"What have you done, you skitting nyaff?" Merle was livid, crouched on the floor next to Gaen's prone body. "Go and get Goodmin. Go!" She shot Judit a look of hot hatred before returning all her attention to her shivering brother.

Judit flashed out of the door, fear and shame grappling inside of her. This is not real. I can't believe this is real. Make this not be real. She was still feeling a bit hurled out, spacey, from the chang.

The cold air felt foreign on her skin, and the splintered wood felt foreign beneath her fists as she hurled herself against the teachers' blackhouse door, hammering with all her might.

Goodmin opened the door, concern on her face and skin-tight turquoise pyjamas on her body.

"It's Gaen," Judit rasped. "He's eaten something. Mushrooms. I think he's poisoned."

Goodmin nodded, in control. She closed the door momentarily to confer with Dr. Dean behind her then followed  the shaking Judit back to the scene of the crime.

The Cruithne siblings were still crouched on the floor. Gaen's eyes were closed. His whole body would tremor violently, then stop, then tremor again. Small, animal moans leaked from deep within him.

"Help him." Merle turned tearful eyes to Goodmin. "Help him. Please."

Goodmin squatted down, opened one of Gaen's eyelids, felt the pulse on his neck.

"What did he eat?"

Merle pointed to the discarded stalks on the floor, and Goodmin took them in.

"Amanita pantherina." She addressed this to Dean, who had now joined them at the blackhouse door. Her voice was heavy with meaning.

Merle looked at both of them, her eyes wide with fear. "Do something. What can you do?" Gaen's body was limp, ocassionally tensing into a paroxysm of pain, shooting up like a monster was trying to escape from his throat, then dropping down again.

"Normally we'd administer atropine, get him hooked on an IV drip." Dr Dean advanced into the room, crouched by Gaen's shivering form. "But we can't do that in this case. Not here."

"What do you mean?" Merle said, panic rising in her voice. "Just call the field station, get them to send it up. Do something! Help him!"

She stroked Gaen's hair off his slick, white face. There were bubbles of white foam at the corner of his lips. He convulsed again, dropping back into her lap.

Goodmin and Dean shared another meaningful look. Goodmin opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated.

"We can't do it," Dean cut in, his voice firm. "That technology wasn't available to the Natives. We won't use it here."

"What are you skitting on about?" Merle howled, looking like she was going to drop Gaen's head, lash out at the teacher. "Are you crazy? Are you going to let him die? Could he die?" Her voice was pure anguish.

"There's some risk of renal failure," Goodmin said, seriously. "We need to get water in him, try to keep it down. And charcoal—that's what the Natives would use to treat poisoning, and it's not without medical basis. You–" she turned her eyes to Judit. "Look in the embers of the fire. See if there are any charcoal lumps and pull them out."

Judit stepped away from the wall she'd been pressed against, nodding, wide-eyed, and started to scramble through the ashes, her hands shaking. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. How do I know what's charcoal? She picked blindly at the pieces, terrified.

"I'm not sure..." Judit held up a lump of burnt wood hesitantly.

"Oh, just skit off," Merle spat. "You've done enough damage." She transferred the weight of Gaen's head tenderly to Goodmin, then moved towards the fire and plunged her hand into the ashes, quickly retrieving a black lump and passing it to Dean.

"What are you looking at?" Merle turned and roared at Judit, her eyes glinting with anger and tears. "Skit off. Just get out. I don't want to have to see you. Skit off!" She was actually screaming.

Judit hesitated, then headed for the door. Merle is right. This was all her fault, and there was nothing she could do to help. I'm just in the way. Judit sniffed back the tears of shame and regret stinging at her nose and eyes. She couldn't believe this was real, that it was actually happening.

Others were starting to look out of the blackhouses, alerted by the noise. Judit could see the shapes of people coming towards her. She couldn't bear to speak to anyone, to be asked about the situation, so she ducked into Merle and Jadrun's blackhouse quickly and firmly closed the door.

"Jaddy?"

There was no answer. Judit stuck her head around the byre door into the main room. Jaddy was sitting by the fire, his eyes wide in the smoky gloom.

"Judit?" he whispered. "What's going on?"

She came in, sat on the dirt floor across from him, dropped her head to her knees.

"I poisoned Gaen."

"For reals?" Jaddy was shocked. "Well, I'm sure he deserved it."

"No." Judit shot him an angry look. "It's serious. I think I've really hurt him."

"I'm sure he'll be okay," Jaddy said, clearly not grasping the gravity of the situation. "Is Merle with him, then?"

Judit nodded. "And Dean and Goodmin."

"Well," Jaddy shrugged. "I'm sure he'll be fine, then. They know what they're doing. You can stay here tonight. Wait till morning, it'll all be sorted. Bet ya."

Judit nodded shallowly, feeling a little comforted despite herself. At least Jaddy doesn't hate me, she thought. And maybe it will be all fine, tomorrow.

"What did you poison him with?" Jaddy asked, poking the fire with a stick.

"Mushrooms."

Jaddy looked uncertainly at Judit, then over to the crocks of food in the corner, obviously recalling his own dinner.

"Yours'll be fine," Judit snapped. "Merle picked them."

"I wouldn't put it past her," Jaddy grumbled under his breath.

"You know they wouldn't give him medicine?" Judit said, clutching her knees, staring into the fire. "They said it was too technologically advanced. Not what the Natives had."

Jaddy looked at her, then back into the flames, without replying.

"I don't think the Natives had chips in 'em either, yet that's somehow alright." Judit's lip curled bitterly.

"Chips?" Jaddy looked up from his fire-poking.

Judit nodded. "We've got chips in our arms. She lifted her right elbow, waved it slightly. "Did you know? Don't you think that's crook?"

