“You’re lying.” She spits out syllables that are broken-glass sharp, razored despite her attempts at congeniality. “You’re too young to be barren. You have time. Years, Ira. You have years still. Why, why are you doing this? Iraline, come back with me. Please.”

Now the ambient bustle shrinks. Now it condenses to pinpoints of noise as the Gak slide curious glances over long, wide, dark shoulders.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Iraline retorts, tone reasonable as always.

“It should have been me.”

Light drains from Iraline’s stare. She puts her mug aside, face collapsing into quiet horror. “Yavena—”

“You. You’re the one who belonged to the Court of the Living. Everyone knew it. All the fortune-singers, all the officials. They knew it. They knew you gave it all away for me.” Yavena jerks backwards, all pretenses of composure forgotten, all poise submerged in that seething guilt which rises thick as tar, clogging her throat. She swallows and swallows, unable to dislodge the marrow-deep agony. “You could have been Keeper. You could have been happy. You should have been. I was supposed to be a Mother, Ira. Not you.”

She freezes as long arms envelop her, warm with affection. “Oh, Yavena. You’re not seeing this correctly. In your Court, I would have been always afraid, always wanting, always desperate to hoard those few decades I owned, to pretend that seconds could be made to accumulate interest. This sacrifice is a small price to pay for the years of fire.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

Iraline welds them cheek to cheek. Sighs. Her pulse reassures with its steadiness, appalls with its indifference. “We all die, little sister. Sooner or later.”

Yavena pushes her away. “Yes, but one is preferable to the other.”

The moment is broken. The Gak return to their toil. Iraline retreats to her drink, coiling catlike atop a counter, while Yavena glowers out a window. The light of the city has stained the night a seamless indigo, unscarred by constellations.

“If you’re going to be maudlin, you should go home,” Iraline declares finally, the music of her voice only slightly marred by petulance.

“I can’t.” Yavena folds her arms. “You know that. I’m playing a game with the Lord-General, and you’re the prize.”

The mug shatters in Iraline’s grip, spilling blood and ceramic.

“You’ve always been a selfish child, haven’t you?” Iraline remarks, tone mild despite the injuries that striate her hands. Legs cross. Iraline makes no move to bind her wounds, only stares beyond the horizon of Yavena’s silhouette, features locked in grim contemplation.

“I’m only trying to—”

“Get out.”

Yavena feels a weight descend upon a shoulder and turns to find a heavyset Gak behind her, somehow still menacing despite the ridiculousness of its kitchen accoutrements. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Go.” Soft, so soft, too soft, Iraline’s repudiation, like the last gasp of a broken heart.