Her brow furrows. “Wild camps? What are they?”

“You know,” I say, not paying much attention, “where they keep most of the men.”

“What men?”

We look at each other. Her face is a grey oval, her eyes dark in the gloom, just like mine are dark all the time. I’m staggered, but she’s not faking it: she really doesn’t know. Thoughts fly through my brain like arrows. Jorzy is right, the Director doesn’t want the Travesters to see him in a bad light, to see him as he really is – a tyrant. So the Travesters are living a lie, only they don’t know it. If they did know the truth, would it be enough to bring down the Director?

“The Cerel men,” I tell her carefully, watching her face. “Black Marks take away the fathers and husbands and keep them in wild camps so they won’t cause trouble.”

Emee gives a little gasp, then turns away. I can tell she’s thinking hard and it gives me hope when she doesn’t dismiss the idea straightaway. “But,” she says, “if that’s correct, then perhaps the Director doesn’t know?”

I push back my hair with a sigh. “He knows. It’s his order. It comes from him.”

“I don’t understand,” she says faintly, gazing at me with wide eyes. “He’s the Director of all of us, the one who oversees the city and takes care of us all – even Cerels.”

Part of me doesn’t want to enlighten her; she might not talk to me again. I’m in too deep already. “Emee, he only takes care of Travesters.”

“I have to go now,” she says then, looking confused.

With a crunch of gravel, she leaves me alone in the dark.

* * *

Bit lands the first fish. A good-sized jakard, pink in the sunlight, its sharp teeth flashing. We crouch over the fish as it flips and gasps on the grass. Bit works the hook out of the jakard’s mouth, trying to keep his fingers clear in the process. The jakard can deliver a nasty bite, latching onto a finger and cutting to the bone, even in its death throes.

I hand my opened knife to Bit and watch as he presses the blade down into the top of the fish’s head. It finally gives up its struggle.

“Good size.” I wish it was me who’d caught it.

Bit glances up, his face glowing. “If you don’t catch anything, we’ll share it.”

“Don’t worry.” I grin. “I’m going to catch something tastier than an old jakard.”

As Bit guts the fish, I put a dead cicada on my hook and cast the line into the river.