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W e stay for another hour, lingering over juice and tiny, tart lozenges of compressed fruit that melt into creamy sweetness on the back of my tongue.

We talk about the credits on Kez’s head. The attempted hit on Chiara. The other security threats that keep me up at night while Kez dreams, warm and soft, against my side. I tell Acker the truth behind our coup. He shakes his head and looks at me in wonder.

Before we go, Kez pulls out the gifts she’s brought for Tiancha and Acker. Acker’s I understand. A Zhakkry whetstone and sheathes for his new knives: a pair of kukris that I made ‘specially for him. Tiacha’s I don’t. It’s just a little ribbon of cloth, with a kind of silvery sheen to it.

After we say our goodbyes, leaving Acker and Tiancha to whatever complicated sleeping arrangements they have to look forward to, I ask Kez about Tiancha’s gift.

She leans against my side as we walk down the corridor towards the rats’ main cavern, where the Flaming Pink Flamingos are still raising the roof.

“It’s a polishing cloth,” she says .

“For what?” The place seemed pretty clean to me. I’m not sure what Tiancha would be polishing.

“Her nails. Didn’t you notice how she likes to decorate them? She was saying that it’s hard to get her nails smooth, ‘cause ... well, they’re not really nails, are they?”

No, they’re not. I’d assume that the rats’ claws are made of keratin, but maybe that assumption’s as assholic as any other. They certainly look stronger than normal nails.

“Anyway, I thought I’d try to make her a really fine-grain polishing cloth. I don’t know if it will work since I didn’t have anything to test it on.”

“It’s the thought that counts, kitten.” And it is a thoughtful gift. Shows Kez was paying attention, and made an effort. I slide my arm around her shoulders, hug her tight and kiss her temple. “You made me proud tonight.”

She cuddles and smiles but doesn’t say much as we walk through the Night Market down to the beach.

The Night Market’s noise more than makes up for her silence.

It’s hopping now: signs and graffiti fluorescing in the black light.

Alleyways packed with hawkers, shoppers and Islanders just being seen.

And there’s a lot to see. When we were here three weeks ago, most of the men and some of the women were walking around topless.

It’s warmer now; more clothes have come off.

When a couple strolls past us wearing nothing more than matching fluorescent purple stickers smaller than Kez’s palm over their groins, I have to laugh.

“I’m getting you some of those, kitten,” I tell her.

“Only if you wear one with me.” She tips her head back on my shoulder and grins up at me. I shake my head at her.

Our destination is a bunch of straw huts lit by two burning fuel cells.

Fucking surfers. Kez walks around the huts a few times, then spends a minute making a complicated knot in the fringe of straw hanging over the doorway of the first hut.

When she’s done, she takes my hand and leads me back towards the Night Market.

“What was that, kitten?” I ask .

“I left a note for Jale. She’ll call me. They’re all out.” She glances down the beach, out at the dark water. I follow her line of sight, but I can’t see anything but waves, and I see pretty fucking well in the dark.

“That safe?” I ask. I know from personal experience that these waters are full of predators.

Kez grins up at me, her eyes and teeth glinting in the light from the Broken Moon. “Maybe the Bra don’t taste as good as you do.”

I bump her with my elbow, reel her back in with the hand she’s holding when she stumbles on the rippled sand.

“Ow,” she complains. “If I break an ankle, you’re going to have to take my runs.”

“Gladly,” I say. What I don’t say is that if we don’t find who’s behind the tag on her head, I might have to take her runs anyway.

Running is part of my kitten’s soul, and I don’t want to take it away from her, even temporarily.

But a hundred thousand hard credits is a big tag, and a big incentive for someone to try to hurt her, and the time she’s most vulnerable is when she’s running.

“I’m a better runner than you are anyway. ”

She batters my shoulder indignantly, until we’re both laughing.

Kez’s friend Slip meets us at the edge of a square marked out by hoverropes. The Night Market’s crowd breaks and ebbs around the corners of the square, but enough gawkers are still clustered around the hoverropes to tell me that Slip’s been performing while we’ve been playing with the rats.

Slip, who lives up to his name in that he’s a tall, lanky, night-owl pale kid, greets Kez with a rap of knuckles, and when she doesn’t protest, pulls her into a loose hug across the hoverropes.

A lot of Kez’s street-rat friends are touchy-feely with her, so I don’t object.

I know she doesn’t like it, though, and sure enough, she steps back double-time.

