Emee’s brow wrinkles. “Really?” She seems to be thinking hard. The little dog has come back to paw at her lap, and she reaches out absentmindedly for it. “That’s all very well,” she says finally, “although I don’t think we can be brothers and sisters, not really.”

“Why not?”

“Because we are too different.”

Something akin to anger creeps in. “You mean Cerels and Travesters.” I frown, pushing back my overgrown mop of hair.

“Well, yes.” She lifts the dog and stares into his eyes. The creature ducks his head and Emee sighs, putting him back into her lap. “But it’s a very nice sentiment.”

I feel like sulking. Sentiment. It’s an empty word. A Travester word.

“Actually,” she continues, “our Lord says that we must be kind to our brothers and sisters, and help each other.” She adds, as if parroting something she has learned, “So perhaps you have a point.”

“Lord,” I repeat the foreign word. “D’you mean the Director?”

“No, silly, our Lord God.”

Now I’m really confused. “I – we don’t know much about religion.”

The gods of the Cerels were banned well before I was born, though Nanna still prays to them. Some nights, on my way out, I hear her muttered invocations from the mattress in the corner of the kitchen.

Emee looks thoughtful, and we don’t speak for a while. The little dog jumps off her lap and frisks between us. He climbs tentatively over my legs, braver now, and I scratch behind his tufted ear.

“I should like to be this little dog,” I murmur. “I bet he knows about your god.”

Emee gives a shrill laugh. “How could a dog know about God?”

My response is honest. “I reckon animals live close to their gods. They hear them speak, and they can answer back. Have you ever seen your dog look up as if somebody else is in the room, but there’s nobody, and maybe he’ll bark or growl?” She reaches out a hand to pet Min-Min, who is perched, grooming himself, on my knee. “Times like that, he’s probably talking to one of the gods.”

She plucks the dog off my lap. “You talk as if there are lots of them.” I don’t say anything, and find another twig to avoid seeing her expression. “There is only one God,” she says primly. “You must know that.”

Looking at her, darkly, I wonder how Travesters can be so ignorant.

“According to your Director.”

“He’s your Director, too,” she snaps back. “He directs the whole city, not just the Travesters.”

I snort. “Don’t I know it.”

She wrinkles her brow at me again. “The Director cares for everybody, you know, even Cerels.”

“Then why do we live in ghettos?” We are on touchy ground now and I feel a little breathless even talking about this stuff with her, yet it seems I can’t help myself.