“I’ll ask one more time,” Guardsman Bruno says, his gaze sweeping over the injured boys. “What happened? Who started this?”

I’m not sure what to say. If I blame the ducklings, everyone might hate me even more. If I don’t, maybe other boys will think they can get away with the same thing.

In the distance, the latrine cricket chirps and chirps.

“Fine,” says Bruno. “Tomorrow morning all of you will run—”

“These recruits started it,” Aldo says, gesturing toward Beto. “They attacked Recruit Red while she slept, all four of them at once. They said something about her being Empress Elisa’s favorite and then started pummeling her. They attacked a defenseless recruit, Guardsman. It was awful.”

I blink up at him. I don’t remember that part about being Elisa’s favorite. Maybe he’s altering the story on purpose, reminding everyone that I was sponsored by the empress herself.

“And you stepped in to help?” Bruno asks, indicating Iván and his busted lip.

Iván remains silent, but Aldo says, “Yes, but she didn’t need Iván’s help. She took care of them on her own. In fact, they’re lucky they didn’t get themselves killed. Frankly, anyone who attacks Red is an idiot.”

And now Aldo is warning all the other recruits not to come after me.

“Is this true, Recruit Red? Recruit Iván?”

“It’s true,” I say. “Just like Aldo said. Except that Iván . . .” I hate to admit this, but I’m going to anyway. “Iván handled Beto so I could take care of the others. He really did help.”

“I slept through the beginning,” says the boy named Itzal. “But the rest was exactly as they said.”

A few other boys jump in with “Red is telling the truth” and “In the mess hall, I heard Beto trying to convince the others to attack her” and “Red was just defending herself.” I gape at them all. Never, ever did I expect a show of support.

Bruno presses his lips together, considering. “All right, Red and Iván, go get cleaned up. Red, if you feel like you need to get your wounds tended, I’ll give you leave.”

“I’ll be fine.”

To the Guards accompanying him, Bruno says, “Get this trash out of here; these boys are going home.”

“So much for Ciénega del Sur,” Aldo mutters.

As Iván and I stumble to the laundry dungeon to clean up, I do a quick count in my head. We’ve lost ten recruits in two days.

The laundry contains three empty basins with paddles for stirring, four smaller buckets with washboards, and two stone benches, all arrayed around a rusty drain in the floor. A wooden shelf displays buckets of lye, rope soap, coral for scraping, and several neatly folded rags in various shades of faded gray. A spigot beside the shelf drip drip drips with water.

“Let me know when you’ve covered yourself back up,” Iván says, turning his back to me.

Quickly, I strip off my vest and shirt, then re-don the vest.