verschlimmbessern (v.) to make something worse in an honest but failed attempt to improve it.

She adjusted the cuff of his jacket quietly. She kept her eyes focused on the worn edge of the rug under her boots. It was a dark red, very close to maroon, and embroidered with pale gold curlicues along its edge, like heavily laden vines. It matched the rich wine colour of the silk sheets on the bed she was perching on, hesitantly, cautiously, her boots planted on the rug and her head bowed. She was studying this carpet like she was going to be tested on it.

And it was frayed, she thought dully. She rather thought that it shouldn't be. They were in the palace. They were in the very heart of the palace. Everything should have been perfect here.

But the edge of this rug was ragged, like that in the room over the bakery. It was dusty as well. Someone had spilled ashes and cinders on the edge of the hearth; now there was a fine powdery layer of grit carried in by her boots. She should have felt guilty about that. She should have felt like she was dirtying this place. But she couldn't do much worse than had already been done, she thought ruefully. There had been an explosion in the ballroom; she could be permitted to leave bootprints. She could dare to leave that much.

Otherwise, how would anyone know that she had ever been here?

The heavy wooden door of the bedroom slammed shut. She blinked, very slowly, and kept her eyes on the carpet. He said, "you're still here?"

She hadn't been sure if she was allowed to leave. When she had been whisked away, she had not been certain if it was for protection or interrogation. She said, "I'll go."

He didn't tell her not to. So she stood. The skirt of her dress had been rather shredded in the blast; it was hanging in tatters around her bruised knees. She had felt so pretty, putting it on, like a princess in a fairytale. It was the nicest garment she had ever worn – it was the nicest garment she had ever touched. But she had wanted a mask. She would have appreciated a mask. She hadn't appreciated everyone's eyes upon her, constantly upon her. They had been assessing her. They had been deciding if she was good enough. They had been trying to determine if Seo Eun Byeol of Mønt was worthy of becoming their queen.

Should she have told them?

He said, eyebrow arched, "if you would like to."

She could not help but find this to be a strange way to respond, but she didn't say as much. The little cloth bag at her waist rather felt as though it was going to burn through her bodice. It would be best if she didn't stay too long. Ilja still expected her to initiate, after all, and that couldn't be done sitting awkwardly in the crown prince's bedroom.

But she was still in the Selection. That called for some small amount of courtesy.

"Thank you," she said, "for looking after me."

She was just starting to remove the jacket when he said, "keep it. It may be cold tonight."

It sounded enough like an order that she slowly slid it back over her shoulders, saying nothing.

He said, "you're rather new to this, aren't you?"

"Druj were not all that common in Mønt," she said, rather mechanically. "I did not have the opportunity to build up a familiarity with – "

"I meant," he said, "this."

She paused, and weighed her words. A strange choice of topic – a precise choice of topic, with druj marauding, and the palace under threat, and his father gravely wounded. A detached kind of conversation. She could understand it well. The day they had buried Zhazira, she had wished to talk of nothing but the strawberry shortage. The war had been dragging on; they had not been able to import strawberries. It had seemed, in the moment, a vital conversation. Her father had rather wept in confusion as well as in grief.

"My family were not wealthy, your highness."

"No," he said, "but even a smith's daughter carries a fan to a ball."

She did not allow her surprise to flit across her face. By now, after so many years with the Commandant, her lack of expression was well practiced. Indeed, many of the Selected had tied a folded fan to their waist, so that it had hung alongside the little cloth bag which – in her case – now contained the vessel for the Star of Kur. Ghjuvan's teeth, she thought, and felt a strange chill steal across her spine.

She said, "a fan?"

"Asenath assures me that it's an excellent method of sending coded messages." There it was again, that arched eyebrow, inky against the ghost-white of his skin. "She delights in smoke-and-dagger, you know."

"She doesn't seem the sort."

"Looks," Silas said, "decieving. Et cetera."

Belle said, "not in my experience."

"Perhaps you are a particularly intuitive sort."

"Perhaps." She was not inclined to debate the matter further.

He said, "your friend. What was her name?"

She did not have friends here, if ever she had them. She counted the others, of course, but she rather doubted – pragmatically – that they counted her. They loved one another, relied on one another; she had been shut out. In the Selection, ensconced thus, she was as alone as she could remember being.

And yet that wasn't quite true.

She replied, quickly, imbuing each letter with a silent hope that she was safe: "Evanne."

"Not her."

Inanna, then. No other could arouse such curiosity. She said, "Miss Nirari?

