bailiwick (n.) a person's area of skill, knowledge, authority, or work.

Ilja Schovajsa had woken in the middle of the afternoon, believing for a split second that he had heard someone cry – Ina, in the next room, perhaps, but Inanna Nirari was not here (though her grief was here, here and real and as close as a knife pressed against the throat, a strange cold kiss), her face not pressed against Pekka Hämäläinen's shoulder (for Pekka was gone, gone and not coming back, gone where they could not follow, not yet) in the bed next to Ghjuvan Mannazzu (but Ghjuvan had followed, as surely as if he had been called, and perhaps indeed Pekka had called him away, had needed him more). If it had not been Ina, Ilja though for a moment, then perhaps he himself was weeping; he felt his face, and it was dry. Then he looked at the window and thought: why, yes, it's just the rain, the rain, always the rain; he had turned over, sadder still, and fumbled about for his dripping sleep and tried to slip it back on. He had been dreaming of his childhood – of Frida Tenkrát and of the Preacher and of all of the children in the orphanage's custody. He had been dreaming of having an older sister in the army whose scornful gaze felt more a bruise than any of the actual wounds accumulated along his back; he had been dreaming of having a twin, his own face reflected back unfamiliar, moving in strange and novel ways to express emotions for which he had no scope of reference; he had been dreaming of stirring poison into tea, gently, as though all of his love had been poured in alongside it, and watching a brother he had never had sip it slowly, gratefully, and thank him for his kindness.

When he awoke, he could not say why this moment had struck him so. It clung to him like a burr; he found himself rising in the dark, just before dusk, still thinking of the rain. Even as he and the other male guards filed for the shared baths and took their turns at scrubbing themselves in preparation for the ball ahead, Ilja found that the water did not wash away the memory of that moment.

He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with devils now, and pretending to be one of them, facing the polished metal plate that approximated a mirror for the royal battalion; Ilja found himself staring at his own reflection, stark and somehow unnerving. He always found it difficult to recognise himself; he usually chalked that up to an existence without mirrors for the most part, after a childhood in the orphanage and in the programme, but it was becoming more difficult over time, like a memory made paler for the simple act of remembering, like a memory that really amounted to a memory of the last time that he had tried to remember. Ilja found himself looking into his own eyes most seldomly; every time it was like a surprise. Oh, he knew that was him, and he knew he could adopt an expression of sincere guileless surprise like so, or feign sorrow like this, but to observe the curve of his lip, to trace the shadow of his own cheekbone, to see the precise colour of his eyes, gone so grey…. this was rare.

Using this wavering reflection, Ilja shaved quickly, precisely, and adjusted his hair into a semblance of tidiness. As though in tribute to Zoran, he found himself slicking back the dark locks into the strange formal style that the Hierophant frequently adopted, looking more like a commissioned officer with a trust fund and a fiancée than a Warrior. Beside him, Agnar said, "it's not a fashion show, Schovajsa."

Ilja paused and pursed his lips, adjusting the strands of hair that still stubbornly hung over his eyebrows, despite his best efforts to imitate Zoran's slicked-back style. "You think they'll give merits for style?"

Don't cut yourself shaving. They can smell blood in the water round here.

He was dwelling perpetually within an echo.

Repent. Atone. Salvation.

"We're set-dressing," Björn said. "Tonight is about them."

He said it with venom. Ilja was privately delighted to have found a group about which the devils felt the same way that he felt about them. It made it easy to win a smile or an approving nod; a murmured curse aimed at the tagma whenever realities of living within a cage weighed too heavy, and it was as though he had always been their comrade and always would be. They didn't have to make it so easy for him, he mused, they really didn't. It was as though they were begging to be lied to.

As he finished washing his face, he was smiling. He departed the barracks with a trail of hollers and teasing drifting behind him. The others would assume that he was in a good mood because he was off to see his date for the night – and the others would have been right. Inviting Inanna had been an impulsive act, performed in the spur of the moment, but it had felt right then and it still did. Ilja was quietly determined to ensure that the other Warrior had a wonderful evening. He and Kinga could perform the needful, he thought wryly. After all that had happened – after all that she had dragged them through, leaving no man behind and no Warrior alone – Ina just deserved a night of champagne and silk and music.

This much he could do for his friend.

As Zoran's rooftop had become a kind of strange safe haven for the older Warriors during their stolen night-time meetings, so too did it feel nice to take a winding cobbled path to Eero's little cavernous workshop, tucked away in one of the smaller Kass alleyways. Down a few concrete steps, and the door stuck a little – you had to put your shoulder to it – but the room within was warm, and slightly smoky, and hushed. It was dark, the only light originating from the glowing embers amongst the cinders of the fireplace that occupied the majority of the northern wall. That light was a pale amber colour, and it crept, rather than illuminated: crept across the tiles, and the stone counter, and Hyacinth's glassy eyes, staring at nothing, seeing nothing.

Ilja could not stop himself from recoiling. "Gods."

Eero glanced at him. "Sorry. Forgot you were dropping by." He was holding Khalore's scalpel, the one rusted red with the blood of the Hanged Man, and watching Hyacinth closely; he looked exhausted, as though he had not slept, his golden hair dishevelled.

"She's sitting up." Ilja eased himself into a seat at the edge of the futon. Hyacinth was sitting upright in Ina's chair by the fire, her posture ram-rod straight, her tangled hair falling over one shoulder and her eyes wide open and staring, only the slightest hint of a vein juttering out in her throat to suggest that she was a still living thing. He wondered if there was any part of her awake; he knew that Ina sometimes sang when she was sharpening her sword or setting the fire, in case the Sun could hear that much, to let her know that she was among her fellow Warriors and that she was safe. Looking at her now, at the strange waxy texture of her skin, the dull look in her gaze, Ilja found it hard to believe that there was still anything dwelling within the shell but for, perhaps, the remnants of the curse which had made her so dangerous. "That's something."

"I thought I had her earlier." Eero shook his head tiredly. "I'm starting to think Orfeas might have had a point with Facundo."

