“I must admit, Magister,” I said to Vinda, “you are the last person I thought would embrace so enthusiastically such radical principles as an elected Assembly and the right of women within a community to stand for Assembly just like men.”

“Why should that surprise you?” she asked. “I see no reason women should not act in the same capacity as men. Is the mage craft within a woman’s body worth less than that in a man’s? Has the Lord of All not given both women and men voices with which to speak and to sing?” She paused. “You look surprised.”

“I thought the mage Houses objected to anything new, like the combustion engine or airships or any sort of radical philosophy. In Adurnam, it’s only been in the last fifteen years that girls were even allowed to attend the academy college. Of course we sat upstairs in the women’s balcony, or at separate tables on the other side of the room from the boys. I thought mages must therefore also object to educating women.”

“Where do you think the fashion of educating girls alongside boys comes from, if not from mage Houses? We have always trained our girls as well as our boys.”

As we arrived at that moment at the establishment Pinfeather & Quill, I had no opportunity to reply that my own people had done the same. A bell tinkled as we entered the front room. Its counter was covered with printed pamphlets, and a press thumped in the back. The smell of ink and dust pervaded the air. A drably feathered troll pushed through the curtain separating the two rooms.

“Magister Vinda. Maestra Bell Barahal.” Tewi had the facility of all trolls to mimic human accents exactly and had quickly adapted her speech to mine, so she was much easier for me to understand than were most of the residents of Sala. “How is it with you this day?”

We shook hands. She had a bitter scent, like aniseed, not unpleasant but not attractive. Her head swiveled almost back-to-front to mark the entrance of a second troll, a shorter, brightly plumaged male. He gave a bobbing courtesy, but his gaze tracked us in a most alarming way. With ink-stained talons he poured out tea and uncovered bowls to reveal nuts and dried fruit, then stood by the door measuring the four nervous servants as for dinner. Tewi paced through the formalities in a rote way different from Chartji’s or Keer’s, as if she had taught herself rules for how to deal with humans rather than having grown up among them.

After the preliminaries Tewi indicated the papers. “You are finished with the third article? The pamphlets describing the Taino kingdom have sold well so far.”

“This is my description of how Expedition’s radicals overthrew the Council and instituted an Assembly and charter. General Camjiata figures prominently in the tale.”