“You said your parents died in the war too,” Ryuu said. “Were they Inosen?”

“It was a few years after the war, actually. And yes, they were. They helped build some of the underground worship centers in and around the city. They even went to the mass graves and found the bodies of some Inosen they’d known. They burned those they could find and put their ashes in the cellar of an old worship center near there, but then they got caught and killed. My aunt and uncle and I might have tried fleeing to Marin, where my great-grandparents emigrated from, but June thinks she’s needed more here, and I agree. It’s a risk, but … people die in this city every day no matter what their religion is, and Inosen die whether we hide or not. If your life is at risk no matter what, then you have a choice of either hiding or doing something about it. I’m done with hiding and saving myself while other people suffer. I’ll die one day anyway, so until then, I’m going to take freedom where I can, and I’m not going to hide what I believe.”

Aina went silent after Raurie spoke, thinking of her own parents. They’d known death stalked them at every corner in the violent years during and after the war, so they’d done what they’d wanted anyway by following their faith.

“What do you think your lives would be like if Verrain had never shut down the factories?” Raurie asked after a pause. “If there had been some kind of truce between magic and technology?”

“Well, my parents would still be alive,” Ryuu said. “If it were still legal to sell diamonds for magic, then we would have been able to keep building our fortune that way. That’s what we did before the war. Now, most of our business comes from selling diamonds as jewels.”

“I’d use your diamonds, then, to design and sell jewelry,” Raurie said, lifting the sleeve of her shawl to reveal a handmade beaded bracelet she must have made.

“I’d probably be a baker,” Aina said wistfully.

Both Ryuu and Raurie laughed.

“What? Make little cakes all day?” Ryuu asked. “The Bloody Baker. That’s my new nickname for you.”

They all laughed, the sound echoing a little in the tunnel surrounding them and making the night less frightening as time went on. For a moment, if she forgot where they were and what they were about to do, she could imagine they were all normal eighteen-year-olds, who could talk and laugh together without fear plaguing them at every step.

“My mother used to make flower cakes once a week,” Aina said, her voice softening. “We’d pick these edible white flowers in the fields outside Kosín and put them on little cakes. I haven’t really eaten any since she died, though.”

Her voice tapered off at the end, and she sensed Ryuu’s eyes on the side of her face. She should have known better. Picking flowers in a field and eating them was something poor people did. Ryuu had probably had private chefs since birth.