Jaddy shrugged, poked again. "How'd you know?"

"Rama showed me this thing on his screen. You can see all the animals, like they are really there. And us."

Jaddy looked interested, pausing his stick momentarily. "Oh yeah? On the screen?"

Judit nodded.

He bit his top lip, nodded. "Must be some sort of satellite trilateration," he mused, like the technology behind it was somehow the important part. He went back to poking.

"Don't you think that's dag?" Judit challenged, confused by his nonplussed response.

"Not really," he didn't look up. "I mean, we're watched all the time back home. CCTV, drones... Like, our screens have satellite chips in, then they triangulate that data with your web history and keywords from your emessages to target adverts to ya. It's just... like, normal, innit? It's nothin'. Whatever." He shrugged again and laid down his stick, interlacing his hands on one knee in front of him.

"Well, I don't like it." Judit pouted. "I wanna get it out. Cut it out."

"That's off spec." Jaddy pulled a face. "You don't wanna cut it out, that'd pang." He took in Judit's expression. "Pang? Hurt. It'd well pang. You'd be better just... doing it on the software. Isolating your signal and disabling it in the mainframe, like. But what's the point? Who cares?"

"I'm just sick of this place." Judit pushed her hair back from her face, dug her heel into the dark earth. "They forced us to come here, then they chip us, they tell us what to do... It's just wrong, y'know? It's not skitting right is all."

"They di'nt force me to come here," Jaddy said, looking at her. "They asked if I wanted to, and I said yes. I thought it was the same for everybody."

"What you on?" Judit looked at him, confused. "They forced me."

"I dunno," Jaddy looked doubtful. "I don't know how they could do that, what with the law and everything. I mean, I got to choose. Me mum didn't even want me to come, but I'm eighteen so she couldn't stop me. How old are you, like?"

"Fifteen," Judit said uncertainly.

"Yer parents chose it then. Yer mum and dad. It was up to them."

Judit thought back to her meeting with the head. Hadn't he mentioned her mum? She thought about Rama, angry about leaving protocols, whatever they were.

The realisation flashed like a strobe. All along she'd been angry at the university, like they'd forced her to be here, when really it was the security school, the Head. Numen knows what they'd told Mum to get her to sign her daughter away. Judit sat in silence, staring at the fire, processing this new information.

"But you hate it here," she finally said to Jaddy, looking up. "I can't believe you chose it."

He shrugged again, picked up his stick. "What else am I gonna do?" His voice was small, cold. "I just finished school. Ain't no jobs in Sutton. No jobs for no one, not any more. Nothing. Just loads of changed-out daggers roamin' round, robbin', looking for a fight. Me mum, on my skitting case all the time. What future was there for me, in Sutton? Debt? Misery? You can keep it. Yeah, I hate it here, but I hated it more there. That's not a life. It's nothing. I woulda killed myself if I'd stuck around. This was my only chance to escape."

Judit looked at the floor, pressing a ridge in the earth with her toe, hard. She thought of Birchwood. She'd never thought of life beyond school, not really. Not like Sannah, with all her plans. What would life have been like for her, at home, if not for all this? Sannah at university, Judit left behind.

It all made her feel really uncomfortable, hurled out. She felt sick from the events of her evening, her mind bleached bare by everything.

"You wanna go to bed?" Jaddy said, peering at her. "You look crank. You can go in the box bed. I'll just nest down here by the fire. I do it every night. Keep away from her."

Judit nodded gratefully, exhaustion overtaking her.

"Thanks," she said to Jaddy. "I mean it. Thanks." She stood up awkwardly and leaned over to give him a small hug. He stiffened, surprised.

"Yeah, whatever," he said. "Rama was asking about you, y'know. Like he was worried about you being ill. I said it wasn't serious. I felt bad for lying."

"Sorry." Judit pulled herself slowly towards the bed. "I won't ask you to do it again."

"It's okay," Jaddy said. "He said he'll see you at the solstice party, anyway. Tomorrow. If you're better. He thinks you're ill."

I feel ill, Judit thought. Sick to my soul.

She collapsed into the lumpy, blankety box and closed her eyes, drifting into a fitful, shallow sleep. The thought of Gaen was never far from her mind, pallid nightmares running around her head, tickling her face, pulling on her hair.

It wasn't a good night's sleep.

***

Searing pain in her cheek and the bang of something hard against the back of the box bed woke Judit with s start. What the skit was that? Fear gripped her. Something big and solid had bounced back, come to rest on the blanket, only a finger's length from her head. A bucket. What the skit? Someone had thrown a bucket at her.

It was Merle.

"Get up you lazy pieces of dag," Merle snarled, standing by the door, radiating anger, balled fists perched on her hips.

"It's late. And Gaen's alive, no thanks to you, but he's in no fit state to do your jobs. Not like he's been doing up to now. And if you think I'm feeding your skitting chickens you've got another thing coming, so you better get up and pull your weight for once."

Her voice was dripping with contempt. Judit could barely stand to look at her, silhouetted in the door like an avenging angel. Merle twisted to address Jaddy, bundled up on the floor in his blankets.

"And it's time you skitting learned to hunt, you disgusting piece of dag. 'Cos Gaen's not gonna be bringing our dinner round tonight. So youse have gotta do some work for once in your worthless lives."

She span on her heel, slamming the door behind her.

Feed the chickens? Judit thought. It hasn't even occurred to her that she had to do it, though she did maybe have some vague memory of Goodmin droning on about something like that in one of their lessons. Gaen had obviously been picking up her slack on the sly, not making a fuss.

She dropped her face into her hands, rubbing the sleep from her swollen, barely-rested eyes.

This wasn't going to be a good day. This wasn't going to be a good day at all.