It was late in the bloom, and late in the day, so the light from the Temple was dim. Ram didn’t notice the figure sitting in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs until he’d almost literally tripped over it. Catching himself at the last second, he overcompensated and fell back on his rump against the stone steps. No doubt he’d feel that in the morning, too.

“Can’t you be quieter?” asked a girl’s peevish voice. She was hunched over on the bottom step, and he couldn’t see any part of her clearly. “If you want to be noisy, you can stay inside.”

“They’ve stopped playing,” he said, somewhat thickly.

“Yes,” she said, standing up. “I noticed. Because it’s late. Night-time. You know, when people are sleeping? They might like it better if you didn’t clomp around like a fresh-fixed ox. And while you’re at it, lower your voice.”

“Okay, sorry,” he said, more quietly, as he levered himself up off the step. “But if it’s so late, what are you doing out here, anyhow? Don’t you like dancing? They could use more girls in there. Especially pretty young ones.”

“I don’t dance, and nobody ever called me pretty,” she answered, turning around. Mingled moon- and pyrelight caught the lower half of a deadly pale face underneath an eyeless cowl. Ram nearly fell down again.

“… Imbri?” he tried, weakly. They’d been introduced, briefly, before dinner, but he couldn’t recall her speaking since. Nobody had even said what she did with the group. Something terrifying, he was sure.

“Yes. Imbri. And who are you?”

“I’m Rammash, we just—“

“I know you’re Rammash. But who the hell are you?”

He was missing something here. “I’m Ushna’s cousin?”

“His cousin? So what? He’s got loads of them. The desert’s covered with them. Why are you here? What makes you a Damadzu?”

This was a very good question he’d stopped asking himself when he realized he had no way of answering it. “He heard I needed help. My father got hurt, see, and he—“

“Half the family’s in trouble most of the time. They live in trouble. Most of them go out of the way to look for it. Dad never bothered about any of them before, so what makes you special?”

“Wait, ‘Dad’? You’re Ushna’s kid?” What little he could see of her was about ten shades too light, and he couldn’t imagine his cousin either getting married or taking care of a bastard.

“Adopted. None of your business. Stop dodging the question. Why are we bothering with you? I’ve known Dad to kill people for a silver, let alone three gold, and as far as I can tell you’re totally useless.”

“Hey, I killed the … azaboo!”

“Tch! Abizu. The word is abizu, you stupid drunk. You didn’t even know what it was until tonight, did you? And he wants to give you three gold for tagging along and throwing your only light source at its head.”

He looked down at the cane in her hand. “Hey, you’re blind, aren’t you? Why’s he bothering with you, huh? At least I can see!”

“If only you could think, too. How many back-end-of-nowhere hearth kids do you know of who got jobs like this handed to them?”

Ram hadn’t even particularly wanted the job—had mixed feelings about it even now, with three gold in his pocket and the memory of Darun still tingling in his hands—but it didn’t seem like a good time to say so. Instead he held up his hands, remembering too late that she couldn’t see them. “Look, I’m just trying to go home now, okay? I’m not looking for a fight with a, a … whatever you are. You want to know what your daddy’s thinking, you go ask him. I haven’t known him half a bloom. How am I supposed to know how he thinks?”

She didn’t move or respond. She was blocking the bottom of the stairs; he didn’t feel brave enough to shove past her, but he’d have felt ridiculous trying to hoist himself over the railing to go around. “What’s it matter to you, anyhow? You’re talking like I’m getting used here. So what? You don’t know me. My problem, not yours.”

“Do you even know what we do, Rammash?”

“You sell stuff. Bazu stuff.”

“Yes. And where do we get the ‘bazu stuff’?”

“By killing bazuu?”

“No. Not usually. The job you went on was a special favor, and Dad’s not inclined to do it again anytime soon, after the way it went. We buy most of our goods ourselves. From bazuu.”

“Buy from bazuu?” He laughed. “Get serious, girl. The ones we met tried to kill us!”

Imbri sighed. “Just how stupid are you? You’re talking about a whole race; they aren’t all on the same side. Dad wiped that rookery at the request of other bazuu. They had rivals, who wanted to see them lose face. Some of our usual suppliers, in fact.”

“Your … usual suppliers.” He’d been working for bazuu? This night had gone drastically downhill.

“Yes. I’m our negotiator. We buy bazu artifacts and sell them on to humans at a hefty markup. That’s most of our business, right there, and we make good money at it. Everything else is odd jobs on the side. You got any experience dealing with bazuu? Negotiating sales? Getting around in the wild? Hell, had you ever even been more than ten miles from your dirtball hearth before you came to this pyre? Doesn’t seem like it. So why are you here?”

Ram had no answer.

“The only possible reason Dad would waste this kind of time and money on you,” she said, gripping her cane tight with both hands, “is because he stands to make a fortune off it somewhere down the road. I’ve tried asking him; he keeps up the stupid humanitarian story, even though he knows I won’t buy it. And you, obviously, don’t know a thing, you wormhead—“

“Okay, okay, I get it. Geez. What do you want me to do?”

