Sirix laughed, a short, sharp hah. “She said she thought the bowl would freeze solid when you touched it.” Then, noticing, “You’re distracted again.”

“Yes.” I stopped walking. In the Undergarden, Tisarwat had come to some conclusion. She was saying, to Bo, Escort Horticulturist Basnaaid back to the Gardens. Downwell by the lake, I said to Sirix, “I’m very sorry, Citizen. I find I have a lot to think about right now.”

“No doubt.”

We walked about thirty meters in silence (Tisarwat strode out of our Undergarden rooms and down the corridor), and then Sirix said, “I hear the daughter of the house left in a huff last night, and hasn’t come back.”

“So Eight is giving you the house gossip,” I replied, as in the Undergarden Tisarwat began the climb to level one. “She must like you. Did she say why Raughd left?”

Sirix raised a skeptical eyebrow. “She did not. But anyone with eyes can guess. Anyone with any sense would know from the start she was a fool to set her sights on you like she did.”

“You dislike Raughd, I think.”

Sirix exhaled, short and sharp. Scoffing. “She’s always in the offices of the Gardens. Her favorite thing is to pick someone to make fun of and get everyone else to laugh while she does it. Half the time it’s Assistant Director Piat. But it’s all right, you see, because she’s only joking! Me being arrested for something she did is really just an extra.”

“You figured that out, did you?” Upwell, in the Undergarden, Bo Nine helped Basnaaid over the pieces of shipping crate that held the level four section door open. Tisarwat climbed toward level one.

By the lake, Sirix gave me a look that communicated her contempt for the idea that she might not have known about Raughd’s involvement. “She probably flew into town. Or possibly she went to the field workers’ house to roust some poor Valskaayan out of bed to amuse her.”

I hadn’t stopped to think that in turning Raughd down so coldly I might be inflicting her on someone else. “Amuse her how?”

Another eloquent look. “I doubt there’s much you could do about it just now. Anyone you ask will swear they’re more than happy to gratify the daughter of the house however she likes. How could they do otherwise?”

And likely if she’d come down here without me she’d have gone straight there, as the easiest available source of amusement and gratification. Doubtless a version of amusement and gratification that was common among the tea-growing households here. I might find some way to move Raughd somewhere else, or prevent her from doing the things she did, but the same things were likely happening in dozens of other places, to other people.