41

I LET MAIRTI BUSTLE ME INTO HER ROOM AND DIG THROUGH her trunk, searching for clothes that would fit me. “No offense, but you stick out like—in Serafe we say ‘a drunk’s nose.’”

“Sore thumb,” I whispered, shaken by all I’d just heard. I was doubtful Mairti would find anything in her wardrobe to fit me—Serafans tended to be petite compared to Pellians, but Mairti was slighter and shorter than most. She produced a loose-fitting shift in pale yellow and a belted green over-robe.

“It’s not perfect,” she said. “It will be too short, and I haven’t slippers to fit you. And it’s the sort of thing no one would wear out of the house unless she was ill and going to the apothecary.”

“Then she can be ill and going to the apothecary,” Alba said, appearing in the doorway behind us. “Just get changed. Leave the clothes here,” she added.

“I’ll try to get them back to you.” Penny slipped inside after Alba.

“No, make them over and sell them,” I said. “I don’t even know where to tell you to send them.” I laughed as though it were a joke, but the uncertainty opened like a pit before me—I didn’t know where I was going tonight, or how I was going to leave Isildi, or where I would find safe haven in Galitha. I felt ill, and regretted having drunk any wine at all as I stepped behind the carved screen bisecting Mairti’s room.

“It’s a very pretty print,” Penny said, picking up the sleeve of my gown with its ruched trim. “It suits you well. The clothes, your betrothal, your place beside the prince—it all suits you well,” she added with a shy smile.

I returned it, and wished we had more time to talk about clothes and weddings and sewing—how Penny would have loved debating what color wedding gown I should make! But there wasn’t time for that now. “Where are we going?”

“The Warren,” Alba said with a wry smile. “I will not be accompanying you. It is not the sort of place considered proper for a sister of a Kvys order.”

Mairti rolled her eyes, handing me the shift. It was of lightweight linen, and I blushed as I realized it was nearly transparent. “It’s not proper for a princess, either, but we’re sending her.”

“I’m not a princess,” I said, rote.

“It’s a brothel,” Alba said abruptly, holding up her hands as though absolving herself of the decision. “Prostitution is illegal in Serafe, but the Warren survives.”

Before I could protest, Mairti explained, “It’s ideal for hiding someone. It’s not merely a—a brothel. It’s a sort of traveling party. It moves, nearly every night. But the students always know where to find it—and Kristos is well connected, even if he’s only been here a few months.”

“Sounds about right for Kristos.” I sighed.

“We’ve a friend there,” Penny said. “Sianh. One of the men in the employ of the Warren.” I tried to keep a disapproving frown from pulling at my mouth; surely I was in no position to judge the friends Penny and Kristos kept here.

“He and Kristos argue like a pair of drunk barristers, but he’s a trustworthy man,” Penny said.

“How can you be sure?” I asked. “Not that I don’t trust you, it’s just…”

“The stakes are rather high, I understand.” Penny tugged at my sleeve and tied a loose drawstring. “When I first came here, I didn’t know the neighborhood well. There are… some wineshops it’s better to stay away from when the fellows are deep in their cups. I didn’t know, and went looking for Kristos in the wrong one. Sianh knocked the man’s teeth loose before I’d thought to call for help.”

“And then,” said Mairti, “he walked home with her. That is something, in Serafe—to stand up for a woman and then to walk with her like an equal. Not expecting compensation.”

I nodded. If Penny trusted him, so did I. “But surely the a’Mavha would know where to find it, too?”

“It’s possible, but the Warren is very judicious in who they let in on the secret. High-ranking scholars and advanced students, mostly.”

“I can’t imagine the prostitutes are so judicious,” I retorted.

“Of course they are—they don’t want to be arrested,” Kristos said from the other side of the door. “But more importantly, it’s not the sort of place one can just stumble into. The Warren is usually in someone’s private home, or gardens, or a hidden corner of the university. They’ll be looking for you, likely, in slightly more traditional accommodations. Inns, the diplomatic compound, near the harbor. They won’t think to look in a moveable coven of courtesans.”

Mairti adjusted the belt on the over-robe, grimaced, and dug a length of yellow silk from the trunk. “I’ll wrap your hair. I can’t say you look nice. Or Serafan, if that’s what we were aiming for.”

“She wouldn’t look Serafan even if we costumed her perfectly,” Alba said. “But at least she won’t be wearing Galatine finery. That’s the first thing the a’Mavha would ask about, and the first thing someone would notice. This”—Alba shrugged—“this is a foreign woman wearing an unfortunate housedress.”

“I’m sure it looks much better on Mairti,” I added hastily, but Mairti merely snorted.

“Hardly. I bought it at a rag sale.”

