“I’ll help you,” Remwar immediately offered. “Where might it have fallen?”

“Probably along the walk to the greenhouse,” Carsina offered. “Remember, you stepped from the path and your hair tangled for a moment against the climbing rose on the trellis there. I suspect that is when you lost it.”

Yaril smiled at her gratefully. “I’m sure you are right. We’ll look for it there.”

“I’ll come with you,” I volunteered, giving Remwar a measuring glance.

“Don’t be silly,” Yaril rebuked me. “Carsina came out here to rest a moment from the dancing. She doesn’t want to go down to the hothouses again, and we certainly can’t leave her sitting here alone. Besides, with your great feet, you’d probably tread my earring into the sod before you saw it. Two of us are plenty to go looking for one little earring. Wait here. We won’t be long.”

She had risen as she spoke. I knew I should not let her go off down the shadowy path with Remwar unchaperoned, but Carsina gently patted the bench beside her, suggesting I sit there, and I could scarcely leave her sitting in the garden alone. “Don’t be long,” I cautioned Yaril.

“I shan’t be. The earring will either be there or it won’t,” she replied. Remwar dared to offer her his arm, but she shook her head in a pretty rebuke, and led him off into the dimness. I looked after them. After a moment Carsina asked quietly, “Don’t you wish to sit down? I would think your feet would be tired after all that dancing. I know mine are.” She pushed her dainty little foot out from the hem of her dress, as if to show me how weary it was, and then exclaimed, “Oh, my slipper’s come unfastened! I shall have to go inside and fix it, for if I stoop here, I’ll surely muddy the hem of my gown.”

“Allow me,” I asked her breathlessly. I went down on one knee fearlessly, for the weather had been dry and the paving stones of the garden path were always kept well swept.

“Oh, but you should not!” she exclaimed as I took up the silk laces of her slipper. “You’ll soil the knee of your fine new uniform. And you look so brave in it.”

“A little dust on my knee will not mar it,” I said. She had said I looked brave. “I’ve been tying my sister’s slippers since she was a tiny thing. Her knots always come undone. There. How is that? Too tight? Too loose?”

She leaned down to inspect my work. Her neck was graceful and pale as a swan’s and a waft of her gardenias enveloped me again. She turned her gaze to mine and our faces were inches apart. “It’s perfect,” she said softly.

I could not move or speak. “Thank you,” she said. She leaned forward and her lips barely brushed my cheek, a kiss as chaste as a sister’s that still caused my heart to hammer in my ears. Then she leaned back suddenly, lifting her fingertips to her lips in surprise. “Oh! Whiskers!”

I lifted a hand to my cheek in horror. “I did shave!” I exclaimed, and she laughed, a sound that reminded me of skylarks soaring into a morning sky.

“Of course! I did not mean your face was rough. Only that there is a trace of them, still. You are so fair that I did not think you would be shaving yet.”

“I’ve been shaving for almost a year now,” I said, and suddenly it was easy to talk to her. I rose, brushing at my knee, and sat down on the bench beside her.

She smiled at me and asked, “Will you grow a mustache at the Academy? I’ve heard that many cadets do.”

I ran my hand ruefully over my nearly bald head. “Not in my first year. It isn’t allowed. Perhaps when I’m in my third year.”

“I think you should,” she said quietly, and I suddenly resolved that I would.

A little silence fell as she looked out over the night garden. “I dread your leaving tomorrow. I suppose I won’t see you for a long time,” she said sadly.

“I’ll be home for Rosse’s wedding in late spring. Surely you and your family will be there.”

“Of course. But that is months and months away.”

“It won’t be so long,” I assured her, but suddenly it seemed like a very long time to me also.

She looked aside from me. “I’ve heard that the girls of Old Thares are very beautiful and dress in all the latest fashions from the coast. My mother says that they wear musk and paint their eyelids and that their riding skirts are almost trousers, for they don’t care at all that men may see their legs.” Worriedly she added, “I’ve heard they are very forward, too.”