Archive of Our Own

“No, no, no!”

She can hear the voice yelling, but it takes her a few moments to realize that it belongs to her. If she really pays attention, she can feel her throat working, her chest heaving to pull in the air she needs to scream. Mostly, though, it’s easier to hear the voice than to remember that it's hers.

A different voice says, “At least we know her lungs are recovering.”

Another person, much closer to her, says, “As far as he can tell, she’s physiologically fine. Even her brain seems to have healed the damage from before.” There’s a dim pressure on her shoulder, and she realizes distantly that it's someone's hand. “I think she just needs time,” she says.

“Time to deafen us all?” the first person says. “Isn’t there anything we can do to stop that yelling?”

The hand on her shoulder rubs up and down. The sensation is distracting, and a little comforting, and to her relief the shouting quiets for a moment.

“That’s better,” the first person says again. There’s the sound of footsteps, and their voice sounds louder as they say, “She looks like a necro. The cav’s going to be furious if she finds out she’s stuck being this tiny.”

“Don’t say that,” the second person says a little sharply. “The Warden said to make sure we don’t lead her.”

There’s a huff of a sigh. “And of course you’re listening to him,” they say. “Camilla Hect, a good little cavalier. Here’s some free advice, you can’t always let your other half have their own way. Get terribly spoiled if you do that.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the second person--Camilla--says dryly.

“I still think the two of you are being dangerously optimistic to think that it’s either of them,” the first voice says. “She was in the River. There are more things in that water than your houses have ever dreamed of, and she could be any of them.”

“The Warden says he got a good read on her thaumotological signature. She’s not a revenant.”

“That’s all well and good for the Warden, but I’m telling you that we can’t be sure. There’s no way she’s any kind of normal lyctor, not with what we’ve seen her do. A targeted thanergy wave could spoof a thalurgy reaction, and there are things out there that could sustain it this long. Anastasia or Augustine might have known the theorems that Warden of yours would need to uncover them but I don’t, and as far as I can tell neither does he.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about theorems to begin with,” Camilla says. “For what you are.”

“I’ve been riding around in the back of a brain for a myriad. Anyone can manage to pick up a few things eventually.”

“Is that where you learned it?” Camilla says. There’s an edge in her voice that makes it sound like she’s not convinced. “We’ve both noticed. You’ve talked a lot about the trials back at Canaan house. You helped develop them. You were never just a sword hand.”

There’s a long pause. “Leave a girl some secrets, Hect,” the first voice says. “Just trust me that I know what I’m talking about.”

Camilla doesn’t respond for a moment. When she does, her voice is cautious, but not as tense as earlier. “He thinks she’s one of them. That’s good enough for me.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I sincerely hope he’s right about that.” The silence lingers for a moment, broken only by harsh, panting breaths that are barely better than the yelling. “We can’t just keep calling her ‘Hey, you,’“ the other person says eventually. “She--they--she deserves more than that. She needs a name.”

That’s an interesting enough idea that she really tries to stay awake and listen to the rest of the conversation, but it’s too hard. She can’t keep her eyes open any longer. She only vaguely hears Camilla start to reply before everything slips away.

The next time she wakes up, she sees the person who rubs her shoulder now lying curled up on the bed next to her. She’s facing her, short dark hair falling back from her face, mouth for once relaxed out of its usual determined line. Camilla. That’s Camilla.

This time there isn’t any yelling, but Camilla still blinks her eyes open nearly immediately. After studying her for a long moment she uncoils and sits upright in one smooth motion, balancing on the edge of the bed as if she’ll fly up any moment. “Morning, Nona,” she says. “Are you thirsty?”

Without waiting for a response, Camilla helps her raise her head up and holds the glass to her lips. She’s too surprised to resist, and ends up taking a large gulp without really meaning to. Nona.

She tries to say it, but as usual the sounds get tangled somewhere in her throat. Camilla watches, gaze steady, and then offers the water again. “Have a little more,” she suggests. “And give it time.”

She’s too distracted trying to say the name again to realize that the glass is already at her lips. The attempt to drink while also trying to talk results in a long coughing fit, while Camilla sits back and grips her hand reassuringly.

The coughing scares her, but she’s relieved to find that it does stop eventually. She’s too intimidated to try talking again, though, and drinks the rest of the water silently before lying back down. Instead, she turns the sound of the name around in her head. Nona. It sounds completely wrong and also, somehow, exactly right.

She’ll be Nona.

**

“So this is her,” says a voice Nona doesn’t recognize. That’s novel enough for her to make the effort to open her eyes, in case she can see the new person. She’s discovered already that she can learn so much more about someone when she can see them, provided they come close enough and her eyes agree to stay open. That doesn’t happen as often as she’d like, but this time she manages it.

She’s lying on a bed she doesn’t recognize, in a room that’s brighter than usual. The glare from the overhead lights is so uncomfortable that she squints and blinks, and nearly gives up and goes back to sleep when the voice says again, “I can see why there is doubt. She does not look very much like a lyctor.”

Nona doesn’t understand everything the voice just said, but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t like it. A protest starts rising in her throat but is cut off when another unfamiliar voice says, in tones so warm and comfortable that they make Nona feel like someone’s just covered her with a blanket or opened the curtains to let in a beam of sunshine, “Looks can be deceiving, Commander. I promise you, you have no idea just how much she could do even before she ascended to lyctorhood. Don’t underestimate Har--”

“No,” Camilla cuts in, calm but inflexible. “No names.”

There’s a huff of a sigh. “Fine. Don’t underestimate what--is it Nona now? I like that, it suits her--what Nona can do.”

The owner of the sunlight voice leans over the bed, into Nona’s field of view, and smiles at her. She’s still talking, but Nona isn’t paying any attention to the words at all, because the speaker is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Even under these terrible lights she looks like she’s glowing. She smiles as if it’s a gift meant for Nona and no one else in the world. Even better than her voice is her hair. It’s a golden color that Nona’s never seen before, tumbling past her shoulder in long waves as she leans over the bed.

Nona can’t find the right words to say anything back, but she does her best to mimic the smile. This has the unfortunate effect of wiping the pleased expression from the other girl’s face, to be replaced with amazed surprise. She glances to the side but doesn’t move away as she says, “I take it back, Millie. Look at that face. This can’t possibly be Har--be her.”

“We don’t know that,” Cam says. Then, after a grudging pause, she adds, “But you might be right.”

Nona misses the smile, but even the bafflement on the girl’s face is so beautiful that she can’t look away. She might not have control of her voice, but her hands have been more reliably biddable. She reaches up with one and tangles it, as gently as she can, in that stunning hair.

That makes the girl laugh, a sound that makes Nona feel happy all the way through. “You sweet thing,” she says, and Nona feels a wave of delight to be spoken to directly. “I’m so glad we get to keep you.”

“That remains to be seen,” the first voice says. “I am willing to give the project my conditional backing, but this is not encouraging. We do not need a child lying in a bed. When will you be able to deliver us a lyctor?”

“Give us a year,” Camilla says.

A new voice, mechanical and inhuman in a way that frightens Nona, says, “A year? What bloody good will that do us? Anything could happen in a year.”

“Assets aren’t made overnight,” the first voice says. “It took us decades to recruit the other sources. You would do well to learn some patience, Passion. It will serve you in your new position.” There’s a weighty silence, then, “A year. Very well, Troia Cell.”

The shining girl smiles down at Nona again, looking delighted. “You won’t regret it, sir.”

“I very much suspect that I will. But we have taken bigger gambles in the past, and without risk there can be no victory. You do understand that if this fails there will be very little I can do for the three of you, though. And even less that I will feel like doing. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Camilla says.

The mechanical voice says, “You’re being too optimistic, sir. Zombies lie. That thing is worth nothing.”

“House,” Camilla says. There’s just the slightest edge to her voice. “Speak House.”

“You must forgive my associate,” the commander says. “You will understand that some of us have very little reason to trust you.”

“It’s mutual,” Camilla says. Before anyone can reply to that, she asks, “Are we done? I need to get some food into her before she falls asleep again.”

“Ah, the care of children,” the commander says. “We shall go and let you get on with this feeding. Continue the mission, Troia Cell. We have been given a very great opportunity. Let us make the most of it.”

**

“Nona, stop eating that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not food. You barely ate any breakfast.”

“No breakfast.”

“Yes breakfast.” A sigh. “Finish a whole bowl of eggs and then we can walk down to the dairy.”

“Dog? Dog radio dairy?”

“If you like. Do you want the eggs first, or some water?”

**

There’s a terrible dark moment when she can’t see, can’t hear clearly, and is only aware of the pressure over her head and face. Then it passes, as Camilla pulls the shirt gently down over her shoulders, and she can breathe again. She shakes her head angrily at Cam, who purses her lips but says mildly, “You have to wear clothes, Nona. It’s the wet season. You’ll get cold.”

Nona has learned enough now to know that she hates getting cold, almost--but not quite--as much as she hates being too hot. That’s still not really enough to make the t-shirt worth it, but now that it’s on there’s probably not much point in fighting with Camilla about it.

Nona gets up--she’s allowed out of bed these days, which is a great relief--and follows Camilla docilely until she realizes they’re going to the breakfast table. By then she’s in the kitchen, and it’s too late to get away. She sits at the table, longing for escape, while Camilla opens the refrigerator to retrieve the bowl that’s been soaking overnight. She uncovers it, produces a spoon out of a drawer, and puts it on the table in front of Nona. “Eat,” she says. “You haven’t had anything solid since yesterday morning.”

Nona stares at the bowl despairingly, but Camilla’s already turning back to the refrigerator. She emerges with a carton of eggs and begins briskly cracking them into a bowl. Nona finds the yellow of the yolks disturbing, but she likes the quiet sound of the whisk and the bubbling of the oil in the pan.

The quiet hiss as Camilla pours the egg mixture onto the hot oil is nearly drowned out by the sound of footsteps, and Pyrrha comes in. Cam looks over at her, spatula poised above the pan, and asks, “How did the interview go?”

Pyrrha shakes her head. There’s a slump to her shoulders and a tension at the corner of her mouth that Nona doesn’t really understand, but she doesn’t think Pyrrha got a lot of sleep. “It was short,” she says. “Turned out most of the crew is from Ur. Only a handful of them speak any House at all. The foreman wasn’t one of them.”

Cam’s face doesn’t change as she turns back to the pan and stirs the eggs. “Maybe I should try again this afternoon,” she says. “There might be something open at the clinic.”

That sounds familiar. It takes Nona a heroic effort of memory to remember that Cam said something very similar before, although she can’t quite place when it was. The coincidence excites her, and she’s trying to find the right words to point it out when Pyrrha says, drily, “Since you asked them four days ago?” She shakes her head as she pulls out a chair, falling into it so heavily that the Nona can feel the floor shudder. “Besides, we agreed this makes sense. We need someone to stay here to take care of Nona during the day, and you have your side projects to work on.”

This makes Nona feel obscurely guilty, and she can’t help hanging her head a little. That’s a mistake, because it attracts Pyrrha’s attention. Smiling with the awkward edge that she often has around Nona, as if she isn’t sure what to say and is trying too hard to make up for it, she raises a pointed eyebrow at the bowl. “You aren’t eating breakfast,” she points out, like maybe Nona hadn’t noticed.

“No breakfast,” Nona says, but it’s mostly for show. Pyrrha might act like she doesn’t know how to talk to Nona, but both she and Camilla have demonstrated a complete lack of flexibility when it comes to Nona eating real food. It’s not really worth arguing, so she manages to get a spoonful in her mouth and swallow it without incident.

“There you go,” Pyrrha says. “Don’t worry, Nona, Mummy and Papa will find a way to keep you in pap and hair ties.”

Nona tilts her head curiously. “Mummy and Papa?” she manages.

