Seldom joined him at the window.

“Hi,” they said in the same moment, with matching voices.

Something wanted to be asked. But the question remained hiding while Seldom stood tall, pushing out his long chest.

Diamond glanced over his shoulder.

Mother was sitting alone, carefully studying the floor.

Elata was standing beside the farthest window, hands wrestling with a leather purse as she stared back at the Middle-of-the-Middle. Nothing in front of them mattered.

Seldom groaned softly.

Diamond looked at his friend’s face in profile. Seldom was thrilled and terrified, and when he felt the eyes, he grimaced.

Diamond asked, “What?”

“Inside the corona,” Seldom began. Then he swallowed hard and looked into the sun, adding, “What if there’s a stomach full of children like you? What do you think you’ll do?”

Diamond inhaled. Suddenly and very clearly, he saw himself walking between cribs, and he was teaching odd creatures to speak and run, and in another instant he dared imagine a second King and another Quest. Then he blew out the long breath, imagining a human girl who became a woman so real that she had a name. In his mind, their lives were woven together, days without number, and these bloodwoods grew old, people mining out the wood before their cores fell, and holding hands, the two immortals watched new ranks of bloodwoods descending into the endless, wondrous days.

All that happened inside one gasp and sigh.

Then Seldom asked again, “What will happen?”

Just one answer deserved to be said.

Quietly but with all of his confidence, Diamond told his best friend, “My head doesn’t know, or it isn’t telling me.”

Tomorrow’s Girl was safe inside the abattoir and Karlan was alive.

Seldom wanted quite a lot more than that to be true, but he would happily settle for those two blessings. Losing this last shred of his family would be too awful, too unfair. His brother had to survive today and for ten thousand more days. But of course Karlan was a slayer and a warrior, and wishing for his survival, Seldom began to think in black directions, finding a keen awful hope that maybe the warrior had been wounded in some crippling but survivable way. His back was broken, maybe, but only his legs were dead, and now he was damaged and harmless and sure to live to be a very old man riding on a wheeled chair, and a selfish brother wouldn’t have to go to sleep every night wondering when someone else he loved and counted on would suddenly die.

Diamond was the safest friend.

His birth proved his invincibility, and every splinter and grievous wound since verified his endless strength.

Not that he was an easy friend. Diamond had a distant, dreamy way, always a little odd and sometimes deeply peculiar. And there had been changes since Marduk fell. Everybody else changed, but this was Diamond. Gashes could be filled in and vanish without scars, but that singular face couldn’t hide the sadness roiling inside. Loss after loss led him to one angry, vengeful act, and six hundred days later, Seldom was still arguing with the idea that the hand hanging at the end of the weirdly shortened arm had started a thousand awful battles.

Tragedy made Diamond seem more ordinary. And weirdest of all, being like other people made him only more difficult to be with. His silences weren’t just the earned right of a deity dropped into their midst. He was a person and should be dealt with like any person, and Seldom never felt smart when it came to understanding people.

Too many others were standing close, or Seldom might have offered words of understanding or maybe asked good sharp questions. But they as unalone as any two boys could be, and now this trip was done, their ship falling towards a bright plain of bloodwood boards and gun emplacements, and soldiers and slayers, big slayer fletches riding on the high moorings. Smaller fletches and little airships were tied to the abattoir’s landing. One ship had just settled—a blunt, underpowered balloon wearing an insignia of ten links of chain joined in an endless ring.

“That’s a prison ship,” Seldom said quietly.

Joining them, the Master said, “That’s what it is, yes.”

“But why is it here?”

Diamond took a breath, and it sounded like an important breath. But he said nothing.

“Maybe,” Master Nissim began. “Maybe the Archon has invited someone special to share this great day.”

Diamond straightened, as if a knife went up his spine.

Three passengers were embarking from the prison ship. None wore chains, but the little woman in the middle was easy to recognize.

“Prima,” said Seldom.

Haddi rose and joined them. She looked at the prisoner and then her son, and she sighed deeply, saying nothing.

The Master watched mother and son in profile.

Elata was still standing at the back of the cabin. Her arms were crossed. She didn’t care to join the rest of them. When Seldom looked at her, she turned away, staring back across at their tree. He assumed she wanted to be at the palace instead of here, but that was a funny way to be. This was an adventure, and Elata always, always liked adventures.

Their fletch slowed, and every hatch opened with a synchronized bang. Capable monkeys leapt to the landing with ropes in their mouths. Then the engines quit, and the monkeys and landing crew competed to see which species could warm the air the most with vivid, vicious cursing.

Once they were moored, the soldiers gathered them up before the leader said, “Between us, and keep moving.”

The gangway was steep and brief, and the landing was washed in the sunshine reflected off the scale-encrusted building overhead. Everybody walked fast, the officer bearing toward a pair of closed steel doors. Engine smoke and ashes mixed with a rich stink that was like nothing but what it was: the blood of dead coronas.

The landing ended with small steel doors. The giant doors were high above. Prima was walking ahead of them, and then one guard dropped a hand on her head, much as a parent would do to a small child. The hand told her to stop, and she stopped. The second guard gave the doors a worthwhile kick. Inspired by the monkeys, he offered a few curses, and the steel pulled opened on hinges that were new and well-greased.

The criminal was led inside.

Haddi was close to her son, and she touched an arm. “Look at me,” she said.

Diamond looked to the other side.

“See me,” she said, and she reached up, grabbing his misshapen chin and pulling his eyes towards her.

The two of them weren’t walking anymore.

Quietly, fiercely, the old woman said, “You know what I want.”

“What?” Diamond muttered.

Seldom was past them, yet he couldn’t help but look back.

“I told you,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“Don’t wait,” she said.

Diamond grasped his mother’s wrist, squeezing until she flinched and he flinched in turn. They were like one face shared by a distorting mirror, both feeling agonies far worse than any hurting bones.

Elata was beside Seldom.

Wanting to be helpful, he said, “We’ll be home again soon.”

A rough sound came out of her; she didn’t act thankful.

“What?” he asked.

“Never mind,” she said.

Everybody was a difficult friend. That was the only conclusion that Seldom could count on, or so it seemed.

New soldiers and one civilian emerged from that same door. The Archon of Archons was the only person in normal clothes, which made him look extraordinary. He was walking half a step behind the top general. General Meeker liked dull green silk uniforms and no special hat. As long as the humans were battling the papio, the Archon’s office was subordinate to Meeker. Seldom didn’t like politics, maybe because he was so bad at them, but he lived in a palace full of little else, and he had heard and heard and heard again that the two men were like married people. And everybody knew which partner was supposed to be in charge