March, 1099

It is already the 18th of March.

I sit on my bed, hugging a plushie to my chest.

It's round and woolly. A Caprinae, I think, or something close to one. Its wool is the same soft brown as Adele's hair, and two curled horns are stitched onto its head. The stitches change partway around its middle: tight and even on one side, big and loopy on the other.

I forgot to write it down before, but my birthday back on the landship was somehow even more chaotic than the Penguins'.

This was the present. Everyone got together and made it for me.

At least, that's what Lisa and mom say. Closure insists she is stocking them from now on.

Today has been busy. We are all holding our breath.

I swipe my slate awake.

A Feline news anchor from the Victorian Broadcasting Network fills the screen. The caption underneath reads 1ST LATERAN SUMMIT OF NATIONS.

"The first Lateran Summit of Nations is scheduled to take place today. Victoria's envoy will meet with Pope Yvangelista XI and envoys from nations across Terra to discuss stronger international security cooperation."

A knock on my dorm door.

I turn off my slate. The anchor and the caption go dark.

"Come in," I say.

The door slides open, and sun-ripened yuzu and green tea come in ahead of her.

"Podenco? I thought you were still in the field."

Her hair is slightly damp, a few strands stuck to the side of her face.

She smiles. Her tail gives a slow swish.

"Just came back earlier today." She leans against the doorframe. "Didn't know you were slacking, Lita. I was only gone for a week. And Miss Lena's been telling me you were in your dorm in the afternoons."

My tail lashes against the blanket.

"Hey! Adele and Ms. Skyfire and Eleanor are all away too. I don't really need to be in the Archives to get my reading done. Besides…"

"Excuses, excuses." Podenco waves a hand. "Anyways, Lita. Come. I found a few new flowers that you have to see."

She crosses the room and takes my hand.

The woolly Caprinae tumbles off my lap onto the blanket. I'm still holding my slate. I reach for my bag with my other hand, and I'm off the bed and halfway to the door before my fingers get anywhere near it.

Podenco drags me down the corridor.

Outside the medical wing, a few Medics stand in a circle.

Unsweetened dark chocolate and black coffee. Expensive, delicate tea and creamy vanilla, with crushed lavender and sterile bandages under it. Medicinal alcohol, sharp and uncompromising.

Sussurro. Breeze. And Folinic, whose face I only know from her profile in my slate.

"How are the children holding up?" Sussurro asks.

Breeze just shakes her head.

"Many are showing early signs of infection," Folinic says. "Not to mention the lingering trauma from the border riot."

My tail finds my ankle.

None of them notice us.

Podenco doesn't slow down. She just keeps dragging me ahead. Her hand squeezes mine tighter.

We finally reach the garden.

The doors hiss open. The garden is always a break from the steel corridors: damp earth, green leaves, the trickle of water somewhere behind the ferns.

"The flowers we got from Rim Billiton are in the back, being prepared for the micro-climate pods!" Podenco exclaims.

"Rim Billiton?" I stumble after her. "Isn't that place just desert and mines? At least, Adele's books say so."

"You just have to see it to believe it."

We walk toward the pods at the back, past the row of glass terrariums and their humidity dials.

Lena is kneeling in a bed of freshly turned soil, her sleeves pushed up past her elbows. Standing next to her is a tall Cautus woman.

I remember her from my slate.

Savage.

Slow-roasted carrots. Sun-baked earth. Forged steel.

But the earth has cracked dry, the steel has gone cold, and under all of it is something green and sour, like fruit picked before it was ready.

Lena turns around, a trowel still in her hand.

"Good afternoon, Lena. Savage," I say.

"Afternoon, dear."

Savage turns around slowly. Her eyes are slightly puffy.

"Lethe," she says.

"Sa… Savage, right?" I tug my sleeves down over my hands. "We haven't… met since Londinium… sorry, I don't remember. But if you are hurt… I think I can help."

Savage just looks at me for a long time.

Then she smiles.

"It's nothing. Just too much dust in the outback."

The green fruit turns. Something thin and sweet spreads over the top of it, and under the sweetness, it starts to rot.

"Glad to see you are doing alright, Lethe."

I squeeze the fabric of my jacket.

She is not telling me everything…

"Thank… thank you," I reply.

"Right! The flowers!" Podenco chimes in, clapping her hands together. "How can my botanical assistant not know the common flora of the semi-arid desert regions!"

"I'm your logistics assistant," I mumble.