Pyrrha’s face doesn’t lose its fixed smile, but the corners of her eyes tighten in a brief wince. “Just a joke,” she says lightly. “All three of us living here like we’re playing house. But we’ll be ok. I’ll take day jobs until I can find something better.”

Nona still doesn’t understand, but she can’t find the right words to ask what a mummy and papa are, and it’s too late. Cam is already saying, “I bought some groceries today, but there’s still a bit left.”

“I should have expected someone from your house to be frugal,” Pyrrha says. “God knows you could never convince Cassandra to spend a penny she didn’t have to. Must be genetic.”

“It’s growing up with the finance oversight committee that does it,” Cam says. Her face had done something complicated earlier, when Pyrrha had mentioned the name Cassandra, but now she’s trying to pretend that everything is fine. “Spend a penny over budget and you end up filling in forms for days.” She sounds oddly nostalgic, as if she misses even the forms.

Pyrrha shakes her head. “I keep forgetting just how much has changed back in your houses,” she says. “The millennia we wasted not giving Cassie a hard time for founding Planet Bureaucracy.”

“It works for us,” Camilla says, not sounding particularly interested in the argument.

“Oh yes, I’ve seen how much it helps your decision-making process.”

“Better to make the right decision than a fast one,” Camilla says, and then adds a little ruefully, “Usually.”

“Mm,” Pyrrha says, noncommittally. “That reminds me, Hect, I got some gossip the other day that you should hear too.” She glances meaningfully at the cooking eggs, and then at Nona. “Maybe we can talk privately.”

It seems particularly unfair to Nona to be cut out of conversations when there’s so much of them that she already doesn’t understand, but she knows that protesting will be useless. She expresses her frustration with a gusty sigh instead.

This turns out to be another mistake, because it draws both Pyrrha and Camilla’s attention back to Nona and her untouched bowl of mush. Camilla raises her eyebrows and Pyrrha frowns, and they both say, in slightly ragged unison, “Nona--”

They stop at the same moment too, staring at each other. Camilla looks nonplussed, Pyrrha amused. “Mummy and Papa indeed,” she murmurs. Camilla shrugs a little wryly and makes a “your turn” gesture. “You have to eat some breakfast, Nona,” Pyrrha says. “Keep up your strength. We can’t go for a walk if you don’t have any energy.”

“Walk?” Nona asks.

Pyrrha raises her eyebrows and looks pointedly at the bowl. It’s not until Nona has the spoonful of mush in her mouth that she says, “Finish that while Camilla and I talk, and then we’ll go out. It’s a good idea for you to see more of the city.”

This doesn’t seem like the best bargain Nona’s ever made, but she suspects it’s the only offer she’s going to get today. As Camilla dishes up eggs before she and Pyrrha disappear into the other room, Nona stares gloomily into her nearly full bowl. Breakfast again. Some days, it seems like all she does is eat breakfast, and then lunch, and then dinner, while conversations she doesn’t understand go on without her.

Glancing resentfully over towards the door where Camilla and Pyrrha just disappeared, hushed voices barely audible as a low rumble, Nona suddenly has a new and wonderful idea. Abandoning her bowl on the table, she creeps over to the door as quietly as she can. Maybe there’s something better to do than eat breakfast after all.

**

Nona is too busy tearing scraps of newspaper into ever smaller pieces--Pyrrha had protested at the mess, but Camilla argued it was good fine motor exercise and so Nona had been allowed to continue--to pay much attention as Camilla disappeared into the hallway. Her voice drifts out from there, loud but far enough away for Nona to mostly ignore. “They just called. There’s a new proposal. I have to go meet with We Suffer.”

“Now?” Pyrrha says. “I don’t like it. It’s late, and you don’t know who else is out there on the streets.”

There’s a long pause. “I can take care of myself,” Camilla says. It’s hard to tell, when she’s in another room, but Nona thinks that maybe Cam thinks something’s funny.

“You don’t know these people,” Pyrrha says. “Trust me, Hect, you don’t want to underestimate Blood of Eden. He keeps making that mistake, and someday it’s going to come back to bite him in the ass even worse than it already has.”

“It’s Sixth House business,” Camilla says shortly. “Corona will be there, anyway, so it’s not like I’ll be on my own.”

“In hostile territory it’s an even toss-up whether inept backup is better than no backup at all,” Pyrrha says. “I should be the one with you.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Cam says, “but you know they trust me more than you. Besides, someone needs to stay here. Nona gets about twenty minutes more. She needs a bath before bed, but she’s already eaten.”

“Hect,” Pyrrha says. She had sounded worried earlier, but suddenly it’s much worse.

Nona isn’t sure why, but Camilla seems to know what Pyrrha means. She sounds unamused as she says, “You helped out before, in the beginning.”

“Yes, but you were there. What if something goes wrong?”

“All she needs is someone to stay nearby, just in case.” Camilla’s voice takes on an uncharacteristic edge of impatience. “You’ve been handling it when things ‘go wrong’ for ten thousand years, Dve. You can manage one bath.”

Nona’s tempted to protest that she can take a bath on her own, but it’s too hard to find the words while she’s focused on tearing the paper. Besides, she has a deep suspicion that they wouldn’t listen to her anyway. She doesn’t let her head slip under water often, anymore, but as Camilla keeps insisting it would only take once. As far as they know, Nona can still drown.

Either Pyrrha is done arguing or Camilla doesn’t give her a chance, because there’s no more discussion about it. Instead, Camilla pokes her head around the living room doorway. “Nona, I’m going out. I won’t be back until after you’re asleep, but I’ll be here when you wake up in the morning. Be good for Pyrrha.”

This is enough to distract Nona from her paper. She’d heard enough to understand that Camilla was going out, but that’s very different from being confronted with the reality of her actually leaving, right now. Nona looks up, wild-eyed, but it’s too late to catch more than the briefest glimpse of Camilla before she disappears again. A second later, Nona hears the sound of the door closing behind her.

Nona flies to her feet, bits of paper scattering everywhere. She tries to run towards the door, to follow Camilla, but stumbles over the edge of the carpet and falls forward heavily, catching herself with an impact that jars up through her arms and elbows. She becomes aware, after a moment, that she’s sobbing out Camilla’s name.

She’s barely aware of the approaching footsteps until the floorboards creak as someone kneels down next to her. A moment later, she’s gathered up off the floor and into Pyrrha’s arms. “Shhhh, kiddie. There you go. It’s going to be ok,” Pyrrha says, her rough voice unusually gentle. “You’ll be alright, you can shake that one off.”

“Camilla,” Nona manages. “Want Camilla.”

“I know,” Pyrrha says. “Trust me, I know how terrible it is when someone leaves. But Camilla will come back, and until then it’s not so awful to be stuck with me, is it?”

She sounds more sure about this than she usually does when she’s talking to Nona, and that’s interesting enough to be distracting. From her position in Pyrrha’s arms it’s difficult to study her face, so Nona glances at her shoulders, and her whipcord arms, and the habitual straightness of her spine instead. They’re all relaxed, as if this is normal, as if Pyrrha is used to comforting her.

“There, see?” Pyrrha says. “That’s not so bad.” She looks around the room. “Look, you made confetti. Very festive, adds some life to the place.”

Nona has no idea what this means, but when she looks around too she sees the bits of her newspaper scattered everywhere. That wasn’t what she’d wanted to do with them. Besides, Pyrrha had already said it was too messy, and now Nona’s just made it worse. She feels a wave of guilt that drives her off of Pyrrha’s lap and down onto the floor, trying to gather up scraps of newspaper in her hands.

It’s not as easy as it seems. The newspaper is flat, and a little slippery. It sticks to the ancient linoleum and is hard to get up. Camilla keeps Nona’s fingernails short, so that she’ll stop scratching herself, so she can’t get them under the edges of the paper. She manages to get a few into her hands, but within a few moments she’s feeling a hot, urgent panic that only gets worse the longer she struggles.

“Wait, wait.” Pyrrha’s hand is on her shoulder, warm and heavy, “It’s ok, Nona. Do you want to pick them up?” At Nona’s nod, she says, “Alright. There’s an easier way, though. Wait here.”

Pyrrha disappears, but that’s alright because Nona can hear her in the kitchen and knows she hasn’t really gone away. She comes back a moment later carrying the broom and dustpan that Nona remembers having seen her and Camilla use around the house, and suddenly it’s so obvious that Nona can’t believe she didn’t think of it earlier. Pyrrha studies her for a thoughtful moment before saying, “I think I’d better sweep. Why don’t you hold the pan?”

Nona’s a little disappointed--the broom looks enticing, and holding the dustpan means just sitting still as Pyrrha sweeps bits of paper into it--but the relief at Pyrrha understanding and helping her is stronger than her regret about the broom. Working together, it takes surprisingly little time until the floor is clean. The bits of paper are irrevocably mixed up with the dirt and dust that was already there, but it’s ok to throw them away. She can always make more if she wants them, and she was never particularly interested in the paper itself anyway.

“Alright,” Pyrrha says, surveying the room. “Mission accomplished. Do you know where these go in the cupboard?” At Nona’s nod, she says, “Go put them away, then, and I’ll get the bath started.”

Nona is still deeply uncertain how she feels about taking a bath without Camilla, but Pyrhra’s tone doesn’t leave much room for argument. She manages to get the broom away without hitting herself over the head with it more than a couple of times, and comes back into the bedroom a little reluctantly to hear the water running in the bathroom and the unexpected sound of Pyrrha humming tunelessly. She turns around as soon as Nona comes near the door and gives Nona a smile that seems only a little awkward. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says. “I didn’t know how hot you’d want the water. I like my baths hot enough to boil a lobster, but I expect you feel differently.”

“Lobster?” Nona asks, as she comes forward to cautiously feel the water. It’s nearly perfect, but it seems easier to reach out and adjust the taps herself than try to find the words to ask Pyrrha to.

“Old sea animal that they probably don’t have around here,” Pyrrha says. “Looks a bit like an insect that decided to grow gills. Big claws. Delicious with lemon butter.”

Nothing about this description sounds appealing to Nona, but she doesn’t have a chance to say so. Pyrrha looks at her a little doubtfully and says, “Do you need any help with those clothes?”

Getting out of clothes is easier than getting into them, and Nona’s been practicing. “Just the buttons,” she says.

Pyrrha nods as if this is what she expected, and makes quick work of them. Freed of her overshirt, Nona manages the rest herself even if she does still have to sit down to get her trousers off. She carefully makes sure both feet are free of them--she’d learned that lesson the hard way--and then still wobbles on the wet floor as she rises.

“Careful, junior, or you’ll slip and fall on your--” Pyrrha stops herself so abruptly that Nona nearly does slip and fall. She manages to get both feet precariously planted on one of the less slippery bits of the floor and turns around to stare at Pyrrha in interrogation.

Pyrrha’s eyes are looking down and to the side, as if she’s embarrassed, but she flashes Nona a grin. “On your rear end,” she says smoothly, although it’s obvious to Nona that wasn’t the word she was going to use originally. “And you want to be careful, you don’t have very much padding there.”

This strikes Nona as so funny that she bursts into laughter, the sound so loud and unexpected in the tiny room that it almost frightens her. It’s so overwhelming that she does lose her balance then, and it’s only Pyrrha’s hand under her elbow that keeps her upright. That only makes everything funnier, of course, and for a few minutes Nona’s laughing so hard she can barely breathe.

Pyrrha is laughing too, a beautifully raspy sound that Nona’s never heard before. “Alright,” she says after a moment, when she’s had a chance to catch her breath and Nona’s subsided into giggling. “If you think that’s so funny, kiddie, then we really need to get you out more. Come on, now, into the bath. If I keep you up too far past your bedtime Camilla’s going to find out, and that’s the last thing either of us needs.”

