Harrowhark did not want to go to the cafeteria. Lieutenants Tettares and Chatur accompanied her to the cafeteria anyway, a place she had contrived never to visit unless absolutely necessary. She felt acutely visible standing in the queue in full view of all the other officers-in-training; the massed necromancers and sword-handling men and women of the Nine Houses who had passed examinations, or paid money, or whatever it was they did in the other Houses, to acquire an officer’s rank. She was the only one with a black-enamelled lieutenant’s pip; she was the only one with black slashes at her sleeves. All the while, the Fourth pair kept up a stream of meaningless chatter, like two human waterfalls. Crux would have said that their tongues were hung in the middle. If, Emperor forbid, she had been a flesh magician, she would have been very sorely tempted to hang their tongues in the middle herself.

Harrow tuned back in to the cavalier-enlisted saying, enthusiastically: “—tried the coffee yet?”

The coffee had, in truth, been a long way down Harrow’s list of priorities. In the face of Lieutenant Chatur’s bewildering ardour, she could only muster a chilly: “No.”

A strange ripple passed over the younger girl’s face, as though she were trying very badly not to laugh. But she said, “It’s not like anything you get back at home. It’s got extra stimulants and things—like, acids—for space exposure. Bio-adaptive … Can you tell me what it is, Isaac?”

He screwed up his narrow eyes, sighed a little, and then supplied: “Bio-adaptive reuptake inhibitors.”

“And what do we call it?”

“BARI,” he said.

“Yeah, BARI! It makes the coffee taste weird, but if you make it the right way, with like spices and stuff, it’s actually great. The Cohort wouldn’t run without the on-duty coffee adepts. We wanted to try this deck’s cafeteria, because they’ve got a hotshot new BARI star.”

Harrowhark found herself at the front of the queue beyond which this BARI star apparent waited; and she found herself looking down at the counter, her tongue tied.

“Let me guess,” said a voice. “You take it black.”

She reached out for the cup. The server pushed it toward her in the same instant—their fingers brushed awkwardly in the act of transmission, and in a mummified moment of time, they looked at each other.