"Perhaps. With the guard?"

"Yes."

He said, thoughtfully, "you know, she smelled of it. Even before it happened."

"Of…?"

"Druj."

His eyes could have been mistaken for black holes. Time had dilated; for every second, Belle felt as though she lived through a decade. A decade of waiting, hesitating, wondering if he would elaborate. She said, at last, "and what does that smell like?"

"Sweet," Silas said, "sickly sweet."

Belle said, dryly, "it is true that I have never managed to persuade Miss Nirari away from a fragrant perfume. That is my failing; I will try to atone."

Was that a hint of a smile? She wouldn't have believed it except for how quickly it faded again. He was severe once more, and perhaps moreso than before. He said, "I don't believe you."

"I don't see why not. Sweetness suits her, and I am not a naturally persuasive person."

"It's your dourness," he said.

She wasn't sure if she should be offended.

"You could be a little more persuasive," he said. He rather had the air of a man who has realised, belatedly, that he ought to have stopped speaking half-a-dozen words ago. "With a smile and a sweetness to your voice."

She said, "you would oblige me to smile?"

"No," he said, "I wouldn't see the point."

"You are not a diplomat," she said.

"No," he agreed softly.

"Nor are you a soldier," she said, "so far as I can see."

He said, rather archly, "my pursuits are of a more scholarly persuasion."

"Books," she said, which, once she said it, seemed quite a stupid thing to say. Yes. Books. Reading. Words. What staggering insight she possessed.

He seemed to have found it amusing; that was small solace. "Books," he agreed. "Gardening."

"Solitary stuff," she said, and did not say the word which would naturally seem to have followed on: lonely.

"As befits the king of a cage."

He had marked the way she blanched at his words; she had not expected him to speak so bluntly, had not been prepared to respond to the scorn he seemed to direct towards his place in the kingdom, and some part of her surprised reaction seemed, strangely, to please him.

"That's what they call me, isn't it?" He was smiling openly now; on a face as cruelly carved as his, it was a derisive expression. She had been thoughtless to make note of it before. It was not, clearly, an indication of friendliness or rapport. As animals bared teeth, she thought. "King of walls, king of druj..."

"King of eggshells."

She spoke without thinking; it was an attempt to complete the list, no more and no less, simply to contribute, and yet as soon as she had said it, she wished that she hadn't.

He blinked; he looked almost wounded. She hadn't realised he could look so human until that moment, and was strangely aware of the blood on his collar, the black ichor on his shoes, how pale and hungry he seemed. "Who calls me that?"

"Evidently," Belle said, "I do."

This was not a battle in a storm; this was a battle in a storm in a jar. This was a battle settled with blood on fists and knife in hand, curtailed by simple physical limitations of bone and flesh; this was a storm confined to a few square metres, hemmed in by the strange cobbled walls which had risen up from the street to protect the fallen druj. She could hear them fighting, somewhere in the smoke – could hear them, but could see nothing. The darkness was utterly overwhelming. It was thick, black, choking smoke, like nothing she had ever experienced before; she had experienced fires, she had delved into a fight in the middle of a storm, she had hunted druj by the light of a few scant stars while the darkness pressed in tight all around.

But this was like nothing else she had ever experienced.

Rakel pulled her collar over her face, and kept moving. She did not dare to use her hooks, not here – not when the ground shuddered underfoot, like it was a living thing upon which she was merely a parasite. Not now – not when she could not even make out the glint of her sword at her side. If she tried to call for Kinga, she would swallow only smog; behind her, the captain was calling for them. Was he ordering her to retreat?

Something moved in the darkness; something loomed overhead. Something was collapsing in on itself. It was like watching the sky fold up into a pocket square; it was like watching the clouds plummet. It scared her, how quickly the gargantuan shape of the stone druj was dissipating into smoke, how small she felt wrapped thus in its shadow. How, she thought, how? Druj didn't shapeshift; druj were a constant. Druj were wrought thus, to plague them eternally….

And yet this one had been in the palace. This one had, like its winged brethren, appeared and disappeared at will. This one was, Rakel was realising with a dawning sense of dread, dangerously different. And dangerously different was, in her experience with the tagma, another term for simply dangerous.

And then, just ahead, at the base of what had once been the stone druj, what was now merely a crumbling column of cinder and charcoal and crumbling rock, she spotted it: someone was trying to kill Kinga.

