mokita (n.) a truth everyone knows about but agrees not to speak of.

The eastern side of the palace was a smouldering wreck; the western side was a tight choreography of muted chaos. Leaving Ina alone in that weapons room had felt like she was amputating herself from a larger whole, but to linger any longer would have no doubt aroused further suspicion. Azula had embraced her tightly before she had gone; she had wanted to go with her, wanted to leave the palace and return to the bakery, to Irij, to the training compound, and live no longer in the heightened, tense environment of suspicion and fear which so permeated every part of this damned kingdom.

But she refrained. Ina was already wounded, and distraught; Azula could not be the source of more concern. Instead, she had scrounged up a jacket for Ina to wear – some cast-off of a court lady, or perhaps a hand-me-down from Princess Asenath herself – and given her clear instructions on how to leave the palace without being spotted by the roving guards. It would not seem suspicious, of course, that Sherida Nirari would wish to return home after such an unexpected and devastating druj attack – but she didn't want to risk getting stopped, especially since Ilja had left to find Kinga almost two hours ago.

Now Azula darted and wound her way through the crowds which thronged the corridors, military officials discussing the casualties – so many tagma in one place, so many guards packed so tightly together, an entire battalion worth of lives lost in one fell swoop, almost carelessly discarded, by a stone beast which had not even, really, seemed to intend that destruction – and courtiers quietly discussing the state of the king – he had been close to the explosion, said Mirabelle Yannis in a voice that was not quite as hushed as it should have been, bravely, dangerously so, close to the explosion and had not sheltered from the stone druj but delved forward to try and shield his son – and servants, looking silently mutinous at the work which had fallen to their hands, at the sheer numbers they had lost which now went unmentioned – moving bodies, Akanksha Txori had instructed her troop of maids in their new tasks: moving bodies and counting the fallen.

And if your roommate is dead, if your friend is dead, if your supervisor is dead, then try not to get blood on your dress and keep going.

Lady Chou had summoned her, but she was not in her study when Azula reached it; her office was a strange oasis of serenity, without even that sickly sweet scent which had accompanied the charcoal smoke which had infused the rest of royal grounds. Her books had been left neatly in a pile on the edge of the desk; her papers were in a very tidy pile. She had left her jacket thrown over the back of her chair, however, as though she had been called away abruptly. She had knocked over one of her inkpots; it was dripping black ink, slowly, lazily, onto the warped wooden floorboards below. Azula carefully straightened it, and left quickly. She would come back and clean it later; she didn't want to keep Lady Chou waiting too long.

Her private drawing room was on the fifth floor, beside the small dining room that the maids called the Blue Closet, favoured by the royals for intimate family breakfasts; this far from the main concourse, Azula had expected that it would be a little quieter, a little less choked with people, but it was as busy here as anywhere. Fewer maids, more guards – that was the main difference she could discern.

She had only just placed her hand on the doorknob to the drawing room when the door burst open; Lady Chou was too graceful, too self-composed, to run into Azula, but that didn't stop the Devil from flinching at her sudden appearance, drawing back almost as though she expected something worse. "Lady Chou."

"Azula. I was hoping you would be here." She sounded rather genuine, though that peculiar coldness never seemed to leave her voice entirely. "How is the Lady Nirari?"

"She is well, Lady Chou, and awake."

"Good."

She shut the door behind her; there was a strange stutter to her actions, like her usual calm demeanour had been thrown off almost imperceptibly, like her graceful self-control was a second delayed of its grasp on the rest of her body, a strange dissonance between action and intent. Azula said, "is something wrong, Lady Chou?"

"A good many things, little bird." She set off down the hall; she was not a particularly tall woman, only a few centimetres taller than Belle, but she had long legs and a yet longer stride, such that the corridor rather seemed to disappear beneath her and Azula had to hasten to stay by her side. "I would not know where to begin numbering them."

"Lady, you seem..."

"My husband," Swietłana said, rather brusquely, as though by stating the source so casually, she could dispel the fear and grief which so accompanied it.

