Bebe comes by with some clothes for the General, and a box of make-up. I stare at the cosmetics. It’s been so long since I wore any… I touch the little tubes and boxes, remembering how on Prosper I once had a bag, cluttered with these, had once patted and blended and buffed my skin, shared them with others among the chatter and good humour of a barracks bathroom before a rare evening’s leave. I had made myself up for a night in Prosper’s shining bars, painting a face over the mask I already wore every day: comrade, friend.

Traitor.

Slowly, I take up a tin containing a homemade mascara cake – soap, black dye and maybe oxides, if Bebe has been able to get any. I use it to black my lashes, then pick up a little pot of rouge and dab it on my cracked lips. For a moment, I glimpse the woman I once was, the one who made the choice that led me here.

I sit on the bed, listening to the gentle clank and hum of Esterházy’s establishment. Could I stay somewhere like this?

Would I be satisfied with it, or would the tally drive me on? Would they find me, as they always do, and tamper with the workings of my life to spin it off course? Is that what they had done, in the Edge?

The door creaks open and the General slopes in, grimy and smelling of cooking fat.

‘I should kill you,’ she says, sinking onto the bed, but she doesn’t seem to mean it. Seeing me, she frowns. ‘You look… different. Like a person.’

I smile, nodding to the bundle of clothes at the bottom of the bed. ‘Bebe left those for you. And there’s wash water in the bucket.’

‘Thank god.’ The General sheds the filthy jacket and shirt, wincing at the pull of the wound in her side. On her chest and arms I see, once again, the scars of making and remaking, criss-crossing her flesh. ‘Poor kid,’ she says, scrubbing at her neck. ‘He showed me his battle beetles. I will admit, they’re better than those sorry-looking ants. These actually fought. They threw each other onto their backs, and he won three fights, but I won the last. And he let me name one. I called it Voivira after the camp.’ She stops, looking at me. ‘What?’

‘Nothing. I just forgot, for a moment.’

‘Everybody does, when I want them to.’ Awkwardly, she pulls on the too-big, flowered dress Bebe has given her and holds out her arms. ‘Look, who would suspect a thing?’

A moment later she sways, catching herself on the wall.

‘Give me a shot. That kid has worn me out.’

I grab the medkit, brought from the Charis.

‘I should check the wound too,’ I say, as I inject a booster into her arm. ‘Does it still feel hot?’

‘Don’t fuss, medic,’ she snaps, looking around. ‘Is this the best command could come up with? I’m not accustomed to such quarters.’