“Pretend you have some sense. I don’t like having our nice, comfortable business thrown out of whack by some know-nothing hick who can’t even be bothered to watch out for himself. Did you learn anything, anything at all, about who we are or what we do tonight? Or were you too busy slobbering on Darun?”

She’d put a lot of bitterness into that last sentence, and he thought he knew why. “You’re right. There’s a lot I don’t know, and I should have been finding out. But I’m going to change that. Starting now.” Before he could lose his nerve, he yanked her hood back over her head.

Imbri’s face was short, with high cheekbones under her closed eyes, and a small, petulant mouth. Her hair was pale—white or something close to it, hard to tell in the poor light—straight, and cut shorter than Ram’s. Disheveled tufts stuck out at odd angles.

“Well?” she said, sounding bored. “What have we learned?”

“Maybe nobody’s called you pretty, but I’ve seen a lot worse,” he observed. It was much easier talking to a girl when you knew she couldn’t possibly think less of you than she did already. “What are you, sixteen?”

“Seventeen,” she gritted, tugging the hood back down. But she seemed much less menacing, now that he knew she was human under there. “And you’re drunk.”

“Oh, I’ve been drunker than this.” Almost three blooms back, now, on a dare. Mother hadn’t been happy. He’d had to clean up the vomit himself, and it hadn’t impressed anyone.

“I can believe that. Do me a favor and don’t kill too much more of your brain, would you?”

“Hey, I’ve done pretty well for myself, for a dumb hearth hick. Three gold!”

Imbri sighed, but stepped aside. “Go home, Rammash. Get some sleep. And try not to mess up my life as badly as you’ve messed up your own.”

“Yes, ma’am!” he said, brushing past her and setting off back to the barracks. It was strange, to think that there was a plain human woman hidden in all that baggy mess. Barely even a woman—more of a girl. He’d been expecting blue fires in empty eye sockets when he pulled back the hood. Maybe she was some kind of horrible monster from the neck down, but he doubted it.

Monster or girl, she had a point. There was way too much he didn’t know, and Ushna really wasn’t the charitable type.

He slept well that night, a deep and dreamless sleep. He woke up early, feeling better than he had any right to, and jogged to the bank before breakfast. Dul Karagi had three banks; thanks to Gelibara’s countenance, Ram used the official pyre bank, which was run entirely by acolytes. It kept odd hours to meet the needs of state; even so, the eunuch on duty wasn’t entirely happy to have business so early. He scowled and rubbed at his eyes as Ram gave him directions: two gold to save and earn interest, a half to send to Urapu with a cryptic and technically-honest note about an “unexpected dividend” from the war, and the last half—six silver—in change of varying denominations. Ram had a few odd questions for him as well, which he answered with equally bad humor. Then he was off to the common hall, hurrying to get there before the end of breakfast.

The novelty of meals at the “trough” had worn off some time ago; it was better than Urapu’s common meals, but still bland and tedious compared to what he’d eaten at the Red Flute. After breakfast came his morning patrol, where he gave deliberately and infuriatingly unhelpful answers to Busu’s many questions about his night out with the girl in the purple dress. Busu’s respect wasn’t worth all that much—Ram missed Beshi more every day—but it seemed to have doubled for him overnight, and no doubt he’d spread the story to the whole company.

Only when lunch rolled around was he at liberty for an extended errand, though he’d have to skip a meal to get there. The northwest end of the pyre was the kind of place where the militia weren’t usually wanted. The houses there were large and expensive, sheltered between the Temple and the convenience of the riverside, and most of them belonged to senior flamekeepers, or the family members of acolytes. He kept his badge prominently displayed and moved quickly, to give the impression he was on official business, but still got a lot of curious looks.

The place he was looking for, according to the acolyte at the bank, was up at the far north end, where the dwellings were merely roomy rather than colossal. His knock was promptly answered by a private bondservant, a middle-aged woman with a stately demeanor. She bowed slightly as she opened the door. “May I help you, sir?”

“I’m here to see Master Tuzinani. Is he available?”

“Certainly. This way, sir.” She led him through a check-tiled atrium and into a parlor, where an elderly man sat at a cluttered table with his swollen feet up on a chair, getting them expertly massaged by a young bondsman. He didn’t notice them for some time; his nose was inches from a paper with a mess of shapes on it, triangles and squares labeled with lots of tiny print. The lady had to cough to get his attention.

“Oh! Yes? Who might you be?” His face was perfectly smooth, if sagging, and most of the hair had fallen off the top of his head. His eyes didn’t seem inclined to focus on anything more than a few inches from his nose, either. A pair of spectacles perched, apparently forgotten, on his forehead.

“My name is Rammash im-Belemel, sir. My sister is a handmaiden; I’m in the militia. You used to teach the acolytes, didn’t you, sir?”

“Yes. I am largely retired, at present. For my health.”

“I can see that, sir. But I hear you still take on private students.”

“From time to time, yes. What do you need, young man?”

“A reading lesson. How much would it cost?”