She doesn’t glance at me to check for disapproval anymore, which I’m glad about.

I want her to be secure with me, to know that I trust her completely.

Once Kez steps back, Slip looks at me uncertainly. I offer the kid my knuckles. The street-rat greeting still irks me, but I’ve discovered that not doing it makes them distrust me. So I control my irritation and let the kid knock his knuckles against mine.

Slip snaps open the hoverropes so Kez and I can cross into his cleared square of sand.

Close to the middle there’s another kid sitting cross-legged on a woven mat.

He’s a few years older than his partner, maybe mid-twenties, and lacks Slip’s mane of dirty-blond braids.

Like Slip, he’s shirtless, but unlike Slip, who is as skinny as Kez, this kid has decent upper-body development.

He’s sitting inside a complicated instrument, with bowls and pads spread around his knees like the petals of a flower.

I’m surprised when he unfolds himself and stands up to greet us.

The instrument sways and rattles, but rises with him, hanging from straps at his shoulder and waist.

“Hey, g,” he says, holding his fist out to Kez.

She knocks knuckles with him, then turns to me. “Snow, this is Albie. Alb, this is Mister Snow.”

Alb makes an awkward bow to me, his instrument swinging around him. “Mister Snow.”

I nod to acknowledge him, not sure why I didn’t get the knuckle-rap, but I’m not complaining.

“Didn’t think you were gonna make it, g,” Alb says to Kez.

Kez tilts her head. Her big blues glint, reflecting silver and gold. Moonlight and firelight. “Why’s that?” she asks.

“Heard you were carrying a tag. A big one.”

Kez rolls her eyes. “Are you drumming or not?”

“Yeah, sure, g.” Alb shrugs.

“Good. You mind coming down to the water’s edge? Tide’s out so I was going to spin in the water.”

Alb nods and follows Kez mutely out of the ring. She moves swiftly down the beach, the quickness of her steps betraying the tension behind her casual exterior. She’s feigning nonchalance about the tag. She’s never had to live with one before that I know of, certainly not the way I have.

I fall into step with Alb. Say low, so my voice doesn’t carry, “You heard about the price on Kez’s head?”

He glances at me. Nods. Then his eyes skitter away.

“Kez wants to spin, so that’s what we’re gonna do. Then you and me are gonna have a little talk about this tag,” I tell him.

“Okay. Just, you know, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“You’re a friend of Kez’s?” At his nod, I continue, “Then you got nothing to worry about.”

He doesn’t relax at all. If anything, his shoulders get tighter. He and I are definitely going to talk.

At the water’s edge, Kez shucks off her boots and leggings so she’s just wearing her tiny dress.

I hope she’s got something on under it. Seeing that she plans to get into the water, I follow suit, stripping off my leather pants and shirt and folding them in a neat pile on top of my boots, so I’m just in my skivvies.

Glad I’ve worn some. Then I fold Kez’s discarded clothes.

For someone who likes clothes as much as Kez does, she’s surprisingly careless with them.

But, then, she’s an orphan, so she never had anyone telling her to tidy up, and unlike me, she never had the discipline of the military.

Kez takes her backpack from me, opens it and hands me a bottle of oil.

After we burned the hair off my arms a few times, she got this non-flammable oil for me.

That it makes the muscles of my chest and shoulders glisten in the firelight is, she says, just a bonus.

I oil up while Kez wraps a scarf around her head and unpacks her poi from a fire-proof bag.

A few of the gawkers lingering after Slip’s show have followed us down the sand, and more gather while Kez and I are getting ready. Alb picks a spot a meter back from the pile of our clothes and Slip begins working his way up and down the crowd, forming them into a loose semi-circle.

“Ready?” Kez asks me.

“Whenever you are. ”

With a nod to Alb, she leads me into the water, which is cool but not cold. It’s a long, shallow beach, so by the time we’re two meters out, we’re still only up to our ankles. Kuseros’s oceans have some fearsome silicate reefs, but the seabed here is just hard sand.

Kez stops and shakes her hands, dropping the poi to the length of their chains.

Her poi are hand-made: cellulose knots the size of my fist, bolted to ceramsteel chains the length of Kez’s arms. I know from experience that it’s not the poi that burn you; it’s the chains.

Some spinners use monofilament and spare themselves the scars, but Kez is a purist when it comes to throwing fire.

She wears the few, pale, stripey scars she has from the chains with pride.