Seldom laughed nervously.

Elata looked at Diamond. This was the first moment of the morning when she kept her eyes on him, and he felt her gaze, glad for it and not glad for it.

“Well,” Mother said with a flat tone. “That sounds very entertaining.”

Sarcasm, thought Diamond.

“Join us,” Nissim said.

Diamond thought that was funny, at least a little bit.

She looked at him, letting a smile slip free. “You think I’ll be bored.”

“I will be,” he said.

“Not me,” Seldom had to say.

Elata’s broad shoulder gave a shrug. “There’s a lot more than math at the University.”

“No,” Mother said. “I want to hear about spheres.”

She sounded earnest.

Diamond didn’t know what to believe. He tried to laugh but ended up sounding dismissive when he asked, “Why?”

“Spheres are the perfect shape,” she said. “Every child knows it, even before he learns so in school.”

Nissim had opinions on the subject that he didn’t dare mention.

Mother grabbed her boy by the hand, squeezing and staring at his face. “He told me,” she began, and then she had to gather herself.

“Who told you?” Seldom asked.

Father, she meant.

“Merit,” she said. But she didn’t cry or look especially sad. The name was a pleasure to share and she might be able say it ten times without bending too much, shattering in the end.

Reading strength in her face, everybody relaxed.

“When he was flying,” she said. “When he was beneath the District of Districts, and the sunlight was strong and the air clear, he would climb on top of his ship and look at all of the world at once. The hemisphere above covered with its the forest, and the reef wrapped the faintest gold mist, and he could almost see past the coral and wood, seeing the edge of Creation falling smoothly down into the demon floor, and that was one of the loveliest sights anywhere.”

Then with a bittersweet edge, she said again, “One of the loveliest.”

Nobody spoke.

Only time spoke.

Then out from the silence, she said, “Yes, I’d love to go with you.”

Good understood. He was going to be abandoned at home, and that was the moment when he reached out with his bare feet, nabbing several of the sweet nuts off their plate.

Then he galloped off, the usual reprimands chasing after him.

There was pleasant talk after that. For several recitations, every subject was small and vital.

Outside, the rain was finally slackening.

Silence was trying to grasp the world.

Then from some distant place came the diluted roar of a siren. There was just one siren, the warning beginning in the direction of the Bluewind District, but quickly more and closer sirens joined in. And in another few moments there was nothing to hear but the wailing of hundreds of sirens and the first ominous firings of cannons—every gun aiming at nothing, doing nothing but mapping the winds.

Slayers had always hunted the margins.

The best hunting was beneath the Corona District, which was a respectable reason for the papio to burn blackwoods and burn hunter-ships and kill every human clinging to any burnt out tree trunk, in hopes of dispatching just one more slayer.

Survivors retreated into the District of Districts, finding sanctuaries where new hunters could be trained, building shops and hangers where military weapons could be lashed to their last ships. But the early days of the war didn’t have much serious noise about chasing the coronas again. Fighting monsters was already difficult work, but it was familiar and halfway predictable. Slayers were not soldiers. Bullets and flame made the smallest hunt into a suicidal dash, and one little carcass wouldn’t be worth any risk. Besides, the Archon and his wise ancestors had stockpiled corona parts, stuffing warehouses full of bladders and scales and skins and iron—a cache that would surely outlast the anger that had already eaten away at lives and wealth.

But then again, maybe there weren’t as many warehouses as rumored. And there definitely was a shortage of visionaries—people who had imagined full-scale war being waged for six hundred days. Both sides were suffering from shortfalls, and both species were making brash plans. The papio had built ugly gas airships that hid inside bunkers by day, slipping out at night to hunt the margins of the reef. And meanwhile, the tree-walking generals had pulled some of their precious military fletches from service, adapting them to chase the coronas and fight the papio at the same time.

The young man was happy to learn how to hunt like a slayer.

But he already knew how to fight.

“Wake up,” he told his roommate, shaking the bunk before giving the lazy boy one little twist of a fist.

Like a pill bug, the boy pulled himself into a ball, trying to protect his belly.

“So what, there’s sirens,” he complained.

Slayers didn’t fire cannons with the ordinary troops.

“It’s not the damn sirens,” Karlan said. Then he dragged the boy off the high bed, watching him fall to the floor.

The boy was named Ticker, and he didn’t like to fight.

“What’s this about?” Ticker asked.

“Something’s been spotted, and we’ve got to go.”

They didn’t hunt unless a worthy corona was flying directly beneath the District of Districts. Otherwise it was a sure loss of equipment and probably lives, and no spoils would come home in the end.

Pulling on trousers, Ticker asked, “How big?”

“Barely big enough,” Karlan lied.

The boy did love to hunt though, which was the only reason he didn’t find himself thrown him back with the common soldiers.

“Faster,” Karlan said.

Clean shirts were too much of a challenge. Ticker threw on yesterday’s shirt and then started lacing into the armor.

Then a voice pushed through the wail of sirens. One of the original slayers was down in the hanger, shouting, “The prize won’t linger.”

“Is it?” Ticker asked.

“They think so,” Karlan said.

“Damn, you could have told me,” the boy said, bursting through the door with his battle gear only halfway secured.

At his own pace, Karlan dressed. The armor was special-made for him, oversized and half again thicker than anyone else’s. A fortune in corona scales had been fused together, and the helmet was a marvel of tiny interlocking scales harvested from the tiniest coronas. Karlan wasn’t shy about using favors to get the best for himself. The hero who killed the Eight the first time deserved a lot more than accolades. Nobody else put an end to the rampage that murdered Merit, and he certainly didn’t start any wars in the process. Merit’s adopted son generated a lot of opinions among slayers, but in these ranks, Karlan was always offered free drinks and his pick of duties, and the women slayers had granted him a lot more than wine and the ship’s prime gun.

The ship was a fletch called Tomorrow’s Girl.

Once a warship, it had been reconfigured to hold double duties. The front high-hand turret had been dragged clear up to the nose, affording its gunner a grand view of everything. The harpoon gun was a marvel when it came to killing—a combination of the explosives to stun the prey and wires leading back to a bank of capacitors that would cook any corona to death. But that gun wasn’t brought out until there was some beast to shoot. For the rest of the flight, Karlan was the master of a cannon that threw out fountains of hard rounds mixed with bursts of explosive rounds. Three shattered wings had been credited to his marksmanship, and he was confident that others had flown away injured, probably dropping through the demon floor before they got home.

Dressed for his day, Karlan was the final crewmember to stride into the hanger.

The captain considered words but didn’t risk them. Whatever he thought about his big spoiled hero, he had learned not to complain too openly about these flashes of independence.