“How many people do you leave to burn tonight, Dve?”
“You say that because you think it hurts, and because you’re frightened,” said Pyrrha coolly. “The answer, my boy, is multitudes … so long as it doesn’t include you and me and Nona. We’re all three of us in enough trouble as it is. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Pyrrha, they tape their arms to their sides and they put them in those cages and they douse them in petrol, in gasoline…”
“Yes, and then they set them alight, and it’s terrible, and usually somebody shoots them long before the fire takes them. There’s always some softie in the crowd, Sextus, even for zombies. And it won’t be ‘zombies.’ Listen to me. What I’ve been trying to tell you this whole night is that me and the boys combed Site C and I found nothing: no bodies, no blood, none of your people. No sign they were even kept there by Edenites. This is the public taking it out on a couple of poor bastards they pick up who are insane, or drug-addled, or who said the wrong thing and gave someone a wonderful opportunity to get them out the way. You know that’s been the vast majority of the cage deaths since the initial flush. Even if it is one of yours then Number Seven’ll have them so out of their tree that they’ll hardly notice when—”
“This isn’t about House loyalty,” said Palamedes quietly. “It’s about three people being burnt to death.”
There was a big silence. Nona made a number of tiny noises, cleaning the paring knife, cleaning her hands, making sure Pyrrha’s towel was dry.
Pyrrha said, “Keep Camilla home tonight. I’ll call it quits for the cigs.”
Palamedes said, “Do you know she has a half sister? Did she tell you? It’s not my secret to tell. They’re quite fond of each other. Camilla’s ten years younger. Kiki’s a member of Oversight Body, junior fellow. She was one of the group that came to negotiate with Ctesiphon Wing.”
“I didn’t know that, no,” said Pyrrha.
“Alongside fifteen other of the finest minds of my House,” said Palamedes. “Led here by my conviction and Camilla’s hand. My colleagues, my friends. My family … The people they put in cages will be someone’s family, someone’s friends.”
“Keep—Camilla—home—tonight,” said Pyrrha. “That is all I am saying. Keep her home. No heroics. I’m not moved by sentiment. Whatever it takes. Don’t feel. Just do.”
“Tonight I hate almost all the human race,” said Palamedes wearily.
“That’s a feeling,” said Pyrrha brutally. “Kill it.”
Palamedes did not seem to notice when Nona crept back into the kitchen, drying her hands on her front; he had ducked into the bedroom. It was just Pyrrha, peeling her bloodied shirt off and putting it in the sink to soak; Pyrrha with her naked chest so moth-eaten with scars that even Camilla and Palamedes couldn’t guess the cause of. Nona always felt soft and tender when she saw Pyrrha with her shirt off, and liked to rest her head on her back, between her prominent shoulder blades. But tonight she just said humbly: “Can I go into the corridor for five minutes?”
Pyrrha raised one eyebrow. “Does Cam let you do that?”
“No—but I just want to sit outside number three-oh-two. They play the radio, and we don’t have one.”
“Sounds harmless. What’s Camilla’s objection?”
“She says they’re maniacs.”
“Go. Take five. I won’t tell her if you don’t get shot,” said Pyrrha.
Nona unlatched the door and tiptoed outside, even though she had been granted permission. The desire to listen to the radio at number 302 was only a mild blind. She knew that if she hung around the question of the remaining mouthful would come back into play, and she wanted a moment to walk by herself and think by herself. The corridor lights were dimmed and the cool linoleum under her bare feet felt sticky with each step, and condensation left perfect Nona-shaped footprints on the squares as she went.
The windows were all blinded and boarded, so she could not crack one and get a breath of fresh air, but she lolled outside number 302. The radio was on, and was playing something mournful she could not really translate; Nona always found listening to the radio much harder to understand, with no mouth and no eyes. She sat there in the moist dim corridor night, thinking escapeful thoughts. She wondered if she quite had the bottle to go down the stairwell and down to the garage and check to see if anyone she knew was down there; but that felt like more of a betrayal than she wanted to truck with.