I finished adjusting my stockings, and then Alba allowed Kristos inside. “She’s decent. Well”—she shrugged again—“she’s clothed.” I dipped my hand into my pocket, which I had kept on, with my shift, under the Serafan clothing. Corvin’s kerchief, still wrapped in the paper, met my fingers. Guilt stabbed me—I should have given it to him while he was here, but I had forgotten. And, I admitted, I liked the additional luck it gave me. Luck that, perhaps, shielded me from the assassin, calm that perhaps reduced my anxiety and helped my judgment. I left the kerchief in my pocket. Alba sidled into the hallway as Kristos entered, and Mairti followed, leaving us alone in the cramped, low-ceilinged room.

Kristos took one look at me and laughed. “Far cry from what you made in your atelier,” he explained. “It’s kind of nice seeing you like this. Like when we were kids.”

I had to smile. “When we wore castoffs that Mother tried to make over? I recall a particular orange coat you wore for years; it was half patchwork.”

“I loved that thing,” Kristos admitted. “It was probably hideous, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” I said. It was so long ago, but I could see both of us as children, wearing oversize coats with breeches too short, gowns that gaped in the back and whose skirts had been let out as many times as they could. Now he was finally a scholar, and I, the crown prince’s betrothed and, at a faded and hazy distance, an uncertain future queen. We had come so far, but the costs had been high, far higher than any cost we paid as poor Pellian ragamuffins scrounging the streets of Galitha City. They weren’t diminishing, the costs of these new lives, I acknowledged. They were only mounting, the stakes rising higher and higher, and I wasn’t sure how long I could keep playing. I sank onto Mairti’s neatly made bed.

“A few things before we go,” Kristos said, sitting next to me. “The Warren is not dangerous, not in and of itself. The patrons are respectful, because they know the madam is the law there, not the authorities. They won’t bother you. The madam might put you to work—” He laughed as I jerked away in shock. “Washing dishes or doing some cleaning,” he amended. “To further your cover. Sweet mercy, Sophie, I wouldn’t whore out my own sister.”

In an uncharacteristically compassionate gesture, he took my hand. “I wish we could stay here longer. I—I’m happy here. I wish you could meet my patron at the university, his wife, his children. She’d want to fatten you up like she’s done me.”

“It sounds as though they’ve adopted you,” I said with a twinge of jealousy. My only family had left me and found another.

“It’s customary for the student to be somewhat integrated into his sponsor’s family. I just got lucky that Thain’s wife is such an excellent cook.” He smiled. “I’m learning so much, refining so much of what I thought I knew. Discovering that for all he knew, Pyord didn’t have any sort of monopoly on political theory.” He snorted.

I searched his face. “You discussed him here?”

“Not in so many words, no. I don’t acknowledge the role I played at Midwinter and they don’t ask. But Pyord—it’s no mistake he settled at the Galatine university, as a lecturer, instead of pursuing tenure here. He’s not exactly well-liked or respected. He came here, briefly, years and years ago. Threw a fit that he’d have to begin as an apprentice-level scholar—not even a lowly novice—and when no one acknowledged his genius or acquiesced to his tantrums, he left.”

“That’s not the image he would have had us believe, is it?” I could almost laugh at arrogant, self-righteous Pyord, unacknowledged and unappreciated in the great Serafan university. But I didn’t laugh; his rejection here had spurred him on to Galitha, and his unsated ambition turned to something else.

“No,” Kristos said, “it’s not. I fell for him, Sophie. I fell for his lines like a hooked fish because I… I was like him, in a way. I wanted more than Galitha as she stood could give me. I only hope it’s not too late.”

“And you were right all along.” I sighed. “That those in power won’t yield it without a fight.”

“I don’t relish being right. And I wasn’t, not completely. Plenty of nobles yielded power, willingly. Your… friend Theodor, for one.” I couldn’t resist laughing as he awkwardly sidestepped calling Theodor by what we both knew he was—my betrothed, my future husband.

“Plenty yielded it grudgingly, too, and are all too willing to take it back.”

“Yes, well, that I would have expected. I didn’t expect a crown prince to fight for his own people. I believed we would be alone in any struggle to rise up. But we have allies.” The creases between his brows deepened and knotted as he spoke. “That was your way, not my revolt and demands. Maybe… maybe I should have thought about the whole thing differently.”

I shook my head. “When I have a length of fabric, I can cut it dozens of different ways. A large piece for a pleated back, narrow curves for a bodice, flared skirts of a jacket, panels for a petticoat—it’s a dozen things at once. But put the scissors to the cloth, and it’s one thing. We’ve cut the cloth, Kristos. Now we have to work with it as it stands.”

“And we will. We will get back to Galitha, and soon, and make a stand.”

I smiled faintly; the spark was coming back into Kristos’s eyes, that fire fueled by philosophy and dogged belief.

“Any time you’re ready,” Alba said, fingers drumming the door frame.

“Patience is a virtue,” Kristos replied, though he got to his feet quickly. “I thought nuns tried to exemplify all forms of virtue.”

“Discernment is also a virtue,” Alba replied, adjusting her coif as she led us down the hallway. “And when the a’Mavha is sniffing at your scent, patience ceases to be a virtue and becomes a liability.”