Ze gave up any pretense of finishing the Ranhulo, whose hostility was so hard to take. How could someone like that, a youthful visionary who had heralded the Compromise of the Spoons with hope and joy, end up talking about Vails like they were a dangerous contagion a century later? Wildfire raging through the silent deeps . . . a storm encircling our stillness . . .

Was that what adulthood meant? You got tired; you gave up?

Ze climbed in bed with zirself, snuggled those two bodies together, and closed zir eyes. But it wasn’t like holding another person. It was just two backs, four arms, four legs, two bellies, and still being alone.

Pip turned primly and walked down the fourteen steps until ze stood next to Fift. Ze lightly scratched the thick, smooth swell of zir neck, then slowly lowered zir hand onto Fift’s shoulder. “And how am I to answer this disingenuous rhetorical question, Fift?”

Fift flushed, and gritted zir teeth. “I don’t want to do this.”

Pip nodded. “Indeed you do not. Now, Fift: start walking.”

Vvonda had been right and Fift had been wrong: ze should have just left Shria in the riot, gotten out, not added to vir shame. Ze certainly shouldn’t have said that stuff on the byway afterwards . . . what had ze said, exactly? Was it that bad? Zir agents’ memories of the scene were scrambled, and the feed had still been in shreds . . . but maybe ze could find that moment recorded from some nearby pickup, and watch it . . . see if it was really that . . .

It’s not safe for me with you.

Was Shria just talking about the riot? Maybe this was about what had happened at Stiffwaddle Somatic Fashions.

What Fift did there.

“Fift,” Pip said. “This was the consensus of a family meeting; the first you were invited to, I might add. I understand your being nervous. But you stand at a sluice-bifurcation here. If you behave like a Staid, a Staid of this family, you will vanquish the cowardly marginals who struck you and shamed you, and who hurt your friend. And you will know forever after that you are not a victim. But if you behave like a child . . .” Pip’s eyes narrowed, watching Fift’s face. “Ah. Yes, who hurt your friend, Fift. And this is how you can avenge vem. Not by jumping around in the middle of a combat like a child sneaking zir Vail-sibling’s armor out of the drawer to play dress-up. Not by letting your Fathers fight vir battles on the mats.”

Fift swallowed. But Shria didn’t want to be defended; Shria didn’t want to be avenged. Ze couldn’t make it up to vem like this. Could ze? Ze wanted to object, but ze didn’t trust Mother Pip. Mother Pip absorbed and exploited information with methodical ruthlessness. Fift suspected ze would regret it if ze told Pip anything.

“It is time,” Pip said, “to be what you are, Fift.”