With Pyrrha’s hand for balance Nona makes it into the tub without further incident. Camilla was telling the truth earlier; she doesn’t really need much help now, and she manages to wash herself and even to shampoo her own hair, although Pyrrha ends up helping her rinse it out. By the end of the bath Nona is warm all the way through and so pleasantly sleepy that it takes a great deal more help from Pyrrha to get her safely dried off and dressed in the t-shirt she’ll sleep in.

She manages to stumble to bed on her own, Pyrrha close behind her. It’s raining--it’s been raining for weeks, or possibly forever--and chilly, so Pyrrha draws the covers up carefully over Nona and tucks them in along her side. Nona likes the way that feels. Camilla usually just covers her up, but being tucked in like that makes such a comforting pressure that Nona’s half asleep before Pyrrha has even finished on her other side.

“We didn’t do so badly for ourselves, did we,” Pyrrha says. “That hair of yours is going to be a nightmare in the morning, though. I’ll see if I remember how to braid it for you.”

That thought is so pleasant that it’s all Nona needs to finally let her eyes close all the way and drift almost instantly off into sleep.

**

Nona knows that she should be asleep, but she napped through most of the afternoon and now she just can’t convince her eyes to close. When she’d said as much to Camilla, though, she’d just been told that they’ll close on their own if she waits long enough, and that it’s still bedtime even if she’s not sleepy. She knows Cam’s just hoping she’ll get bored and go to sleep anyway, but instead she’s just been lying in the dark living room, sulking.

Camilla and Pyrrha have been sitting in the kitchen in silence. Nona has heard the scratching of a pencil and occasional muttered commentary, but that’s all until Camilla suddenly says, “Alright. I think we’re ready.”

“Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this, Hect?” Pyrrha asks.

“Nope,” Camilla says calmly. There’s the quiet scratching of a pencil again, and then Camilla gives a single, short bark of laughter that’s unfamiliar enough to startle Nona.

“Yeah, well, same to you, Warden,” Pyrrha says, although she doesn’t sound mad. The floor creaks as she gets up and paces over to the other side of the kitchen. “This isn’t a good idea for either of you.”

“What choice do we have?” Cam asks. “He can’t stay in there.”

“Anything else,” Pyrrha says. She’s starting to sound a little angry, and Nona can’t help shrinking down and pulling the blanket nearly up over her face. “You don’t even know if this is going to work. No one has done it successfully. I’m not sure if it’s even possible.”

There’s a pause in the conversation for the scratching noise again, and Pyrrha snorts. “I wouldn’t call us a success,” she says. “Besides, I was an accident. There’s no guarantee anyone could manage it again.”

“The Warden’s done the calculations,” Camilla says. “But you know more about this than either of us. If you’re so worried, look it over for us.”

There’s a sigh, and then an even longer silence broken only by the rustling of pages. Pyrrha asks a few low-voiced questions, although Nona doesn’t know why she bothers, because Cam doesn’t answer any of them. Eventually, once Nona’s eyelids have grown heavy and she nearly has bored herself to sleep, Pyrrha says heavily, “As far as I can tell, the theory is sound. But that doesn’t mean there’s any guarantee that it will work.”

“Thanks,” Camilla says gruffly. “We owe you, Dve.”

“No, you don’t,” Pyrrha says. “Even if this works, it isn’t a long-term solution. Do you understand what this is going to mean, Hect? Never mind the neurological damage, which I don’t have the tools to help either of you with. You think it’s bad writing notes back and forth with him now? If you do this right, you’re going to completely compartmentalize yourselves. You’ll never be able to talk to each other again. The moment you come into a room, he’ll have just left it. That’s what you’re signing up for. And that’s the best case scenario. If this goes wrong--and I think it probably will--then things are going to be even worse.”

This is completely incomprehensible, but apparently it makes more sense to Cam, because she says, again, “What choice do we have?”

Pyrrha sighs again. “I can think of one,” she says. “I’ve been in here long enough. Longer than anyone should be stuck anywhere, really.”

Cam’s voice is suddenly loud, nearly loud enough to drown out the frantic pencil scratching. “No. Absolutely not.”

It’s as if they’ve traded places. Cam sounded angry, but Pyrrha’s voice is imperturbably level as she says, “Think about it, Hect. You too, Sextus. It would solve most of your problems. Some of mine, too.”

Cam is oddly silent, but she must be writing again. After a moment of scribbling noises, Pyrrha says thoughtfully, “Want is a strong word. I’m not trying to die, Warden, but I’m not afraid of it either. One of you could put this body to much better use than I can. It’s not like it really belongs to me anyway.”

There’s another strange waiting silence, before Cam says, “I agree with the Warden.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to think it over?”

“No,” Camilla says, immediately and decisively. “It’s time. No more waiting.” Then she hesitates and asks, with uncharacteristic uncertainty, “Would you stay while we do it? Just in case? You’re the only one who--who’s done something like this before.”

“And watch what’s about to happen?” Pyrrha says. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Hect.” There’s a protesting groan from one of the kitchen chairs as she sits, though. “Alright. Better get moving, though. Some of us have work in the morning.”

Now that the urgency of the argument--was it even really an argument?--has faded, Nona finds it harder to stay interested. She can hear more muttering and scribbling from the kitchen, but it’s impossible to stay awake. Despite her best efforts, she drifts away before finding out what happened.

Camilla is waiting for her the next morning, just like usual. She must have stayed up late after all, because there are dark half-moons under her eyes, and her shoulders are drooping with exhaustion. She raises the same interrogative eyebrow at Nona as she does every morning, though, and pushes the button on the recorder. “Start,” she says.

The next few minutes seem so much like normal that Nona forgets about the odd conversation last night. She tries and mostly fails to find the right words to tell Camilla about her dreams, but as usual Cam listens patiently and without blame. Then she helps Nona with her clothes, which has gotten easier now that Nona understands about shirts.

Once Nona’s dressed Camilla hesitates instead of sending her into the kitchen, though, and Nona is filled with a brief hope that maybe there’s no breakfast today, or possibly ever again. Cam studies her seriously for a moment and then says, “Nona, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Nona, who loves new people, nods enthusiastically and looks around the living room hopefully. Camilla says, “I’m going to have to leave while he’s here, but don’t be scared.” She gives Nona a tiny, beautiful smile that makes the whole room lighter. “He’s my friend. You’ll like him. I’ll come back as soon as he’s gone.”

This is mysterious and a little worrying, but before Nona has time to work up much panic Cam closes her eyes and looks like she’s concentrating hard. It’s so unexpected that Nona freezes, and she’s only just remembered that she still needs to breathe when Cam opens her eyes back up.

Except they’re not her eyes. Nona loves Camilla’s clear grey eyes, but these are different, dark and intense in an entirely different way than Cam’s eyes are intense. She stares in shock as their owner smiles in a way that Camilla never would, slides a finger uselessly up the bridge of their nose, and glances quickly around the room before looking back at her. “Nona,” they say. “I’m Palamedes. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

**

The first time Nona does something on her own is a surprise to them all.

She’s been gradually earning more independence. These days she takes her baths alone, and is often left in one room for long stretches of time while Camilla or Pyrrha are somewhere else in the apartment. Today, she’s been lying on the floor in the living room, doodling on page after page of blank paper with a ballpoint pen Pyrrha gave her the day before. Camilla’s in the bedroom with the door shut, writing. She’s been doing that more and more over the past two weeks, since Palamedes arrived, and Nona’s not sure how she feels about it. She’s glad Palamedes is here--he’s funny, and has interesting things to say, and answers all of her questions just like Camilla does--but she doesn’t like how often Camilla disappears to write back and forth with him, or how left out she feels when it’s just the two of them shut up alone.

Camilla’s been gone even longer than usual. Drawing, which at first had seemed like the best possible way to spend the afternoon, is getting less and less interesting. Camilla hadn’t told Nona to keep drawing until she got back. In fact, she hadn’t told Nona what to do at all, just given her a distracted glance and told her she was going to go write to Palamedes.

That meant that really, there isn’t anything Nona can’t do. She and Pyrrha and Camilla had had a long conversation the week before about how rules changed based on different circumstances. They’d been trying to impress on her that while it was ok to talk to some of the people she met when they went out and about--the men at the dairy, people waiting in lines, the nice old women who repaired trucks, anyone walking their dog--there were other people she absolutely couldn’t talk to, like cops and anyone carrying a gun. At the time this had seemed wildly unfair, and Nona had despaired of ever learning the rules when they kept changing. Now, though, she realizes suddenly that it might actually be an opportunity.

Camilla hadn’t said that she couldn’t do something else. Camilla hadn’t even said that she needed to stay in the living room. Nona could do something more interesting.

She briefly considers the charms of the radio, but the unpredictably loud noises it emits scare her as often as they produce something she actually enjoys, and besides that would probably bother Camilla. Looking out the window, she sees that the rain that had been falling steadily all morning has stopped, and Nona has an idea.

Camilla and Pyrrha had started taking her out into the city nearly as soon as she could be relied upon to follow their directions and not do anything foolish like walk directly in front of a truck. She had fallen in love with it instantly. The city was huge, and always changing. You never knew what you would find when you went out into it, but it was nearly always something wonderful. There were people out there, dozens of them, to talk to or watch or wonder about.

The city was, most of all, never boring. If Nona goes for a walk now--just a short one, just down the streets she already knew--she won’t be bored either. If she goes quickly enough, she might even be back before Camilla has finished writing her endless letters.

Nona creeps to the door as quietly as she can. The buttons on her overshirt give her some trouble, but she’s been practicing buttons and after a few tries she gets them mostly done up. Several of them are in the wrong holes, so that the shirt hangs askew, but that’s ok. Slipping on her jandals, she opens the door as quietly as she can and treads carefully out into the hallway.

The walk down the stairs is so exhausting that Nona nearly regrets everything long before she makes it to ground level, but once she gets out of the building the outside world is so distracting that she forgets the ache of her tired legs. The last few times she had been outside it had been raining, and so everyone had been in a hurry to get wherever they were going, or hadn’t gone out at all if they could help it. Now the streets are full of people, walking or sometimes driving trucks or motorbikes. There’s so much to look at that Nona can’t stop staring until she really is nearly run over by a car inching its way down the street, and after that she pays much more attention. She might really get into trouble with Camilla if she was hit by a car.

A group of children race past her, dodging around a deep crater in the road to cross to the pavement on the other side, and Nona watches them wistfully until a whine at her feet makes her realize that one of the city’s stray dogs has crept out of its doorway. She wishes that she had something to give it to eat, but settles for reaching down to scratch its ears. It accepts the gesture politely and leans against her ankles for a few seconds before giving up on getting any food and retreating again. Nona reluctantly moves on.

She watches a truck drive past and is delighted to realize that the crates stacked on it are full of live, wriggling crabs. She takes a few eager steps to follow, but even in the crowded street the truck moves faster than she can, and she gives up quickly. That isn’t too disappointing, though, because the man who’s now next to her is carrying a very tiny, very angry baby. Nona follows them curiously for a few steps before her attention is drawn by the sound of music drifting out someone’s window.

There are so very many things to look at, and listen to, and think about, that it takes quite some time before Nona looks up and realizes that she has no idea where she is and can no longer make out the shape of her own familiar building.

The things around her look vaguely familiar. She sees the storefront of the chips shop a little ways ahead, and some way behind her loom the ruins of the power plant, but she has no idea how to get home from here. She’s only ever ventured out in Camilla and Pyrrha’s company, and had never needed to pay attention to where they were going. Nona feels a dull panic starting to build behind her chest. She wants to run, but she has no idea where to run to.