She steers me over to a row of shallow trays lined up beside the pods, still waiting for their glass.

We crouch down to get a better look.

The flowers in them are small. Tiny, next to the ones that usually bloom in the garden. Papery white petals no bigger than my fingernail, with yellow centers. Clusters of little star-shaped flowers the color of dried apricots. Grey-green leaves, fuzzy like felt.

Podenco points at each one in turn and rattles off a name. I lose the first one before she gets to the third.

Behind us, Savage is still talking with Lena. Something about putting together a flower basket for a family back in Rim Billiton.

"Just to say hello," Savage adds.

I turn around, still crouched by the trays.

Podenco stops halfway through a name.

"I can help," I say. "Maybe we can wait until Lisa is here. She loves making flower baskets." I look past Savage, toward the doors. "Actually… where is she?"

Podenco's tail goes still.

"She… she had an Oripathy attack earlier."

"What?" I shoot up. My tail swings out behind me and only just misses the trays. "Is she—"

I'm already turning toward the doors.

"She is okay," Lena says. "She is resting for now."

Lavender and chamomile. No rot underneath.

I stop.

"Actually…" My fingers curl into my sleeves. "We should make two baskets? One for Lisa. And one for the family."

Savage looks down at the Rim Billiton flowers.

Lena smiles softly. "Let's, Lita."

"Let's see what flowers we can use," Podenco adds.

Time passes.

"No, Lita. You're weaving it the wrong way," Podenco says.

"Sorry…" I pull the stem back out. "This is… really hard."

"I'm sure Lisa will love it," Lena says. She and Savage are working on the other one at the end of the bench.

"Well. She'll know Lita helped make it, that's for sure," Podenco adds.

But her yuzu is sweeter than normal, and her green tea fizzier.

I look down at the basket in my hands. It's slightly lopsided, woven out of the flowers Podenco handpicked. One side sits higher than the other no matter how I turn it.

"Where is she staying?"

"On the deck below us, in the common wards," Podenco replies.

At the end of the bench, Savage threads two branches together around a cluster of the little papery flowers. Her hands are big and rough, and she moves them gently.

"If you two are finished with yours," Savage says, without looking up, "go ahead and go to Suzuran. Some company will do her nicely."

I pick up the basket and stand.

It tips toward its high side. I steady it with both hands, then bow, just slightly, so nothing falls out.

"Thank you, Savage. Lena."

Lena nods.

Savage looks up from her basket and nods too. Her mouth opens.

Then it closes.

Under the cracked earth, the green fruit is still there. Sour.

"Take care of yourself, Lethe," she says. "Tell me anytime you are up for some home-cooked food."

"Okay…" I hold the basket a little closer. "I will."

Podenco and I excuse ourselves.

We head down the corridor.

Halfway along, the doors of one of the lounges are locked open, and laughter spills out of them. Fizz comes out with it, small and bright, like popping candy.

I slow down.

Strips of fluorescent light run across a low ceiling full of pipes and vents. A whiteboard on the far wall is covered in yellow sticky notes, and an old arcade machine glows in the corner. In the middle of the floor is a round yellow rug, with square cushions and lumpy beanbags scattered around it.

A few Logistics Operators sit on the cushions around the edge, watching.

On the rug, a handful of children are building with wooden blocks.

"Look, this looks like the really tall building we saw!"

A young Lung boy points at his creation. He has stacked the blocks as high as he can reach, square on square, and tips his head back, small horns and all, to look at the top.

"And this is the bridge to get there," a girl kneeling beside him says. She sets an arched piece against the bottom of the tower.

The boy nods and turns away to fetch another block from the pile.

His shirt rides up as he leans over it.

Along his spine, Originium pierces out through the skin. Black, with a faint gold where the light catches it.

One of the Operators on the cushions looks up and spots us. She waves and smiles.

"Good afternoon, Lethe. Podenco."

I search for her face. A Phidia, with a scaled tail curled on the cushion beside her and a monitor at her throat on a thin black band.

Cool creek water. Dry reeds. A bite of spearmint.

Lacunae.

"Good afternoon, Lacunae," I say.

Podenco lifts a hand.

The children turn around.

They stop. Their eyes go up, and up, to the tips of my horns.

Then the boy speaks.

"Woah. Big Sarkaz sis really does look like a devil in the storybooks."

My tail freezes in the air.

The boy still tastes of popping candy. Sweet, and all fizz.

