9

Always scout your ground. That is one of the first lessons the woman who trains me teaches her fledglings. It’s also what my father says about impending battle.

When I was waiting for Amaya at the mask stall I noted that there were two alleys on the right and one on the immediate left. The one on the left runs alongside a two-story building with a narrow balcony. I shove through the milling people and bolt into this alley. Jumping, I catch the rim of the balcony. But when I try to swing a leg up to hook over the railing, the sheath skirt of my linen gown won’t let me kick, much less climb. I drop back down and frantically tug up the cloth just as two Patron soldiers run into the alley. A burst of fear and determination gives me a rush of energy. I leap, catch, and swing myself over.

One soldier levels his crossbow at me as I pry at the closed shutters but they won’t open. The other kicks down the door and stomps inside as the inhabitants cry out in fear. A crossbow bolt thunks into a shutter a handbreadth from my shoulder.

“The next one will be in your head,” calls the soldier.

A shutter slams open, and I grab it because it will give me enough leverage to clamber up onto the roof and get away. Then I see the other soldier inside. He holds a spear in one hand and a baby in the other.

“Please, Domon, don’t hurt my child,” gasps an Efean man who is trembling in the shadows.

In the distance the woman is still wailing over her dead child. I let the soldier take me into custody. He seems to take pleasure in repeatedly jabbing me in the ribs with the spear as the two men escort me back to the lane. Desperately trying to come up with any kind of a plan I stumble into the clot of huddled prisoners. The woman who makes the butterfly masks steadies me reflexively, then recognizes me and pushes away with a curse as if I am the evil shadow whose whispers bring misfortune. People examine me with so much hostility that I tense.

A second spider scout stamps up, crested with a captain’s horns. Soldiers shove Coriander’s brother forward. His arms are already trussed up behind his back, and his face is dirty, like they deliberately and maliciously rubbed it in the dirt. His nose is bleeding, and for an instant I feel sorry for him.

“That’s him.” The captain surveys the shattered stalls and frightened craftspeople. “These people must have known who he is! Arrest them all for harboring a fugitive!”

The thought of Father showing up at the Queen’s Prison to bargain for my release makes me choke.

“Jessamy!”

I almost leap out of my skin.

Lord Kalliarkos rushes up, wearing the same rich clothing he wore on the balcony. The gold scarf flapping at his neck marks his grandmother’s royal lineage, so naturally the soldiers give way at once. He hauls me over to the spider captain.

“My lord,” says the captain wearily, as if he already knows what is going to happen.

Kalliarkos is so highborn he does not even identify himself. “You may release this young person into my custody.”

Soldiers avert their faces, knowing better than to smirk. I wish a trap would open and swallow me. Coriander’s brother’s look of disgust is like hot ash blown in my face.

The captain’s words fall with rigid politeness. “Then if you will be so kind, my lord, and move out of the way of our operation, I would be all gratitude.”

Oblivious to the man’s contempt, Kalliarkos tugs me past the spider scouts. The dead child is gone, having left behind a puddle of blood and a forgotten little sandal with one broken strap.

“Why are you here?” I demand as I trot along beside him. I’m too breathless and too horrified by what I’ve just seen to be in awe of a rich young lord sweeping out of nowhere to rescue me.

“You never told me where you train.”

“You followed me to find out where I train? You must be desperate, my lord.”

His smile has an edge. “You should be very glad right now that I am that desperate.”

My father’s words dog me: You will never speak to him again. But I need answers. “How did you know I was here?”

“After your father took you off the balcony I made my way around to the servants’ area. I just meant to find out where you live but when I saw you leaving I followed. Good fortune for me that you got yourself into trouble. Now we can talk.”

“Good fortune? There’s a dead child, and people getting arrested!”

His bitter smile curls into frowning displeasure. Without a word he leads us to a long straight stair set off with tall railings and guarded by silent soldiers. They bow to Kalliarkos and let us pass. We climb forty steps in silence. No one else uses these stairs; they must be reserved for highborn Patrons. At a landing he pauses, setting a foot on a bench.

“My lord, I beg your pardon for my disrespect.” The placating words stick in my throat because I am still angry, but no lord will let the likes of me scold him. He can destroy my father’s career. “I have no right to speak to you that way.”

“No, you are right to speak. It is easy for me to make light of a situation that does not threaten me. Honesty isn’t disrespect.”

He gazes thoughtfully over the roofs and awnings of the Ribbon Market. The many lanes and stalls take up almost all of the crater. A thread of smoke marks the place where I was captured. Spider scouts moving through the narrow alleys flash as the sun hits their polished carapaces at just the right angle. It reminds me of how a good adversary can use the sun’s light to gauge where traps are concealed. There are a lot of clues and cues an astute player picks up on. Kalliarkos’s tense posture tells me something. I just have no idea what.

I can’t help but notice the things Amaya would. His profile has the classic beauty of the Patrons in the slope of his cheekbones, the curve of his eyebrows, the cut of his eyes. His black hair is so short it stands straight up, and with a restless gesture he combs a hand through its stiff strands.