Ilja barely restrained a shudder. Céluiz Facundo was the Devil prior – the boy whose tongue had been cut out to prevent him from using his gift against their handlers. Ilja remembered seeing him from afar a few times as a child in the Programme, always wondering why he was kept around, why the Warriors had not insisting on replacing him and obtaining a Devil that could contribute. He understood it a little better now; before they had figured out Khalore's gift, had he ever thought of replacing her?

Perhaps he didn't want to answer himself honestly on that count. Not now. Not tonight.

Ilja sighed deeply, and threw himself back on the couch. Whoever had last been sleeping on this futon had used one of Ghjuvan's green coats for a pillow; it smelt like him, the subtle scent of something similar to jasmine. "How's our little Scholar?"

"She's not back yet."

Khalore Angelo, their Scholar, their rock, their Hanged Man. Ilja wouldn't have believed it, six months ago. Little Lore had stepped up when they needed her most. In the part of him which was less grey than the rest, he loved her for it. He said, "and Nanna?"

"Upstairs."

"Does she like the dress?"

Eero said, "I do."

Ilja laughed. It was a grey sound. He hadn't realised that it could be, until it was, and then it was, and he wondered how long it had been. He almost said it's a good thing Pekka didn't hear you say that, but remembered, just in time, and the words rattled around his head shaking chains as he bit his tongue and stared at the ground and said nothing, only chuckled.

Eero sounded more serious now. "Make sure you stay safe."

"We always do."

Eero leaned against the counter; Khalore had left a screwdriver standing up in its surface, driven deep within the stone with a strength that did not belong to her. He wrenched it free, sending little chips of granite this way and that, and flipped in his hand, looking thoughtful. He said, "you and Ina."

He nodded.

"Azula and Belle."

He nodded.

"And if something goes wrong?"

"Kaasik will be in the mix."

Eero frowned. "Are you sure? Have you heard from her?"

Ilja said, "I'm sure."

"So if something goes wrong," Eero said, slowly, uncertainly. "Your solution is for the Moon to transform and start killing people." Not people. He shook his head. "You know that it'll be captured in about ten seconds, right? You'll be shoulder-to-shoulder with tagma all night long. Hijikata already took its eye – this time, it'll be an enclosed space."

Ilja smiled, and said nothing.

"Every so often," Eero said, teasingly, "I'm at risk of considering you lot cunning and then..."

"We're cunning enough," said Ilja, "we only need to be so cunning."

"More than the Schreaves."

"That's a good starting point." Ilja smiled. "Put Kaasik right next to Silas, have her transform, right up close – if the Radiance was there, they'd have to reveal themselves. Don't you think?"

Eero looked thoughtful. He said, "say Aviram instead and you've got two-thirds of a plan put together already."

Ilja sat up. It was idle talk; Kinga would be dead in moments, and they would be left without any way to feasibly seize the curse. Maybe if it was Hyacinth instead, he thought, remembering the way Kinga's flesh had melted beneath the strange wavering energy of the Sun's gift, maybe if she was conscious enough – just enough – to put her next to Aviram and detonate, like a strange kind of dirty bomb….

That had been an old favourite of Voski Grigoryan's. That was why he was remembering it now; they had studied her in class. They had studied all of the Warriors, as though their successes had been replicable, as though redemption could be aped so. Had they redeemed themselves? Decebal Nicolescu had collapsed into dust; Jaga Szymańska had been slaughtered by her own little sister, as she had slain her cousin in turn; Matthias Kloet had died embracing a monstrous manifestation of their shared sins. Which part of that was salvation?

Repent. Atone. Salvation.

Eero said, "I know it's going slowly. But this is it."

Ilja looked at him.

"If we do this right," Eero said, "we go home. And then it's over."

"Over," Ilja echoed. "All of it?"

"All of it."

He was right. Uniting the curses under Irij, ending the Schreaves' reign once and for all, putting an end to the final vestiges of the Kur empire and the devils that had sworn fealty to it – that was redemption. That was why they were here. That was why Ilja had allowed himself to fade, bit his tongue when the devils brushed too close to him, laughed at Morozova's barbed jokes, and tolerated the grief and rage and exhaustion and doubt on Ina's face, on Lore's face, on Zula's face, on Zor's face, whenever he saw them. This was it.

"When you put it like that," Ilja said, "we should get going. The sooner, the better."

"Don't do anything drastic. You're there for one job."

Ilja spread his hands, pleading. "You're telling me," he said, "if I get the chance to take Silas Schreave's head – I shouldn't take it?"

"Of course not," Eero said. "Be a gentleman. Leave it to Ina."

She was gorgeous. There was no denying that simple fact; if he was a poet, he might have been able to better do justice to the precise gravity of the beauty before him: her hair was sable and her skin sardonyx and her lips ruby and her eyes pure gold. He had always thought her eyes must be some strange shade of hazel, only taking on this colour in a particular light, but no – they simply were.

Maybe it was the dress accentuating all of these colours. Why were all of the colours so bright this evening? Ina had never dressed so in Irij; she had always preferred romantic pastels, all puffy sleeves and off-the-shoulder garments. This dress was pretty, Ilja thought, though he knew very little about dresses – it was in two pieces, with detached sleeves, all blood red lace clinging very tightly to Ina's body like a strange, clutching caress. Ilja remembered deciding a very long time ago that he should not add to the beautiful Nirari girl's list of male problems with his own attention – Pekka and Zoran and Eero formed a strangely lopsided tip to that particular iceberg – and he was glad, now, for that decision; it made it easier to help Ina with the buttons on the back of her dress, knuckles grazing the soft skin of her back and shoulders, without anything untoward coming to mind.

Maybe this was what the girls had always viewed as the advantage of having a boyfriend, he mused, just as the boys had appreciated the haircuts and the help with shaving. Pekka had never appreciated this particular benefit as much as he ought, wearing his hair cropped so short; he had been held down and forcibly sheared after collecting too many demerits for helping other cadets in assessments, and never let it grow out, not until the day he had died. Ilja wasn't sure he could have recognised Pekka with any amount of hair; it was part of what made Eero so eerie, the way he resembled his younger brother in the broad strokes but defied the details: pierced ears and long hair and smirks instead of half-smiles. Ghjuvan hadn't been entirely wrong; Ilja wasn't sure he would have felt comfortable with the interloper so soon, if not for the comforting familiarity of the Hämäläinen resemblance.

