The rest of the crowd had fled; the Peaceables were three bodylengths away and closing in from all sides. Bojum and the other Vails tensed, rock-rigid.

“Fift, that’s enough,” Ellix said, “this isn’t the time.”

“But it is, it is,” Fift said. “This is the time.”

Ze grabbed Emim’s robes, Morinti’s robes. “Sit. Sit! You there—Meroc? The spoon is in your hand.”

Meroc blinked, bewildered, then sank to the dockyard floor. Fift sat lightly, balanced, spine straight. The others followed, the Vails shifting outward to give them room.

“What are they—” one Vail said.

“Shut up,” Bojum said. “Keep your eyes outwards. Stand fast.”

The Peaceables were a bodylength away, raising their staves.

“‘The spoon is in my hand,’” Meroc said.

Morinti’s voice quavered. “‘Space bends like a dancer, and everything is in motion.’”

“‘But we, with our words, here,’” Emim said, “‘are the still center.’”

A bodylength from [Embracing Fift and Shria], the Peaceables paused.

“Don’t move,” Bojum told the other Vails. “None of you fucking move!”

“Siblings,” Fift said, “let us begin.”

“Fift!” Ellix said, gaping. “For Kumru’s sake, you can’t just hold the Long Conversation in—”

“Then let them stop me,” Fift said. “Let them break that circle with their bopperstaves. Let them silence those words.”

Meroc’s hand tightened on the spoon. Ze licked zir lips. “We are told, ‘In the years after zir Temptation, when Minth’s trial was long resolved, zir heart was like a stone.’”

Fift’s own heart clenched, squeezed zir eyes shut. Ze forced zirself to open them again. For the Episode’s first recitative, it was a bitter one. In the end, Minth lost Abador, zir Vail beloved—just as Fift would lose Shria.

“From this,” Morinti said, “Epiul teaches that Abador must have forsaken Minth, ‘and zir heart was unpermeated and unmoved, lonely and still.’”

“This is a travesty, Fift,” Ellix said. “And it won’t protect you. Stand up from there—”

“Ranhulo did it,” Fift said.

Squell was watching zir, vir eyes wide.

The Peaceables had fully encircled them. Their faces were calm, carefully held blank, but as they looked from one to another, there were signs of stress: a twitch of eyebrow here, a creased forehead there.

The Vails held the outer circle, gripping each other’s hands.

“I don’t care what Ranhulo did,” Ellix said. “This is a direct challenge to the Midwives. You can’t imagine that they’ll . . .” Ze shook zir head.

“‘And if Minth’s heart was a stone,’ Marolu taught”—it was another Staid speaking, Episti Ism Magali of name registry Blue Peninsula 6—“‘Abador’s was a veil.’”

“But what is a stone?” Emim said, in a voice as thin and small as a green twig in a surface forest.