“That’s no reason not to practice Aons,” Matisse said. “There’s a power to them. You can see it.”

Indeed, there was a power behind the Aons. Matisse had always been able to feel it—raging behind the lines of light drawn in the air.

Idotris snorted. “Useless,” he said, folding his arms.

Matisse smiled. She wasn’t certain if Idotris was always so grumpy, or if he just tended to be that way when he worked at the Roost. He didn’t seem to like the fact that he, as a young teenager, had been relegated to childcare instead of being allowed to join Dashe’s soldiers.

“Stay here,” she said, wandering out of the Roost toward the open courtyard where the adults were standing.

Idotris just grunted in his usual way, sitting down to make certain none of the children snuck out of the sleeping room, nodding to a few other teenage boys who had finished seeing to their charges.

Matisse wandered through the open streets of New Elantris. The night was crisp, but the cold didn’t bother Matisse. That was one of the advantages of being an Elantrian.

She seemed to be one of the few who could see things that way. The others didn’t consider being an Elantrian as advantageous, no matter what Lord Spirit said. To Matisse, however, his words made sense. But perhaps that had to do with her situation. On the outside, she’d been a beggar—she’d spent her life being ignored and feeling useless. Yet inside of Elantris she was needed. Important. The children looked up to her, and she didn’t have to worry about begging or stealing food.

True, things had been fairly bad before Dashe had found her in a sludge-filled alley. And there were the wounds. Matisse had one on her cheek—a cut she’d gotten soon after entering Elantris. It still burned with the same pain it had the moment she’d gotten it. Yet that was a small price to pay. At Karata’s palace, Matisse had found her first real taste of usefulness. That sense of belonging had only grown stronger when Matisse—along with the rest of Karata’s band—had moved to New Elantris.

Of course, there was something else she’d gained by getting thrown into Elantris: a father.

Dashe turned, smiling in the lanternlight as he saw her approach. He wasn’t her real father, of course. She’d been an orphan even before the Shaod had taken her. And, like Karata, Dashe was sort of a parent to all of the children they’d found and brought to the palace.

Yet Dashe seemed to have a special affection for Matisse. The stern warrior smiled more when Matisse was around, and she was the one he called on when he needed something important done. One day, she’d simply started calling him Father. He’d never objected.