“Are you alright?” Nona jumps and spins at the sound. She realizes that she’s in front of the mechanic’s shop where Pyrrha had tried and failed to get a job a few weeks before. Two of the old women who work there are out front, apparently locking up the shop before heading home. One of them is looking at her, eyebrows creased in concern.

Nona, startled by the encounter and terrified at the idea of never finding her way home, can’t figure out the right words to answer. Accepting her silence easily, the woman says to her companion, “That’s the little girl who comes by with her sister sometimes, isn’t it? Nova, or something like that.”

“Nona,” Nona whispers, and the woman nods. “Of course. Nona. Where’s your sister and your father, girl?”

Nona, who now knows what a father is, doesn’t feel up to explaining that she’s never had one of them. That doesn’t seem to bother either of the old women. The first one looks at her, clicks her tongue, and suddenly comes much closer to Nona than she’d expected. She nearly dodges backwards until she realizes that she’s just unbuttoning the overshirt and doing it up the right way, so that all the buttons match and the shirt hangs straight. “They’ll be out looking for her,” she says. “Should have kept a better eye on her in the first place. Better wait until they come.”

Nona, feeling obscurely guilty, says, “Not coming.”

“Don’t be foolish, girl, of course they are. Be here any minute. Just you come sit down and we’ll make sure they find you. Where do you live?”

Nona’s mumbled answer about a building doesn't seem to help much. She refuses to go wait inside the shop, terrified that if she leaves the street she might miss Camilla or Pyrrha if they do, by some miracle, come looking for her. Finally the women give up and stand with her on the sidewalk, surveying the crowd passing by.

Nona has no idea how long it is--far, far too long--before the second old woman says, “Isn’t that her over there? See, I said they’d come find you.” She waves and yells something incomprehensible, and the sweetly familiar figure of Camilla looks over, shoulders loosening in something that looks like relief, and jogs across the street towards them.

Camilla is wearing the sunglasses she’s taken a liking to recently, even though it isn’t very bright out. She’s also holding herself wrong, moving precisely but without her usual grace, and Nona’s not sure why. It’s so distracting that she misses nearly everything Camilla says to the mechanics, only paying enough attention to thank them as politely as she can before Camilla draws her hand into her arm and, with the same odd movement of her legs and hips, leads Nona away.

As soon as they’re half a block away Camilla pulls off the sunglasses and gives Nona a piercing look, and she realizes that the reason she’s moving wrong is that it isn’t Camilla at all. Nona doesn’t know Palamedes very well yet, but there’s no mistaking the hint of impatience in his posture, or the frustration that he’s not even trying to keep off his face. She braces herself, her terror from being lost suddenly replaced by the fear of getting in trouble.

All Palamedes says, though, is “Hurry. We don’t have much time left before I have to let Camilla back, and it’s probably better all around if we get home before she finds out about this.”

“Not tell her?” Nona asks, astonished.

“I’ll have to,” Palamedes says, dashing all of Nona’s hopes of getting away with her misadventure, “but it’ll be better if we can present this as a fait accompli.” She wants to ask what that means, but he’s already saying, “Nona, what were you thinking?”

“I wanted to go outside,” Nona says. That seems inadequate, so she adds, “Camilla didn’t say not to.”

Palamedes considers that, dark eyes studying the skyline over her head before focusing back on Nona’s face. “Pyrrha and Camilla don’t let you go out on your own, do they?” he demands.

Nona, who can feel her face starting to flush, shakes her head.

“And you knew that if you did ask they’d say no,” Palamedes says. It’s not a question.

“Couldn’t ask,” Nona protests. “Writing.”

“Nona,” Palamedes says severely, “that’s not an excuse. You kept your plans a secret because you knew that Pyrrha and Camilla and I would never agree to something like that. I would have expected you to have learned your lesson when you got lost. That wasn’t safe, and you knew it. Just because Camilla hasn’t expressly forbidden you to burn down the apartment doesn’t mean you can try that either.”

Nona has to blink hard. “Won’t go again,” she promises.

“I’m trusting you to keep to that,” Palamedes says. “And we’ll let it drop there, although by rights I should skin you for giving me such a fright.”

The first time Palamedes had said something like that had frightened Nona badly--neither Camilla nor Pyrrha had ever said anything about hurting her--but she knows now that it’s an empty threat, a way for Palamedes to show that he was worried because he cares about what happens to her. It’s funny, really, that out of the three of them he’s the one who acts like he might actually do something violent.

Palamedes must see her tiny smile, because his own eyebrows relax in response. “All’s well that ends well,” he says, and he’s about to add something else when there’s a sudden beeping. He stares down at his watch in dismay and says a word that Nona’s pretty sure he learned from Pyrrha. “There’s still a block to go, and all those stairs,” he says. “I can’t push my time that far, the neurological damage--and no way to get her a message, damn it.” He levels his dark eyes at her. His gaze is so intense that Nona wants to look away, but she feels obscurely like she owes it to Palamedes to make eye contact and so she does her best. “I’m trusting you to tell her what’s going on,” he says.

Before Nona can protest he blinks once, bows his head for a moment, and when he looks back up at her it’s Camilla’s beautiful clear grey eyes again. She looks around, eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement. “Nona,” she says slowly, suspicion already growing in her voice, “what’s going on?”

**

Nona slits her eyes open, just enough to make out blurry shapes but hopefully not far enough to get caught, and listens.

“Alright,” Camilla—no, from the futile swipe up his nose it must be Palamedes—says. “So what have we learned?”

“Not to leave that menace alone with sharp objects,” Pyrrha says. Then, after a considering pause, “Or blunt ones.”

Nona would object to “that menace,” but if they know she’s awake they’ll stop talking. Besides, even through Nona’s exhaustion she can see from the set of her shoulders and the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes that Pyrrha means it fondly.

Apparently Palamedes can’t tell that, though. “It’s not her fault,” he says, with just enough heat behind the words to make it sound not very much like Cam’s voice at all. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s some sort of trauma response that’s completely beyond her control. I’d suspect she’s as scared of it as the rest of us.”

“Scared and pissed off,” Pyrrha says. “I’m thinking maybe she is the ninth after all. Her mother used to look at me just like that when she was mad. Tried to take my head off a time or three, too.”

“That’s not proof of anything,” Palamedes argues. “Nor is it helpful.”

“Sextus, I’m so far out of my depth here that you’re lucky I can contribute anything at all,” Pyrrha says. Then, sounding more serious, she adds, “What we do know is that if it’s happened twice it can happen again.”

Twice? Nona doesn’t remember doing this before, but when she thinks back to the way she felt—furious, and single-minded, and ready to do anything to get what she needs—it’s intimately familiar. She has been angry like this before.

“True,” Palamedes says. “Tell me again what the antecedent was.”

“I wouldn’t let her eat the newspaper,” Pyrrha says. “But it wasn’t just that. She’s been in a mood all day. Got mad when she had to get dressed, got mad when we tried to get out the bones, nearly bit Cam’s head off for trying to brush her hair. Tried to run away from me into traffic because she saw a dog across the street. It was just a bad day, and I think it finally caught up to her.”

The shame that’s been creeping up on Nona sweeps over her in a sudden wave. It wasn’t just the tantrum. She’d behaved terribly all day. She resolves, once again, never to do it again. She’ll have to apologize to Pyrrha and Cam later.

“Immobilizing her seems to have worked,” Pyrrha continues thoughtfully. “Maybe we should keep a blanket handy at all times. Swaddle her up if she starts getting cranky.”

“Did you ever try that on the commander?” Palamedes asks, a little wryly.

“Immobilizing her? Once or twice,” Pyrrha says. "Very memorable occasions, too." Nona doesn’t understand this, but from the tone of voice she can just imagine the smile on Pyrrha’s face, and has a hard time biting back her own.

There’s a familiar beeping noise, and Palamedes swears quietly to himself. “I’ve taken notes for Camilla. Will you walk her through them? We’ll just have to keep working on prevention.”

“Of course,” Pyrrha says. There’s a small expectant pause, and then she says, “You know you can’t fool me, Sextus. I can tell it’s still you in there. The eyes are a dead giveaway.”

“Sorry,” Palamedes says. “Sometimes it’s hard to go.”

“I know. I promise, I’ll take care of them.”

“You’re lucky I can’t tell tales. Cam would murder both of us for implying that she needs taking care of.”

“I can take Hect,” Pyrrha says, although Nona’s not sure whether she really believes it.

Nona can just make out the movement as Palamedes nods. “I trust you with them, Dve. Just . . . keep an extra eye on them tonight.”

“I’m not sure I’ll dare turn my back on Nona all night. Go, Sextus. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

**

Nona’s not sure where the thought first comes from. That’s not unusual--she often has very little idea why she thinks the things she does--but it is so unexpected that she keeps it to herself for a few endless days, revolving it over and over in her mind without coming to any useful conclusions.

She isn’t really planning to say anything about it, but as so often happens to her it pops out unexpectedly anyway. She and Pyrrha are at the park one evening after dinner, just the two of them. It’s been a long day for all of them; they were unexpectedly brought in to a BoE debriefing early that morning, which had put everyone in a bad mood, and then they had arrived home to discover a plumbing leak. They’d all done their best to make it through dinner without any more incidents, Nona carefully on her best behavior despite her exhaustion and Camilla using the voice she only brought out when it was particularly difficult to be patient. As soon as they were done cleaning up, Pyrrha had given Camilla one of her assessing looks and announced that she and Nona were going out to the park, to practice Nona’s situational awareness.

It was such a transparent excuse for giving Camilla some time alone that even Nona had seen through it immediately, but she didn’t mind. She loves the park, and loves having Pyrrha all to herself. She doesn’t even mind Pyrrha’s constant quizzing on what she’d seen around her and what the people they’d just walked past were doing, and works so hard on paying attention that she got several “Good job, kiddie”s, which make the evening even better.

Once they make it to the park Pyrrha finds a wall to perch on and starts pointing out various people around them, telling Nona which ones to watch out for and how she knows. Nona’s used up all her concentration during the walk over, though, and she keeps getting distracted watching a group of children kicking a large red ball over the concrete. As she watches, one scrambles to reach the ball before it hits the wall behind them, loses his balance, and falls. One of their companions runs over and reaches out a hand to help them up, and Nona can’t help her envious sigh.

It’s loud enough to catch Pyrrha’s attention, and she arches an eyebrow at Nona. “Anything you want to share with the class, Nums?”

“They’re friends,” Nona says, without really intending to.

Pyrrha follows her gaze. “Probably,” she agrees. “Although in the middle of a game of football it can be difficult to tell friend from foe.”

“It’s not fair,” Nona says. A glance at Pyrrha’s face shows a complete lack of understanding, so Nona tries to explain. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Oh,” Pyrrha says. “You don’t go for the easy ones, do you?”

“Camilla and Palamedes are friends. You had a best friend. I want one too.”

Nona only realizes that bringing that up might have been a mistake when Pyrrha’s smile becomes just a little stiff, while something darker clouds her eyes. “I’m not sure I’d wish you a best friend just like mine,” she says, her voice just a little too cheerful.

“Why not?” Nona demands.

“It’s complicated.” Nona folds her arms and stares at Pyrrha, to show that she isn’t satisfied with that answer, and Pyrrha sighs. “Friends can be wonderful, Nona, but they can also be very complicated.”

This still seems like an evasion. Nona knows from experience how hard it can be to nail down Pyrrha when she’s in this mood, though, so she tries another tack. “What was your best friend like?”

Some of the darkness disappears from Pyrrha’s eyes, replaced by surprise. “Gideon?”

Nona nods. “Would I have liked him? Would he have liked me?”

Pyrrha’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “No, probably not. Gideon was a man of few words. You would have talked his ear off.” She seems lost in her own thoughts, and Nona’s a little afraid to interrupt. “Very practical. Intelligent, but he could also get things done. You learn how rare a trait that is once you spend enough time around academic types, just ask Camilla. Loyal, too, which would end up being as much of a problem as an asset.”