"I'm sorry."

"He may yet live." She shook her head. "We shall not start our mourning until then. A waste of energy to do otherwise."

She took a turn at the end of the corridor and vanished down one of the many tributary halls which split off into the body of the palace, leading to lesser-used offices and storage spaces. Azula struggled to keep pace; Lady Chou pushed open a door, and gestured that Azula should follow, as they descended a set of narrow, winding stairs.

Azula said, hesitantly, "was there a particular task you required of me?"

She had feared, for a split second, that they were headed for the dungeons – that Swietłana knew something that she should not have known, that she had deduced something that she ought not deduce. And perhaps she had; those dark brown eyes swept over Azula with a cold assessing air, and seemed pleased with what they had found. "There is, Azula. But it will be easiest to explain once we are – ah, yes."

They had emerged onto the third floor, high enough yet that when Azula looked out the window, she could see the tops of shivering trees and, very far away, the shoulders of the stone druj – of Pekka's curse-form – as it moved slowly towards Wall Schreave, and lay ruin and waste to all that lay in its path. At this thought, a chill threatened to overwhelm her; she had to turn from the glass, and just in time, too, because Lady Chou had pushed open a set of enormous double doors, to what looked like a bedroom, and was ushering her inside.

"Keep your chin up," Lady Chou murmured. "They can taste uncertainty."

Another of those strange chills – druj? But, no – it was an ordinary bedroom, if any of the palatial chambers in this building could be termed ordinary, with vaulted ceilings that would have seemed, in Irij, several stories high. There was a four-poster bed three times the size as the largest mattress she had ever seen in Opona, sheeted in cornflower-blue silk and velvet; there were deep, plush armchairs drawn around it, housing a white-haired, white-bearded old man on one side of the bed, with his head bowed, and, on the other, a younger man with black hair, with his head thrown back in the position Azula had always associated with those she had glimpsed in the den attached to the orphanage, addicts reliant on poppytears and charas to put them into a stupor from which the world might seem, if superficially, kinder.

And on the bed, barely recognisable: King Aviram.

The enemy king, the Schreave king, the king across the sea. Azula could not help but be fascinated. She had glimpsed him from afar, in the palace gardens, or at banquets, but now, here, he was real and human. He had wrinkles and scars and pores, and hair that was more salt than pepper, and a real physical presence – blood which oozed from the crater on his face, the gouged wound on his bare chest, the ripped skin on his throat. They had painted these wounds a sunflower-yellow with some kind of paste which seemed to have done little but to blacken their edges, like half-burnt paper; if it was not for the slight rise-and-fall of his chest, Azula would not have believed that he could possibly be alive.

There – the younger man had a hand on the king's wrist, around which a black bruise was forming. Black magic, Azula wondered, like that which had called the druj forth from hell, that which had crafted the curses for the very first time? They said that the Schreaves had weaponised black magic against the Irij thus, back when the Schreaves had possessed an empire entire.

Or perhaps this was the Radiance. Perhaps she was in the company of another xrafstar. Would he be able to sense her, if that was the case?

It didn't seem as though that was the case; regardless, Lady Chou had drawn Azula aside, though her gaze did not leave the form of her grievously injured king, who seemed all the smaller and more human for the opulence which surrounded him. All of these riches, Azula thought grimly, and none could protect him. None mattered a whit, when it came down to the awful base of it all: blood and bone and suffering.

"On the left," Lady Chou murmured, "is Priscus Schreave. He is a... vizier. Grandfather and mentor to the prince and princess. On the right – one of our Watchers."

Could all Watchers do what he was doing – whatever he was trying to do? Azula was unabashed about staring, sensing that, wherever Oroitz thought he was, he would not be able to see her. Those were the staring eyes of one who was lost deep within himself, perhaps inextricably so. "What can I do?" Azula asked, and found, strangely, that she meant the question quite genuinely. If nothing else, then she was, seemingly, being admitted into the inner sanctum of the royal family – unless she was here, she thought grimly, as some kind of sacrifice to the cause of the dying king. One of the old Hanged Men had operated thus, hadn't she? All Hanged Men involved sacrifice, but she had relished in it…

"Oroitz," Lady Chou murmured. "I do not…" Azula had not realised that the woman's voice could drop lower, softer, until it did. "I do not trust him, Azula. I mean no insult, but he is not in his right mind."