This was, in a sense, to be expected – Rakel had been tempted to do much worse in their scant time together – and it was not, entirely, an emergency – the excubitor could handle herself well enough in a scrap – but the pertinent detail here – the part that made Rakel skid to a stop and stare – when she should have been throwing herself into the fray – well.

Someone was trying to kill Kinga.

A druj could never really be described as someone.

And ever more worrying: Kinga did not appear to be winning.

The man with the golden hair was taller than her, and stronger as well; if it wasn't for her knife, Rakel wasn't sure that she would have survived long enough for Rakel to find her.

Rakel put a hand on her sword. A druj in human form. Could it really be…? The thought was too terrifying; it overwhelmed. It was not something her mind could handle; it crept close to the precipice of insanity merely to consider it.

Kinga struck once with her blade, twice with her blade, three times, but each time her opponent checked her arm with a powerful blow, or feinted out of its path, or simply struck her across the face with a bone-crunching force. Kinga stumbled – she still wore the rigors of Aizsaule heavy upon her face, in the way she limped a little as she retreated back out of the man's reach, the way she swayed as she tried to discern an opening. But she was still standing. She was still alive. They could still make it out of here alive. Together. All four of them. The captain, and Rakel, and Sanav, and Kinga.

Rakel needed to help her. To make that happen, Rakel needed to help her. They were a team. They were comrades. They were friends. They needed to make it out of here together.

The druj – if that was who this was – had not noticed her. She could move, and quickly. His armor was gone. He was diminished, reduced. Weak.

She could put an end to this.

Kinga must have realised that she was here; Kinga must have calculated what she was about to do. Because Kinga was speaking to the human druj, biting out her words with a viciousness. "You're dragging this out," she said. "You don't have to."

"I disagree." If that was truly a druj's voice – Rakel had not expected it to be so smooth, so pleasant. As though this was its first language; as though it had been raised speaking thus, moving thus. And he was handsome. That was something she hadn't expected, of all things – more lean than she had expected, if she had expected anything, with finer features as well. "I think I must."

"I'm not Thijs." Kinga was moving around him in a broad circle; Rakel shadowed her, remaining on the cusp of the smoke, praying that the enemy would not glance in her direction. She needed to move into his blind spots; she needed to ready herself for an ambush. "I'm not particularly interested in killing you."

Why were they speaking with such familiarity? Rakel's heart constricted. The enemy said, "but you will. Won't you, Kinga? He taught you that much."

"I'll sideline you," she said, and it was strange how such a simple set of words could sound like such a blood-curdling threat. "Nanna wouldn't forgive me if I did much worse."

"She won't forgive you for this, Szymańska."

Szymańska...?

"She's mourned him once," Kinga said. "She can mourn him again. You know what they say about practice."

She feinted left. The enemy fell for it – he raised one fist in defence, and then there was a horrible crunch as her right hook found its target, cracking across the enemy's face. She followed it up with a slash of her blade across his abdomen, like she was planning on spilling his guts; he only barely managed to seize her wrist, and twist, and force her into a strange grappled détente.

Now, Rakel thought. Now, if never else. Kinga could explain the rest to her later – Kinga could clarify. Rakel was sure there was a reasonable explanation for all of this, for the names, for the familiarity, for the way she fought their foe as though one had trained the other. Later. There would be time for this later.

She glided a boot over the cobbles, preparing for her sprint, and could let out no more than a quiet, stifled breath – "oh" – as a blade burst through her chest, shiny with her own blood. That sheen of red... it caught the light. It shone. Ruby, she thought, after a lifetime in emerald.

Someone had stabbed her in the back. Oktawia would have laughed at that. Oktawia would have found that funny. You spent a lifetime trying to be nice to everyone, Rakel. Look how that paid off for you, Rakel. Don't you wish you had done everything differently, Rakel?

No, Rakel thought. Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Over her shoulder, her killer said, "what would you two do without me?"

He withdrew his sword; that was when the blood started to flow. Rakel put a hand to her sternum; it came away wet and red. She said again, in that same soft voice which didn't seem to belong to her, "oh."

"Fuck," Kinga said. She had seen it; she had seen her. The enemy had released her, but she remained rooted where she was. She did not move towards Rakel, but she did not move away either; she did not rún. Rakel should have screamed at her to run. Instead, she just stared. That wildness had not left her face; she still looked scared. She had looked scared since the stone druj had appeared. Rakel hadn't questioned it. Fear had seemed rather rational, at the time. "Rakel, I – "

The enemy said, "I had my hands full, Schovajsa."

"Try not to be offended, Hämäläinen. She's treating you both like family, you know."