“That doesn’t sound like a problem,” Nona ventures.

“It is when it makes you stop thinking for yourself. Gideon was always a lot more trusting than me, and it came back to bite him in the end. He was a little too good at taking orders.”

“Do you miss him? Nona asks, daringly.

Pyrrha stares off into the distance for a moment, then shakes her head slightly as if coming back to herself. “It’s getting dark. Come on, No-no, we’d better be getting back home before Camilla sends out a search party.”

Nona thinks that’s the end of the discussion, but as they start walking Pyrrha says, in a more normal voice, “Maybe there’s a way to find you some friends your own age, No-no, but we’ll have to be careful.”

“You always say that,” Nona says, trying not to sound too relieved that they’re back on more solid ground.

“Well, it’s always true.” Pyrrha shakes her head a little ruefully and smiles down at Nona, a more genuine smile than the one she’d worn earlier. “Might be worth it, though. Even when you miss them, there’s a lot to be said for a best friend.”

**

“It doesn’t matter how often you ask, it’s still going to be no.” Camilla sounds as implacable as the faces of the concrete buildings that surrounded them, and Nona nearly despairs.

“Not even a small one? It wouldn’t be a problem, Camilla. I’d take care of it. I know how, you know. I’ve practiced.”

“No.”

Nona tries desperately to think of an argument she hasn’t marshalled yet. They’re nearly home, which means that Palamedes would probably be coming out for bones as soon as they got in the door, and he isn’t going to be any help. The last time she’d tried, he’d just told her that he’d agree if Camilla did, which was an obvious cop-out that had left Nona completely unimpressed. “If we get a dog I’ll be so good, I promise. I’ll eat my breakfast and take my baths and, and, and not complain when Pyrrha brushes my hair,” Nona says, making her best attempt to sound virtuous instead of whiny.

“Sounds nice, you should try that sometime. No.”

Nona, out of arguments, gives up on logic. “Why not?”

“One, we don’t have the money. Two, dogs are a lot of work, and I don’t think you’re ready to do it yet. Three, they aren’t allowed in the building.”

Nona badly wants to argue with this--if the building allows cops and militia guys then surely it could allow a dog too--but the set of Camilla’s chin is undeniable. Instead she pulls her hand out of Cam’s grip and crosses her arms across her chest. She can tell she’s sulking, but she can’t stop herself. “It’s not fair. The Angel gets to have a dog, and so do the old men at the dairy, and Beautiful Ruby gets to have a baby, and I don’t get to have anything.”

“What are the three of us, a curriculum review committee?” Cam sounds amused. “I suppose we should be glad you just want a dog and not a baby too.”

Nona considers this seriously. “Well, I did like the baby,” she says. “It had perfect little fingers and perfect little toes.” It had grabbed one of Nona’s own fingers with those tiny hands, much to her delight. “But babies are a lot more work than dogs, and they cry.”

“Very true,” Camilla says. “You can’t imagine what a relief that is.”

Nona sees just the faintest crease at the corner of Camilla’s mount and is about to demand whether she’s making fun when a loud whistle comes from the alleyway they’re walking past. It’s so loud and so sudden that it nearly makes her jump, but she managed to control herself in time. She doesn’t want the man in the alley to see that he startled her.

Camilla just keeps walking, as if she hadn’t heard a thing. Nona does her best to copy the way she fixes her eyes on the sidewalk ahead and tilts her chin up just slightly, as if whatever’s happening here is beneath her notice. It’s not easy. She feels a creeping sense of unease, and as a second man joins the first and starts making remarkes she notices the first stirrings of anger.

It’s not worth turning around to argue with them. Camilla taught her that, a couple of months ago. It’s better to just ignore them and pretend they don't exist. Besides, they’re nearly home now, and once they make it to the safety of their own apartment Nona can pretend that men like this have just stopped existing. Even bones will be better than this.

She’s trying so hard not to look that she almost misses the moment Cam tenses and lets her hand drift towards the pocket that cleverly conceals her first knife. That’s alarming enough that Nona does glance back, just for an instant.

The men have left the alley and are walking several meters behind them. They’re trying to walk casually, as if it just happened to be time for them to stop lurking and walk this same direction, but their every movement gives away the lie. They’re following them.

Nona briefly considers being scared, but she’s with Camilla and Camilla’s knives, so getting frightened seems a bit silly. She does feel a little anxious, though, and she can tell Camilla’s on edge too.

They’re very close to the building, so they could probably get inside before anything happens. But, as Camilla explained last time, that’s not a very good idea, because then the men would know where they live. That time, Camilla had asked Nona to wait by herself on the corner while she went back and talked to the men. Nona wasn’t sure what she’d said, but it hadn’t been a very long conversation. She’s expecting something like that to happen now, maybe once they get to the corner so she can wait safely for Camilla. It’s not very far now.

One of the men, a grin in his voice, calls out something in one of the less-common languages of the city. It’s a little hard to tell what he’s saying when Nona can’t look, but she makes out the words “pretty” and “with me” before his voice abruptly cuts off and the sound of pursuing footsteps stops.

Nona can’t help turning around again. The men have stopped, now several meters behind them, looking warily at something on the other side of the road. Nona follows their eyes to see, to her immense joy, the large and familiar shape of Pyrrha crossing the street towards them, smiling at Nona and Camilla in a way that isn’t really very nice at all. She doesn’t let the smile drop as she flicks a glance over her shoulder towards the men. Nona keeps watching long enough to see them turn and walk back towards their alley, still trying to look casual, as if going back that way had been their own idea all along.

Pyrrha takes a long stride up onto the pavement, smile gone but eyes crinkled with more genuine amusement. She offers an arm to Camilla. “How was your day, honey?”

“I had it covered,” Camilla tells her. She’s relaxed her shoulders and has let her hand drift away from the knife pocket, but doesn’t take Pyrrha’s arm.

Without a pause Pyrrha offers her other arm to Nona, who takes it with delight. “I know you did,” she says. “But I have to look out for my girls.”

“Not your anything,” Camilla says, although Nona’s pretty sure she doesn’t mean it. “Tactical error, Pyrrha. If you let me handle it, they won’t try again next time they see us alone.”

“You take all the fun out of chivalry.” Pyrrha turns to Nona, face mock-serious. “I’m sure small fry here doesn’t mind being rescued by such a charming prince.”

Nona replies, after some thought, “Well, of course I do think you’re very handsome, Pyrrha, but if you hadn’t rescued me Camilla would, and she’s very beautiful, so really it would have been the same either way.”

“Well, that’s me told,” Pyrrha says, after a stunned moment of silence. “If you think this body is handsome, kiddie, we really need to introduce you to a wider social circle.” Nona’s about to protest that--she knows plenty of people, and Pyrrha is handsome, no matter what she says--but Pyrrha’s already going on. “Don’t worry, Hect. The more news gets around that you’re under someone’s . . . protection, the safer for both of you. No reason for word to get out that you can fight if we don’t have to. It’s a short leap from good with knives to good with other sharp pointy weapons, and the city’s on edge enough to jump right over that line if you give them half an excuse.”

Cam considers this for a moment. “That teacher of Nona’s has a lot to answer for,” she says. “Fine. But if they ever come back when you aren’t here--”

“Then we’ll sic Nona on them,” Pyrrha says. Then, more seriously, “I know you can keep her safe, Hect. That’s never been in question.”

Camilla nods but doesn’t seem to have any other reply to that. Nona, starting to feel bored, realizes that this lull in the conversation might be just the opportunity that she’s been looking for. Tucking her hand more firmly into the crook of Pyrrha’s elbow, she smiles up at her as winningly as she can and asks, “Pyrrha, wouldn’t you like to have a dog?”

**

Cam is curled up on her side, facing away from Nona. One hand is resting near the recorder, but not quite touching it. Unusually, she doesn’t move as Nona comes into the room.

That scares Nona enough that she freezes and says, knowing Cam will hear the fear in her voice and hopefully make it go away, “Is everything alright?”

That’s enough to get Cam to sit up, although she keeps her eyes on the floor and her face mostly turned away from Nona. Her hair hangs down like a curtain, hiding her expression from view. “Yes,” she says, briefly.

“You said you wouldn’t lie to me,” Nona accuses. It’s so obviously not true that she doesn’t really understand how Cam ever thought she’d get away with it.

Cam sighs, and her shoulders sag in a way that makes Nona’s chest hurt. She’s never seen Camilla this sad. “I suppose I did,” she admits. “But nothing’s really wrong, Nona. I’ll be fine.”

That still doesn’t seem right, but it eases Nona’s worry enough that she’s able to walk across the room and, feeling very daring, sit down with her side just touching Cam’s. It’s hard to see each other’s faces that way, but Nona can see enough to know that Cam is terribly, desperately sad. She says, “You wouldn’t be this sad if nothing was wrong.”

There’s a considering silence, which is rare with Camilla. After a long moment she says, “It’s the Warden.” She must hear Nona’s small noise of confusion, because she clarifies, “Palamedes.”

Nona starts a little, looking at Camilla in horror. “Did something happen to Palamedes?” she asks, suddenly panicked.

“No,” Cam says.

“That’s another lie,” Nona says. Her voice is getting higher and nearly squeaky, which is embarrassing, but she has more important things to worry about right now. “Camilla, stop lying to me.”

“No, it’s not,” Cam says firmly, sounding much more like herself. “It’s just that it’s complicated. Nothing has happened to Palamedes since you talked to him this morning. He’s fine.”

Nona relaxes back down until her side is pressed against Camilla’s again. “I don’t understand,” she says. “If that’s so, then why don’t you think it’s true?”

After another thoughtful pause Camilla shifts a little ways away from Nona and finally looks at her. To Nona’s distress, there are salty tracks running down her cheeks. Cam’s been crying. Her voice is steady, though, as she says, “Something did happen to the Warden, but it was long ago, before you met him.”

“What?” Nona demands.

“He died,” Camilla says. She still sounds calm, but she’s looking down at the floor again. “He died, and I wasn’t even there.”

Nona has about a million questions, but she manages to bite back some of them--she’s pretty sure that asking how Palamedes died would be rude, and she doesn’t want to be rude when Camilla’s already sad--but she can’t contain the most obvious objection. “But he’s not dead,” she points out.

“No. He’d done--something so that he wasn’t all the way dead. We brought him back.”

“Oh,” Nona says, much relieved. “That’s alright, then.”

It’s clear from the expression on Cam’s face that she doesn’t, in fact, think that’s alright. More tentatively, Nona asks, “Isn’t it?”

Cam’s hair hangs over her face like a curtain as she says, almost too quietly for Nona to hear, “I just miss him sometimes. That’s all.”

Nona thinks about this. She misses Palamedes too sometimes, but she always knows she’ll see him soon. “Because you don’t get to talk to him anymore,” she says, slowly.

Camilla nods. “Don’t tell him I said so,” she adds.

“Because you don’t want him to know?”

“Oh, he already knows.” Through the veil of hair Nona thinks maybe she can make out just the smallest hint of one of Cam’s smiles, but it’s a sad one that doesn’t make her feel any better. “But it’s not something you should have to worry about.”

That is a little ridiculous. “Of course I worry about you,” Nona says. She hesitates for just a moment, but she’s been thinking it for so long that it only seems natural to come out and say it. “It’s because I love you.”

She’s not sure what to expect, but Camilla just says matter-of-factly, the same way that she’d announce that lunch was ready or that it’s raining again today, “I know. I love you too, Nona.”

It’s not quite enough to make everything alright--not when Cam’s been crying and when she misses Palamedes--but it does make something in Nona’s chest feel warm. Hesitantly, she lies down instead, curling up so her head is almost-but-not-quite in Camilla’s lap. “I think he misses you too,” she says.

