My heart sank at his words, but I dutifully replied, “Yes, Uncle.” To have him remind me that there were other, weightier matters hanging over my head dampened my spirits even more thoroughly.

We bade him farewell at the entrance to the administration building. Spink and I watched him as he strode up the steps and entered. I thought I caught a brief glimpse of Caulder when the door was opened. I hoped not. I’d seen as much of that youngster as I wanted, and desired still less to have anything to do with him after I had seen how Epiny disdained him. I wished I had not witnessed the scene between them; Caulder would not forget that I had seen his humiliation. Spink and I shouldered our bags and headed back toward Carneston House. Halfway there, Spink spoke up suddenly but quietly.

“Epiny stays in my mind. She…defies comparison.”

I felt myself flush slightly. “That’s a kind way to put it,” I replied gruffly. I felt it a bit unfair of Spink to point out just how oddly she had behaved. Surely he could see it was not my fault, and that I had suffered just as acutely as he had.

Then he said shyly, “She’s so sensitive, and so lovely. Like a butterfly, wafted on the wind. I think she feels things much more keenly than the rest of us.”

For a time, I was quiet. I was shocked. Sensitive and lovely? Epiny? I had felt mostly irritated and embarrassed by her. But Spink hadenjoyed her company? Strange thoughts were suddenly unfolding in my mind. To be certain, I asked him, “You liked her, then?”

A wide and foolish grin spread across his face. “Oh, more than liked! Nevare, I am smitten with her. Smitten. I always thought that was a silly word. But now I understand completely what it means.” He took a deep breath and gave me a sorrowful look. “And now you will say that you are sorry, but that she is promised already and has been since she was a child.”

“If you asked me, I would say she is still a child. If she is promised, I do not know of it, and I doubt it would be so.” There was a much larger obstacle, one that I was loath to point out to him, but I was equally reluctant to leave him ignorant. I gathered my courage. “The problem would not be that she was spoken for, Spink. It might be that my aunt would be unwilling to consider an offer from a new nobility family. My uncle did not speak of it directly, but it is an open secret within our family that she resents my father’s elevation and allies herself only with old nobility.”

He shrugged, almost dismissing my concern. “But her father seemed to like me, and Epiny herself…well…” He stopped short before he said anything indelicate.

“Epiny obviously likes you,” I admitted. “I thought her rather too forward about indicating that to you.”

His face and tone lightened, as if I had just given a brother’s consent to his courtship. “Then if I could win your uncle’s regard and goodwill, I might have a chance with her.”

I doubted it. I suspected that my aunt had a will of steel. Seeing how Epiny had ridden roughshod over my uncle, I doubted that he would stand up to my aunt well. And even if my uncle were well disposed toward Spink himself, all he had told me of his family made me sure that he was a poor prospect as a match for my cousin. No money, no influence, new nobility…“You might have a chance,” I heard myself concede, simply because I lacked the courage to point out to him that his odds of success were less than a whisper’s chance against storm winds.

He looked at me oddly, as if he had somehow managed to hear my mental reservation. “Speak to me plainly here, my friend. Do you feel I set my sights too high? Would you oppose my courting your cousin?”

I laughed out loud. “Spink, no, of course not! I can think of nothing I would like better than to call you cousin as well as friend. But what I might oppose is my cousin courting you! My friend, in temperament and manners I think you could do far better than Epiny. Even if you were thinking of taking a Plains wife.”

He looked shocked and then gave an odd laugh. “A Plains wife? My mother would kill me. No, she wouldn’t have a chance. My brother would do it first.”

Our steps had carried us to the door of our dormitory. We checked in with the sergeant and then went up the steps to our room. Spink asked me not to speak too much of Epiny before the other fellows, and I was only too happy to comply. We greeted Oron and Caleb. They were both finishing their assignments at the study table. They kept us listening for some time as they recounted their stay with Oron’s aunt. She had hosted a musical gathering at her home, and they were full of stories of ribald songs, risque dancing, and a young woman who had bedded both of them on the same night with neither the wiser to it at the time. Even now, they were astonished, scandalized, and delighted to have such a wild adventure to tell. It made the tales from Caleb’s penny adventure books pale by comparison.