By the time Thann reached her again, she was digging frantically at the pile of bricks and debris just inside the dining room door, grunting, snuffling, crying, calling

Mam and Baba over and over, calling her dead brother, making the dust and bricks fly like a little chal digging in a mound of rock and earth for the mayomayo hiding there.

Thann stopped, stared through the door at the child, at the poufs of dust still floating in the air. A brick fell from the outside wall, smashed one of the windowpanes that ten years of war hadn’t broken. Xe could see the sky, Phosis’ fattening crescent visible through the veils of dust and the glowing wander of the Silkflower Road where stars were so thick the eye couldn’t separate them. And the tail of the constellation called Mayomayo after the little beast that the first Isiging had chased into the Sky. A shadow glided past, a weh-weleh on the hunt, maybe even the one that prefaced Isaho’s song…

They’re dead. They’re under all that. They’re dead. Xe looked down. Isaho’s digging had uncovered a patch of blue.

Bazekiyl winding the ribbon through her fingers… round and round her long delicate fingers… Isaho mustn’t see this. She mustn’t…

Thann caught hold of xe’s daughter and pulled her away from her frantic digging. The child fought xe, but xe held her until she finally stopped struggling and started crying, her slight body shaking with the intensity of her sobs. Xe held the child tightly against xe-leaning against the wall because xe’s legs wouldn’t support xe-the inner wall, the one still standing-it shuddered against xe, almost like Isaho, as the pounding went on and on.

Isaho’s ragged breathing steadied as exhaustion settled like a blanket over her.

When she dropped into a child’s sudden sleep, Thann lifted her and carried her back to her pallet and laid her there while xe used the water in the spit cup to clean the dust and blood off her hands.