“Vehicle shrapnel. They were taking pot shots at the police, and the police took pot shots back, with a munitions launcher.” Pyrrha held the glass out beseechingly to Nona; Nona went and refilled it. “Don’t worry. I squatted in a public bathroom and forked everything out myself. It’s mostly closed up already.”
“Did you…？”
“Saved who I could, left the rest to be buried,” said Pyrrha. “Or burned. Lots of ’em were burning. Couldn’t do anything for them … People notice when you don’t burn, is the thing. There was an audience. Others have been killed for less.”
Palamedes said nothing; he pushed at a pair of glasses that didn’t exist, made a noise of annoyance, and swept his hand lightly over the arm. Nona, fascinated, watched the blood peel away and frizzle to nothing, leaving a long zigzag of clean open meat on Pyrrha’s arm that was wrinkling shut as they watched.
Nona said, “Was it the port riot? Were you there?”
“You heard about that, kiddie? No,” said Pyrrha. “It’s just aftershocks. I was on that side of the city, is all.”
Palamedes said, “Is it finally kicking off?”
“Not yet.” Pyrrha curled her arm inward, examining the disappearing wound, and took the cool glass from Nona’s hands. Her fingers had left dirty fingerprints on the glass. “I know that sounds ridiculous, but not yet. Even though they’re chucking bombs at the cops and yelling shit about No deals, no lords, no zombies, and Cops love zombie money. When it kicks off, nobody will be yelling anything. This is anger, not fear. False labour pains … Do they still do gravid carry where you come from?”
“On the Sixth, only for research,” said Palamedes.
“I helped at a birth once. There’s a lot of noise and run-up before the real thing happens.” Pyrrha necked the second glass of water all the way down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before she could think better of it. When she saw the result, she grimaced. Nona fetched a damp cloth without being asked so that Pyrrha could start to clean up. “This has been a shit day … I’m having a cigarette. I’ll smoke it out the window.”
Nona froze, but Palamedes said calmly, “No good; Cam sold them. Said they were our most liquid asset.”
She expected Pyrrha to get very sarcastic. Pyrrha didn’t yell, ever, but Nona experienced so much yelling among her friends that she deeply preferred it. Pyrrha just sighed, deeply.
“How much did she get?”
“Maybe a third of what they were worth.”
“What an entirely haunted time to be alive,” said Pyrrha. “Nona, my sweet, can you draw me a bath? My filth’s got filth.”
Nona sprinted to the bath and put the plug in the plughole and dutifully started grating the soap bar into fine, dusty flakes to put in the hot water, not even minding leaning over the sweaty hot-water tap; but she pricked up her ears when she heard, in the other room, Palamedes saying softly, “I’m going to let Camilla look you over. Tell her what you told me,” and Pyrrha saying, “Wait a moment, Warden. Wait. I want you to hear this first … not Hect. I need you to stop Hect, okay? I need you to hold her back.”
Nona shut off the hot-water tap. It wasn’t as though she was deliberately trying to eavesdrop; she was still carefully holding the paring knife and trying to make the longest unbroken rind of soap that she could, watching flakes disappear and dissolve into white scum on the surface of the water. Her hair was itchy with sweat. She heard Palamedes say, “Oh, God, Pyrrha, just tell me.”
Pyrrha said, “In the chaos, they found some … people … to take to the park tonight.”
There was a very long silence, or else Nona couldn’t hear. Pyrrha said, “I saw them for two, three seconds. In the back of a truck. Three adults. It was dark. Said they’d taken them off the cops. One person I asked said they’d been in the barracks, another one said they’d found them wild.”
Nona couldn’t wait anymore; she ran the cold water tap before she died of being too hot, and let the water run over her wrists and her palms, like Camilla had taught her. Wrists were the best place for cooling down. That meant she only caught fragments, until Pyrrha and Palamedes helpfully made their voices louder—
“You versus two hundred motherfuckers with machine guns! Camilla versus two hundred motherfuckers with machine guns, Sextus! I know you and she are doing some ungodly tricks with soul manipulation, but what do you think you are, a damned Ly—L-word? You’re not even a fraction of one, you’re only a step in the theory. The poor fools they have probably aren’t even—”