Nanna has saved me a bowl of barley porridge. The others have finished their breakfasts, and she is rinsing the dishes in a basin of water. “You can go with Marina today to the market,” she says over her shoulder. “And when you come back, you can help in the garden.”

I might have grumbled – I had planned on going fishing with Bit – though Nanna would have given me a tongue-lashing, or a clout. Besides, I’m the next oldest boy after Jorzy, and Marina shouldn’t go to the market alone. Just last week a woman was stabbed in the kidneys while she haggled over turnips, and her basket was snatched. If you’re injured like that, and if you’re unlucky, you die. There is no hospital for the Cerels, no doctors. Except for our own, unlicensed healers. The legal doctors only take care of the Travesters. So you’re careful, and you get somebody to watch your back.

Once I’ve licked the bowl clean, getting every last scrap of porridge, I fetch my knife from the cubbyhole, tuck it safely in my jacket pocket and find Marina. She’s helping dig over the garden in the inner courtyard with two others from the building; they’re going to plant potatoes. She leaves off digging when she sees me, and fetches her basket.

“Did you hear the explosions last night?” she asks curiously as we go down the stairs to the next floor and along the corridor. We hear cooking noises, a clatter of pans, people making breakfast.

“Something was happening across the other side of the river,” I tell her. The night sky was lit up with a fire in a Travester warehouse. I was watching, hidden in shadow beside the stone bridge, though I didn’t know who was responsible. Somebody else obviously has the powder to make exploding devices.

“Really.” Marina gives me a knowing look as we head down to the basement area. She steps lightly through the piles of rubble, her face pale in the gloom.

“It wasn’t me,” I mutter. “I was asleep.”

“Of course you were.” She smiles.

We climb the ladder up to the covered alleyway, then we’re out on the street.

Nanna’s Travester friend, Marta Gayer, is coming along from the other direction. She’s a plump woman with curly ginger hair, and always a contented look on her face. I bet she has plenty of potatoes, and other good things, to eat.

“Don’t say anything,” Marina hisses – as if I need telling, which I don’t.