"There," he said, "not too tight?"

Inanna shook her head. "Thanks, Ilja."

"My pleasure." He stepped back. Her hands were shaking, very slightly, as she affixed her gold-and-red earrings; she had pursed her lips, looking deep in thought. "Are you nervous?"

She sighed and turned her mask over in her hands. In a room as small as this one – barely large enough for the single bed which touched three walls, with blankets piled high in that idiosyncratic way that Khalore had – that sigh seemed exceptionally loud, and close, and warm. "A little."

"Don't be." Ilja smiled, and took the mask from her. They were both wearing gloves – his smoke grey, hers fire red. She seemed glad for them; he couldn't blame her for that. "No one is even going to see you."

"I don't know how you do it." Inanna shook her head. "Straight into the lion's den."

Ilja cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was a perfect recreation of Ghjuvan's – every part of it, the intonation, the rhythm, the baritone rumble like it was originating from somewhere very deep within his chest. He wasn't sure why. Was this where he was drawing his strength from, lacking his own organic bravery? "Just trust in the cause, Nanna. We're going to be fine."

She nodded, hesitantly.

"We're going to be fine." He sounded like himself again, so it sounded less true.

"Well," she said ruefully, "if you say it, then it must be true."

He chuckled. Was he known as a liar? He wasn't sure he would describe himself as such, but he wasn't certain either that it was a dishonest characterisation; were falsehoods the same as lies? Was this – this grey existence – a perpetual deceit? Not to anyone who mattered. He'd been picked from a long line of orphans like a prize-winning pit-dog; any veil drawn over that base reality was a sort of deception. Zoran had recognised that in him, the first time they had met; Zoran had seen the strange emptiness within him. Maybe that was why Ilja had been so immediately drawn to him, briefly best friends when they had first arrived at the campus, in that easy way that children had; it had lasted a grand total of six weeks. The part of Ilja which held grudges had disliked Ina for many months for stealing his friend from him; the rest of him had learned to care for her, as seemed inevitable.

No wonder she had wound up with the curse of the Lovers. Whatever demon allocated the curses must have had a sense of humour. A cruel sense of humour, perhaps, but nonetheless – why, then, he wondered, had he become the Chariot?

Repent. Atone. Salvation.

Ilja said, "Do you mind if I…?"

She didn't mind.

He leaned forward and, very gently, pressed the edges of the mask so that it adhered to her skin more tightly, so that the lace clung to the contours of her face in a tight embrace, cloaking her most distinctive features. Next to the blood-red colour of the fabric, her eyes looked like the colour of the sun itself, more brightly gold than he could ever remember seeing them before. Had they always shone so brightly?

He said, "maybe you should try being someone else tonight. Give Inanna Nirari a break."

She laughed. "Maybe," she said, "you should try being yourself."

He cocked an eyebrow. "I will if you will."

Inanna smiled. Ah. He could almost sympathise with Zoran when she smiled like that. He could understand why Eero looked at her the way he did. He could understand why Pekka had been Pekka; it must have been easy, to be so good, so brave and kind, when someone who smiled like this loved you for the person that you were in the middle of the night. "Then you might just have yourself a deal."

Accompanying Ina to the Ganzir felt like seeing the whole place with brand new eyes; it felt like strange greyscale had fallen from his eyes. The lines of grey-suited guards, freed from their duties for the evening, wound their ways through all of the components of the palace compound like narrow rivers of quicksilver, interspersed by those comrades left on rotating shift for the night, clad in a darker charcoal grey. Ilja had been permitted to keep his sword on his person for the evening, for fear of an unexpected attack; for her part, Ina had concealed one of Khalore's reinforced knives, strapped to her thigh. She seemed calmer knowing that it was there; that was good. The last thing they needed was for her to lose her cool when it mattered most.

Approaching the palace now, Ilja was struck all over again at how unlike expectations it had been. As a child, when they had spoken of the last remnants of the Kur Empire on an island full of monsters across the sea, he had always imagined it as a fortress and nothing more: a squat, grey castle with a single set of walls and a miserable army within, stained with shit and dressed in rags. Not like this – a castle that seemed to have grown from the land itself, all pale yellowstone spires tipped in gold and spiralling redbrick patterns leading into the inner courtyards, the bell-tower on the northern point all ebony and the aerie on the southern point all onyx, like the statutes in Gjöll. The doors were enormous, more like one of the behemoth gates set into the Walls than something a human being should move through. It should have been beautiful, but it was cold and somehow devoid of life; even as maids and guards and footmen hurried this way and that, there was a strange frozen quality to the day, as though Ilja was watching them from afar. It was like looking at a photograph in which everyone was dead, and didn't know it yet; they were still smiling, weren't they?

Most of the guards had brought a companion, though the insistence on masks had rather elided Ilja's ability to discern just who their companions were. He knew that Agnar was bringing his mother, and Björn his wife, so there could be any mix of people in the crowd that pressed up close around the guardhouse tagma and the court would enter through the front-door; those guards who had been allowed to attend the ball as guests would still be soldiers first, and filter in through the back. Reiko Morozova, cutting a distinctive dagger-like silhouette that marked her out despite her full-face silver masque, was standing at the head of the steps, verifying identities and scrutinising guests. She was half-on-duty, which meant she wouldn't relax or leave Asenath's side for the whole night; Ilja wasn't certain why anyone had ever thought that she might behave otherwise.

She barely glanced at him as he and Ina stepped up. "Schovajsa."

"Lieutenant."

"And your companion?"

"Sherida," he said. That was Ina's little sister's name; it was a good choice. She'd turn when she heard it, which was usually the greatest risk with using a false name – Kinga had been good about it, but he had seen the hesitation to react in her eyes many times over those first few weeks that she had been Kunegunda Kaasik. For someone whose identity was so bound up in a single word – – yes, it must have been strange to switch over and subsume yourself in a different identity. Not everyone could do it so ably. So Sherida – a good choice. "Sherida Nirari."

