Hiya sat cross-legged on her bed, an array of makeup supplies gathered in her lap. Brows drawn together, she was scrutinizing the liquid concealer with unabashed fascination.

When Ruban stepped into the room, she looked up and gave him a gap-toothed smile. “This’ll be fun!”

“Or suicidal.” Ashwin sat in front of the small dressing table and glared at Ruban’s reflection in the mirror. “But in a fun way, I’m sure. After all, it’s not like Simani’s getting suspicious of me and Tauheen’s followers are still waiting for an opportunity to kill you. Going out of our way to draw attention to ourselves – to put a target on our own backs – makes perfect sense, under the circumstances.”

“People are dying.” Ruban strode into the room, coming to a halt behind Ashwin’s chair. “This is not the time to be overly cautious. They’re still digging out dead bodies from under the buildings that collapsed during the mafia’s Hunt in North Ragah. More than two hundred dead, and counting. This has to stop. We have to make it stop.”

Ashwin sighed. “I’m not disagreeing with your goals, Ruban. Only your methods. We don’t know who or what these gangs are working with. We don’t know their numbers, their strategies, the extent of their firepower. For all we know, they could be sitting on an entire mine’s worth of enhanced sif ores.

“Trying to lure out the feather mafia from a position of such glaring disadvantage – it’s idiocy. Getting yourself killed on the battlefield in a bid to avenge the dead might assuage your deep-seated survivor's guilt, but it won’t solve anything.”

Ruban gripped the sifblade at his hip, forcing himself not to draw the weapon. “And the alternative?” He asked through gritted teeth. “Allow another few hundred people to die while we sit around collecting data?”

“Yes, because that data could end up saving thousands.”

Ruban laughed, the sound lacking any trace of humor. “And who’ll choose the sacrificial lambs for this noble cause? I thought the feather-born were supposed to be the impulsive ones.”

“Impulsive, not idiotic,” Ashwin muttered, fluffing his feathers as he gazed into the mirror. “But there’s no arguing with you now, is there? If the gangs have the slightest suspicion of my true identity–”

“They won’t!” Hiya hopped off the bed, clutching three cosmetic tubes and two brushes in her hands. “I did the makeup for last year’s annual play at school. Mahi Ma’am said I was brilliant! Nobody could tell Lina’s moustache was fake.”

Ashwin turned to smile at her. “More comforting words have never been spoken.”

“And you’re sure a random scout from Vaan would be enough to draw the mafia out?” Ruban frowned at Ashwin. “I’d think the prince of the realm would present a more compelling temptation.”

“It might have, if they thought they had any hope of overpowering me. If it was just the humans, I might’ve considered baiting them. But the mafia is working with the Exiles. Even if the humans are ignorant, the Aeriels would know not to attack me…not if they recognize me in time to retreat.”

Ruban grinned. “For once, your arrogance is oddly comforting.”

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“Besides, scouts are easy pickings. They usually work alone so as not to attract attention, either from the Exiles or the human governments. And the newer ones often don’t know much about earth.” Ashwin’s expression darkened. “Five of Safaa’s scouts have been killed in the last two months. The last one died in North Ragah.”

“The one who saved that woman and her child from the falling building?”

“No,” Ashwin smiled absently. “Heiqaa survived. But she’s one of Shehzaa’s. A soldier, not a scout. A couple of barely-trained Exiles couldn’t have harmed her. She’d have saved Zareen too, if she hadn’t been holding back–” He pressed his lips together, turning back to glare at his own reflection in the mirror.

An awkward silence followed, broken only by Hiya, who set to work on Ashwin’s wings. Ruban watched as she carefully blended a variety of makeup products, inspecting each ingredient with a critical eye, before using a brush to apply the mixture to the tip of a twitching wing. Ashwin giggled, the luxuriant brush tickling his feathers as it glided over the wingtip, covering up the crimson markings with makeup.

“Be still,” Hiya admonished, poking his other wing. Obediently, Ashwin dug his teeth into his bottom lip and held still, hands folded rigidly in his lap. He was clearly struggling not to wriggle away from the brush and dissolve into laughter.

Ruban’s lips twitched. A lifetime ago, during the fight with Reivaa at Zikyang forest, Ashwin had told him that the wings were one of the most vulnerable parts of an Aeriel’s anatomy. Until now, he hadn’t considered that they might’ve been the most sensitive, too.

His gut clenched with a stab of belated guilt. Had it just been last year that he’d buried his sifblade into Ashwin’s wing and ripped it open? He could still feel the triumph that had coursed through his veins as the blade tore through delicate flesh, muscle, and bone on its way out.

He tasted bile at the back of his throat and turned away, reaching into his pocket for his phone. It was time to inform Simani.

Ashwin’s sudden, incredulous laughter made him turn back towards the dressing table, fingers gripping his phone like a lifeline. Hiya was sticking something into Ashwin’s hair, earning an appreciative chuckle from the Aeriel.

Ruban stepped closer, squinting at the lustrous item in Ashwin’s silver locks.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Hiya asked proudly, sticking a similar piece of ornament into her own hair.

Ruban gasped, all the disparate pieces of the puzzle clicking into place.

It was a hairclip. A hairclip shaped like an airplane, made from Aeriel feathers. Two hairclips, in fact – one in Hiya’s hair and the other in Ashwin’s.

“They’re incredible,” Ashwin said, gently prodding the clip in his hair as he inspected it in the mirror. “Where did you learn to make these?”

“Craft class at school. Mahi Ma’am said–”

“Don’t wear it to school, for God’s sake,” Ruban said faintly. “They’ll think I’m accepting bribes from the mafia. Nobody’s ever bought ornaments made from Aeriel feathers on a government salary.”

“I’m not stupid.” Hiya rolled her eyes. “This is for Ashwin. And me. It’s our secret!”

She held out her pinky finger. Ashwin crossed it with his own, nodding solemnly. “It’s certainly the most judicious use of Aeriel feathers I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been watching humans fight over them for centuries.”

Ruban’s phone rang, Simani’s name flashing on the screen. She must have received a missed call before Ruban had managed to disconnect the line. He stepped out of the room, allowing the sounds of hiccup-y laughter to fade behind him before he answered the call.

Breathing in deeply, Ruban told Simani he knew when the feather mafia was going to strike next, and where. He ignored the skepticism in her voice and laid out the plan for an ambush that he and Ashwin had come up with, omitting any parts that might hint at the latter’s role in the scheme.

She sounded less than convinced, but she was his partner. They’d worked together for more than half a decade, professionally attached at the hip since the beginning of their careers, and Ruban knew she would support him if he decided to go through with it.

He swallowed the guilt he felt about lying to her and forged ahead. Not even a week had passed since the massacre in North Ragah. If something like that happened again, Ruban wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that he’d had a way to prevent it, and had allowed it to happen nonetheless.

Having Simani think him a liar was a small price to pay, to keep that nightmare from becoming reality.