Cam, to Nona’s secret delight, reaches out and runs her fingers through Nona’s hair, nails just scratching her scalp. “I know,” she says again. “This isn’t how it’s meant to be. Not for us.”

That hurts a little. Nona doesn’t like Camilla to be sad, and wishes rather desperately that she could fix things so that she didn’t need to miss Palamedes, but she loves nearly everything else about the way things are and doesn’t want them to change. Cam must notice that something’s wrong, because she says, “Don’t worry, Nona. We’ll be ok.”

From where Nona’s lying, it’s easy to close her eyes and keep her face turned away from Cam. She loves looking at Cam, watching her small smiles and fidgeting movements, but just this once she doesn’t want to see. If she opens her eyes and looks at Camilla’s face she’ll be able to tell whether that’s another lie, and right now she’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to know.

**

Nona’s not sure, at first, what woke her up. She thinks for a moment that it was the alarm clock, but the bedroom is still dark enough that she can only just make out the shapes of Camilla and Pyrrha lying, quiet and still, next to her. There’s no waiting recorder or poised clipboard. It’s not morning yet.

Besides, she realizes as she listens that the song that woke her up isn’t the usual one. In fact, it doesn’t sound much like any song she’s ever heard before. The longer it goes on, the more wildly beautiful it becomes. It’s strange and completely different from anything she’s ever heard, but also so familiar that Nona feels like she knows each new note before it sounds.

She’s not sure how long she’s lost in listening, but eventually the song quiets to a low hum and she’s able to think again. There’s an unusual light creeping into the room, and Nona can’t stop herself from going to the window and peering out.

It’s nearly bright enough to make out the streets below. The light is blue, entirely different from anything Nona’s seen before, but she can’t quite make out the source. She waits, watching, anticipation growing, for what seems like endless minutes until slowly, smoothly, it slides out from behind the building across the street.

It’s a blue circle, almost like one of the moons but larger. The moment Nona sees it, her chest tightens and it’s almost hard to breathe. She doesn’t understand the feeling. She’s never seen anything like this before, and she can’t tell if she’s awed or afraid.

Then, almost as if the thing in the sky saw Nona too, the singing starts up again in a low, lilting hum. Nona finds herself abruptly exhausted, almost too tired to crawl back to her place between Cam and Pyrrha. Her last thought, before the music lulls her to sleep, is that she can’t wait to tell them about this in the morning.

**

“No-no, put that down. And don’t make that face at me. What have I said about eating weird things in public?”

“That people would think I was weird too.”

“That’s right. And weird stands out, and people remember someone who stands out.”

A sigh. “And we can’t afford for anyone to remember us.”

“No. Besides, you know it’s my turn to cook tonight, so you’d better be looking forward to dinner.”

“But I don’t want to eat dinner.”

“And you do want to eat rubber bands? Not on my watch, kiddie. Come on, let’s get home before Camilla sends out a search party. I’ve already been in enough trouble with her this week, I can’t take another domestic dispute.”

**

Nona wakes slowly to dim light filtering through her eyelids and the quiet sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen. For a moment she lies peacefully, perfectly warm and comfortable and content. Then she realizes that it’s clearly morning and she hasn’t heard the sound of the alarm clock, and the resulting worry that something’s wrong panics her completely awake.

Much to her relief Camilla is sitting next to her like she does every morning, clipboard poised. Nona gapes at her, but Camilla just raises an eyebrow and says, “Start.”

Nona’s too well-trained by now to disrupt this routine. She closes her eyes and does her best to find the right words to explain her dreams to Camilla. It’s harder than usual this morning, though, and she trails off after a few scattered sentences. She opens her eyes again to see Camilla still watching her, head tilted just slightly. “Everything ok, Nona?”

“The alarm didn’t go off,” Nona says. “Is something wrong? Am I late?”

Camilla shakes her head, looking almost abashed. “It’s the weekend,” she says. “No school, and Pyrrha’s crew is off today. I thought I’d let you sleep in for a treat.”

Nona thinks about this and tries to be polite. “I think I’d rather you didn’t,” she says apologetically.

“Noted. Sorry.”

Camilla lets the matter rest there, keeping Nona quiet company as she gets dressed and stretches. The morning gets infinitely better when Camilla, without even being asked, reaches out to grab Nona’s ankles and pull them towards her chest, holding them taught for several satisfying seconds before easing back and letting Nona get up. She records Nona’s message for Palamedes without comment and then sends Nona to the kitchen.

To Nona’s delight, Pyrrha has just finished mixing up pikelets and is pouring the first spoonfuls of batter into the pan. She’s feeling so pleased with the world that she even voluntarily takes one of the pieces of melon already set out on the table, which earns her a smile and a cheerful “Good morning, Nona-Palona.”

Pyrrha waits until the first batch of pikelets have been safely flipped over before leaning up against the counter and saying, “I was thinking that since neither of us has work, maybe we could take a day out today. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?”

This is such an exciting offer that for a moment Nona’s struck dumb. She’s already been swimming earlier that week, and besides she can’t go in the water during the day, but that still leaves so many options that she’s not sure what to ask for. Pyrrha must see her indecision, because she laughs and says, “I was thinking we could go look around the market. Could probably stretch my budget to a new magazine. Stop at the beach and build a sandcastle, if you’d like.”

Camilla, coming into the room, says, “Planning an expedition?”

“A day out. I think we’ve earned it.” When Camilla raises an inquiring eyebrow at Pyrrha, she looks thoughtful and says, “Should be safe enough as long as we stay away from the hotspots. City’s a little on edge, but it’s better now than it will be in a few weeks. No one’s been taken to the park for nearly a month. Probably just the calm before the storm, but we might as well take advantage of it.”

“Sounds nice,” Camilla says. “As long as we do swords first.”

Even the prospect of swords first can’t dampen Nona’s mood. She eats three and a half pikelets and four whole pieces of melon almost cheerfully, before helping Camilla with the washing-up while Pyrrha uncovers the boxes in the back of the cupboard and gets out the swords.

At first swords instruction had been just like bones, with Camilla giving her the weapon and telling her to do “what felt right.” This had led to some exciting consequences, until Palamedes put his foot down and said that it was one thing not to want to lead Nona, but another to let her keep going until she cut someone’s head off. Since no one was sure whether Nona--or Pyrrha or Camilla--would survive decapitation, Cam had given Nona some basic safety instruction before letting her try anything on her own again.

Nona was never sure which she disliked more between swords and bones, but it was usually the one that was put in front of her that day. She’s tried telling Camilla that what “feels right” is setting down the sword and never picking it up again, but that only got her a thoughtful “hmm” and a note jotted down in Camilla’s precise handwriting, so now she picks up the sword and waves it around aimlessly, feeling a little foolish, until it’s been long enough that she can safely put it away.

Then it’s time to start getting ready, a lengthy process that includes practicing this week’s code words, Pyrrha asking Nona twice whether she’s been to the bathroom, Nona deciding just before putting on her coat and mask that she does need to go again, and finally locking and re-locking the door before they make their way down the stairs, dodging a neighbor charging upward with her arms full of unidentifiable electronics and an entire family clattering downstairs in such haste that they overtake them and nearly sweep Nona along.

Nona had been expecting to go through the park, but there’s a column of smoke rising from somewhere just beyond it. When Pyrrha sees that she shakes her head and wordlessly leads them the long way around, along the boulevard that still has a row of spindly trees straggling down the middle of it. On their way down it she quizzes Nona mercilessly about the trustworthiness of the people they passed and the security of the nearby buildings, until Nona says a little crossly that she thought this was a treat, not another lesson. This only provokes a laugh and a laconic offer from Camilla to teach her how to break into one of those buildings sometime, which is an interesting enough offer that Nona gets quite genuinely excited before she realizes Cam’s joking.

They stop at the dairy first, to buy the promised magazine. Nona lingers over the selection, studying the luridly colored covers until she settles on one that usually has the best and most outrageous questions in the advice column. She’s pleased when Camilla gives her the coins so she can go pay for it herself. The old man behind the counter tweaks one of her braids, which she doesn’t like, and asks her whether she’s started her new job yet, which she does. When she tells him proudly that she has, he says that it must be a nice job for a girl like her, getting to play with the children all day, which makes her so cross that it nearly ruins the niceness of the entire morning.

Camilla and Pyrrha very kindly listen to her complain about her actual work and how hard it is for a full five minutes before they make it to the outdoor market, where Nona is instantly distracted. She can barely stare at the contents of one stall for more than a few seconds before another one catches her eye, and it takes real effort to make sure she doesn’t lose Camilla or Pyrrha. It doesn’t help when Camilla disappears for a few minutes, only to come back with a secretive smile and a new, very tiny knife that disappears effortlessly into her sleeve.

“You would have made even Gideon envious,” Pyrrha tells her, “although he always thought bigger was better. How many does that make, fourteen?”

Camilla shrugs. “It’s good to be prepared,” she says.

Despite the temptations surrounding her, Nona virtuously doesn’t even hint at how much she longs for the brightly colored t-shirts, bouncing balls, or sets of paints on display. She can’t help staring longingly at a box of fat wax crayons in twenty different colors--ten whole colors more than the crayons they use at school--and wonders hopefully whether, in a few weeks, she might be able to ask for it for her birthday. She’s having a hard time imagining what the ten extra colors might even be, but she bets they’re wonderful.

They stop by a tent on the outskirts of the market to buy hot meat pies, and it’s such a good day that Nona manages to eat half and then feed the rest to a nearby dog without Pyrrha and Camilla even telling her off. Pyrrha’s just looking over a stack of cheaply printed books when there’s shouting from the other end of the market and the tell-tale sounds of a fight breaking out.

Pyrrha and Camilla share a look and, without saying a word, bracket Nona between them as they leave in the other direction. That would be more disappointing if they weren’t walking towards the beach, and Nona wriggles with anticipation of the smell of salt water and the sound of waves.

They get there to find that the expanse of sand is even wider than usual. Nona’s been told about the tides before, but she’s never seen it this low. Camilla gives a vague explanation about moons and gravity before giving up and bringing out Palamedes instead. His attempt to explain isn’t very successful either, as Nona quickly loses interest when he starts scratching diagrams in the sand. After a few minutes of fruitless explanation he stops himself mid-sentence, smiles at her in a very Palamedes-ish way, and says, “Poor Nona, I’m boring you stiff. What would you like to do instead?”

They’re nearly done with constructing an immense sand castle, built on what Palamedes assures Nona are the best scientific principles, when the timer on his watch goes off. Camilla comes back just in time to see the entire structure collapse dramatically, much to Nona’s dismay. Pyrrha laughs and laughs, which Nona thinks is uncalled for, but Camilla just looks amused.

“There’s a reason the Warden likes to study things once they’re already falling apart,” she tells Nona. “He can’t even make a blanket fort without it collapsing.”

Nona instantly demands an explanation, and is immediately so enchanted with the idea that Camilla has to promise they’ll build one at home just as soon as they get a good opportunity, and that Palamedes won’t be allowed to help at all.

Pyrrha, once she’s finally done laughing about the castle, shows Nona how she likes to dribble the wet sand between her fingers to create strange, drippy towers and mountains. Nona’s not entirely sure how she feels about the sensation of wet sand dfalling between her fingers, but the end result is too delightful to resist. Between the towers, a shell-hunting expedition, and Camilla’s rather impressive moat, the sun is low in the sky by the time Pyrrha convinces Nona to pick just one favorite shell and leave the rest behind.

They hose themself off in the frigid water that trickles out of a little spigot at the top of the beach and begin the walk home, moving more slowly than they did that morning. They’ve gone just a few blocks when Pyrrha says, unexpectedly, “There’s a new chips shop on the way home from here.”