Ina smiled. The mask did much to conceal whatever emotions laid concealed in her eyes; she seemed appropriately nervous, but no more. "Lieutenant."

Reiko's cold jewel-like gaze hovered on Ina for a long moment.

And then she said, "go on."

She jerked her head. The two Warriors slipped into the palace.

Ina took Ilja's arm, her gloves creating a slight dent in the felt of the coat sleeve as they wound their way through the plain stone corridors – the warren, as the guards termed them, the servant halls which allowed for quick movement throughout the palace. Ilja patted the back of Ina's hand very gently, and glanced at her; her gaze was focused. They were here for one thing and one thing only: find Belle and impart the Star of Kur.

Going through initiation on her own, in enemy territory – was it really such a good idea? Eero had seemed agreeable to it, but Ilja didn't fully trust that the World wasn't simply being arrogant about their chances. He was a knowledgeable guy, and sworn to the cause, but not omniscient. If Zoran had been here, then perhaps…

Well, Zoran's visions had always seemed stubbornly devoted to ambiguity. Maybe it would have just confused matters further. Ilja would stand in his stead; Ilja would make these decisions with the clear conscience of one who knows nothing, not even knowing what he does not know. He had worn his hair like Zoran's tonight, and hadn't even been sure if it was for Ina's sake or his own that he had done it. At this moment, so much of himself seemed to be patched together from the other Warriors – Ghjuvan's voice and Zoran's hair, Khalore's silent protectiveness and Kinga's watchful gaze and Pekka's reassuring presence, patting Ina's hand and smiling at her as he might have.

"Ballroom?" Ina murmured, and Ilja agreed silently. The best place to start – if Belle wasn't there, then Azula might be. All of these grey-garbed maids seemed particularly anonymous tonight, particularly alike. But he would know Zula when he saw her. He hoped he would know Zula when he saw her.

They went to the ballroom. It was a gargantuan space, one that Ilja had never found reason to enter, and as they did enter, he found himself silently horrified by just how lovely it was. It was enormous, with ceilings vaulted so high that he had to put his head straight back to stare up at it, several floors above. The walls were fretted with little granite balconies, connected to the main dance floor by several tightly spiralling stone staircases and concealed in some semblance of privacy by enormous red-velvet curtains falling from ceiling to floor. The floor was gorgeous red marble, struck through with forked veins that resembled so much white lightning; golden sculptures overhung the door, images of druj and men alike falling beneath the swords and knives of the marauding Kur. At the end of the room, two enormous stained-glass doors displaying the discovery of the Walls after the Fall of Siarka had been flung open to give access to the enormous set of tangled gardens which ensared the palace. One was never far from the sickly sweet scent of aconitum, which hung over Ganzir like a shroud when the wind was low.

People were slowly filtering into the room now, guards looking stoic and their guests agape at the majesty of the space, while court ladies flitted this way and that to greet one another and speak in that peculiar high-pitched dialect of Ganzir. All jewels tones tonight, ruby reds and emerald greens and sapphire blues in the name of the tagma who were ostensibly being honoured – all but the guards, who were obliged to wear grey even now. No Selected, and no Azula; Ilja made a silent assessment of the room, and noted – thank fuck – the bar being set up in the little closet adjacent to the ballroom.

Little closet – it was larger Eero's whole house. Only next to this enormous dancing space would it have ever been mistaken as little. But they had champagne and wine and whiskey. It was a god-send.

"Something to drink?" Ilja glanced at Ina, and found that she was staring elsewhere.

He followed Inanna's gaze. Kane Hijikata's squad had made a quiet arrival, very likely via the windows or the back door; they were some of the first tagma to have arrived, and stood out starkly from the crowd for the way that they stood and moved, which was warily. They were a small group of four, and every one of those four still bore the obvious legacy of the Battle at Aizsaule – Kane Hijikata had a long trail of purple bruises leading from the corner of his mouth down his throat, as though left there by a lover's mouth; Rakel Sjöberg was wearing a shiny brass ring on her knuckle and a dress that bared the new angry red stitches crossing her shoulder blade; it was becoming clear that Sanav Mahesar was learning to smile and speak around a swollen lip and a missing tooth. In comparison, the black lines creeping across Kinga Kaasik's arms and collarbones, following the spidering web of her veins and arteries, seemed almost inconsequential. The devilry etched upon her was overt now; if he hadn't known better, it might have seemed like a prelude to fading, to succumbing. But Kinga was smiling. She looked well. She looked happy.

Ilja could read the lines of Inanna's body, the silence which pronounced what the other teenager stubbornly would not. "She's just doing her job, Nirari."

He couldn't blame her; it wasn't so long ago that they had been huddled on Zoran's rooftop, sharing qaymer and stubbornly refusing to be too serious about the task at hand. We're friends, Kinga had said, the last night that they had gathered so, you need to keep secrets from your friends?

Ilja wasn't sure if Ina sounded angry, or wounded, when she said, "is that her job?"

Kinga Kaasik was smiling around the edge of her wine glass at something that Sanav Mahesar had said as she reached forward to pull at Kane Hijikata's shirt collar gently, teasingly, saying something indistinct, Rakel Sjöberg leaning against her to take the weight off her injured knee. Her hair was almost long enough to be called long again. Like the Illéans, she was wearing a little green pin, delineating rank and class and loyalty, which made Ilja look away. It seemed so much like a declaration.

Kinga may have been ranked first in the Programme, but Ilja knew she didn't have his flair for becoming someone else, when someone else was needed.

"Yes," Ilja said, "that's her job."

He tugged gently at a lock of Ina's jet-black hair.

"Come on. Something to drink."

They needed to find Belle.