"Then what..."

She understood in the same moment that Lady Chou ripped her gaze from Aviram, and looked her straight in the eye. "You are," Lady Chou said, "if I am correct – a girl of singular talent."

Azula said, "am I to take this as permission to… pull strings, my lady?"

"Protect Aviram." There was power behind those words, venomous power. "Ensure Oroitz does not hurt anyone – or indeed, himself."

"I understand."

Azula rolled up her sleeves. Swietłana said, "do this for me, and I will protect you in turn, Azula. You seem like a girl who could do with some friends in these parts. You seem like a girl with enemies."

"You are," Azula said wryly, "more correct than you could know."

Swietłana touched Azula's cheek, delicately. It was a maternal gesture; it rattled Azula more than she could articulate with the words available to her. "Do your best, little bird."

Keenly aware of Swietłana's gaze heavy upon her hair, Azula took the seat that had been indicated to her and slowly, very slowly, like approaching a rattlesnake, she took the king's hand in her own. For a split second, he stirred –"Sena? – and was lost again, just as quickly.

His hand was more calloused than she had expected; she had not expected a hand which evinced any manual labour, but he had callouses and fingertips roughened by the elements, like Mazin had earned from his time in the army, from his time as a potter. It grounded her; it felt like a strange reminder that she was a real person, with real physical presence, and that she could affect and be effected in turn by any number of real and unreal forces in the world. She became aware of the strings on the king, which now lay slack, all the threads that usually would hold him up, and make him smile, and let him speak; she noticed the strings on Priscus, which were few and frayed, as though he was at risk at any moment of either keeling over or of shucking them entirely, a puppet come alive without warning; she was aware of the strings on Oroitz, all tense and strained like the lines of his body, as though he was being piloted by some strange deity testing the limits of its new toy. She could unfurl the tendrils of her own consciousness, and test them, like strumming the strings on a harp.

Yes, she thought. If Oroitz lost control – she could stop him.

That realisation was strange, and uncomfortable, and yes, thrilling too.

As though he had sensed her presence, his head slowly straightened and turned, blindly, towards her. His eyes were black all over, Azula realised, with a tightness in her chest, inky black all over as though they had never been otherwise.

Oxana's eyes had gone black all over as well, all that time ago, for those few scant hours they had her. She had tried to become Death; instead, death had claimed her. They had buried her in the woods. Arsen hadn't cried at all, even though she had warmed his bed the night before, and Matthias had hated him for it. Matthias had hated him for a good many reasons, but this was an important one; it had accompanied him, a silent devil on his shoulder, for many of the months that had followed. He did not envy Khalore for having this awful man in her head. The Hanged Man was a cancer, one that could not be easily amputated.

All of her saints and angels had failed Oxana; they would fail Mielikki as well. Some curses were exactly, simply, that: a curse. Others were ironic; they twisted each time, and made a mockery of whatever solace their former selves had found in the compromise they had crafted with the universe. Matthias had watched Klaara and Pekka closely that night at the Café Chaot, and wondered if the gods had a sense of humour.

Surely they did, if they were going to try to appoint Zoran Czarnecki as his successor.

Klaara had brought her sister, and Klaara's sister was particularly taken by Eero's brother, who did not seem averse to the attention, and Jaga's little sister was flicking Matthias' collar, very gently, to rouse him comfortably from his visions, as she tended to, and she was saying, "what's he doing?"

"He's giving himself options," Matthias said, and that was true: they had fractured out before him, jagged paths, lifelines forced from nowhere, leading nowhere, like roads constructed in faminetime. They ended the same way. They ended in the same place. And soon, as well, so soon it could almost be tasted on the lips, as though wetted by peated whiskey. Such was love. He could still see Eero's blood beneath his nails. Are you watching closely, Czarnecki? "Well. He's trying."

