EVIE HAS TO LAUGH. SHE finds she can’t help herself. It bubbles up within her and comes spilling out like water over a broken dam. The sword she’s gripping in preparation for a battle to the death falls to her side. She laughs until her eyes well with tears and her breath is all but gone. Evie’s aching back slowly slides down the boulder that’s been partially supporting her. She stabs the blade of her short sword into the hard ground and holds on to the tsuka for support as she lowers herself to sit.

Sirach watches her all the while, silent, staring at Evie as if she’s a particularly amusing curio in a cabinet.

“You are the oddest duck, aren’t you?” the Sicclunan agent asks, though it is clear she’s already formed an opinion.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Evie muses, ignoring the non-question. “People you meet in your life, and then meet again? I mean… with all the people there are in this world, chance must have been so against you meeting any one person to begin with, let alone running across them again?”

“I imagine that’s so. Though we are in the same business, even if only as competitors.”

“I don’t even know whether that’s true or not anymore. I didn’t think so in that wine cellar. Now… I can’t honestly recall who I am anymore. I have a purpose, a mission, and that’s all. Everything else has become very… fuzzy around the edges.”

It is clear Sirach has no idea what Evie means. “I suppose I should thank you for sparing my life.”

“For all the good it did. You found another way to kill off all those Savages.”

“It was a much costlier way for my people, but yes.”

“Do you think it’ll make a difference?” Evie asks her, earnestly. “I mean, really. You surprised them, yes, but you know they’ve only fallen back to regroup. They’ll come again, with more Skrain and more Savages. As many as it takes.”

Sirach shrugs. “What else are we to do? The only other option is to give up.”

“There’s nothing else? Nothing to be negotiated? Or—”

It is Sirach’s turn to laugh. “You really have no idea who your people are or what Crache is, do you? None of you do. Though I suppose it’s not your fault. They go to great lengths to make it that way, raise all of you that way, at least the ones they need.”

“Battle is one thing,” Evie says. “Slaughter is another.”

“Say that to me when you’ve fought on my side and seen what I’ve seen.”

“Fair enough. Siccluna has been under siege for decades. I know you’ve been pushed to this.”

Sirach watches her with the oddest smile on her lips. “You really don’t know, do you? None of you do.”