Fasmul glared at Uban and Ellix. “So you’re really both okay with this? We’re Peaceables, not enforcers. Every time we stand there and let them cut bodies apart, we take a step away from the balance.”

Ellix and Uban exchanged a glance. Ellix looked uncomfortable. Uban set zir jaw, stubbornly.

Shria’s eyes were a chasm of starlight. It was too much, and Fift looked away, still holding vir hands. “They wouldn’t let me send to you,” ze said. “They wanted me to blame you publicly. I just . . . I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Thanks,” Shria said, in a tiny voice.

“Look, Shria, I know you don’t feel about me the way I . . .” Ze swallowed. “I mean, I know how you talked about Vvonda, and I know that’s not how you . . . see me.” Fift felt the blood burning in zir cheeks and told zirself to shut up.

Shria swallowed. “Uh,” ve said. “You might be wrong about that.”

The skin of Fift’s scalp prickled, all zir tiny hairs standing on end. “But . . . last time we were here . . . I was the one who . . .”

“Yeah, well,” Shria said, “you’re the brave one.”

“Ellix,” Fasmul said, “you heard what Thavé said: ‘You’ve got to start loosening the stranglehold of consensus.’”

“Hmm,” Ellix said.

“But what if we loosen this ‘stranglehold’ and things get worse without it?” Uban said. “This is a world in balance, Fasmul. What if we give that up, and can’t get it back?”

“Is it?” Fasmul asked. “Is it a world in balance?”

“I’m the brave one?” Fift said.

“Yes! Voids!” Shria said. “You know how much courage it takes, to defy everything you’ve been told about yourself? Not to mention that stunt on the docks. Of course you’re Kumru-spurned brave, and by the way, also kind of impulsive. You know you kind of came out of nowhere, right? In here, last time?”

Blood flooded Fift’s face again, turned it heavy and hot. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Well, I mean, you could have asked, but you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing,” Shria said. “Your whole life, you’ve been told that you’re not even capable of feeling that way. And I’ve been told a lot of sluice-blockage too . . . I mean, you know, afterwards, I felt like I’d . . . done something to you, like I’d trespassed. That you’re the innocent Staid, and I should have protected you. So I pulled away. They put all this unsluiced blockage in our minds.”

Fift looked at their joined hands. “You said I wasn’t safe for you.”

“Yeah, well, I was frightened, Fift. I didn’t want to damage you. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t treat you like a Vail, careless and violent and hungry. And how could I know what the fuck to do with a Staid?”

Fift’s heart began to race.