Zoran said, "Ina nearly killed him for this."

"She had no right," Matthias said. "You cannot love silently and expect the other to feel the chains you intend."

Zoran said, "you always speak so romantically, Matthias."

"It's a lesson I don't regret learning."

Jaga's sister said, "chains again, perfect Kloet?"

"Did I say something, darling Kingusia?" The alcohol had warmed him to recklessness; he didn't look at her as he spoke. He was watching the dancefloor. He was watching her sister. Jaga was dancing with Arsen, and Klaara was dancing with Voski, and they seemed happy; Decebal and Esteban and Céluiz were playing cards, and Decebal was cheating, and they seemed happy. There were drums. They were laughing. They seemed happy. But the rot was there. Avrova had made sure of it. He couldn't hate her for it – it was simply the nature of the Lover. They were all merely their natures; any division between their curses and themselves were skin-deep only. So, no. Nothing. He had said nothing. This was the voice of nothing, that had been his madness. Nothing at all.

"Nothing at all, precious Matthias."

He was aware that he was staring, but he could not look away. He was going to go blind soon. He could feel it, as another might feel sleep drawing near. He wanted to go blind looking at her, etching her face into his mind. He said, "are you going to die when you ought, Szymańska?"

She had not looked wounded, as he had expected. Perhaps that moment – that hurt – was yet to come, when Venus was particularly bright in the sky, and she was half-a-monster. He would be cruel to her, needlessly cruel. Someone would have just died. A Hanged Man, perhaps. They never went cleanly. Neither did Death and its black eyes. They fought and bled. They made it everyone else's problem.

"When should I go?" she said. "When ought I?"

He drank again, to dispel the question, still not looking at her. He didn't want to think about it, though he spoke about it, and often. He only asked because it seemed so close – twenty generations of butchery hanging over his shoulder. He should have kept her out of it. She should have been strong enough to shoulder it. They were both weak, it would seem. It would be a downfall of a great many things, that weakness.

"When will he go?" she said. "When ought he?"

if i told you that it was – that you'll be one of the first to go – that you are going to wish that you had died at initiation – if i told you that it was – that you'll be one of the first to go – that you are going to wish that you had died at initiation – if i told you that it was – that you'll be one of the first to go – that you are going to wish that you had died –

Jaga was dancing with Arsen. Matthias had killed a man for her – another man's brother, another man's son. To ensure they would not be parted. That he would be here, to watch over her. To ensure her sister killed her, in turn. Wasn't that what you did, for your best friend, for your comrade? It was mad, this love; it was the raving lunacy which lay at the core of each Lover's curse. Majnun had known this; Majnun had died for it.

The Czarnecki boy was a silent harbinger of all that had been, that was yet to be. What had he said? What had Matthias said? Will and ought were such different words; they warranted such different answers. The Warriors were a family, no matter how much bitterness brewed between them; if she would chain herself to him, embrace him as she embraced her brothers, with a blade in her hand, then so much suffering could be averted. So much suffering would be caused. But lives – lives saved. Had he said this to her? Had he told her? Had she understood? Militat omnis amans. Had he made it clear?

Were they even in the same place at the same time? They couldn't possibly be – she was hanging over a gate in a courtyard, black blood dripping onto cobbles, and he was watching the sky crack open, slowly, painfully. This was the fall that was yet to was a place of corruption; they should have cut her strings when they first had the chance. Vrata would be their ruin, if they let her.

Swietłana would see to it. The Chariot would seal it.

When he looked at his friends now, they were dead, all of them dead. Ina said, softly, "why didn't you tell me?" and he had no answer for her. Because he had never known her. Because he had died the same day she became a Lover. Because he had been a coward. Because Allegra had asked, "would he have been beautiful?"

"Beautiful," Dimitar said, his voice cracking. "As beautiful as you."

"How many," Nadezhda said, her voice cracking, "how many more?"