Rakel's killer circled her. He was a guard. Just a guard, she thought dazedly. Just a grey coat and a face and a body. Just a guard. In the palace. A guard. And he had killed her. Stupidly, she wondered if he had meant to. Maybe he had mistaken her for the druj. Maybe he had stumbled. Maybe – but ah, no. Cold eyes. A cold smile. And he had addressed the enemy by name. Hämäläinen.

She tried to burn that name into her mind. If she made it out – Hämäläinen. She would remember it. Hämäläinen. She would ensure there was no part of the world they could go without being hunted to extinction. Hämäläinen.

Rakel's knees had given out; she didn't realise that her legs weren't holding her up anymore, not until her knees had hit the ground, hard, hard enough to break her kneecaps. Had she broken her kneecaps? She wasn't sure. Nothing really hurt. Oktawia would have found that funny as well. You don't know which pain you should feel first, do you, Rakel?

The ring in Rakel's pocket felt as heavy as a fallen star.

She would have hit her head as well, but Kinga had caught her. She had sprinted across the square, as she had once sprinted across the rooftop to grab Kane, and she had caught her, and lowered her slowly to the ground. Rakel said, urgently, hoping her friend would, for once, heed her: "don't stop for me. Get out of here. Go."

Kinga shook her head, pressing her lips tightly together like she was keeping back so many words like bile. Her hands curled tightly over Rakel's arm, tightly enough to bruise. Over them, the enemy and the killer were conversing as though the excubitors weren't there at all. The killer was saying, "is it what I think it is?" and the enemy was saying, "not quite. Not really. I had no choice."

"You always have a choice. You killed the World and then you consigned your brother to the same fate."

"I refuse to lose him, Schovajsa. I did what I could."

"You damned him."

"Irij did that when they selected him."

"And then you lied to us."

There was a long, awful silence.

"You lied to Ina."

Rakel couldn't breathe, not properly. She gasped and gasped, and could draw no air in. She was shaking. She couldn't stop. If not for Kinga, she rather thought she would have shuddered apart entirely. "If you don't go now, they'll kill us both. They'll kill Kane and Sanav. Go."

Kinga mutely shook her head again, something bright and awful shining in that dark eye of hers.

The killer said, "where is he?"

The enemy must have gestured; the killer turned on his heel to look towards the smouldering column, all that was left of the stone druj.

"Is he...?"

"Alive. Barely. I didn't get here in time to stop her entirely."

Somewhere in the smoke – was Rakel imagining it, or was that the captain? He had been calling for them; he must have followed them into the fray. He must have come to get them. To save them. Rakel would have smiled, if her face was doing anything she wanted it to do. These bastards had no idea what they had brought upon themselves. Kane would not let her die like this, on the street, to a simple stab wound. Not after a lifetime confronting monsters head-on. Kane would not let them hurt Kinga as they had hurt Rakel.

...why did they know Kinga's name?

Shit. Had they heard him too? The killer had walked away, just a few steps; she was staring at his shiny boots, unable to raise her gaze much higher with her eyes struggling to focus like this. The enemy was staring down at them with those awful bright blue eyes. Kinga's head was bowed over Rakel's; a dark feather floated past her face and came to nestle, gently, between two cobbles, in a puddle of Rakel's blood.

"Everyone who has ever loved you," the enemy said, "has thought about killing you. Really thought about it, Szymańska – imagined your blood under their nails and your throat in their hands. You think these devils are different, but if they knew what you were..."

He stooped, and picked up Rakel's knife where it had fallen. Rakel thought, I am never going to see Oktawia again. He handed it to Kinga, handle-first.

"Remind yourself who your friends are. Remind yourself why you're here."

Rakel's killer said, without turning to look at them, "you owe it to us, Kinga."

"I don't need to prove myself." Kinga's words were venom-soft. "I don't owe you anything."

"I disagree," the enemy said, in that silken voice of his.

Rakel was never going to see Oktawia again. Kinga took the knife. Rakel was never again going to wake up next to Oktawia, watch the dawn spread slowly across her back, lighting up each of her freckles golden, like the stars themselves had been embedded into her shoulder blades. Kinga's knife touched her throat. Rakel was never going to see Oktawia in a mint-green dress with flowers in her hair and a ring on her finger, never going to sit out on a porch and watch their children fight imagined wars in the street, never going to watch Oktawia's hair slowly silver. Kinga drew her knife, painfully slowly, painfully deeply, across Rakel's throat. Rakel was never going to