That’s not to say that Abi wasn’t training in something. She was training, at least in the sense that she was learning a lot of things, all the time. Her papa, Herald Mags, was the King’s Spy, and all three of his children had been learning the craft from the time they were able to understand what that was. Partly, that had been to keep them out of mischief. But that had also been because they played with and fundamentally lived with the royal children, and Papa and Mama counted on them to help keep the royals safe—and to notice what went on and was said around them. And finally, it was to impress on them how important it was that no one else should know that “good old solid Mags,” whose glory days of being a Kirball champion were long past, and who mostly did boring work in the law courts, was in fact the King’s Spy and thanks to the rigors of the job could probably run every current Kirball champion into the ground and dance on them afterward.

Actually, the training now had gone far past that. Once they were old enough to understand exactly why they were getting this sort of training, Papa had asked them if they actually wanted to help him.

Her older brother Peregrine had said “yes,” and after a fantastic adventure in the Pelagirs that had turned out to be way more exciting than anyone had guessed it would be, had settled right in as one of Papa’s regular agents. She had said “yes” but had yet to do anything to come close to Perry’s adventure; mostly she was just collecting Court gossip. Tory was still too young to be asked, but she was pretty sure he would say “yes” too.

To be absolutely honest, right now there really wasn’t anything else she did want to do with her life, though how long she was going to be useful as Kat’s best friend was debatable, and how else she could serve as a spy was unknown. Unless, perhaps, she could take over Aunty Minda’s brood of orphaned and abandoned street younglings and oversee that part of her father’s “business.”

But almost anyone could do that. She just wished she could think of something that would suit her uniquely.

She was only sure of one thing. She absolutely, positively, did not want to have babies. The poor Queen looked absolutely miserable, as if someone had grafted a melon to the front of her. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, her feet and back hurt all the time, the first part of her pregnancy had involved a lot of throwing up, there were still foods she could not stand to have around, and Abi wouldn’t have been in her shoes for all the crowns of all the Kingdoms she could name—and she could name quite a lot.