentence. Maybe Zoran had as well; certainly he looked a little less certain of himself as he lowered his hands, and nodded, and said, "we were intended to come here as eleven. Maybe that's what Matthias intended…. all this time."

Ina read it on his face before anyone else could. "Oh, no."

Zoran said, slowly, "she's already dead, Ina. It's not like it'll hurt her."

And then – well, after that, it started to dawn. Ghjuvan and Kinga were reacting in tandem, with a hardening of their faces, a flex in the jaw, eyes narrowing, arms folding. Ghjuvan said, "generations remain whole, Zor. You can't just… hack out a curse and pass it on."

Zoran said, simply, "how do you know?"

"Well," Khalore said darkly, "presumably they've tried it before. Like when Salah died. Or Arsen. Or Kreiner. Or..."

"Any of the initiation deaths," Nez agreed, "Baako, Oxana, Pekka..."

"Then it won't," Zoran said, "be a problem if it doesn't work."

"Unless it kills her," Nez said. "Our dear Eunbyeol doesn't have the strongest constitution at the best of times."

"She outranked you," Ilja pointed out, "made it to the top fifteen – and Zor's right, Matthias must have sent her here for a reason."

"A shame," Khalore said, "that he didn't make his reasoning more clear." She glanced at Zoran. "He didn't. Right?"

Zoran grimaced.

Ghjuvan was working on the logistics – as usual, he had leapt straight to the practicalities. "The Selection starts in less than a week – that's not enough time for any of the group in the palace to get there and back without being noticed. That's Azula, Ilja, Belle herself. Transfer would have to be effected here in Illéa… and if it went wrong, if initiation failed..."

"Well," Khalore said, clearly trying to ease the tension in the room, her voice dripping with irony, "Eero might be up for a curse of his own if that happens."

Ilja remembered the conversation he had shared with Kinga, a few months into their arrival in Aizsaule, during one of the rooftop chats chaired by Ina's baked goods and Zor's sunflowers. If a member of the tagma finds the body, could they…? More than anything, desperately, he did not want Ilja Schovajsa to be remembered as one of the Warriors who had let a curse slip back into the grips of the Schreaves and their fractured Kur Empire. More than anything, he did not want Ilja Schovajsa's legacy to be that of a failure. Repent. Atone. Salvation.

Kinga had looked at him seriously. That always made him feel better, when Kinga took him seriously. She usually didn't say things just to reassure; she usually told the truth, no matter how hard, no matter how bitter. Mielikki is nothing but bones by now. And these devils would never recognise a xrafstar for what it is.

Ina was looking at Zoran. "It's your idea. Do you want to be the one to…?"

"On my own?"

Ghjuvan shook his head, but he did not disagree. "Kinga and I must remain with the tagma, Ina to maintain our cover. You'd be on your own."

Khalore said, darkly, delightedly, "well, if Eero is so keen to help us out..."

Zoran's expression was thunderous; Ina's eyes were wide and golden and doubtful. Ilja said, pleasantly, "not sure that was your finest idea, Lore." He glanced at Ghjuvan. "Maybe Hyacinth?"

Ghjuvan was regarding Kinga's arm with trepidation. "She'd keep the druj at bay," he said doubtfully, "and if we could guarantee that she could keep her curse in hand..."

"I feel like you're all ignoring an obvious solution here," Nez said, sounding amused. After a long moment of silence in which no one seemed prepared to acknowledge this contribution, her voice keened with something close to disbelief. "Purposefully?"

Yes, Ilja thought, purposefully. Based on Zoran's expression, it rather looked like he could think of no-one he'd like as a companion less than the acerbic Wheel; based on Khalore's expression, it rather looked like she was trying to calculate the odds of a fatal druj attack and not particularly liking her maths.

Ghjuvan said, "obvious doesn't mean good, Nerezza."

Ilja glanced at Kinga. "You've been very quiet, Kinia. That's not like you."

She shrugged. Ghjuvan said, almost defensively, "she's just tired."

"I don't see why," Khalore said, slightly acidly. It was an almost comedic contrast with the way she was swinging her legs, like a child on a chair too tall for her. Someone had done her hair in the style Belle usually favoured on days off: swept back off her face, with a thick braid running across her crown like a hairband. Ilja wasn't sure exactly what motivated her to speak so sharply – whether she was tired of being left out of things, if she was feeling overwhelmed with the sudden rush of action after six months of lying low, or if she genuinely thought that her fellow Warriors were doing a poor job. "Mag Mell still stands, does it not?"

"Despite best efforts," Kinga said, her voice tight.

