Finn broke into a sly grin. “So do you name them?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Make me. How many generations can you breed in a season?”

I tried to look resentful. Unfortunately—as Finn was well aware—I also really wanted to keep talking.

“For the waxbeetles, one, and the spurwings are even slower. But tiris beetles? Two to three.” I resisted the urge to launch into a second lecture on the subject of the grubs’ favourite foodstuffs. “There are a lot of variables.”

“And how much bug jam does that amount to?”

I made a face. “Preserve, thank you very much.”

“Okay fine. How much ‘insect preserve’?”

“We want to fill the Major East warehouse within the next three months.”

He glanced at me, noticing the change in my voice. “Will you?”

“There are a lot of variables.”

“Like how quickly the other food runs out?”

“Well … yeah.” I hesitated, then made an effort to sound more positive. “But some of the harvest is still coming in. And the boreholes are now operational in the Fields, which means we might be able to rescue most of the grain.”

“El.”

I came to the mouth of the Agate Bridge. A steady stream of people flowed past me, heading for the stairs down to Pearl Boulevard. I turned to Finn, and his expression was grave, his usual easy carelessness gone.

“Maybe four months?” I said. “Until our stockpiles are completely depleted. We have enough drinking water for six months, assuming that there’s no rain at all.”

He flinched. “That bad?”

“We’ve been saving for almost a year. It’s just … there are so many people to feed.”

Finn grimaced. “But then why aren’t we rationing? How can Ceyrun possibly afford”—he swung his arms wide to encompass the Moon Tide market below us—“all of this?”

Pearl Boulevard was a riot of music and colour. Hundreds of people flooded the road, shopping, talking, watching entertainers tumble and sing and recite crude jokes, modelling for street artists, arguing about prices. Costumes, children, pork fat sizzling in frying pans, hand-embroidered scarves and shirts stained with wine, hawkers shouting, the smell of spiced lamb, smoke from open fires, shrieks of laughter, and in every direction the festival spread and continued, more chaos and more abundance.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s complicated. Political.”

“So the Council is just going to sit on their hands?”

I made a noncommittal gesture.

“What, you support them?”

“Finn, can we not do this? What I think is irrelevant anyway.”

His expression darkened. “So what’s the plan; they just wait until people are actually starving—”

“It’s not that simple—”

“—and then sit in their mansions and feed on the corpses?”

I lost my breath for a second. Finn instantly realised he had made a mistake; he paled and unconsciously raised his hand like he wanted to pull his words back. I turned away from him.

“Oh, okay,” I muttered.

“I’m sorry, I never meant—”