“I didn’t mean to force the secret of you running the Fives from you like that,” he goes on. “I won’t tell anyone.”

He looks so serious that I nod like I’m tendering a payment even though I feel all at sea, unable to gain my footing. “My thanks, my lord.”

He looks relieved that I am not angry at him, as if a lord would ever care about my feelings. “You can thank me by telling me where you train. If I don’t master Rings I can’t win ten Novice trials and become a Challenger. If I don’t get good enough to run as a Challenger, my family will send me into the army. That’s the last thing I want.”

“Every Patron man wants to distinguish himself in the army.”

“I don’t.”

“How can you not want to serve in the army? The army is the glory of Efea. Soldiers are the truest servants of King Kliatemnos and Queen Serenissima. It is the army that keeps Efea’s people safe!”

“You’re a captain’s daughter. That’s all you’ve ever heard. It’s not why we fight.”

My irritation spikes again. How dare he dismiss my father’s valor! “Efea’s enemies are always attacking us. We have to fight lest we be overrun by people who want to steal the grain out of our fields and the gold and iron from our mines.”

With a heavy sigh he starts climbing, and I match his steps even as I feel the ache of a bruise coming in where the spear-butt jabbed me.

“I mean no disrespect to your father, the hero of Maldine. But it isn’t that simple, Doma. The noble ancestors of our king and queen fled the empire of Saro over a hundred years ago.”

“Yes, I know. That was when the last emperor was murdered and the empire fell apart.”

“Most of the people we fight are really just our distant cousins, the ones who stayed behind and built the kingdoms of Saro-Urok, West Saro, and East Saro out of the old empire. It’s like one huge, nasty, bloody, generations-long family quarrel.” He waves a hand airily. “The point is, I’ll never be allowed to learn what I need at my family’s Fives stable.”

“Why not?”

“Because my uncle doesn’t want me to run the Fives. Unlike your father with you, he can’t stop me running, not as long as my grandmother allows it. But the trainers at Garon Stable know it will displease him. They can’t go against his wishes.”

“You feel trapped too!” I say eagerly as I forget I am talking to a lord.

“Yes!” As our gazes meet, a spark of understanding flashes between us. “Please tell me where you train. I’ll do anything.”

We reach the top of the stairs, which give onto the promenade. Soldiers guard every avenue that leads off the terrace into the city. Patron carriages are lined up, waiting to be given permission to exit. Everyone looks nervous.

Amaya stands by the carriage next to Polodos. He surreptitiously slips a folded scrap of paper to her. Can stolid, boring Polodos possibly be Amaya’s secret suitor, the one who writes execrable paeans to her beauty on scented rice paper?

The brush of Kalliarkos’s fingers on my elbow jolts me.

“Please,” he says. “I know you understand.”

“I do understand.” I am sure the sky will open and the gods’ judgment pierce me with a mighty arrow for talking to him when Father told me not to. “But you see how it is with me.”

“Plenty of girls and women run the Fives.”

“Yes, Commoner women do, and if I were a Commoner my family would be proud. But Patron women do not.”

“Your father is the hero of Maldine. Surely that counts for something.”

“His daughters must be the most proper Patron girls of all, even if we will never truly be Patrons.”

He frowns, thinking over a situation a highborn youth like him has never faced. “Of course you’re not a Patron girl. You’re a mule.”

I flush at the word.

“Forgive me, I meant no insult.” That he blushes in his turn shocks me. Why does he care? “Of course I see your father feels he must be doubly strict given the peculiar nature of your circumstances. Considering how good you are, that must be frustrating for you.”

His unforced sympathy opens my heart. “It is frustrating. I train at a little stable run by a woman named Anise. It’s near Scorpion Fountain.”

His eyes widen. “That’s a bad part of town.”

“No it isn’t. Maybe you’ve heard it is because only Commoners live there. Anise takes any comers, even Patrons. She won’t treat you differently from the others just because you’re a lord’s son.”

“I don’t want to be treated differently because of who I am.” His expression is so serious I believe he believes it. Were a lowborn Patron like my father to attempt to rescue a Commoner girl from a mass arrest it could kill his career, but such magnanimity in a lord’s son is charming eccentricity.

“Anise doesn’t run adversaries in trials like the competitive Fives stables do,” I add. “She’s not interested in reputation and making money like everyone else is. She’s not like the palace stables, competing for royal favor and a seat closer to the king’s throne if their adversaries win. All she does is train those who want to learn. That’s why she’s got no fame. That’s why I can train there.”

He clasps my hand warmly. “Thank you! I’ll meet you there, won’t I?”

The pressure of his skin on mine makes my chest tighten in a strange way that Amaya would tease me for were she to see me now. Which she will, if she happens to look this way. I am suddenly aware of how many people swarm the promenade, any one of whom might recognize him and then me. And tell Father, or use gossip to harm Father’s reputation.

I pull my hand out of his grasp. “I have to go.”

“Scorpion Fountain. Anise.” He hurries away through the mob of waiting carriages.