The falling skies lay down between them, and she was lost to him, her radiance slipping through his fingers like sand. She was always lost. He was always blindly searching.

Zoran said, "you're nostalgic today."

Matthias said, "you are. This is your head. These are your memories."

"Not mine."

"All memories are."

"Are these useful memories?"

"All memories are."

"You're very funny," Zoran said, and kicked aside the piece of broken glass which contained the former Hierophant, ignoring Matthias' vain protests as he disappeared back under the table. He still couldn't believe he had let Nez take him to a publican's house. She had paid for their drinks with Mrs Sartore's money, and slipped on Mrs Sartore's wedding ring. Cruel treatment for a widow who had always been so kind to them, to Ina, who had told her, sympathetically, on that first day: you never stop missing him. But the hurt fades. It is replaced by radiant joy that you knew him at all. Zoran should have protested more strongly than he had – and he had protested – but exhaustion was on the verge of claiming him. He had dropped his glass, hadn't he? It had slipped from his hand, like there was no strength left in him at all, and in the moment between watching it smash into a million pieces, and hearing the sound of it smashing, he had seen Zula, he had seen King Aviram, and he had seen those awful black eyes and then….

"I know I am," Nez said brusquely. "Validation is not necessary, but it is appreciated."

She set down a second glass of beer in front of him. He said, "we should find the others."

"I thought that was what you were doing." She indicated the smashed glass, cocking an eyebrow. "Might as well stay warm and dry while we do."

He took the glass but hesitantly.

She said, mockingly, "it isn't poisoned."

He bristled.

"You knew him for ten years," Zoran said. "Even if you weren't close – even if you didn't care about him – how could you just…?"

Nez said, "it was him or us. One life or two. The Star or the Hierophant. You're a smart boy, aren't you, Zoran?"

"It's not..."

"It is." Nez's voice was stubborn, but her yellowish eyes bore no sign of the passion in her voice – they were cold, cold and severe. "That's how things are now. I thought you'd be delighted, Czarnecki. You're finally the most important person around." She smiled. "Haven't you always wanted to be needed?"

Zoran was silent, staring at the light shimmering along the shattered rim of the glass, painting tiny silhouettes of his childhood across every broken, jagged part. It was strange, he mused, how easily he could recognise particular aspects of his life by colour alone – and for his childhood, those colours were brown and gold, the training compound and his home united in warm, earthen tones, streaked through occasionally with shades of pale grey, like the shirts they had worn as cadets in the programme. Would the rest of his life be so clearly delineated, as short as it would be? What colour would Illéa be – reds, perhaps, like the terra rossa tiles which had formed the ceilings of all the buildings in Aizsaule, like the silent and perennial ruby-suited Watchers marching along the Walls.

Haven't you always wanted to be needed?

He said, "you seem to mistaken wanton cruelty for wit, Nerezza."

She said, "I feel sorry for the man who mistakes this for wanton."

She had killed Ghjuvan. Now that they were back in Illéa, Zoran found himself wondering about the visions he had glimpsed – the sheer variety of the ways in which the other Warriors had taken their revenge on the Wheel. Was it fair for him to sit here opposite her, and say nothing? Was it fair for him to reunite with his friends, knowing what they would do to her?

He didn't care. He didn't think that he cared. They had lost the Death curse, and they had lost Mielikki, and they had lost Hyacinth, and they had lost Ghjuvan, and he was tired. He just wanted to see the others. He just wanted to sleep under the same roof as Ina, and listen to Ilja tease Khalore over dinner, and hear about how Azula's day had gone, and, fuck, even keep silent night watch with Kinga. He just wanted to see Ina. They had been apart for only a day or two, but the time had stretched between them, impossibly long, impossibly cruel. And who cared if they didn't need him? He needed them. Her.

He was starting to think that he might have a problem.

