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“Have that deofol in,” said Élodie, with a gentle touch to Aurienne’s arm. “We interrupted.”

It repulsed Aurienne to lie to her nearest and dearest, but given that the deofol was a bloody Fyren’s, she hadn’t a choice. “It’s all right. It’s only my mum.” She opted for a sudden, but tactical, change of subject: “Did you hear that we’ve been asked to keep up the fifteen hours at Paeds?”

A sigh burst from between Cath’s teeth. “I hadn’t. Fria’s pointy nips. Can we ask for exceptions? I haven’t dared cut my clinic hours, but everything else is in the toilet.”

“I got one,” said Élodie to the ceiling. “An exception, I mean.”

“Well, obviouslyyougot one,” said Cath.

“Has your team made progress on the inoculation?” asked Aurienne.

Élodie managed a weak smile. “Given the mad time constraints and the feeling that we are somehow responsible for every additional sick child, I’m pleased. We’ll be able to roll out an immunisation programme soon. Thank the gods. None of our colleagues at the universities have achieved much at all.”

“None?” asked Cath.

“Their labs have been hamstrung, just like we were,” said Élodie. “No money, save internal funding. No one has managed to squeeze out anything substantial from any of the research councils or the Tiendoms.”

“I heard that from Xanthe,” said Aurienne. “It’s an embarrassment.”

“They’ve all pivoted to new strategic priorities, apparently,” said Élodie, with a vague gesture upwards. “I don’t know the politics.”

“I wouldn’t have thought prolonging mass casualties among children would’ve been the most politically astute move,” mused Aurienne.

“They’re the children no one cares about,” said Cath.

“One day this will be a case study,” said Élodie. She drew bullet points in the air as she planned it. “Vaccine-preventable diseases. Research financing. Socioeconomic variables.”

Cath’s title suggestion wasA Study in Policymaking by Royal Arseholes and the Innocents Who Died as a Result.

“During the last Platt’s Pox outbreak, they had an excuse—inoculation hadn’t yet been developed,” said Élodie. “That was about a hundred years ago.”

“What brought the last outbreak to its end?” asked Aurienne.

“Extinction of the host population,” said Élodie.

“Gods.”

Cath looked grim. “That’s a lot of dead children.”

“Yes,” said Élodie. “The spread was confined to small settlements in Mercia. Lichfield and thereabouts. It was before waystones were in common use, so the virus stayed relatively localised. That’s not the case anymore. Borders between Tiendoms are open, unless there’s a war.”

“And they won’t shut down the waystones to prevent the spread now, of course,” said Cath. “It would inconvenience too many—and the only ones who are suffering are beggar-children and foundlings.”

Cath passed her tea tumbler to Aurienne, who opened it.

Aurienne inhaled fragrant vapours of peppermint. “Lovely, this.”

“Have you any mugs?” asked Cath.

“No, but I’ve got these,” said Aurienne, reaching for a clattering box of sterile specimen containers. “Brand-new.”

“Grand,” said Cath.

Aurienne divided the tea into perfect sixty-millilitre portions, upon which the three Haelan sipped.

Aurienne’s tacn tingled again, but heavily, almost painfully. Mordaunt’s deofol was insistingagain. Bristling with repressed annoyance, Aurienne excused herself to the lav.

Down the hall and behind a locked door, she pointed her tacn to the floor and let Mordaunt’s deofol through. (It was tempting to aim it at the toilet; she mastered the impulse;Harm to noneincluded drowning deofols in the loo, probably.)