Thymara shook her head to clear it of memories and focus on her climb. She dug in her claws and moved up, into the branches that arched over the roof of her home. It was among the highest in Trehaug. From here, she looked down over most of the treetop city.

She drew her knees up under her chin and pondered as she sat watching nightfall devour the city and forest. She liked this particular perch. If she leaned out and angled herself just right, she had a tiny window up through all the intersecting branches, through which she could glimpse the night sky and the myriad stars that filled it. No one else, she thought, knew that such a view existed. It belonged to her alone.

For a short time, she had peace. Then she felt the small vibrations of the branch that told her that someone was coming to join her in her precarious perch. Not her father. No. This person moved more swiftly than her father did. She did not turn to look at him, but spoke as if she had seen him. “Hello, Tats. What brings you up to the canopy tonight?”

She felt him shrug. He’d been standing up on the branch. Now he dropped to all fours to creep along the narrow limb to join her. When he reached her, he sat up but locked his wiry legs around the branch beneath him. “Just felt like visiting,” the Tattooed boy said quietly. She finally turned her head to look at him.

Tats met her gaze without comment. She knew that recently her eyes had taken on the pale blue glow that some Rain Wilders had. He’d never commented on it, nor on her black claws. But then, she’d never asked any questions about the tattoos that sprawled across his face beside his nose. The one closest to his nose was a little horse symbol. The one that spread across most of his left cheek was a spider’s web. They marked that he had been born into slavery. She knew the bones of his tale. Six years ago, with the return of the serpents, the Rain Wild Council had invited the Tattooed of Bingtown to emigrate there. Many of the recently freed slaves had few other prospects. Some had been criminals, others had been debtors, but the tattoos of slavery had reduced them all to a near equal footing. The Council had invited them to journey up the Rain Wild River, to settle and intermarry, to begin new lives. In exchange, the Tattooed had offered their labor in dredging out the river shoals and building the water ladders that had allowed the serpents to complete their migration. Many of the Tattooed had gone on to become valued citizens of the Rain Wilds. Those who had been debtors were often skilled artisans or craftsmen, and they brought their talents to the Rain Wilds.

Unfortunately, some of them had been thieves, murderers, and pickpockets. And some of them brought those skills to the Rain Wilds as well. Despite the chance to make a new life, they had fallen back on what they knew. Tats’s mother had been one of them. Thymara had heard that she was a thief, and no more than that, until a burglary had gone wrong and turned into a murder. Tats’s mother had fled; no one knew where, least of all Tats, a boy of about ten at the time. Abandoned to his own devices, he had been fostered among the other Tattooed. Thymara had the impression that he had lived everywhere, and nowhere, picking up what food he could as it was offered to him, wearing castoffs, and doing whatever menial tasks he could to earn a coin or two for himself. She and her father had met him at one of the trunk markets, the large market days held closest to the huge trunks of the five main trees of central Trehaug. They had birds to sell that day, and he’d offered to do anything they needed, if only they’d give him the smallest one. He hadn’t had meat in months. Her father, as always, had been too kindhearted. He’d put the boy to hawking their wares, a task he usually did himself, and much better, for his voice was louder and more melodious. Still, Tats had been willing, no, eager to earn a meal for himself.

Since that day, two years ago, they’d seen him often. When her father could make work for him, he did, and Tats was always grateful for whatever they could spare. He was a handy fellow, even here in the high canopy where folk who had been born on the ground never ventured. Often enough, Thymara welcomed his company. She had few friends. The children who had socialized with her when she was small had long grown up, wedded, and commenced new lives as parents and partners. Thymara had been left behind in her strangely extended adolescence. It was oddly comforting to have found a friend who was as single as she was. She wondered why he wasn’t married or at least courting by now.

Her thoughts had wandered. She only realized that her silence had grown long when he asked her, “Did you want to be alone tonight? I don’t intend to bother you.”

“No, you’re no bother, Tats. I was just taking some time to myself to think.”

“About what?” He settled himself more firmly on the branch.