“I told you.” He held out a hand. “C’mon, we got to get out of here. We’re gonna be late.”

I let him pull me up. “Late for what?”

“Got a set with Prynn and Tayvi. Can’t miss it. If I missed it, he’d…look, I just can’t miss it, yeah?” He pulled a shirt on and tucked it into his pants.

I sat back down on the mattress. “You should go without me. I wouldn’t want you to be late.”

“What’re you going to do? Hide in this room?” That was exactly what I’d hoped to do. “Nah, you’re coming with me. Get dressed!”

“Fine, fine.”

I reached for my clothes, but Sorcha’s hand closed around my wrist. “For fuck’s sake, not in those. Here.” He dropped a pile of his own clothes into my lap.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“I have standards is what’s wrong with them. Just wear mine.” He handed me a razor. “And shave off that scraggly mess you’re trying to pass off as a beard, yeah?”

“What? No!”

He shrugged on a high-collared vest and looked at me over his shoulder. He fixed me with a stern look, one that bore no questioning. One that I’d seen on Dirva’s face countless times. The sudden resemblance between them made me laugh. “What?” he asked.

“You look like your brother when you make that face.”

He laughed with me. “Oh, I don’t look nothing like Falynn.”

“Who?”

“Falynn. My brother, Falynn. We don’t look nothing alike.”

“No, I meant Dirva,” I said. I was reading him a little as I spoke. “I meant your brother, Dirva.”

“Oh,” he said. “Hey, stop it with the prying eyes, would you? Shave and get dressed.”

Caught, abashed, I followed his directions. I shaved haphazardly in the dark and pulled on his clothes. I couldn’t help but think about what I’d eavesdropped: at the mention of Dirva he had turned hard, irritable, and confused. I followed him out of the squat house. We were the only ones awake. When we were outside, Sorcha dawdled by the door. “Aren’t we late?” I asked.

“Yeah, but…” He peered out into the Square. He whistled, and someone else whistled back. “Yeah, just had to wait for Caddie to get back. Can’t leave the little ones on their own, right?” He started off, towards the south end of the Square.

I walked with him, but craned my neck to catch a glimpse of his sister. I saw nothing but the soft yellow glow of the streetlights. “She’s just getting back?”

“Tables run all night.”

“What tables?”

“Card tables.”

“Sorcha, she’s not…is she a gambler?” I ducked close to him when I asked it, very much scandalized.