Ilja glanced at her, but she wouldn't catch his eye. He frowned. "Not exactly the word I'd use," Ilja said. Did she think they hadn't heard? Did she think they were idiots? Kinga kept her eyes on the floor, but she didn't wear an expression of shame – it was a determined, stubborn look.

Ghjuvan sighed, and glanced at the others. He had a similar look in his eyes, one that suggested he didn't want the other Warriors to question their actions. And true, Ilja thought, they probably shouldn't – it wouldn't be fair, wouldn't be correct – but they were soldiers, they were Warriors, they were in this together and none of them could be permitted to act unilaterally, no matter their excuses. Ghjuvan said, "We went back."

Khalore said, amusedly, "sorry – you started the fire and then you helped them to put it out again?"

"Builds trust," the Star replied, "puts us beyond the suspicion of the devils." There it was, Ilja thought, the excuse. A good one, at that. "They think we're like them..." And they were, Ilja thought, they all were, him included, just like them, just like them, the same tainted blood in their veins. "And we've been promoted – you're looking at a pair of third-class tagma."

Khalore's eyebrow rose. "Congratulations," she said, "I think."

"Yeah," Ghjuvan said, "Well, Kinga saved Hijikata's life so they kind of owed us."

There was a silence then, a slightly stunned silence, which Ilja rather thought Ghjuvan had been aiming for and was quietly delighted to have achieved, even though he had the same flinty tone of defensiveness behind it. Ilja wasn't quite sure if the other Warrior was joking, but a single look at Kinga's stony face rather answered that question in the same moment it crossed his mind. Ilja said, "why?"

"Why what?"

"Kinga." Ilja didn't even bother trying to temper his voice. "We're at war with these devils."

"I haven't forgotten."

"He took your eye. Why would you –"

She stood – her wooden chair almost overturned with the violent motion. It made Ina jump. Kinga said, abruptly, coldly, "I'm not particularly interested in a lecture, Schovajsa."

"No one's lecturing you–" Ina began, her voice strident, but Kinga had already gone past her, and down the stone steps, and slammed the door after her as she went out into the yard behind the bakery, leaving a slightly stunned silence in her wake.

Ghjuvan said, "I should..."

Zoran leveraged himself back to his feet. His face looked exceptionally pale; his expression looked exceptionally pained. "No," he said, "no, it's fine, I'll… I'll talk to her."

Funny, Ilja thought, because Kinga and Zoran certainly weren't close enough for this to be a sensible state of affairs – particularly when Kinga was pissed off like this. The last time he had seen her like this, they had been fourteen years old and a callous infantry captain had pinned Dagmara's wing up above the gate to the barracks, to demarcate the boundary between Irij and Kur training compounds. Pekka had held her back from ripping it down, for fear of the demerits, for fear of the punishment which might have resulted, for fear that the Irij cadets would treat her as they had her dead cousin – and when she'd ripped herself free, it had Matthias Kloet who had grabbed her around the neck, and thrown her to the ground, and said, coldly, "if you get yourself killed, who's going to look after Jaga?"

Look after. It had been most unlike Matthias Kloet to use euphemisms like that; it had been the first time that Ilja had ever heard him dance around anything like that, the first time he had never spoken as simply and as bluntly as possible, the first time he had shied away from reality. Kill is the word he should have used.

Even then, Pekka had pulled Kinga up, and spoken to her softly, and Ilja had been quite convinced she was going to shrug him off and go for it again – and he had been thus convinced for all those long, agonising minutes that Pekka spoke to her, gripping her shoulders, until, after two or three minutes thus, Commandant had marched from his office, and stormed into the Irij barracks, and demanded that they take down the mutilated remains of his former student before he did something exceptionally unpleasant to everyone involved.

All of the candidates had been disturbed by that display – tears had overbrimmed Ina's eyes while she hid her face in Zoran's shoulder, and Mielikki had thrown up, and Myghal had sworn and threatened the brown-uniformed cadets milling about on the other side of the fence. Ilja had just stared at the pieces of the thing that had once been called Dagmara, strung up over the gate like a gory flag, and thought, that's what we are on the inside; that's why the Irij treat us like they do; that's what makes us Kur. Devils all.

That's why he had to do this. That's why he had to become a Warrior. That's why they had to find the Radiance, and get home to Irij, and to hell with whatever Illéan devils stood in their way. Repent. Atone. Salvation.

He stood and, to a look of utter gratitude Ina threw his way, he said, warily, "I should keep an eye on those two."

Their conversation was already drifting through the open door as he approached. Zoran was saying, "have you forgiven him?" and from the way Kinga had set her shoulders, the answer was clearly, obviously, in every line of her body, no. No.