He thought that he had spotted her, but she was gone in an instant, like a broken mirage, spirited away by the brunette court lady who seemed to be her handler. The Selected girl left behind was Asian as well, taller and leaner than Belle, and missing one leg, though this fact was mostly concealed by the long train which crested from her dress. It was a well-tailored garment, mint-green and off-the-shoulder, which made her seem rather thinner than she was. She wasn't wearing a mask; she had a pretty, fine-featured face, and intelligent brown eyes that turned towards them with apprehension and curiosity as Ilja said, "excuse me, sorry –"

Belle's erstwhile companion seemed a little crestfallen to realise who they were, though she did her best to conceal that disappointment behind a warm smile and a little wave that might have seemed endearing from anyone but a devil. "Oh. Hello."

"Hello," Ilja said. "Sorry – did you see where Eunbyeol got to?"

Beside him, Ina was silently appreciative of this reminder. He didn't blame her; Eunbyeol had never seemed like Belle's name, not really.

The Selected girl looked at them apprehensively, as though trying to decide whether or not to lie. It was an admirable instinct, Ilja thought – if two masked strangers asking after your friend wasn't a justification for deceit, he wasn't sure what would be. It was strangely nice, to know that Belle might have somehow earned such loyalty from those around her, even in the depths of the palace.

Luckily, Ina spoke swiftly, her voice as smooth and rich as honey. "We're friends from home," she said, sweetly. "Sherida? Sherida Nirari? She might have mentioned me..."

Ina knew damn well that Belle would not have mentioned her, but her calm, sweet smile and their obviously pacifistic demeanour seemed to relax the Selected girl enough for her to make an introduction – "she was here a moment ago, but I'm not sure where she's gone to now. Sorry. Evanne Chae." She offered an ungloved hand; Ina shook it gingerly, and then Ilja, and then Evanne Chae said, "Mirabelle wanted to introduce her to someone. Maybe the gardens?"

Mirabelle must have been the handler. Ilja said, "I appreciate it, Evanne. Thank you."

She smiled. "Don't let Mirabelle catch you calling me that."

Ah. Of course. He was a guard; he had no business calling her by her first name.

"What district do you represent?" Ina inquired kindly.

"Obušek," Evanne Chae replied. One of the fallen districts, though unlike the others, the Warriors could not be blamed for that. It had fallen before their time, and stood for many years as the worst cataclysm the kingdom had ever faced. How must it feel, Ilja wondered, to see a watermark for tragedy established and then drowned, over and over again, by horrors so far beyond imagination? In six months, the Warriors had caused more destruction than sixty years, one hundred and sixty years, of druj onslaught. "Let's hope that's not an omen."

All these people, dancing, drinking, gossiping –

Had they ever faced a real druj? Did they really not sense the xrafstars moving among them?

"I'm sure that it isn't." Ina smiled. Evanne Chae seemed slightly dazzled. "Best of luck in the Selection, Lady Obušek."

"Thank you. I'll let Eunbyeol know that you're looking for her, if I see her."

They retreated, leaving Evanne Chae standing on her own. She seemed strangely content to be left so; Ilja watched her, and found that she was crowd-watching with a certain air of interest, like she could not bring herself to admit that she was looking for someone in particular, like she was genuinely interesting in watching the revellers move about but secretly hoping to spot one reveller in particular.

Beside him, Ina was frowning at thin air – sorting strings, she said, and Ilja nodded like this made any sense at all, and then Ina had said it's back again, it's back, and frowned deeper, and took his arm tightly, as though they were at risk of being swept away in a sudden flood and needed to make sure that they would not be separated when that happened.

They were about to move towards the gardens thus, when Ilja felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. Glancing back, he found Björn standing expectantly behind him, smiling at Ina broadly. "What," Ilja said flatly, not bothering too much with politeness.

Björn cleared his throat. "Any chance of an introduction?"

"To my date?"

Björn said, "you wouldn't begrudge me one dance, would you?"

For a split second, Ilja bristled – as though Ina was actually his date – but only a moment passed before he had relented. Looking for Belle could surely be a single person job, and he had sworn to himself that he would give Ina a nice night, a night of relaxation, a night of glamour and – yes, he supposed – of dancing.

He glanced at her. "Do you feel like dancing?"

He did not miss the way that Ina had glanced down, to check if the other guard was wearing gloves. "I can dance," she said, clearly relieved to find that he was. Perhaps she had also scrutinised the strings between them, to determine the guard's intentions – clearly, she had found them to be a little purer than Ilja had assumed that they might be. "But not very well."

"That's alright," Björn said, "we can always make it up as we go."

In this much, at least, he was gentlemanly, offering her his arm rather than his hand. Ilja touched Ina's elbow gently – "I'll find you afterwards," he murmured – and then they were off, moving towards the dance floor which had only just been declared open by a politely applauding Asenath Schreave, looking like a goddess in pink lace. She was the only person not wearing the colours of the tagma, or the grey of the palace guard; in this much, she stood out and stood apart, distinguishing herself effortlessly. Ilja watched Ina go, suddenly feeling the ache of strange, misplaced familiarity as Björn, tall and fair and handsome, led her into the centre of the room. Ina must not have recognised it; certainly, he didn't think she would be smiling if she had. They were introducing themselves, Björn stumbling over his words a little. Ilja just hoped that Ina would remember that she was meant to be Sherida tonight, someone without Inanna's grief or responsibilities weighing her down.

He moved towards the enormous stained glass doors, aware out of the corner of his eyes that Ina and Björn had begun to dance. One step ahead of him, two dark-haired tagma were bickering under their breath as they moved out towards the garden for some fresh air. "It's the collar," one of them was saying. "I know that Kenta can make nice shirts, so why did you insist on that collar?"

Their words drifted back to him, sounding like any two friends teasing one another. He was acutely aware that it seemed like he was following them; they had chosen one of the meandering paths that wound its way, maze-like, between the clouds of kalmia flowers and the thickets of datura which swallowed up vast swathes of garden. They were both wearing boots, despite the formal occasion, so that the gravel crunched loudly underfoot; by comparison, Ilja was quite silent, as he tended to be. "You love it really."

"I'm going to burn it."

A laugh. "I'll get you one. We can match. "

His companion wasn't totally mirthless; there was a smile in her voice. "I'll burn that too."

