Lark weaves, she thought, excited. She could teach me to—

Her spirits fell. She was Sandrilene fa Toren, an heiress who was kin to royalty in two countries. No one had ever let her weave, or even handle wool, cotton, or flax. Silks she might touch, but even Pirisi had said that she spent more time at needlework than was proper—ladies were supposed to like embroidery only for a few hours, not all of the time. Dedicate Quail at Pearl Cup dormitory had lectured her on the condition of her fingers from near-constant needlework and sentenced her to three nights of sleeping with hands wrapped in salve and cotton.

Maybe Lark will be different, she thought, with very little hope. Maybe.

Tris stuck her head through the long window of the empty room upstairs. Below, past the solid wood shed at the side of the first story, was a garden that cupped the back and sides of the house. A figure in a green habit knelt between rows of plants. The girl made a face; she hoped that no one was going to expect her to garden. She hated dirt.

Beyond the garden lay grape vines, which meant bees—another thing to avoid. Beyond that—her eyes met the wall that encircled the temple community. Built solidly of gray stone, it rose twenty feet into the air. There were stairs that led to the top—narrow ones, spaced every two hundred yards on the wall. Every four hundred yards, a small and solid tower rose above the upper walkway.

Tris blinked. Someone who climbed to the top of the wall would be inside any storm that passed. The winds would strike purely, coming in from sea or fields, with no streets and buildings to catch them and draw out their strength. A city girl, she had always known that the air she felt, even on rooftops, had its teeth drawn as it passed over encircling walls to pick up all the smells of busy humans, not land, sea, or rock.

Looking down, she smiled. The roof of the shed under her window was easy to reach. The ground wouldn’t be too far below that.

“You want it?” asked the Trader from the door. “The other’s fine for me if you like this one.”

“I don’t mind.” Realizing that she was half out of the window, Tris pulled herself in. “This seems nice.” She flopped onto the bed and lay back to stare at the ceiling.

This is their punishment place, she thought, forgetting Daja was still there. If I’m kicked out, I have nowhere else to go. No one in Capchen wants me.

I’d best try to stay out of trouble, then. If I can. If something doesn’t happen—except something always does.

And what’s Niko doing here again? she wondered. I thought he was supposed to be running “special errands” this spring—unless he finished them all. She sighed, her mind still buzzing without letup.

Daja saw that the redhead was lost in daydreams. Kaqs, she thought, returning to her new room. They only look at you when they want something.

She ran an affectionate hand over the box—her suraku—at the foot of her cot. With the Kisubo mark stamped deep into the leather on all sides, no matter where she put it, she knew she was home. It had served her all the way to Winding Circle.

Gently Daja rubbed the Kisubo imprint with a finger. If I fail here, where can I go? she thought, not knowing that Tris asked herself the same thing. I am trangshi, without family, without a place.

Then I must not fail, she told herself, taking a deep breath. Maybe it won’t be so bad. I like Sandry well enough, and she speaks Tradertalk.

“Hello.” Sandry was in the doorway, as if Daja’s thoughts had called her. “Is this your new room?”

“What a silly question!” Daja went to the crate she’d carried upstairs and got out the incense pot, candlesticks, and god-images. Taking them to a small table in the corner, she began to arrange them.

“I am silly, now and then,” Sandry admitted. “My mother said I was, anyway.”

“If you know, you can stop it.” Carefully Daja placed a candle behind Trader Koma’s image.

“Then you’ve never been silly, or you’d know it just creeps up without any warning.”

Startled, Daja looked at the other girl and saw that her blue eyes were dancing. “Oh, you,” she said, flapping a hand. “Come in, then. Sit down.”

“Thank you.” Sandry went to the open window and sat on the ledge. “Is this house a nice place?”

“I’ve only been here for a day, but—well, Lark is kind.” Daja lit a stick of incense in front of the wooden plaque engraved with her family’s names. “You’ll like her. Rosethorn, the other dedicate? She is like—well, they are called porcupines—”

“I’ve seen them. They’re like pigs or woodchucks with backs full of long pins.”

“You saw them in a menagerie?”

“No, in Bihan, three years ago. In the forest. My parents—” She stopped, then went on, determinedly cheerful. “They loved to travel.”

“So how did you come here, if you were in Bihan?”

“Oh—my great-uncle lives in Summersea.” She looked out of the window. “My parents died last fall, when there was smallpox in Hatar, and he was the closest relative. The rest of my family’s in Namorn.”

As if she heard it afresh, Daja remembered what Sandry had told those girls just two weeks ago: … the great-niece of his grace, Duke Vedris of this realm of Emelan, and cousin of her Imperial Highness, Empress Berenene of the Namorn Empire. If Sandry now spoke of her relatives as if they were just normal people, she must not want it generally known that she was almost royalty. “So that’s why you wear all that black,” Daja remarked. “Somebody told me onc that ka—landsmen wear black for mourning.”