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the Society’s laws. My father swayed for two months till they cut his skeleton down and ground his bones to dust. I was six but I tried to pull him down the first day. My uncle stopped me. I hated him because he kept me from my father’s body. Later, I came to hate him again because I discovered he was weak: my father died for something, while Uncle Narol lived and drank and squandered his life.
    “He’s a mad one, you’ll see someday. Mad and brilliant and noble, Narol’s the best of my brothers,” my father once said.
    Now he’s just the last.
    I never thought my father would do the Devil’s Dance, what the oldfolk call death by hanging. He was a man of words and peace. But his notion was freedom, laws of our own. His dreams were his weapons. His legacy is the Dancer’s Rebellion. It died with him on the scaffold. Nine men at once doing the Devil’s Dance, kicking and flailing, till only he was left.
    It wasn’t much of a rebellion; they thought peaceful protest would convince the Society to increase the food rations. So they performed the Reaping Dance in front of the gravLifts and removed bits of machinery from the drills so that they wouldn’t work. The gambit failed. Only winning the Laurel can get you more food.
    It’s on eleven when my uncle sits down with his zither. He eyes me something nasty, drunk as a fool on Yuletide. We don’t share words, though he has a kind one for Eo and she for him. Everyone loves Eo.
    It’s when Eo’s mother comes over and kisses me on the back of my head and says very loudly, “We heard the news, you golden boy. The Laurel! You are your father’s son,” that my uncle stirs.
    “What’s the matter, Uncle?” I ask. “Have gas?”
    His nostils flare wide. “You little shiteater!”
    He launches himself across the table and soon we’re a muddle of fists and elbows on the ground. He’s big, but I flip him down and pound his nose with my bad hand till Eo’s father and Kieran pull me off. Uncle Narol spits at me. It’s more blood and swill than anything else. Then we’re drinking again at opposite ends of the table. My mother rolls her eyes.
    “He’s just bitter he didn’t do a bloodydamn thing to get the Laurel. Shown up is all,” Loran says of his father.
    “Bloodydamn coward wouldn’t know how to win the Laurel if it landed in his lap,” I say, scowling.
    Eo’s father pats me on the head and sees his daughter fixing my burned hand under the table. I slip my gloves back on. He winks at me.
    Eo’s figured out the fuss about the Laurel by the time the Tinpots arrive, but she’s not excited as I’d hoped she’d be. She twists her skirts in her hands and smiles at me. But her smiles are more like grimaces. I don’t understand why she’s so apprehensive. None of the other clans are. Many come to pay their respects; all of the Helldivers do, except Dago. He’s sitting at a group of shiny Gamma tables—the only ones with more food than swill—smoking down a burner.
    “Can’t wait for the sod to be eating regular rations,” Loran chuckles. “Dago’s never tasted peasant fare before.”
    “Yet somehow he’s thinner than a woman,” Kieran adds.
    I laugh along with Loran and push a meager piece of bread to Eo.
    “Cheer up,” I tell her. “This is a night for celebrating.”
    “I’m not hungry,” she replies.
    “Not even if the bread has cinnamon on it?” Soon it will.
    She gives me that half smile, as if she knows something I do not.
    At twelve, a coterie of Tinpots descend in gravBoots from the Pot. Their armor is shoddy and stained. Most are boys or old men retired from Earth’s wars. But that’s not what matters. They carry their thumpers and scorchers in buckled holsters. I’ve never seen either weapon used. There’s no need. They’ve got the air, the food, the port. We haven’t a scorcher to shoot. Not that Eo wouldn’t like to steal one.
    The muscle in her jaw flexes as she watches the Tinpots float in their gravBoots, now joined