“I don’t—” Karys began as Mace entered the room.

Nell, sitting quietly on the bed in her sky-blue wrap, exploded into life and threw herself at him. “Daddy!” She was only six, but she moved like lightning, and grabbed on to the constable so hard he was almost winded.

“Hey, Dad.” Bajin’s face lit up as well.

“Peldor Joi,everybody,” Mace returned, nodding to Karys. His wife refused to give him a smile in return.

“Constable Darrah,” she began, “nice of you to join us. Could you help me here by telling your son to get properly dressed?”

Mace shot the boy a look. “Hey, ’Jin. Do what your mother tells you. Go get the tunic.”

“I don’t like it,” he repeated.

“And I don’t care,” Mace said firmly. “Go on. You won’t have to wear it again until next year, I promise. And at the rate you’re growing, you’ll be too big for it by then anyhow.”

Dejected, the boy shuffled out of the room. Mace bent down to give Nell a peck on the cheek and then gave her a gentle shove. “Hey, go make sure your brother does what he’s told, okay?”

The little girl’s head bobbed in a nod and she ran out after her sibling, leaving the parents alone. Mace gave a weak smile and went to the closet, shrugging off his duty tunic along the way.

“You actually made it home before we left,” said Karys, putting up her hair. “I suppose I should be thankful.”

Mace leafed through his clean clothes. “Well, hold your applause. I may have just upset a member of the Chamber of Ministers to do it. Besides, I promised the kids.” He found a clean Militia-brown tunic and pulled it out.

“You’ve promised a lot of things,” she retorted. “A house instead of living in this stacker. Better prospects for us. No more long shifts.”

“I can’t earn enough for a better place by working less, Karys.”

“Then just—” She turned to face him and stopped.

“What are you putting on?”

“A clean uniform tunic.” He ran his thumb up the seal tab and picked up his belt. “The other one’s a little sweaty. I’ve had it on all day.”

Karys’s voice rose. “You said you’d quit early today, Mace. Quit. As in ‘off-duty,’ as in ‘not a constable.’ Why are you wearing your uniform?”

“It’s a formal city function,” he retorted. “I’m a law officer. People will expect it of me. I have to be seen.”

“Oh, right,” she snapped back. “And if there’s some trouble, if someone gets rowdy, will you have to be a law officer then? Will you leave me and the children to go chasing some bag-snatcher? Can’t you let go of that job for one single hour?” Karys fingered the D’jarraornament on her earring, as she always did when she was annoyed with him.

“It’s what I do!” Just like that, he was snarling at her, falling back into old patterns.

“You’re arguing.” The voice from the door made them both stop dead. Bajin was there, the ugly tunic in his hand, frowning.

“We’re not arguing,” said Karys, abashed. “We’re just talking loudly.”

“That’s what arguing is,”replied the boy, with a child’s relentless logic. “I don’t like it when you do that.”

Mace gave a weak smile. “We’re sorry, son.” He paused for a moment, and then threw off his duty jacket, reaching for a clean-cut black shirt instead. “C’mon, everyone finish getting dressed. If we stay here talking all night, we’ll miss the ceremony and all the toasted buns will be sold by the time we get there.”

A grin emerged on Bajin’s face. “Okay.”

He glanced at Karys. “Okay?”

She stood and helped him button the shirt, the corners of her mouth quirking upward for the first time. “Okay.”

Sunset had turned the sky a gorgeous burnt umber by the time they reached the City Oval. In every boulevard in every district of Korto, street parties were gearing up, and there was an atmosphere of infectious excitement that was hard to ignore. On the breeze there were the smells of cooking food, bateretincense, and hot, sugary snacks. Voices were raised in song, all of it good-natured if not always tuneful; here and there massive streetscreens were showing imagery from other festivals in other cities, with scenes from the Grand Avenue of Lights in Ashalla, the flame dancers on Tilar’s beaches, even shots via subspace of celebrations on Prophet’s Landing and Andros.

Here in Korto it seemed as if the entire population had emptied out of the tenements and come to fill the streets. They skirted past a group of performers who played out one of Lupar’s Summer Tales, the one with the fisherman and the angry sea serpent.

The children laughed and danced around them, play-fighting and making faces. Darrah shooed them forward every time they tried to dawdle around the stalls selling jumjaon sticks or trinkets for the festival. Nell had already made him buy her a glow-streamer, and the little girl cut outlines in the air with it.

Just watching her and Bajin brought him a good mood, and it eased the tension that Darrah had been feeling all week, but it was still difficult for him to ease back from being a police officer, and he felt a little foolish in the black shirt, as if he were making some half hearted effort at going undercover. He was so used to prowling the festival and having the crowds part dutifully around the uniform he wore. It felt odd to go civilian, and he had to rein in his natural reflex to scrutinize the revelers, looking for shifty expressions and lawbreakers in the making. He tried to relax.

His work, his conflicts with Karys, and now this new thing about the aliens visiting—what he needed right now was a few hours to breathe, to get it out of his system. He glanced at his wife. She was right, really. She was right about most things, and despite how annoying that could be at times, it was one of the reasons why he loved her so much. Karys was right when she told him that the Militia was taking over his life.

But then there were the otherthings she said. She was always telling him that he was going nowhere. She wanted him to push for a promotion. She wanted him to do better so they could move from the apartment block near the canals and get a better place, a real home, in the hills. Darrah wanted those things just as much as Karys did, but she didn’t seem to understand that advancements didn’t happen overnight. Hard work brings rewards—that was the ethic he’d been brought up with as a Ke’lora,the D’jarrathat encompassed the families of laborers, lawmen, and craftsmen. Unaware that he was watching her, his wife brushed her straight black hair over her shoulder, revealing her silver earring against the tawny skin of her face. Although they were married, one of the adornments on Karys’s ear still reflected the D’jarrashe had been born into, the artistic Ih’valla.She had never made an issue of it in all the years they had been together, but Karys had married below her station when she had accepted Darrah’s proposal. Her clan had made it difficult for them at first; it was only with the birth of Bajin that Darrah had finally been considered an “acceptable” husband.

They crossed through a cordon outside the edge of the Oval, one of the watchmen on duty recognizing Darrah and raising an eyebrow at his choice of clothing, but saying nothing. Only the more moneyed clans and those of the upper tiers of the D’jarras were allowed this far. In other circumstances, not even an Ih’vallaand certainly not a Ke’lorawould have been allowed inside the perimeter—but some things transcended the borders of caste, and being a senior law enforcer was one of them. As much as Karys might quietly dislike the commonplace life she led as a constable’s wife, at times like this Darrah imagined she was quite happy with it.

They halted in front of the massive brass and iron brazier at the foot of the bantacaspire. Bajin kept playing with his hair, deliberately mussing it, so Darrah pressed a couple of litas into the lad’s hand and sent him off to get buns. Nell trailed after him, singing a nursery rhyme about the Celestial Temple.