"I'm going to kill him," she said. Her voice was quiet, but for Ilja it rang as clear as a bell. "I'm still going to kill him."

"You had your chance."

"I couldn't –" Before she could withdraw, Zoran had put his hand on her shoulder as though to steady her. Kinga's voice never wavered with the suggestion of tears, but this halting quality was as close as she ever got – starting and stopping again, like the words themselves had caught fast in her throat. "It wasn't –"

Silence. Silence for a long, unfractured moment.

After that moment, slowly, reluctantly, softly, Zoran said, "he's not Pekka."

She set her jaw. The words came from her as a defensive drawl, stretched out almost beyond recognition: "well, obviously."

She shrugged off his hand. He said, "then why…?"

"Have you ever considered," she said, her voice more brittle than Ilja could remember hearing since initiation, "that you don't know me as well as you think you do?"

No. Not even for a moment.

"No," Zoran said, hesitant. Ilja had hoped he wouldn't say it; Ilja could hear it straining in him – the hesitation to admit, the hesitation to say. But Zoran was honest. It was a good quality; it was what made him a better person than Ilja. Their lives were entangled so thoroughly, sometimes the other Warriors felt less like comrades and more like some strange, amputated, unruly part of himself. Ina may have been his best friend, but they were all perennial companions by now. Not even Kinga could try to deny that. "Not even for a moment."

"Then tell Matthias Kloet," Kinga said, her voice cold, "to get out of your head before he confuses you any further. About me. About her. About your chances."

Zoran recoiled like he'd been struck. Kinga threw a name over her shoulder.

"Ghjuseppu?"

Strange, Ilja thought, that she used his false name – the name they used to keep his curse at bay, to ensure that the Illéans could not, could never, force him to come hither-and-thither at their whim. But she spent so much time around the other tagma cadets, Ilja thought, it was probably an ingrained habit by now. Better than the alternative.

Ghjuvan appeared in the doorway after a moment. "Yeah?"

"I'm heading back," Kinga said. "To barracks."

"I'll come with you." He already had his swords strapped to him, his coat around his shoulders. "Don't go on your own, Ki, come on."

Zoran was saying, "you don't have to go –"

"Let her." Ilja descended the steps slowly. "No point fighting over what's done."

Kinga was biting back something that would sound crueller to her in the morning, after she'd calmed herself.

"Just remember," Ilja said. "You – we – are Warriors. Not Kur. Not Illéan. Not Schreave."

"Not Irij," Zoran said, softly.

"Not yet. But we can be. We will be. We have to earn it." He looked at Kinga. "Don't forget why we're here. Our duty."

"I know what we are," Kinga said, "I know what we have to do. I've known it all my life. Talking about memory, Ilja – have you forgotten what kind of a family I come from?"

Forgotten? No. Ilja hadn't forgotten. He wasn't a forgetful person; Ilja never forgot.

Fear? Yes. He was scared. Scared, because Ina and Zoran spoke of the locals here in Aizsaule like they were good friends and kind neighbours, like they were back in Opona and speaking of fellow Irij; scared, because Azula and Belle were going into the palace of the wretched Schreaves, to serve them and to seduce them and to sway them and there was no guarantee that their own efforts would not be turned back upon them; scared, because they were all, deep down, just like the devils around them and if they ever allowed themselves to forget that what they were, to forget that they were devils...

"I think you've always been more of a soldier than a warrior," Ilja said. "I think you like obeying orders more than obeying duty. I think you get so caught up in your little promises and oaths that you've forgotten the reason we're here – "

Ghjuvan spoke – snapped – in a rush, like he hadn't even expected himself to speak until it was too late: "Kinga and I have kept the rest of you alive for the past six months, Schovajsa, and we're the only two who actually use our curses. Don't lecture her – me – either of us – about the reason we're here."

"Let's not fight about it," Ina said, from the doorway, "everyone's just doing their best, and doing their part, and we're tired –"

Yes, Ilja thought, yes, it must be exhausting to work at a bakery and go on dates to the night market and braid Azula's hair while the rest of them put their lives on the line. He bit down on the thought, even as it germinated, but there it was, fully-fledged, bouncing off his skull.

Zoran said, softly, "Matthias is all we have right now, Kinga."

"Dead men," the Moon snapped back, "we're relying on dead men left, right, and centre, it seems – rather than trusting me, trusting that I know what I'm doing, you'd rather rely on the word of a corpse –"

Ina said, sounding wounded, "we're not relying..."

"We're not," Ghjuvan said, "but you seem inclined to trust a stranger in enemy territory just because..."