Nez pulled her sleeves over her hands and reclined back in her seat, smirking slightly. There was a quiet chatter filling the smoke-filled back room of the pub; Zoran and Nerezza didn't stand out much, not when they spoke quietly and kept their heads down. How many of these people were refugees from Mønt, or Mag Mell, or Aizsaule? Nez said, "so, you lost the Death curse. Mannazzu is dead. And you still have no idea where the Radiance might be."

Zoran said, "not we, Nez?"

"I joined the Programme to get away from my family, Czarnecki. I give zero shits about who wins this particular war."

"Strange you decided to initiate, then," Zoran said. "You could have had a much cushier existence with the conscripts. You were already a civilian, weren't you?"

"This seemed more interesting," she said, "and the food is a little better."

"I'm glad you think so," Zoran said. "Enjoy it while you can."

Nez's smirk faded. "I don't know what you're trying to say."

Zoran said, "Commandant didn't change his mind about you, right? He just decided to follow Matthias' plan. Which meant Matthias needed you here to do something."

"And?"

"Kloet doesn't have the best history," Zoran said, "of keeping his pawns after he's moved them." That was the kindest way he could have put it. Matthias would have only unfurled Nez's path so far; he would have only ensured she had something to do with the result he wanted, not whether she was inherently vital to that result. Maybe she had already accomplished her role by killing Ghjuvan; maybe she had already accomplished her part by getting Belle and Hyacinth safely through the druj-infested woods; maybe she had nothing to do with Matthias' plan, nothing at all, but he had seen that she might be here and had seen no reason to divert from that arrangement of affairs.

"Right," Nez said, "and I should believe you because you can see the future?"

"Future," Zoran said, "past. Some of the present."

"And yet you can't find," she said coldly, "your fucking friends."

And that – Zoran felt a strange manic laugh bubbling up from deep within him for the sheer timing of it, for the irony of it all – was when the screaming started.

There was black smoke billowing over Wall Schreave, thick and impermeable and acrid. The people of Kass had emerged slowly from their homes, from their places of business and leisure, from their parks, to stare at the smoke and to wonder. It was strange, Zoran thought, the stunned silence which reigned in Illéa when a disaster happened which could not be attributed – not immediately – to the druj. If this was merely a fire, then there was no running, no screaming, no fighting, to be done. It was simply a tragedy. There was nothing that could be done, no enemy to face down, no horde to withstand. Nothing to do but worry.

The screaming was coming from Ganzir, from Gjoll; there had been an explosion. For a split second, Zoran could not quite understand what that might mean. After a childhood in a country wed to war, the strange, stilted, tranquility of Illéa had been addictive and all-absorbing. There was no enemy except that outside the walls, which was mindless, which had no agenda but death; there were no enemy soldiers, no guerilla fighters, no civilians armed with bottles and burning rags. So long as you dwelled within an inner ring – or so the atmosphere had convinced him – you were safe from everything but the kind of petty crime that Nez proliferated, utterly safe, totally safe –

Safe from all but Zoran and his ilk.

Ina had been at the palace, and that was where the screaming had originated. Zoran hadn't realised he was running until he was in the shadow of Wall Schreave, the moon blotted overhead, the smoke overwhelming as it snaked through the iron bars of the Kass Gate – those that were still intact, for an enormous hole had been gouged through the entranceway, iron bars twisted and mutilated in the shape of a man. There was no sign of the Watcher with which he had spoken only a few scant hours ago – there was no sign of any Watchers, anywhere.

There was a terrible cold feeling creeping over his spine.

Nez grabbed his shoulder just before he could slip through the gate. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "You have no idea what's going on – there's some kind of a storm – "

He could see it in her eyes. They were both scared; they were both keenly aware that their curses had armed them little against the dangers, strange and alien, which had found them here in Illéa. She was a coward, just like him.

Zoran said, "I'll be fine."

"Is that a prophecy?"

"No," Zoran said tightly, "I just have a good feeling about it."

Nez rolled her eyes. He ripped his sleeve from her hand, but she had slowed him enough; when he turned back towards the Wall, he barely even had time to put one foot in front of the other before something had hit him, hard, and arms were around him, tight, and she was clinging to him rather as though she was worried about drowning if she let him go, her body soft against his.

