Twenty-six minutes later, Zin had made them both some tea, opened her gifts, been polite about the expensive earrings that apparently weren’t her style anymore and more genuinely enthusiastic about the sweets. Everything about her was as familiar as Tennal’s own face in the mirror, but he kept coming across small differences: all her clothes were new and bright, maybe as a reaction against the gray Legal tunics. She was taller. The earrings she favored now were colorful chunks of plastic set around ostentatious beads of flint.

Although there were variations and local practices all over the place, the Orshan sector loosely adhered to galactic customs of showing gender. Wood was a clear request for a gender reference of he, flint for she. Everything else depended, but they was usually a polite choice for a stranger, though Orshan was less formal about it than other sectors. Zin had been experimenting for a few years and tentatively wearing flint when he’d left, but it looked like she’d landed firmly on she while Tennal had been gone.

Zin scavenged a mismatched collection of leftovers from the kitchen and pressed them on Tennal: fried vegetables, millet, tiny spiced crayfish. Tennal discovered he was ravenous and ate all of it, then he raided the open gift box for the coffee and cream–filled pastries he always pretended were only Zin’s favorite. He kept up a patter of stories about gambling dodges and outrageous parties. Zin laughed in all the right places—but a split second too late, watching his eyes. He wasn’t sweeping her along anymore.

Zin’s room had also changed. Tennal didn’t recognize any of the posters that papered the walls with bright division colors. The divisions were a military thing, officially, but they sponsored sports teams, businesses, industrial bodies, festivals—everything went more smoothly if you had division connections. If one member of a family joined the army, their relatives could draw on their division connections for life. The Halkana family had been Cavalry for generations. Zin’s posters mainly weren’t Cavalry red, though: she followed debate teams, where Pilot Division dominated, and her flavor of the month seemed to be an unusual one that wasn’t affiliated with anything. That was new.

“Oh, Tenn,” Zin said, “I got my apprenticeship placement! It’s a reader rights group!”

“Nice one,” Tennal said. He bit into another bitter coffee pastry, then replayed what she’d said. He swallowed too soon. “Wait, what? What rights group?” Zin was supposed to be learning law, not getting into politics.

“It’s all signed off,” Zin said, which didn’t answer his question. “Look, though, I took a commencement capture! This is where I come in.” She pulled up a screen and jabbed him with her elbow until he paid attention.