Abira looked me over, a quick flick of her eyes that measured me and summed me up. I’d seen Dirva do the same thing when meeting new Qin bureaucrats or Lothic dignitaries. “Hell, he’s mostly grown, and it’s not like that stopped our folks back in the day anyway. C’mon. It’s City-grown, can’t get any better.”

Dirva looked over. “City-grown? Really?” Abira nodded, and to my great surprise, my mentor seriously considered consuming drugs right in front of me. He caught me staring and shook his head. “No, no, I shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, you should. Used to right along with the rest of us back in the City, it’s not like the herb’s changed any just ’cause you did,” she said.

“I did not change!”

“Guess you’re right. Guess you were always a selfish ass.” There was a moment of heavy, sharp silence. Dirva left the room. He gave no pretense at all, just left. Abira shook it off like a dog shakes off water. She pulled a small wooden pipe and a pouch out of her sleeve. She packed herself a bowl, watching me watching her do it with a sly smile. Her fingers were quick and deft; in a few seconds the pipe was packed, and she fished a match out of her other sleeve. She shoved the pipe and the match at me. “Quick, kid, before he comes back.”

I took it. I admit I was intrigued. My grandmother smoked pipeherb right up until her death. It has a rich smell, one I still associate with her and all her stories of the war in the South and her life before her silver husband swept her away up into the Empire. Thinking back on it, I’m not entirely sure how she supplied herself with it way out there in Ardijan. She was resourceful; she may have grown it herself. Still, though, she never let me have any. My parents very much disapproved of her smoking it, and she said it wasn’t worth the trouble getting me into to trouble with her.