So Fift sat straight-backed and dry-eyed and silent, cool and staidish, imitating a grown-up—a closed surface with no aperture. Ze closed zir eyes, too, just like Father Grobbard.

Foon Pelix, the textilist two centuries older than Fift and Vvonda, was saying: “So they come in, this Unfeeling adept with zir bodies chained together and a Kumruist priest in full regalia, and the priest has a parrotine on vir shoulder, and I can’t help saying, ‘Is this a joke?’ Because, you know, ‘an adept, a priest, and a parrotine walk into a textile envisioning space . . .’ I mean, really! But they were offended. They didn’t see the humor in the situation. So then I—”

Fift was wondering how ze could work up the courage to interrupt. Reflexively, and stupidly, ze checked zir raw emotional balance. It was way down. Vvonda looked up and saw zir.

“You,” ve hissed.

“Wha—what?” Fift said.

Vvonda glared.

“Ah,” Foon Pelix said, “you’re Pip’s child, yes? Yellow Peninsula Sugarbubble, a fine name registry. I’m Yellow Optimum myself, you know . . . so we’re not quite name-cousins, but . . . it’s still lucky, I say! Ah . . . You two are acquainted, then?”

“We have a mutual . . . friend,” Vvonda said, icily.

“Um, um, about that,” Fift said. What had ze done? Why was ve angry? “Ve’s, Shria’s not, I can’t reach vem. I was wondering if you . . .”

“You can’t reach vem?” Vvonda said. “What do you mean?”

“Shria, eh?” Foon Pelix said. “Don’t think I know that one. Also a child of Foo, then?”

“I mean on the byway, where we are,” Fift said, “I can’t get to vem, physically, and ve won’t return my . . . I mean, I tried to send, but . . .”

The temperature of Vvonda’s stare had plunged from water ice to liquid nitrogen. “You shouldn’t be there, staidkid,” ve said. “You shouldn’t have followed vem in. You should get the airless all-sucking void out. It’s no place for you.”

“I do take an interest in the children of Foo,” Foon Pelix said. “Such an important thing, children, and it’s everyone’s responsibility, I say, the whole community; the parental cohort first of all, of course, but . . .”

“Ve . . .” Fift felt like ze was running out of air. “We were . . . together.”

Vvonda sniffed, straightened the bandolier where it crossed between vir startlingly big green-nippled breasts (if Fift grew breasts, they’d be small, soft, cushiony staidish breasts, easily kept out of sight, not these flagrant monsters, but even such a small change felt too risky, too dramatic . . . ), turned back to Foon Pelix ( . . . it would seem as if Fift were asking for attention if ze grew breasts, gambling zir emotional balance on a showy display . .  . ) and said, drily, “So what did you say to them?”

( . . . it would be years, decades, Fift thought, before ze could afford a somatic indulgence like breasts . . . )

“To . . . whom?” Foon Pelix asked.

“The adept, the priest, and the parrotine.”