It’s been so long since they’ve gone out for chips that Nona’s nearly forgotten what it was like. They’d had to give up on the last one when the owner got suspicious of Pyrrha’s accent, and the one before that when Nona hadn’t burnt her mouth, which had been a shame, because Nona decided some time ago that chips are the only kind of hot food she really and truly likes. “Oh, yes, please,” she says.

“We have groceries at home,” Camilla suggests, without any real heat.

“I got paid overtime this week, let’s live a little,” Pyrrha says. Cam shrugs in a way that shows she doesn’t really mind and Pyrrha leads them a block over, to where a brightly-colored awning hangs over the tiny window.

The chips are so delicious that Nona eats them all without complaining, and even tries a few bites of Camilla’s fish. By the time they’re done she’s so full and sleepy that it’s all she can do to stumble home behind Cam, Pyrrha taking the rear. It’s nearly dark, and the twilight is taking on the still-unfamiliar blue glow that Nona secretly loves. It’s so beautiful, and it’s been such a lovely day, that she doesn’t complain about the walk even once until they get to the doorway of the building and she realizes that she absolutely, positively cannot walk up even one flight of stairs.

Pyrrha eyes her drooping figure and says to Camilla, “What do you think, should we just leave her here?”

“Waste of all our hard work,” Camilla says.

“I suppose so,” Pyrrha agrees, and then she’s scooping up Nona as if she weighs nothing at all.

Nona does her best to hold on to Pyrrha--that seems like the least she can do, under the circumstances--but she’s so tired, and the strength of Pyrrha’s arms and the rhythm of her feet climbing the stairs are so comforting, that she can’t manage more than a few floors before she lets go and falls asleep.

**

They’ve just finished dinner and are beginning to discuss whose turn it is to wash the dishes when there’s a flurry of sharp knocks on the door. Camilla freezes in sudden, alert silence, while Pyrrha swears under her breath and Nona nearly startles out of her chair. It can’t be Blood of Eden--they never knock, just burst right through the door--but an unexpected visitor never means good news.

After a frozen moment whoever it is knocks again. Pyrrha shares a significant look with Camilla, who pads silently down the hallway to stand behind the doorway, where she’ll be hidden when it opens. Pyrrha waits until she’s settled into stillness, and then opens the door to reveal Crown.

She’s standing in the hallway, fist poised to knock again. Her face and hair are as shiningly beautiful as usual, but there’s a frantic worry in her eyes that makes Nona’s stomach feel like she’s suddenly swallowed about a hundred ice cubes. Her golden curls are escaping their ponytail to fall around her face, and her sword belt is askew. She tugs it straight as she gives Pyrrha a wary look and says, “I need to speak to Camilla.”

Pyrrha reluctantly steps away from the door and lets Crown in. Crown looks unsurprised as Cam emerges from the shadows behind the door. “Good. I was starting to worry you weren’t home.”

She walks past them to the kitchen, not waiting to be invited, and gives Nona a small but genuine smile as she sits down. “I’m sorry for interrupting your dinner,” she says kindly, as Pyrrha and Camilla follow her down the hall.

“You didn’t,” Nona tells her. There’s no time to say anything else, though, because Pyrrha’s sitting down in the last chair and Camilla’s coming in to stand behind her, shifting minutely from foot to foot. They’re both looking at Crown in an expectant way that makes Nona feel a little like she’s intruding, or interrupting.

“I wanted you to hear this from me first,” Crown says. She’s ignoring Pyrrha, like she usually does, and speaking directly to Camilla. “You have to promise me not to do anything foolish. And please don’t tell the commander I came to you. She’ll almost certainly bring you in tomorrow morning, and she’ll never trust me again if you give this away.”

Camilla nods, once. “What is it?”

Crown takes a deep breath, as if she’s nervous, but her voice is steady as she says, “There was a council meeting tonight. I was there to report on the project.”

“You were invited to the council meeting?” Pyrrha asks, sounding surprised.

Crown ignores her. “You have to understand, it wasn’t We Suffer. She argued for you--for all of us. But Unjust Hope wouldn’t listen, and he’s convinced half the others to follow him.” Even the bitter resentment in her voice doesn’t make it any less beautiful. “He doesn’t even care about the project, he’s just trying to build a power base and thinks fear is an easy way to do it. He may be right.”

Camilla’s face is tightly closed, but she’s shifting her weight more and more obviously as her tension mounts. Pyrrha glances back at her before saying, “Get to the point, Tridentarius.”

“Not my name,” Crown replies sharply.

“Sure it’s not,” Pyrrha says. “You’re a good little soldier now who gets invited to council meetings and gives up your house name in favor of some ridiculous collection of nonsense phrases, and you’re looking down on other people for building a power base?”

Crown inhales sharply, cheeks flushing with a lovely anger. Before she can say anything Cam cuts in, saying quietly, “What happened?”

“We Suffer convinced everyone that the lyctor project is worth pursuing,” Crown says. “But Unjust Hope demanded better checks and balances. He keeps saying that if lyctors are as strong as we say, they’ll need a better way to control one.”

Camilla is suddenly standing very still. The change is so abrupt that Nona glances reflexively at her eyes, but they’re still Cam’s clear light grey. “How?”

Crown takes a deep breath, and looks down at the table. “The oversight body,” she says, voice nearly a whisper.

There’s a moment of complete silence and stillness. Nona doesn’t understand what’s going on, but the expression on Camilla’s face is so terrible that for a moment she can’t breathe. Then Pyrrha’s demanding sharply, “What about the oversight body?”

“They’re taking them prisoner to hold as hostages,” Crown says. “The Hopers are going to have custody. They promise they won’t be harmed, as long as we continue to work with them.”

“When?” Cam asks harshly.

“It’s already happened. Merv Wing was in place before the meeting. He called in the order as soon as the vote was taken.”

Pyrrha swears again, so horribly that for a moment Nona’s nearly distracted from the dreadful expression on Camilla’s face. Then Camilla’s despair and fear is gone, wiped clean and replaced by an even worse blankness. Without a word, she turns and walks from the room.

Pyrrha stands up almost immediately to follow, Crown just behind her, so Nona scrambles out of her chair to trail disconsolately behind them. Camilla goes directly to the cupboard in the hallway, ignoring Crown’s plaintive cry of “Cam, you’re scaring me,” and Pyrrha’s solid and sure voice rasping, “Hect, take a moment.” Camilla doesn’t take a moment, though, sweeping aside the cans to pull out the false board at the back of the cupboard.

Pyrrha’s breath catches as Camilla starts to lift out one of the boxes inside. “No,” she says. Crown looks as mystified as Nona feels, but as Cam starts to open the box Pyrrha says, again, “Hect--Camilla--stop. You can’t.”

“I have to,” Camilla says, low and savage.

“I can’t let you,” Pyrrha says. “You know better than this.”

Camilla lifts something out of the box, a long thin shape that makes Crown catch her breath in surprised horror. Pyrrha, eyes desperate, takes a long stride forward. In one smooth motion she yanks the enormous knife out of Camilla’s hand and slides it to the side. As Cam dives for it she catches her in midair in an enormous bear hug. “You can’t,” she repeats.

Camilla twists in Pyrrha’s arms. As Nona cowers back in the doorway and Crown hovers uselessly, she throws herself sideways and nearly slips under Pyrrha’s elbow. Pyrrha does something complicated, though, and Cam instantly slides the other way, elbow arching up towards Pyrrha’s nose.

Nona loses track of what happens then. She’s never been any good at following when Pyrrha and Camilla spar, and this is a hundred times worse. Camilla is fighting with a fierce desperation, as if her life depends on it. Pyrrha, who is managing to keep her hold even when she can’t evade most of Cam’s blows, looks terribly sad as she repeats, “You can’t. I can’t let you go.” Nona isn’t sure whether she wants to watch, to wait this out until everything is alright again, or flee.

Crown hovers nearby, face guilty, and wrings her hands. She’s on the edge of speech when Pyrrha twists around far enough to see her and roars, “Go, Tridentarius. You’ve done enough damage here.”

Nona can see Crown thinking about replying to that, and the moment that she chooses not to. Her shoulders set with renewed determination. Without even looking at Nona, she turns and calmly walks away.

The sound of the door closing seems to get through to Camilla in a way that Pyrrha’s voice doesn’t. All of a sudden, so abruptly that it stuns Nona, she gives up fighting her way out of Pyrrha’s arms. Her body goes limp, and her head falls forward onto Pyrrha’s shoulder. Then she’s crying, shockingly loud in their apartment, sounding as if her heart is breaking.

Pyrrha holds her carefully while she sinks down to the hallway floor, arm curled around Camilla the same way she’d rocked Nona when she was younger. She looks up to Nona’s doorway and, smiling sadly at her, opens out her other arm in invitation. Nona runs to her, taking comfort in her warm, solid presence even as Camilla’s sobs make her feel like the world might still be ending.

She’s not sure how long they all stay there, on the floor of the apartment. It might only be a few minutes, although it feels like hours. Eventually Camilla’s hitching breaths slow, then smooth out. Pyrrha scoots them back to sit against the wall and they sit in silence for a few minutes.

“You should have let me go,” Camilla says eventually.

“And get yourself killed? I don’t believe in that kind of waste. There’s nothing you can do on your own right now.”

“I could have tried,” Camilla whispers. “Better than doing nothing.”

Pyrrha snorts. “You think those are your only options? Some days I forget how young you are, Hect. There’s more to life than giving up or dying heroically.”

Camilla pulls out of Pyrrha’s arm and slides a little ways down the wall, clasping her knees to her chest. “You have a better suggestion?”

“Surviving.” Pyrrha sounds kind but implacable. “It’s complete bullshit, but it’s all that you’ve got.”

“I thought you had an alternative to giving up,” Camilla says drily.

“It’s not the same thing at all. Surviving means that you get to keep trying another day. You do what you can, but you can’t win every one every time.”

“If I can’t win this one,” Camilla says bleakly, “then I’m not sure what the point of trying again is.”

“You can’t win with a frontal assault on your own against an entire Blood of Eden wing. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to win. You just have to be smarter than this about it.”

“I promised them.” Camilla’s voice is very small. “I said they’d be safe.”

“In this business, you’d better get used to being forsworn. You’re getting bogged down in what should have happened. You can’t afford that now.” Pyrrha sighs heavily, and her arm squeezes around Nona for a moment. “I’ll help you. There’s a limited number of places they could be, and Merv Wing is only human. We’ll search the city until we find them. But you can’t go off alone, half-cocked.”

Nona, who would usually be ready for a good giggle at half-cocked, feels terrifyingly adrift in this strange conversation. She’s wildly, fervently grateful that Pyrrha didn’t let Camilla go off alone to die, but the idea is almost too frightening to think about. She clutches Pyrrha closer, snuggling into her side, and is rewarded when Pyrrha’s arm tightens around her.

Cam sits for a long moment, considering this. “Alright,” she says, finally. “We work it carefully. But at the first sign that they’re in danger--”

Pyrrha nods. “Understood,” she says.

Camilla’s face looks calm again, but there’s still an empty despair in her eyes that makes Nona want to abandon Pyrrha entirely and go wrap her arms around Cam instead. She doesn’t get a chance. Camilla, eyes fixed on the wall over their heads, pushes herself to her feet. “I need to go tell the Warden,” she says.

“Let me,” Pyrrha says. “You have enough to deal with right now. I can tell him.”

Camilla shakes her head, distant but firm. “No,” she says. “It’s going to be hard for him. It should be me.”

Nona thinks that Pyrrha is going to argue, but she just shakes her head. “You know your duty best,” she says. “I’ll get Nona ready for bed. We’ll be right here when you’re ready.”