"Zor,"she said, and just then, for a split second, it was as though they had never left Irij, and everything was okay.

"Ina? Are you – are you okay? Did something happen?" For a brief moment he was torn between holding her and trying to discern if she was hurt; she had pressed her face, tightly, into his shoulder, but he could tell that her hair was tangled, that her dress was ripped, that she was shaking…

He hadn't asked her. He hadn't pushed the matter. For six months, she had acted as though the idea of simply touching him was, in itself, agony. And now this – it was strangely overwhelming, and overwhelmingly strange. It was worrying. Ina didn't do sudden changes, not like this. She was a harbour in a storm; she was their constant shining sun.

He put his arms around her; he felt that shaking go on and on and on. For a split second, theywere back in the sacellum; for a split second, he was telling her for the first time what had happened to Pekka.

For a split second, he wondered if time had unravelled around him and he was adrift in his own life, as Kloet had been.

Zoran said, "what happened?"

Ina shook her head silently; he could feel tears soaking through his shirt, right to the skin of his shoulder and his collarbones. But she was alive. She was here, and she was alive. What could have hurt her so? It wasn't a short list, even after Zuen, even after Pekka, even after Ghjuvan. Being loved by her was so dangerous, Zoran thought, not for the first time, dangerous and powerful. Zoran was almost glad not to have that responsibility on his shoulders. Almost. Almost. Almost. With each almost, he could not help but tighten his arms around Ina.

Overhead, there was a slow screech overhead as a flare trailing green smoke soared over the city and burst into an emerald cloud that carved open the night sky like an alien wound.

Climbing through the gate, Ilja said, "oh, thank god, Zoran."

There was an honest, awful, relief in his voice; Zoran hadn't heard him sound so openly emotional in months – in years. He wasn't alone, either; Eero was a silent shadow beside him, blue eyes cutting through the shadows and gloom as though it was still entirely daylight. They were carrying someone between them – Zoran's heart constricted – but it was not Khal, it was not Zula, it was not Kinga. It was a man, fair-haired, unconscious. Tall, Zoran thought dully, broad. Enough so that Ilja and Eero needed to support his weight together, and still rather struggled.

Whatever feeling this was bubbling up in his chest, Zoran rather wished he could tear it out and hold it in his hand. The wrongness of it. The selfishness of it.

Another shriek overhead, bursting again into that awful grass green colour, like something unnatural had taken root in the sky. Ilja said, "Kinga can only delay them for so long. We need to get back."

He had blood running along his right sleeve, ichor staining his left. He averted his gaze from Zoran's. Like he was afraid of what the Hierophant might see. Like he was afraid of the oracle's judgment.

What had they done?

He had expected her to spend the whole night by Pekka's side – had not expected to be able to rip her from his bed by any force in this world – but it was a few hours before dawn that he heard the iron door to the rooftop scrape open, slowly, torturously slowly, and then her soft footsteps across the tiles. She might have been silent to anyone else, but he knew she was there; he could distinguish her in any world.

Eero's little streethouse was too small for the overwhelming number of people taking shelter there tonight, especially when they had two invalids for two beds. Khalore and Ilja had fallen asleep against one another on the futon, Ilja's grey hair standing out starkly against the shoulder of her new sapphire-blue Scholar's coat, her head resting gently against his. Nez had collapsed in a heap on the floor, rather giving the air of one who was not asleep but who found it easiest to feign unconsciousness rather than risk a conversation which would reveal what she had done. Eero would be with his brother, and Ina –

Ina was here, kneeling down beside him gently and reaching out a long-fingered hand, her knuckles scalded from the explosion. Before she could prod him, Zoran murmured, muffled, "I'm awake."

"Can I…?"

He held up the edge of the blanket. She slipped under it, strangely cold despite the warmth of the workshop. As with every night they had done this in Illéa, they did not come close enough to one another to touch, but her mere presence was strangely warming. She had a peculiarly compact position when she slept, one hand under her cheek, her legs curled under her. A lifetime of sharing beds, she had told him once, with a smile, with five younger siblings and a boyfriend over six foot tall. Zoran had pretended to bristle a bit, feigned insult. So am I.

