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“It’s fine, Cass,” Diwa said, his eyes on his daughter. “It’s just an iPad.”

Cassian ran.

He was up the stairs before the sound of Tala’s crying had faded, taking them two at a time, his socked feet slipping on the runner. He didn’t stop on the landing to catch his breath. Once inside his room, he shut the door behind him.

The rug beside his bed was soft and pale grey, one of the things Diwa had bought for his room when it was decided that he’d stay on with them. He’d got Cassian to pick it out himself, and had let him spend twenty minutes in the shop rubbing at rugs to see which ones felt good on his bare feet. Cassian stepped over it. He lowered himself to the hardwood floor beside it, face down, arms out at his sides, his forehead on the grain of the wood.

The position was called the Penitent Yield. He hadn’t done it since the compound. The senior women had taught it to him when he was nine, the year after he’d presented, as part of the curriculum for managing contamination events. When the darkness in you had spilled outward and touched another person, the only remedy was total surrender. Get yourself flat to the earth, arms wide, describing a cross with your body so the Light could enter every limb equally and burn the darkness clean.

You stayed until the senior women told you to get up, and they didn’t tell you to get up until you’d cried enough. Crying was evidence that the cleansing had worked. If you lay there dry-eyed, the darkness was still in you, and you stayed down.

His forehead pressed against the floor. The hardwood was cold and unyielding, which was correct. The rug would have cushioned him. Cushioning provided comfort, and comfort was not the point. The point was to feel the floor’s refusal to accommodate him. He had contaminated Colin’s kitchen with his anger, made Tala cry, and broken a screen that Diwa had bought for him because Diwa believed Cassian was worth teaching and giving good things to.

Seven into four hundred and thirty-six. He couldn’t even do that.

Cassian lay still and waited for the crying to come so the cleansing could finish.

Minutes passed, and Cassian’s eyes stayed dry, he was that contaminated. He heard someone on the stairs, and kept still. The door to his room opened, and Cassian kept his face down.

“Cass?” Cloth rustled as Colin lay down on the hardwood beside Cassian, near enough that Cassian felt the warmth of him along his side.

“Arms down, Cass.”

Cassian didn’t move.

Colin’s hand found his left wrist and brought it down to his side. Then the right. He guided each arm back to Cassian’s body, folding the cross closed, and then he turned Cassian onto his side.

“There’s no need for you to ever do this, Cass. No matter what you do in this house,” Colin said. “Not ever.” His arm settled across Cassian’s back, keeping him in place.

“I haven’t cried yet,” Cassian whispered. “It doesn’t work until you cry.”

“I don’t want you to cry. It’d make me very sad if you did.”

Cassian pressed his forehead to Colin’s chest as the older omega’s body curved around him, and he stayed out of the Penitent Yield.

ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE FAMILY OF LIGHT

Recorded Submission — Transcript Excerpt

Witness: Cassian Calyx (né unknown)

Date of recording: [REDACTED]

Present: Ms Arden Welsh (Counsel Assisting), Dr Rachel Wilson (Support Officer)

COUNSEL ASSISTING: In your own time, Cassian. Can you tell us what a typical day looked like for a child at the compound?

CASSIAN CALYX: Oh, it was lovely. Honestly. I know that you probably don’t want me to say that, but it was. We had the run of the whole place. There were about thirty of us, the under-eights, and we just went everywhere. Through the vegetable gardens and the prayer hall and down to the creek if it hadn’t rained. No one locked doors. No one said you can’t go in there. I didn’t even wear shoes until I was five, after I stood on a bee.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: Were there adults supervising you?

CASSIAN CALYX: There were always adults around, but they weren’t. It wasn’t like they were watching us specifically. Everyone belonged to everyone. That was the whole point. Why should love be limited to a nuclear family? That’s what the Lumineer used to say. And the Light kept us safe. That was just — that was a fact, like gravity. You didn’t need someone standing over you because the Light was already there, holding everything together. So if you fell over, whoever was closest picked you up, and if you were hungry, whoever was cooking fed you. I didn’t know whose child I was. I didn’t know that was something you were supposed to know.

COUNSEL ASSISTING: You mentioned the animals earlier.

CASSIAN CALYX: The sheep. Yes. That was my job. Well, it wasn’t a job. I was four, or five, maybe. But the lambing ewes sometimes rejected one, and then someone had to bottle-feed it, and I was good at it. I had small hands and I was very patient, which is what you need. Rejected lambs are scared of everything and they shake when you hold them. You have to just sit there and let them come to you. And then they’d suck on your fingers after the bottle was empty, which was the best feeling in the entire world. Their mouths are so warm and soft and they just — they just want you. They don’t want anything from you except you.

[Pause.]