Camilla nods, turns, and walks away.

**

“Spit that out, Nona, you can’t put that in your mouth.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?”

Grudgingly: “It’s unhygienic.”

“Yes, exactly. We don’t know yet just what your immune system is capable of, and I’m not eager to find out through trial and error. There could be all kinds of microbes in this sand. People walk on it, and there’s water draining out here from the city streets. Besides, there are stray dogs that live out on this beach, and you know from experience what dogs like to do outdoors.”

“Palamedes! That’s so gross!”

“Keep it in mind, then. If you really want to eat grit we have plenty of salt at home, you can add as much as you want to your eggs next time you find yourself craving that mineral.”

“I don’t want salty eggs.”

“Then you’ll just have to put up with normal ones. Can I trust you to dig for clams without eating one of them, too, or should we go back home?”

**

Nona’s three-quarters of the way into a dream, just awake enough to know in the edges of her mind that she’s falling asleep, when she hears the click of the locks and the quiet creak of the door opening. The sound is enough to dispel the sensation of water that she’s slowly been slipping into, and brings her awake all at once.

Unusually, it seems like Nona’s the only one who wakes up. Camilla, habitually a light sleeper, is still curled up next to her, breaths deep and even. Nona has a hazy suspicion that Camilla hasn’t been sleeping very much lately—since Crown’s unexpected visit a few weeks ago it seems like half the time she wakes in the middle of the night Camilla is missing from the bed—and so she gets up as quietly and carefully as she can, so as not to wake her.

As Nona expected, she finds Pyrrha in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. She doesn’t know what mysterious errand Pyrrha’s been on tonight, only that she’s been on several of them recently and that Camilla was concerned about it but not particularly worried. Even with Nona walking as quietly as she can she must still make some noise, because as she comes into the kitchen Pyrrha backs hurriedly out of the fridge, looking at her with wide, surprised eyes. “Nona,” she says, sounding relieved but a little breathless. “You should be in bed by now. What are you doing still up?

The blackout curtains keep out nearly all the blue glow from outside, but the anemic orange light from the refrigerator is just bright enough for Nona to see a line of thin red scratches running down Pyrrha’s cheek and neck and disappearing under the collar of her shirt. Pyrrha sees her looking and puts up a hand as if to cover them, but it’s too late. “You got hurt,” Nona blurts, too horrified to be tactful.

“Nothing serious,” Pyrrha says reassuringly. “Just a small run-in with some barbed wire.”

“I should get Camilla,” Nona says, backing away, but Pyrrha shakes her head urgently and reaches out a hand as if to stop her.

“It’s nothing,” she says again. “Look, it’s already healing over. Let Camilla sleep. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“But Pyrrha,” Nona says, a little desperately, “I do worry about you.”

At that, Pyrrha lets the refrigerator door swing shut and opens her arms out in invitation. Nona, feeling scared and small in a way she hasn’t since she was much younger, rushes into them. For a long moment Pyrrha just holds her in her reassuringly strong embrace, not saying anything. Eventually--far too soon--she pulls away and looks at Nona seriously. “You don’t have to worry about me, junior,” she says. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I have a lot of practice taking care of myself. You let me worry about what I’m doing, ok?”

As if it’s that easy. “What are you doing?” Nona whispers, even though she knows from experience that she’s unlikely to get the answer she wants.

She’s right. “Working on a side project,” Pyrrha says evasively.

“Is it something to do with We Suffer and Unjust Hope and Crown and the captain?”

“Some of it,” Pyrrha admits.

“Are you helping those people they took away? Camilla and Palamedes’s people?”

Pyrrha sighs, as if that’s a more difficult question than Nona intended. “I’m trying to.”

“How?”

“I’m not going to tell you that, kiddie. There are some things that nice girls like you don’t need to know about.” The words are ones Pyrrha might say as a joke, under other circumstances, but tonight her tone is deadly serious.

“Well, if it’s to help Palamedes and Camilla then I guess it can’t be anything bad,” Nona reasons.

Pyrrha lets out a snort as if that’s a joke, although Nona doesn’t think she thinks it’s very funny. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she says. “You’ll learn sometime that just because you do something for a good reason doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do.”

Nona considers this, head cocked to one side thoughtfully. “But if you’re the one doing it--” she says, and then stops abruptly at the look in Pyrrha’s eyes.

“You don’t know the kinds of things I’ve done,” Pyrrha says. Her voice is matter-of-fact, but there’s a heaviness to the set of her shoulders. “Even to you.”

“You’ve never done anything to me,” Nona says, a little indignantly.

“That depends on just who exactly you are. If you’re one of the people we think you are, then you really don’t know what I have or haven’t done to take care of you.”

That’s such a wildly unfair thing to say that Nona can’t help making a small noise of frustration, even through her anxious discomfort. Pyrrha looks up, and it’s like she’s seeing Nona for the first time that night. “I’m sorry, honey,” she says, sounding much more like herself. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

It’s on the tip of Nina’s tongue to deny it, but she can’t. Instead, knowing how inadequate it is but unable to find anything better, she says, “I love you, Pyrrha.”

“You probably shouldn’t.”

Nona doesn’t like that all. “Of course I should,” she says indignantly. “Besides, that doesn’t matter, because I do.”

“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you,” Pyrrha says. She’s smiling a little, but her eyes look impossibly sad and far away. “I love you too, little bit. Too much to keep you up any later. Come on, back to bed.”

Nona lets Pyrrha chivvy her back into the bedroom, listening to the sound of her quietly undressing and scrubbing down before she slides into bed too. Even then, sandwiched between the reassuringly familiar forms of Pyrrha and Camilla, it takes a very long time to fall asleep.

**

Nona stares at the impossibly thin strip she’s just pulled off her fingernail. It’s the longest she’s ever managed to get without it breaking. Satisfied with her work, she gives up on the rest of her nails and flops backward onto the misshapen cushions of the couch, feeling like she might never want to move again.

Pyrrha says that the first few days of heat will be the worst, before everyone gets accustomed to it and remembers how to survive the summer. Nona hopes that’s true, because otherwise she doesn’t know how she’s going to bear it. It seems like the rainy season only just ended, but the past few days have been unbearably stifling. Even lying still on the couch feels like an impossible task when she’s this hot.

Nona’s not the only one who isn’t enjoying the weather. Pyrrha got home from work early--she said she refused to make her crew keep working through the worst of the afternoon--and drank about four glasses of icy cold water, one after another. Camilla’s been quiet all day. She was as patient with Nona as always, but she and Pyrrha have been unusually short-tempered with each other. Even now Nona can hear them in the kitchen, having an ominously polite conversation about who is going to cook dinner with the limited ingredients they have to work with until Pyrrha’s next payday.

The heat is bad enough, but if everyone stays this prickly Nona’s not sure how she’ll ever survive the summer. It takes a superhuman effort, but she manages to peel herself off the couch and make her way to the kitchen. Pyrrha and Camilla break off when they see her, and Pyrrha offers Nona a small smile that makes her feel at least a little better. “Poor thing,” she says. “Your first summer. You look like you’re about to melt.”

Nona sees the evaluating look Camilla gives her, and just knows that she’s about to be told to sit down and drink a glass of cold water herself. Desperate for a diversion, she blurts, “It’s been a long time since we played any music on the radio.”

Pyrrha looks at her for a surprised moment. “I suppose it has,” she says. She looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “It’s still early in the evening,” she says consideringly. “Maybe we can get away with it.”

Camilla shrugs her acceptance and Pyrrha heaves herself out of her chair, giving Nona a long-suffering look to make sure she knows just how big a sacrifice getting up is. It’s such a very expressive look that Nona can’t help giggling, which only makes Pyrrha escalate with a deep sigh. Even Camilla’s mouth is quirked up at the side now, which makes Nona feel a little better.

As usual, it takes surprisingly little time for Pyrrha to twiddle the dial just right for music to emerge from the static. It’s a tune that’s been popular recently--Nona’s heard it playing in the dairy almost every time she and Camilla have walked down there--and it’s got a catchy beat that makes her feel better nearly as soon as she hears it. She’s not the only one. Camilla starts tapping her foot, and Pyrrha hums along in her comfortably tuneless way for a minute before getting up again and offering Nona her hand.

It’s absolutely too hot for dancing. Nona lets Pyrrha pull her to her feet and into a spin, and then she’s in Pyrrha’s arms, trying ineptly to follow along as Pyrrha steers them backwards and forwards and in tight circles in the small open space of the kitchen floor.

Despite Pyrrha’s persistent efforts over the last few months, Nona remains a terrible dancer. She can’t manage to move her arms or legs at the same time Pyrrha does, and to her embarrassment she steps on Pyrrha’s feet more than once. Even so, she’s laughing so hard as Pyrrha raises their hands and lets her spin off across the floor that she has to cling to the counter to stay upright. Pyrrha, grinning, turns back to the table and offers her hand to Camilla instead.

Camilla raises an eyebrow skeptically, but to Nona’s surprise and delight she takes Pyrrha’s hand and, in some way Nona can’t catch, swings Pyrrha into a twirl of her own. Nona’s never seen Cam dance before, but she’s not surprised when she turns out to be wonderful at it. She wraps her arm around Pyrrha’s shoulders firmly, and suddenly Pyrrha’s following her lead as they half-dance, half-spar their way around the kitchen. By the end they’re both out of breath and Nona’s clapping wildly as they all collapse down into chairs, Pyrrha laughing to herself and Camilla giving them both her sweet, private little smile.

“I wish I’d known earlier that you could dance, Hect,” Pyrrha says. “I would have roped you into lessons too.”

“It’s been a while,” Camilla replies laconically. “They use it for training, at home.”

“I won’t lie, it’s nice to have a partner who doesn’t step on my feet,” Pyrrha says, with a wink at Nona so that it’s clear she doesn’t really mean it.

“You should see the Warden,” Cam says. “Two left feet.”

By popular vote they nominate Palamedes to make dinner. He shakes his head at them in disapproval but doesn’t argue, and before too long they’re all sitting down at the table with a meal no one but Nona could complain about. She’s too relieved by the break in tension to do more than put up a token resistance, and by the end of dinner has cleared nearly half her plate with only a handful of reminders.

Pyrrha puts the music back on as she washes the dishes and Nona dries them, humming along and bumping her hips against Nona’s periodically. Then it’s late enough that it’s time for baths, and pajamas, and lying down on the mattress without even a single sheet over them. Instead of tucking Nona in, Pyrrha leans over and kisses her gently on the forehead. “Sleep well, honey,” she says. “You’ll need your energy to deal with those little terrors in the morning.”

“Will you braid my hair tomorrow?” Nona asks sleepily. “It’s starting to come undone and I don’t want it to be a mess at school.”

“Of course I will, kiddie,” Pyrrha replies, and that’s enough reassurance to let Nona close her eyes.

Tomorrow she’ll wake up and tell Cam about her dreams, and Pyrrha will braid her hair before making her eat breakfast, and she and Pyrrha will go off to work while Camilla goes off to do crime. She’ll get to see her friends, who she loves, and Noodle, who she loves, and the city, which she loves, and Pyrrha, Cam, and Palamedes, who she loves so much she sometimes feels like she might burst with it.

Everything that’s wrong will still be there tomorrow too. Whether or not she gives in to the temptation to eavesdrop on them, Pyrrha, Camilla, and Palamedes will still be having tense conversations about problems she doesn’t understand. The city will still be on edge, and the blue light won’t have gone away.

But for right now, it’s enough to feel the weight of Camilla turning over on the mattress next to her, and hear Pyrrha rustling around as she sets out her clothes, and know that, no matter what else happens, all four of them will be here together when she wakes up. Nona sighs happily and, feeling the first stirrings of a cool breeze, falls asleep.