He caught himself.

"Just because?" In the wan light of the courtyard, Ina looked pale and angry and pretty, despite all that, devastatingly pretty. Ilja remembered thinking, as a younger teenager, that her kind of beauty only ever caused trouble. Ilja remembered watching Pekka and Zoran, and thinking that someone, someone, was going to get hurt, horribly hurt. Ilja remembered hearing that Ina had received the Lovers' curse and wondering if the forces of fate had a particularly cruel sense of humour. "Finish the sentence, Ghjuvan – just because what?"

The worst part was that, over her shoulder, Ilja could see that Zoran was, quietly, unhappily, silently, in agreement with Ghjuvan on this point.

Ina said again, "just because?"

The Chariot interrupted before things could get nastier than that – because he sensed that, yes, things were about to get exponentially nastier if left unchecked.

"We have a plan," Ilja said. "And it's a good plan, and it will work. But the more tagma that are dead before we act, the better. The weaker the kingdom before we act, the better. The fewer obstacles that lie between us and returning home to Irij – the better." He looked at the Moon. Couldn't she understand? "Krzysiek is expecting you home, Kinga. You promised to look after us, didn't you? To come home with us." He stepped closer. "The next time Hijikata falls, let him die."

He could see it in her eyes. She'd kill him herself if that's what it took. Ilja knew she would. He trusted her. And despite her anger, she trusted them as well.

That was all. They were just tired, and stressed, and scared. That was all. They were just having a bad day.

And it was going to get worse – because at that moment, he realised out of the corner of his eye that Ghjuvan had vanished and that the lights were ablaze in Khalore's attic bedroom and that Azula had stumbled to the doorway thereof, her eyes wide and scared, and said, "come quick, please come quick, I've just… help her, please."

Just a bad day.

Hyacinth was sitting up in the bed, eyes open. That's what struck Ilja first – that her eyes hung open, cold and staring like the glass orbs of a doll. They were a dull brown, made duller now, like a dark metal corroded by the elements, no shine within, no sign or spark of life remaining. Even her skin was pale and wax-like, without the subtle shiver and movement that usually distinguished a living thing from a corpse. But she was breathing; Ilja could see it. And when he went to check her pulse, he found that her heart was beating, slowly beating.

Zoran said, softly, "is she…?"

"She's alive," Ilja said. "She's just… not here right now."

And she wasn't. She was alive, certainly alive, but she was simply absent. It was the best and only way he could think of describing it. Absent. He wasn't sure how he could tell, how he could be so certain, but he was. He could feel it. There was nothing there for him to latch onto, no hint of personality, no person in the empty shell that had been Hyacinth earlier in the day. It reminded Ilja of the statues that he'd seen in the halls of history, some of which had always been rumoured to be the frozen bodies of former Towers. Was that where they had put Pekka…?

Focus.

"She's still alive," he said, and that was all it took for Azula to sink to the ground and put her head into her hands and suck in a ragged breath that sounded more like an inhaled scream, caught before it could create sound, than an actual sob. Ina went down on her heels beside her, putting a reassuring arm around the youngest Warrior and pulling her close even as Azula shook with whatever emotion she'd been keeping pent up for the last few long minutes. Ina stroked Azula's hair and spoke to her softly, even as she looked up at Ilja with an expression somewhere between sadness and genuine fear. "I don't know..."

Kinga stepped forward, and knelt beside the bed. Leaning forward, seemingly ignorant of the way that Ilja tensed as she did so, she reached out a scarred hand and very gently closed Hyacinth's eyes. Ilja wondered if that made a difference – wondered if maybe Hyacinth had been watching them from somewhere very deep within herself. As Kinga withdrew her hand, he saw the strange swelling underneath the Sun's jaw, like something was growing deep within her body and pressing up against the constraints of her skin and flesh. There were other swellings as well, he saw, a large one on Hyacinth's arm, another just beneath her collarbone, even one flourishing just beneath her zygomatic – small, very small, easily mistaken for a trick of the light or just a raised bump, like a freckle.

Ina said, "do you think she'll be… she'll recover?"

"She cut her strings," Zoran said, sounding hollow again. It was an awful sound, an awful voice, somewhat tinny, distant, like someone who wasn't quite there. Another strange, torn breath from Azula, and another, and another. Unending, even as Ina tightened her embrace, even as Khalore came up the stairs behind them, even as Nez crossed the threshold, and caught sight of Hyacinth, and stared, and stared, and stared. "It's okay. Azula just cut her strings."

The Devil was starting, Ilja thought, to live up to the name of her curse.