Chapter 4

Muffled giggles and whispers woke Daja in the morning, when she would have liked more sleep. She sat up in bed: Nia and Jory, halfway across her floor, jumped back a step. They were dressed to go outdoors.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Daja asked in her most forbidding tone. “You’re only supposed to come in when I’m here.” She always put work materials away after an early mishap in which the youngest Bancanor, inspecting her things, had turned his hand bright yellow, but there was always a chance the children could find trouble with items she couldn’t put away.

“But you are here,” Nia replied.

“I was asleep. That’s not here, here.” Even to a tired Daja that didn’t sound rational. “What do you want?”

“There’s the teacher thing today, yes?” asked Jory reasonably. “And meditation after you get back, even if it’s still light. You’ll never learn how to skate this way.”

Daja looked at them with horror. “Skate? Now? Before breakfast?”

“It’s a good time,” Nia assured her. “We’ll have the basin to ourselves. And you have to practice till you’re used to it.”

Daja glowered, though she knew they were right. “Who’s teaching who here?” she demanded. When she saw the twins were about to reply, she hastily put up a hand. “Never mind. I’ll meet you in the slush room. “They stared at her, unmoving; Daja sighed. “I have to clean my teeth and dress, don’t I?”

They walked to the door. Nia was opening it when Jory squeaked and dug into a pocket. “This came for you last night,” she said, depositing a sealed note on Daja’s worktable. “From Ladradun House.” She followed Nia out.

Daja flung off her blankets and got up. She would deal with the note later, when she remembered how to think. “First thing in the morning-no, it’s not even morning,” she grumbled. The water in her pitcher was cold. She set her palms on the pitcher’s sides, calling warmth until the ice on the water melted and she could clean her teeth and rinse her mouth without shrieking from cold.

When they left the house, Daja shook her head with dismay. It was dawn on the rooftops of the city, but on the level of the boat basin and the canals it was still shadowy. “I can’t see what I’m doing,” she complained. Nia ran into a shed for torches.

“Sometime we’ll take you night skating,” Jory promised as she and Daja sat on a bench to don their skates. “On Longnight everyone carries a torch or a lantern and skates around the city, and people have stalls where they sell tea and hot cider and winter cakes. Everyone skates till dawn-that’s how the sun finds its way back to us in the dark. And there’s singing, and baked apples, and hot pies.”

Nia returned with lit torches, set them in sockets around the basin, then put on her own skates. She and Jory stood and glided to the center of the ice.

“Come on,” Nia urged the seated Daja. “Let’s see how much you remember.”

Daja grimaced and tried to stand. Her feet went out from under her; she resumed her seat on the bench, hard.

“Dig in with the end of one skate,” Jory advised. “Or you keep moving.”

Daja accepted this advice and managed to stand. She then yanked the toe of her skate from the ice and shot across the basin, arms windmilling. Nia and Jory slid out of her path. Two-thirds of the way across Daja’s feet kept going, but the rest of her did not. She landed on her back, staring at the pearly dawn sky.

Jory and Nia, stifling giggles, hauled her up.

Bruised and ready for more sleep, Daja sat down to breakfast in the busy kitchen, where no one would try to converse with her. She was nearly done when she remembered the note from Ladradun House: she’d thrust it into her pocket on leaving her room. Opening it, she checked the signature: Bennat Ladradun. She remembered his help the night before, his cool direction of the fire brigade, and smiled. He must have been exhausted, yet he’d made time to send this.

Daja picked her way carefully through his handwriting. Ben’s letters slanted this way and that; the lines staggered across the page like drunken men. The loops of his y’s looked like claws. Weren’t tutors supposed to ensure that the sons of rich families had decent penmanship? Briar’s handwriting was clearer after only six months of study. Of course, Briar’s teacher had threatened him with death if he mislabeled her bottles. Perhaps Ben needed a teacher like Dedicate Rosethorn.

Dear Viymese Daja,

I would like to talk to you about the fire last night, if you would be so kind. I will not take much of your time. I will be at Ladradun House tomorrow until noon if you would visit me there, or I will call on you when you say it is convenient.

My thanks, Ben Ladradun

Daja folded the note. Maybe she would mention her idea for living metal gloves to him. And she would like to see the home of a true hero. How many of those was she likely to meet?

Kugisko’s nobles built their Pearl Coast homes in stone; so did the imperial governor. In the city, all but a very few built their large houses out of wood: it was a point of pride, a willful separation from the nobility. Bancanor House and Ladradun House were both samples of Namornese woodwork. The houses sported enclosed porches that ran around the sides to the rear, ornately carved roofpieces, window, and door frames. Both were three stories tall, their workshops, chicken coops, and stables enclosed and connected to the rear of the main structure so that no one had to go outside during the bitter winter storms.