The gardens were enormous, and lit here and there by flickering red torches; it seemed that, if the ballroom was the domain of the Selected and their ilk, the courtiers and the aristocrats and the royals, that many of the tagma had drifted out here to recollect themselves. Everywhere Ilja turned, he seemed to catch sight of some new horrific injury, barely concealed beneath makeup or layers of tulle or a well-tailored jacket; even those who had been spared a physical maiming had the same look in their eyes as the soldiers that Ilja had seen coming back from the New Asian front, like they were still stranded somewhere on the battlefield, like they were still watching their friends die.

Would they all look so, by the time they got back to Irij?

There was no sign of Belle, and he wasn't sure why there would be; there was no-one distinguished here, to which introductions might be made. There were just wounded men and hollow women, excuses for a party. They would be called hero tonight, and flung in front of the druj again tomorrow. Ilja should have felt sympathy for them, but – no. He couldn't. They had chosen to remain with the Empire, hadn't they? The Kur might have carried their ancestors' sins, but they had, either out of belated conscience or blasted cowardice, at least chosen to throw themselves at the mercy of Irij (and Irij had been merciful, to let them live so, to let them atone so – what was the Warrior Programme, if not mercy?).

As though his thoughts had sounded aloud, one of the two tagma just in front of him flicked a glance back in his direction, looking acutely aware of his presence and nearness. Perhaps he had not been so silent, then. "Do you need something?"

"Nothing at all, Kaasik."

She was, like the rest of the Warriors, like Ina, one of the only points of colour in this whole fucking palace. For a long time Ilja had thought that it was just how things were here, how people in Ganzir tended to be, but the other tagma were the same – faded, greyed, as though captured in an old daguerrotype photograph. The black of Kinga's hair was very black; her brown skin was very brown; her smile was very white, and very bright. He could see the little points of gold along her arms where the light spilling from the ballroom split along her hairs or caught the edges of a pore; it was strangely lovely. Next to her, Hijikata was a silhouette in charcoal, nothing quite the colour or shade that it should have been. He said, "you know each other?"

"He's one of Morozova's." Kinga looked amused. "Like you were."

Hijikata rolled his eyes. Ilja said, "actually, I was wondering if you wanted to dance."

Kinga smiled pleasantly. "Fuck off."

"I mean it. It would be a great honour." He held her gaze tightly, a silent dare brewing in their exchanged look. He knew her. She knew him. There was a non-zero chance that he would escalate matters – confess love, or confront her about an affair, or claim that they were going to have a baby together. It had been a favoured manner of embarrassing Uriasz in public when they were younger, how quickly the cadets would all catch on to whatever outrageous lie Ilja was spinning to fluster the other boy. Kinga had never quite mastered it, always staying too straight-faced to truly pull off the melodrama required of the trick. From her, everything always sounded dangerously plausible. Treasonous words like that… don't you love your family, Chrzanowski? How many lashes do you think your sedition would earn them?

Ilja barely managed to resist shaking his head to dispel these thoughts. He was in a nostalgic mood today, it would seem – echoes, constant echoes.

Kinga relented, fear apparent in her eyes. "One. One dance."

Ilja smiled. "Well," he said, "we'll see what happens."

Easing himself into a seat on the bench, Hijikata said, sounding amused, "I'll come save you in ten minutes."

"My hero." Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Make it five?"

"Sorry, Kunegunda. I'm under instructions from Kenta that you're to enjoy yourself. Be grateful it's not a half hour."

Ilja barely managed to hide his smile as he turned; Kinga was at his heels as he set off on the garden path again, selecting one which would take a meandering path back towards the palace but accord them a little bit of time in the dark by themselves. "Don't think you needed to be ordered to enjoy yourself," he murmured, under his breath, as a rose bush overgrew the path and hid them from Hijikata's view. "Seemed like you were doing just fine by yourself."

"I've already killed one person today, Schovajsa. Don't tempt me any further."

"I have no doubt." He chuckled. "I'm just hurt that I never seem to be under consideration, you know?"

"Oh, darling." Kinga grabbed his arm and clutched it close; it threw him off balance a little, her enthusiasm, her big white smile. "You know that I could never cheapen the sanctity of our love with something so base and primal."

He was laughing. Maybe she was better at this bit than he had realised. Or maybe she'd already started drinking. "You're such a fucking moron, Kaasik."

"Tonight," she said, "just a moron. I swear."

He glanced at her, a smirk curving his mouth.

She said, "I swear to God, I just want to take his eye. That's all. Just an eye. It's only fair." There was a razor edge of mirth in her voice. "You know. Mevenge, mayback, mengeance."

"Metribution."

"You get it."

"Oh, okay. This will be the first strong and silent older guy that you don't fall in love with. Understood." Ilja nodded sagely. "You know, poor Ghjuvan's not even cold in the ground."

Kinga said, indignantly, and with the air of one desperate to change the subject, "and Khalore got all his stuff."

"You don't think that's fair?"

"Our comrade, our stuff."

"You could fight her for it."

"God, no. I like my guts where they are, thank you."

Ilja thought better than to say what flitted across his mind next; Kinga recognised it in his eyes, and pushed him away, swearing, and laughing, and swearing. She looked striking tonight; Ilja had never thought of her as pretty, and rather thought he never would. It was too delicate a word.

It was strange, the contrasts that she could embody, Ilja thought, remembering the night that he had found her ripping herself free of the curse-wrought beast of Kur and wondering if she had been the thing, or if she had been within the thing, or if perhaps there was truly no difference. She didn't look monstrous now. She barely looked like a Warrior.

She looked positively Illéan.

She was wearing the same vibrant moss green colour that Hijikata was wearing on his cravat. It was the same colour as Sanav Mahesar's jacket or the skirt of Rakel's dress. Unlike Ina's gorgeous ball-gown, which Hijikata Fabrics had produced for the better part of three months' wage, Kinga's garment was decidedly simpler: shorter, for a start, but not daringly so, grazing mid-thigh and swaying when she moved enough that it looked like she could have fought if she needed to. It had a flared skirt and a tight-fitting bodice, with four thin straps clinging to either shoulder, which gave it a strangely complicated appearance for such a plain dress. The sweetheart neckline was lower than he could ever remember Kinga wearing; almost instinctively, he averted his eyes, even as he put a hand at her waist to pull her with him on the left-hand turn. She said, "you're here just to bully me? What happened to your mission?"