"Hey, Min, that's not nice to say," the girl says.

"What?" He looks from her to me. "She really does look like the drawings."

"Sorry, big sis." The girl gets up off the rug. "Min… Min doesn't mean it. He only learned Victorian recently."

"It is okay…" I reply, squeezing out a smile.

Behind me, my tail is still stuck in the air.

"Min."

Lacunae gets up from her cushion, comes over to the rug and crouches beside him.

"In Victorian, a devil means a bad person," she says. "Like the monsters in your storybooks."

Min nods.

"But this big sis…" She points at me. "This is Lethe. She helps people who are hurting. She helped my friend once, when my friend was very sad."

Then she points at the basket in my hands.

"And see the flowers? She works in the garden. I bet she is taking those to someone who is sick, to help them feel better."

I nod.

Lacunae tilts her head at him. "Does that sound like a devil to you?"

Min looks again. At the basket. Then at me.

"Okay…"

He walks up to me slowly, and stops just in front of the basket.

"Sorry, big sis."

The fizz goes a little sour.

My tail finally comes down. I hold the basket off to one side and crouch to his eye level.

"Don't worry," I say. "Come and visit us in the garden. We have a lot of board games. Okay?"

He nods.

"Promise!"

"Now, if you'll excuse us," Podenco says. "We're on our way to the wards."

I stand back up, the basket in one hand, and wave with the other.

"Laters, everyone."

They all wave back: Lacunae from the rug, the Operators from their cushions, the girl, and Min with both hands.

As we leave the lounge, I hear Min behind us.

"You should come too, Lyn. Board games!"

"And you should pay more attention in classes," Lyn says.

"They are boring!"

Podenco glances sideways at me.

The fizz is back, popping all the way out into the corridor after us. I hear the Operators laughing as we reach the elevator.

The elevator lets us out one deck down.

The doors of the common wards slide open onto a long room, dim and blue and quiet. Dark curtains hang between the beds. A yellow line on the floor marks out a rectangle around each one, and screens glow on the arms above them.

Medics move from bed to bed, checking the monitors one by one.

Lisa is on one of the beds near the back. She's already sitting up, her tails piled on the blanket around her.

Her left arm is wrapped in bandages.

Crystallized sugar reaches me as we get closer. It isn't as sweet as yesterday.

"Lita! Podenco!"

She spots us and sits up straighter.

"Hi, Lisa."

"We brought you flowers." I hold up the basket.

She takes one look at it and starts to giggle.

"You made it, didn't you, Lita?" She looks up at me. "Thank you!"

Some of the sweetness comes back.

I set the basket down on the little table beside her bed.

"Podenco picked the flowers," I add as Podenco and I sit down on Lisa's bed, one on each side.

I check the blanket twice before I sit, so I don't land on any of her tails.

"How are you feeling, Lisa?" Podenco asks.

"They stopped the bleeding already. Everything's okay." Lisa holds up her bandaged arm. "See? They're clean."

"Miss Erika says I should be able to be discharged tomorrow, if nothing happens tonight."

"That's great," Podenco says.

"Mom's here?" I ask.

"She left a bit earlier to check on Ifrit." Lisa lowers her arm back onto the blanket. "Apparently Ifrit set Doctor's paperwork on fire."

Lisa pauses.

"Again."

"Oh…"

Podenco giggles. "Well. Sounds like Ifrit."

"Is Dr. Silence not back yet?" I ask.

"Ah, she's back, from what I know. She just went out in the field on a mission for Doctor."

"So…" I look from Lisa to Podenco. "Maybe that's why Ifrit burned the paperwork."

"Well, Shaw can deal with the fire." Podenco waves a hand. "Anyways. More importantly, what's for dinner?"

"We can bring it over for you," I say to Lisa.

"How about something we can share?" Lisa asks. "And not too smelly. We don't want to disturb the other people in the ward."

"How about a sushi platter from Jaye, then?" Podenco suggests. "He got resupplied when we were at Lungmen."

"The Ursus man from Lungmen?" Lisa's ears perk up. "His sushi rolls are the best!"

Podenco nods.

"Lita's treat," she adds.

"Wait! Why me?" My tail lashes against the blanket. "You got a bonus from your field deployment!"

"And you're the one who got paid for not being in the Archives."

Lisa giggles into her good hand.

I groan into mine.

The pink Cautus with the tiny carrot on Closure's top shelf will just have to wait.