You're built like a dagger, Zor. I can take up more space with you.

She had inclined herself towards him; she was not looking at him, but staring up at the sky, at the stars that were slowly easing their light past the smoke once again. Her breathing was shallow; her face was stained with tears. Even in this dim light, he could see that; her golden eyes were shining, like two little stars of her own. He said, softly, "he really never told you?"

"Never."

"Ina."

"I know," she said, and her voice cracked again. "I know. I said we should trust him, and then – "

"Ina."

"And he's alive," she said, and her voice broke entirely into that awful, wavering, half-sob of someone who is tired of crying. "I should be so happy. I got him back. I should be so happy."

She should have known that he would not go where she could not yet follow. "Then why aren't you?"

From anyone else, this would have been callousness. But they weren't anyone else; they were Zor and Ina. There was nothing they couldn't say to one another. Nothing they had to hold back. Nothing they had to hide.

Nearly nothing.

He said it softly; he tried to infuse it with the painful, tender feeling that had taken up residence in his chest, replacing his heart.

She said, "it doesn't feel like him. It just looks like him. It's just…"

"If you don't think it's him," Zor said softly, "then it's not him. You know him better than anyone. You've known him longer than anyone."

"Isn't that worse? If he's just a shell, if he's worse now than he was, if he's..."

I wasn't myself. Merely an adjunct of the World. One of many limbs. Wholly him, but looking through my own eyes…

"It will be okay, Ina. I know that's hard to believe now but – it will be. I'd put money on it."

"How much money?"

"I'm actually homeless, Ina. Taking me literally right now would be gratuitous cruelty on your part."

She laughed.

"But if I had money," Zoran said, "you could name your number."

"Why?" she murmured. "Why are you so certain?"

Because you're here. Because we're together.

"Because I've seen it," he said. It didn't feel like a lie when he said it, but it felt like a lie when she looked at him like that, eyes bejewelled with unshed tears. It felt like a lie when he felt the slow exhale of air rush through her, the way she seemed to relax against the rooftop with his words.

"Do you promise?"

"Of course I promise."

"Tell me."

"We were in Opona," he said. "We were on the docks. And the sun was rising."

"And we were all together?"

"You and I were." Zoran half-shrugged, and smiled against his shoulder. "I imagine that means Ilja was as well. Like a cockroach, that boy."

She laughed again. It was a perfect sound. "Khalore as well, then. She'd never let Ilja live in peace."

"Khal as well."

"And Pekka?"

"In red," Zoran said. "Watcher red." He paused, and then continued, grudgingly. "It didn't not suit him."

She shifted her weight, and exhaled another of those sighs, like she had been holding her breath all this time and could only truly breathe here and now, with him, beneath the sky. "Have you found anymore constellations?"

"I think I have a new one."

"What will you call it?"

"Haven't thought of a name yet," he said, "haven't had the chance."

She yawned; she turned, so that she was lying on her back and staring up at the stars, her hair splayed around her like a halo. "Will you show me?"

"If I can find it again."

She extended a hand, pointing at a random spot in the sky; he took her wrist, very gently, still rather marvelling at the simple joy of being permitted to touch his best friend again, and carefully directed her towards the first point of the constellation, using her hand as a stylus to carve out the shape of a deer with magnificent, marvellous antlers. She said, "Zuen. Can we call it Zuen?"

"We already have a Zuen or two."

"Doesn't matter." She was stubborn. "I'm distraught, Zor. You can't say no to a girl who's distraught."

"Okay," he said softly. "If you're distraught, then you get anything you ask for."

"Anything?"

He hoped, desperately, that in the dark, under the stars, she could not hear the sincerity embedded in his voice. "I can't say no to you, Ina."

What had Eero said? When Ilja had asked him? Had he been advising him of the path that they needed to take?

What changed? How did you break free?

I killed him.