"I cannot find Belle," Ilja said, "I cannot find Belle anywhere."

In this light, she looked a lot like Jaga, even beneath the strange green mask she had worn – it was fuller on one side, covering her bad eye without need for an eyepatch, and then offering some relief on the other so that her cheekbone and the corner of her mouth and her familiar strong jaw seemed to glow beneath the dim light of the moon overhead. "Have you checked the lake? Warriors seem to love lakes."

"I haven't. That's a very good idea." Ilja nodded. "Which way is the lake?"

Kinga sounded despairing. "You work here, Iliusha."

Ilja said, thoughtfully, "yeah, but that doesn't answer my question. Where is the lake?"

It didn't matter. He knew. He had never seen the lake, but he knew where it was; it would be at the precise heart of the gardens, where it could reflect the chapel back in perfect detail, so that the water itself appeared pearl-white and glistened as the marble facade of the sacellum did, gold-dusted. He would check there next – but why would Belle by be the lake?

They were back in the ballroom now, which seemed almost stiflingly warm after the cool evening air washing over the gardens. The divide between dark and light was startling: the gardens, dark; the ballroom, light. The crowds had swollen since Ilja's departure and now the whole space was choking with people and with those same familiar bright colours. Kinga regarded the crowd; she didn't have her sword with her, Ilja realised with a jolt. Hijikata had his; if a fight broke out….

He dismissed the thought, just as Kinga said, "you brought Ina?"

Ilja nodded.

"How is she?"

"Not happy with you."

Kinga looked like she had expected this answer. "Yeah," she said, and said nothing more.

For a moment they stood there, just watching the room. It felt like an exhale of a breath he hadn't realised that he was holding; it felt like relaxing muscles that he wasn't aware of tensing. Being around Kinga shouldn't have been relaxing, and yet – it was strangely liberating to be with someone who expected nothing of you. He had seen her at her most monstrous, the moment when the divide between xrafstar and druj had blurred, and elided, and vanished; that dark eye of hers recognised how empty he could be, how fragile the pretence that he had ever been otherwise. Was this the bond of two Warriors? To know what one another was and love one another anyway? To feel your shared sins weighing so heavily and see how far the road to redemption stretched before you, horizon to horizon? To be bound so inextricably by your shared inability to be otherwise, no matter how desperately you wished to be?

The music was hanging over the room, sweet and sad. Ilja said, "I think it's a waltz."

Kinga arched an eyebrow. "I thought you were joking about a dance."

"Tofana would never forgive us. We finally get a chance to put one of her lessons to work." The Instructor's insistence on learning such skills had been charmingly quaint from their point of view, prioritising waltzing and penmanship in perfect concert with Commandant's focus on throwing knives and cleaning shotguns. Kinga and Ilja had been often paired together, after she and Ragnar had fallen out; they knew how to dance together, if Ilja knew how to dance with anyone. "I'd never joke about something so important, Kaasik."

"In that case," Kinga said, "I am grateful to the gods that I just spotted Ms Seo."

Ilja frowned. "Where?"

"By the piano." Kinga rolled her eyes and grabbed Ilja's hand. "Where where where. You're ridiculous. Come on."

She tugged him gently and they dived into the crowds, skirting the dance floor. Ina was still there, and still dancing, Ilja noted with barely restrained delight; even amongst so many other ruby-red dresses, she stood out like no one else. Those poor Selected, he thought wryly, lining the ballroom and hoping desperately for some attention, if not from the prince then from the court – they had no chance against the twin powers of the Lovers curse and Inanna Nirari's charisma.

In a crowd like this, with everyone clad in varying shades of the same three colours, it might have been easy to get lost; Ilja was grateful for Kinga's hand around his. There were people on all sides, and very few grey guards left in the throng; it was easy to distinguish the courtiers from the tagma, however. They moved differently, spoke differently, had different looks in their eyes. Sahar Yakhin was here in a lovely grey dress and matching headscarf, watching Reiko, who was watching Asenath. Sanav Mahesar shouted a greeting that Kinga waved back at; he was seated with a set of Scholars in blue suits chattering near the stairs, none of them Khalore, all of them looking intent. Still no Azula, no Azula anywhere. A red-coated man, big and blonde, limped past them, his head down – a watcher, Ilja thought, pleased to have remembered that much, a watcher shouldering his way past them like they weren't there at all. Kinga shot a look back at him, sharp, and looked like she was about to say something, to go after him; Ilja squeezed her hand, a silent warning against causing a scene.

"Bastard." She wrenched him forward, and then they were free of the knot of people around the dance floor, and – yes, finally – Belle Seo was by the piano and looking up at the oil paintings which decorated the ballroom walls, rather than at any of the actual festivities occurring around them. "Told you."

Hearing them approach, Belle turned, and frowned. Hadn't she expected them to make an appearance here? Kinga detached herself from Ilja's side, and wandered towards the bar so that they would not appear conspiratorial, nonetheless keeping a close eye on them as she melded into the mix of injured tagma who had clearly decided that milling around the alcohol was preferable to subjecting themselves to the stares and whispers of the court.

Ilja approached Belle. "You hanging in there okay?"

"I'm okay." Her voice was small, but she sounded stronger than she had when they had parted - that was good, Ilja thought, that was a good sign. "I met a Sauer today, you know."

Ilja chuckled. "Some cousin of Commandant's?"

"Seems like it." Belle smiled. "I could see a certain resemblance."

