God be with you, my friend. Heaven knows the devil already is.

Love, Petra

Bean held two babies and Petra one on the flight from Kiev to Yerevan—whichever one was hungriest got mama. Petra's parents lived there now; by the time Achilles died and they could return to Armenia, the tenants in their old home in Maralik had changed it too much for them to want to return.

Besides, Stefan, Petra's younger brother, was quite the world traveler now, and Maralik was too small for him. Yerevan, while not what anyone would call one of the great world cities, was still a national capital, and it had a university worth studying at, when he graduated from high school.

But to Petra, Yerevan was as unfamiliar a city as Volgograd would have been, or any of the cities named San Salvador. Even the Armenian that was still spoken by many on the street sounded strange to her. It made her sad. I have no native land, she thought.

Bean, however, was drinking it all in. Petra got into the cab first, and he handed her Bella and the newest—but largest—of the babies, Ramon, whom he had picked up in the Philippines. Once Bean was inside the taxi, he held Ender up to the window. And since their firstborn son was beginning to show signs that he understood speech, it wasn't just a matter of playfulness.

"This is your mama's homeland," said Bean. "All these people look just like her." Bean turned back to the two that Petra was holding. "You children all look different, because half your genetic material comes from me. And I'm a mongrel. So in your whole life, there'll be no place you can go where you'll look like the locals."

"That's right, depress and isolate the children from the start," said Petra.

"It's worked so well for me."

"You weren't depressed as a child," said Petra. "You were desperate and terrified."

"So we try to make things better for our children."

"Look, Bella, look, Ramon," said Petra. "This is Yerevan, a city with lots of people that we don't know at all. The whole world is full of strangers."

The taxi driver spoke up, in Armenian: "Nobody in Yerevan is a stranger to Petra Arkanian."

"Petra Delphiki," she corrected him mildly.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said in Common. "I just meaning that if you want a drink in a tavern, nobody let you pay!"

"Does that go for her husband?" asked Bean.

"Man big like you?" said the driver. "They don't tell you the price, they ask you what you wanting to give!" He roared with laughter at his own joke. Not realizing, of course, that Bean's size was killing him. "Big man like you, little tiny babies like these." He laughed again.

Think how amused he'd be if he knew that the largest baby, Ramon, was the youngest.

"I knew we should have walked from the airport," said Bean in Portuguese.

Petra grimaced. "That's rude, to speak in a language he doesn't know."

"Ah. I'm glad to know that the concept of rudeness does exist in Armenia."

The taxi driver picked up on the mention of Armenia, even though the rest of the sentence, being in Portuguese, was a mystery to him. "You wanting a tour of Armenia? Not a big country, I can take you, special price, meter not running."

"No time for that," said Petra in Armenian. "But thanks for offering."

The Arkanian family now lived in a nice apartment building—all balconies and glass, yet upscale enough that there was no hanging laundry visible from the street. Petra had told her family she was coming, but asked them not to meet her at the airport. They had gotten so used to the extraordinary security during the days when Petra and Bean were in hiding from Achilles Flandres that they accepted this unquestioningly.

The doorman recognized Petra from her pictures, which appeared in the Armenian papers whenever there was a story about Bean. He not only let them go up unannounced, but also insisted on carrying their bags.

"You two, and three babies, this all the luggage you have?"

"We hardly ever wear clothes," said Petra, as if this were the most sensible thing in the world.

They were halfway up in the elevator before the doorman laughed and said, "You joking!"

Bean smiled and tipped him a hundred-dollar coin. The doorman flipped it in the air and pocketed it with a smile. "Good thing he give me! If Petra Arkanian give, my wife never let me spend!"

After the elevator doors closed, Bean said, "From now on, in Armenia you tip."

"They'd keep the tip either way, Bean. It's not like they give it back to us."

"Oh, eh."

Petra's mother could have been standing at the door, she opened it so quickly. Maybe she was.

There were hugs and kisses and a torrent of words in Armenian and Common. Unlike the cabdriver and doorman, Petra's parents were fluent in Common. So was Stefan, who had cut his high school classes today. And young David was obviously being raised with Common as his first language, since that's what he was chattering in almost continuously from the moment Petra entered the flat.

There was a meal, of course, and neighbors invited in, because it might be the big city, but it was still Armenia. But in only a couple of hours, it was just the nine of them.

"Nine of us," said Petra. "Our five and the four of you. I've missed you."

"Already you have as many children as we did," said Father.

"The laws have changed," said Bean. "Also, we didn't exactly plan to have ours all at once."

"Sometimes I think," said Mother to Petra, "that you're still in Battle School. I have to remind myself, no, she came home, she got married, she has babies. Now we finally get to see the babies. But so small!"

"They have a genetic condition," said Bean.

"Of course, we know that," said Father. "But it's still a surprise, how small they are. And yet so ... mature."

"The really little ones take after their father," said Petra, with a wry smile.

"And the normal one takes after his mother," said Bean.

"Thank you for letting us use your flat for the unofficial meeting tonight," said Bean.

"It's not a secure site," said Father.

"The meeting is unofficial, not secret. We expect Turkish and Azerbaijani observers to make their reports."

"Are you sure they won't try to assassinate you?" asked Stefan.

"Actually, Stefan, they brainwashed you at an early age," said Bean. "When the trigger word is said, you spring into action and kill everybody at the meeting."

"No, I'm going to a movie," said Stefan.

"That's a terrible thing to say," said Petra. "Even as a joke."

"Alai isn't Achilles," said Bean to Stefan. "We're friends, and he won't let Muslim agents assassinate us."

"You're friends with your enemy," said Stefan, as if it were too incredible.

"It happens in some wars," said Father.

"There is no war yet," Mother reminded them.

They took the hint, stopped talking about current problems, and reminisced instead. Though since Petra had been sent to Battle School so young, it's not as if she had that much to reminisce about. It was more like they were briefing her about her new identity before an undercover mission. This is what you should remember from your childhood, if you'd had one.

And then the Prime Minister, the President, and the Foreign Minister showed up. Mother took the babies into her bedroom, while Stefan took David out to see a movie. Father, being Deputy Foreign Minister, was allowed to stay, though he would not speak.

The conversation was complex but friendly. The Foreign Minister explained how eager Armenia was to join the FPE, and then the President echoed everything he had said, and then the Prime Minister began another repetition.