Haddi didn’t pretend to understand what was inevitable about the world. Where the war might have emerged, if it began on its own or with help, were questions not worth the trouble. What she did know—what her heart and mind and soul understood too well—was that inside Diamond, underneath everything special, waited a beast just like the beast inside the rest of them.

Standing in the darkness, touching that unfastened door, Diamond saw his mother. Several conversations replayed themselves inside the same intense moment. She was weeping while talking to her son. She was talking to him while her face was like coral, a pale coral, rigid and cold. And she was warm-voiced and calm, looking at the ceiling as she spoke. And finally, she was quietly talking to Good, pretending not to notice the beast standing a few steps away.

In each case, the same message was delivered.

“He would have been so disappointed,” she said.

To her son, she said, “Your father.”

To the monkey, she said, “Merit.”

Then she said, “That good man despised violence against humans. It didn’t matter if they were us or if they were the papio. He never wanted to raise a hand, much less incinerate hundreds of them. And he certainly wouldn’t approve of you trying to murder one of your own siblings.”

“The Eight were evil,” Diamond said, trying to combat her logic.

“You knew that,” she said skeptically.

“I did,” he claimed.

“And that fact hasn’t changed?”

There were papio soldiers who had protected the Eight, and now they were squatting inside tree-walker prisons and interrogation cells. They didn’t describe a simple evil giant. Nothing about the creature was simple, including the mastermind—Divers.

“But Divers killed my father,” Diamond said.

That was the day when Mother was addressing Good, not him.

“I saw Divers kill him,” Diamond shouted, his voice livid, each word blended into the next.

Mother’s face turned hard and cold. She stared at the monkey and then turned to her son. The pretty mouth was pinched, and the dark red-rimmed eyes refused to blink. Then very quietly, almost too softly to be heard, she said, “I know what you saw. But what your father would ask. If he were sitting next to me, if he could look at you . . . ”

The boy’s anger abandoned him.

He didn’t intend to ask, “What would Father ask?”

But his mouth muttered that question just the same.

Mother’s voice didn’t answer. She changed the gait and color of her words, sounding very much like Merit when she said, “Diamond. Tell me. How many fathers did you kill that day?”

Wrenching endless sadness took his heart. Pain that would cripple anyone else became a weight, Diamond’s massive and faithful burden. But the murderous boy kept living. He managed to sleep nights and eat every day, growing in little bursts like every other boy, and the hair changed on his body, and when he wasn’t conscious about his grief and guilt, he became very much aware of new feelings—feelings as old as any species living inside the Creation.

The memories faltered, and the present returned.

In the middle of this night, Diamond took one long breath, holding the air deep inside his chest while all of its oxygen was married to his salty blood.

Then the sentry walked past the door, beginning his rounds, and the boy waited for half a recitation before slipping into the hallway, still not breathing, nothing useful left inside his lungs, his legs working with a magic that he couldn’t hope to understand.

Important humans knew how to curry favor, and that was why the Archon used to receive gifts, enormous numbers of fine rare wondrous gifts.

That was before the war.

In those days, Father was the world’s most important man, and it was fashionable among the half-powerful to give him portraits and sculptures of his extraordinary son. And that was why King’s rooms were crowded with big canvas sheets slathered in paint, and tall blocks of carved wood and carved coral, and best of all, figurines built wholly from corona parts. Each work represented him, and they were usually competent and sometimes inspired. Few humans actually visited King inside his own quarters, but the typical reaction was to assume that the giant, heavily-armored beast was self-absorbed. Why else populate your home with thirty-seven portrayals of yourself?

Except none of these objects were King, and that’s what he liked.

With paint and knives, King had altered each one of the gifts. An unsuspected artistic talent helped him adjust the lay of the armor and the color of spikes and the precise dimensions of legs and arms and the two mouths. Why this should matter was a mystery, particularly to him, but the creature never questioned his instincts. He considered these figures to be his family. Maybe they were ancestors; maybe they hadn’t been born yet. Names and life stories mattered less than their presence, particularly the sense that he belonged to some abundant species populated with names and important stories.

King was taller than any human, tree-walker or reef-walker, and he weighed half again more than the largest papio. But three hundred days ago, this body that he barely understood had stopped growing. He knew that before anyone else. The butcher scale in the doctors’ offices soon proved it. Eating more earned him nothing but more frequent trips to the toilet. His full-sized body was also showing other signs of maturity, and he had to assume that each stage was inevitable, natural, and healthy. Yet how could he be certain? A species of one had no guidelines, no history. He was alone in the worst ways, and alone in the best too, and maybe that’s why it was easy to take pleasure from standing inside a magnificent room where King-like figures were set in rows—a pattern that felt right and proper and lovely.

“Did you hear the explosions?” asked his guest.

“They woke me,” said the breathing mouth.

“How many?”

King raised both hands, implying twelve.

His brother nodded, leaving the door slightly ajar.

“Did he wake?” King asked.

“Not when I jumped over his bed,” Diamond said.

It was an old joke. The Archon was a light sleeper, but both of them had experience slipping through the man’s home without being noticed—unless List was aware and had decided not to challenge either of them.

“Where was the fight?” asked Diamond.

King pointed at the memory of each blast.

“My old home,” the human said sadly.

Only little battles were fought in the Corona District. The blackwoods were dead, and the papio had all but abandoned that portion of their reef, which made this night a bit unusual.

“Maybe someone’s starting a large offensive,” said King.

Diamond nodded.

King had finished growing, but the human was only beginning. Everything that had been frail and small about Diamond was being swallowed by strong human muscle and a skeleton that was brawnier than anyone might have guessed. If the boy grew like his truly human cousins, he might end up tall. He could even find power, in some fashion. But he was also a species of one, which meant that nobody knew the answers. He could just as well grow until enormous, or he could transform into some unsuspected entity, like a thunderfly springing out of its chrysalis.

“Let’s watch the war,” King suggested.

Diamond was holding the fancy brass knob. He started to open the door but then closed it again.

“I’ll get us to a spotter station,” King said.

“No,” the boy said. “I don’t want to see the war now.”

King waited, knowing what was coming.

“Put it out,” Diamond said.

They had used the sign five nights ago, and this was too soon.

“Or I’ll put it out,” he said.

Saying nothing, King walked to the wall nearest the outside world, gently lifting a statue of himself made from silvery corals frosted with paint. This was the statue that resembled him best, which was why he called it Grandfather. It took a fair amount of power to lift his ancestor, exposing a small hole that had been surreptitiously cut through the wall and between the sacks of protective water, leaving a tube where a simple bell and tether lived.