A sharp-nosed, lonebodied Staid at the table beyond theirs stood up. Ze wore a disheveled smock and the aggrieved expression of a first child, but for the moment ze was enriched by wrath. “I can’t believe you,” ze said. “Do you think this is a game? If the Cirque is responsible for this—this behavior—”

“Oh, hey,” said the winged Vail, “I hear your little sister’s taking a nap; why don’t you go see if Mommy has some time for you?”

The Staid made a choking noise, and the singlebodied Vail at zir table—plain-looking, with earlobes distended in the fashion of three years ago—stood up. “You squandering waster gnatlings—!”

And then a voice spoke.

“Stalwarts and Expressives!”

It came from the place where the eight streaks of light had collided. When Fift looked more closely, ze realized the space wasn’t empty. The bright sparks had flown away, but there was a dark, shifting, vibrating mass still in its center. And from that mass, the voice was speaking.

“Children of all ages! People of Fullbelly and Hardwon and Tearless and Spoon and the Manysmall! Have you wondered if this is the world for you?”

“OK, it is the Cirque,” Shria said. “Kumru!”

“Vails! Have you wished you could be quiet and small like a stone? Staids! Have you wished you could soar and dance like a splendid bird? Nostalgists! Have you wished to forget? Devvies! Have you wished we could just stop developing? In your heart of hearts, your mind of minds, have you wondered what was behind that door—that door—that you never open?”

The pavilion was silent now, every face staring up into the dimness.

“Holy Kumru!” Father Nupolo said.

“Ssh!” said Father Frill.

“Adults of all stages!” cried the voice. “Where are your great deeds? No, not your petty duels, not the adjudications that you won, after many years, over who gets to keep the pet wormfish. Not your new designs for genitals or flowerpots—”

“Hey!” Shria said.

“—Not your poems about optimal flow-cycle distribution, not your retabulations of cross-references of things that ceased to matter long ago. Not your obsessions with details only the detail-obsessed would notice. Not your worrying and scurrying!”

Even for the Cirque, this was outrageous.

They’d stopped the world. Turned out the lights. Frozen Foo in place. Was that even allowed?

“Where are your great deeds?”

Fift sent zir agents searching and they came back with instant confirmation. There’d been no consensus about cutting the lights. If the Clowns had done it, no one knew how.

“Your parents dug nations from the bedrock! Your grandparents and their grandparents fought in the Age of War! Once, Towers fell! Once Kumru traveled through time to impregnate zirself—or did ve? Ha! Once we wept blood tears of rage, arguing about whether ve did!”

If the Cirque could manage that, what else could they do?

Would the Midwives really allow this? Maybe they’d destroy the Cirque.