They probably existed at Zara’s school, too.

Aaru and I arrived at the nearest buffet table, and he nudged me to go first—probably part Idrisi sensibilities, but mostly so he could watch to see how I interacted with people. In the Pit, so out of place, I’d imagined myself as a Drakontos mimikus. I’d observed Gerel and learned how to survive by copying her. Now I saw the mimic dragon in Aaru, too.

When it was my turn, I pointed to a few items—cuts of spiced cloudfish, honey-glazed pineapple, and chunks of butter-drenched crabmeat on tiny crackers—and then thanked the house servant who filled my plate. Aaru followed my lead exactly, and together we wended our way around the outside of the floor, watching the dancers, until we paused beside a large column.

Aaru studied the arrangement of his plate with a soft frown. “It’s so pretty.”

I smiled. “Anaherans consider cooking an art.”

“But it’s to eat.”

“Yes. That doesn’t prevent it from being art as well.”

He touched one of the pineapples with his fork. “The only time I’ve ever worried about how food looks was when checking that it wasn’t spoiled or filled with bugs. I’ve always been too hungry to worry otherwise.”

And then, in the Pit, it hadn’t mattered if there were a few bugs. “This is a different world for you.”

“Very.” He gazed around the room, eyes lingering on the brightly dressed dancers, the intricate wall carvings, and the painted ceiling; for him, this world was as strange and unknowable as the bottom of the ocean. “But food. It’s for eating, not for looking.”

I thought back to what I’d learned during my previous visits. “It fits Anahera’s tenet of benevolent destruction in two ways: the destructive process of cooking can be made into something beautiful. Art. When you eat it, you’re given life. Eat everything you took, though. Destruction without purpose is an affront to Anahera.”

He gave me a look that said he had never in his life let food go to waste.

“See the walls?” I nodded across the room, where an immense panel showed a laughing figure dancing through a raging fire. She was beautiful, all long limbs and fluid motion. Panels were mounted all around the ballroom; in one set, she was cutting down trees—and building a house in the next. In another set, she killed a goat, but then offered a meal to children.

“Anahera.”

I nodded. “You can’t build something without first destroying something else; you can’t sustain life without death. The rule is that it must be purposeful. Meaningful. That’s why they call it benevolent destruction.”

“Benevolent destruction,” he murmured. “Strange.”

I tapped my fingernail on the edge of my plate. ::Strength through silence is strange to others.::

He bowed his head in acceptance, and in the aching sobriety of that motion, guilt needled me again. He shouldn’t have to be here, enduring this, talking about other islands’ beliefs. He’d just lost his home. His family. His everything.