Fift had had that feed-navigation agent zir whole life; ze’d never had another. It had been enmeshed in zir as an infant. Ze’d never even heard of agents just abandoning a child . . . well, not outside of the Long Conversation. Epiul’s agents had abandoned zir, of course, “like trashrats exiting a collapsing habitation.”

“Ve’s waiting for you,” Emim whispered.

The nearest Peaceable groaned and raised zir head.

Ve’s waiting—?

Shria stood on the docks at Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions. Ve was dressed in vir work clothes, a refracting shift that left vir arms and shoulders bare and fell to vir ankles, glistening in oily rainbows. Ve still had bruises from the riot, yellow smudges on vir lavender skin, and vir face had a dark, haggard exhaustion. But ve stood tall, vir fiery red hair loose and flowing down vir back, vir orange eyebrows curled like flames.

There were bats docking at Stiffwaddle. The gates of Pom Politigus’s emporium were open, and there was a party going on: the glitterati, the fashionable and powerful, Pom’s finest clients shining like jewels.

How much could the Midwives get away with? How deep did their power go? Could they turn people’s deepest bindings of self into a weapon without effect on their own ratings? Demand that Peaceables betray the Long Conversation, to keep their stranglehold on consensus?

Maybe they could brutalize a dockyard full of refugees and drifters. But could they cut Pom Politigus’s polysomatic network, leave zir fashionable guests’ elegantly crafted new bodies writhing and screaming on the ground, and still emerge as Younger Sibling? Cut the network along a bat’s whole flight path between Foo and Stiffwaddle, plunging habitation after habitation into chaos?

Fift squeezed Emim’s hand, let go, and rolled over onto zir hands and knees.

On the docks of Stiffwaddle, Shria’s eyes widened.

Fift looked back at Emim, feeling a stab of guilt. If Fift got up and ran, the Midwives would certainly cut the network here again. To stop zir from reaching that bat, they’d rip the bodies apart, tear Emim and Bojum and Morinti to pieces . . .

Emim, still watching, raised zir eyebrows. A mischievous smile. Ze winked.

Fift tottered to zir feet, leapt over the groaning Peaceable, and ran.

Ellix’s broad face went slack. “Fift, for Kum

And nothing else.

No more Ellix, no Squell, no bodies. The shrieking began again, and the pain. That shard, that scrap, that fragment of Fift, went down to one knee on the dockyard floor, screaming.

But didn’t fall.

Make bodies out of the pain. Like Squell said. The pain points the way. The pain is a desert, a sea, a void, endless in its sweep. Somewhere on the other side of it is the rest of Fift. A trillion bodylengths away: Fift’s hands, eyes, hearts.