She had been staring at a very ancient and very enormous painting of the ladies of the wall, Lady Alliette and Lady Szymańska and Lady Schreave, each resplendent in the colours which would one day come to represent the tagma corps. Ilja found himself staring at the ladies, searching for some hint of resemblance with the Kur he had known; they said that Matthias Kloet had an Alliette on his mother's side, many generations back, but this woman had none of Kloet's cruelty, none of his watchfulness, none of his quiet mania – not the way that she had been painted, anyway. This Alliette was sallow and sad, stretched long and thin. This Szymańska, she who had wrought twenty generations of pain in her wake, was delicate and pretty and blonde; this Schreave, she who had begat twenty generations of despots for the last vestiges of her wretched Empire, was strong-featured and handsome and red-haired, which surprised Ilja a little, because he had never imagined any of the Schreaves as being red-haired.

Belle had caught him looking up at it. She said, "they don't look like devils, do they?"

Didn't they? Ilja frowned. Where they looking at the same portrait? But when he looked at Belle, he found that she was looking at him – unusually – honestly, guilelessly. She meant it. That unnerved him so much more than any amount of dishonesty. He said, "don't they?"

She said, "no moreso than most." She paused. She was wearing an ethereal, azure gown, like something a princess in a fairytale might wear, strapless and voluminous of skirt, embedded with glitter. He had never seen her dressed so; he wasn't sure he had ever seen her out of uniform before Illéa. In her heels, she was almost as tall as Kinga now. The Selected girls were the only ones not wearing masks – wasn't that horrible, Ilja thought, to be seen when no one else was, to be uniquely vulnerable so? "I can be Seo Eun Byeol here. I could never be Seo Eun Byeol in Opona, in Nawia, in Irij."

Treasonous words like that…

She was twisting her hands together; they were scarred, deeply scarred. Belle Seo was petrified of fire – always had been, always would be, and those scars were a physical manifestation of the reason. Because she had dared to live as Seo Eun Byeol, daughter of Seo Jeong Hoon, son of New Asia – or because they were Kur, and because of the sins that they wore within themselves, in the very marrow of their selves? Pekka had carried her out of their fire trials over his shoulder, and earning another two demerits for his trouble. Belle's lungs had been scarred; her fear of fire had only intensified.

Ilja said, "if these people knew what we were, Belle, then they would do so much worse to us."

Looking enormously doubtful, Belle said, "what are you doing here?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that a woman who looked exactly like Sahar had rushed to Asenath's side and whispered something in the princess' ear that had her blanching, and making her excuses, and sweeping dramatically from the room in what probably amounted to the royal equivalent of a sprint – Ilja watched Reiko closely, but she seemed unconcerned, which meant that it probably wasn't a discovered xrafstar or a druj invasion. All the better to be having this conversation now, then. Ilja said, "I brought you a gift."

Ilja reached into his pocket; Belle looked apprehensive. She was right to look apprehensive. As Ilja withdrew the little velvet bag Eero had given him, Belle recognised it immediately and recoiled.

"No."

Ilja said, "this is why you're here, Seo. This is why Kloet sent you."

Belle shook her head. "I – I can't. They'll catch me."

"They won't. Eero guarantees it." He forced it into her hands, and closed her fingers over it, holding her tightly thus, even as she shook her head, her eyes filling with self-doubt and fear.

He held her hands closed for a long moment, remembering what she had done to her father's letter during her first weekend in the Programme. She had ripped it to shreds, and cast it out into the driving rain of a dreary Opona night; Ilja had always thought that she must have repented, and gone back to pick up the pieces again, because she had kept the stitched-back letter under her pillow for the rest of training. Now, holding her thus, meeting her gaze thus, he could not say how he knew that Ragnar Kaasik had been the one to give it back to her a week later, wounds repaired with some paper that Klaara the Tower had pilfered from the typewriter of Matthias the Hierophant. He could not say how he knew that this was the reason Belle had persisted in the Programme.

He just knew.

These were the last remnants of Ghjuvan. This was all that was left of him. She had to understand. How important this was. How precious. How much they had lost to come to this position.

Belle said, "I can't initiate on my own."

"Then have Azula watch you."

Belle said, "what if I succumb?"

It was like Ina's scream was in the room with them now, that horrible, raw, animalistic scream that had rushed out of her all at once when Zoran had told her what had happened to Pekka. It hadn't stopped; it had gone on and on and on. It had been grief made manifest, sorrow as a real and physical thing. It wasn't even the scream, really, that had scared Ilja so – it had been the gasps that followed, chest-deep, whole-body, dry-eye. Ina had sobbed like she was going to gasp up her own heart; she had gasped in air like she was drowning on dry land. He had held onto Azula, because he hadn't known what else to else could you do?

"You won't," he said, "succumb. I'm sure of it."

Satisfied she would not do something stupid, like throw the bag away, or scatter the teeth, or lose the curse, he released her, and stepped back.

He said again, with Ghjuvan's certainty, "you won't."

Kinga had appeared at his shoulder, a glass of whiskey in either hand; Ilja accepted it from her with a quiet word of thanks. Even she must have perceived the tension hanging heavy in the air; glancing between them, she said, "everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Ilja said. He forced a smile. "Remember, Eunbyeol. Take two to three, with a meal."

Belle said, "if you're sure."

She withdrew her hands, and tied the bag, very carefully, to the loop on her waist; Ilja had seen this feature on a few of the gowns worn by the Selected, and by the ladies of the court; it seemed like a place to attach a favour from a suitor, or something with which to perfume oneself. Would it draw attention thus, when she was a member of the Selected? He didn't think so – Evanne Chae, on the other side of the ballroom, was wearing a similar velvet bag on her belt, and a Selected behind them, resplendent in vermillion, had a string of flowers hanging from the loop on her waist, which matched those woven into her hair. It was sweet, romantic. All around them, the Illéans were going about their little fairytale, as though they would live forever, as though their kingdom would stand evermore.

They had no idea. They had no idea at all. Belle was watching them as well, and Kinga too, and it struck Ilja, more powerfully than it ever had before, just how dangerous they were. Just how terrifying it would be, to be in the position of the Illéans - but not terrifying, because you would never know until it was too late, until it was damnably too late.

Repent. Atone. Salvation.

He was dwelling perpetually within an echo. What had Commandant said to them, all those long months ago? Ilja said it now, very softly. "I wish you a gentle curse, Eunbyeol. I wish you a very gentle curse."

And, oh, he meant it.