So she did little things for Papa, and she spent the rest of the time learning things. She took classes at all three of the Collegia. She trained in weapons-work with the Collegia Weaponsmaster and with Master Leandro, who had trained her father. Her father trained her in spycraft, her mother in statecraft—in the latter case, mostly by allowing her to observe what went on in Council meetings and other business of the King. She did that by serving as a page—a heavily armed page. In effect, as the sort of guard that an attacker would probably overlook, should anyone be stupid enough to try anything in a Council meeting. And she had about as much leisure time as any of the Trainees, which was to say, quite a bit more than most girls her age, who were already hard at work every waking hour either as servants or working on a farm. And she made a point of enjoying every minute of that leisure, because she had the feeling that when she figured out what it was she wanted to do with the rest of her life, most of that leisure time would vanish like snow in a fire.

Today, however, she was not enjoying her “leisure.” Then again, this wasn’t so much leisure as it was a chore.

At the moment, they were riding on a cobblestoned street that ran past all the fine mansions of the merely rich (as opposed to the rich and highborn). The road was practically deserted; there wasn’t a soul in sight who didn’t have to be out in this weather. But from the windows of these varied manses came warm, golden light that looked very inviting right now, and Abi wished she were inside, toasting her toes in front of a nice fire, preferably with a book.

She didn’t envy the people her age who were in those houses though; the ones who weren’t already apprentices in the businesses that had made their families wealthy were involved in a complicated and sometimes cutthroat social dance to acquire the perfect spouse, and that brought her right back to marriage and babies and . . . ugh.

She really envied Perry right now. He was snug in the pawn shop, and if he wanted anything, he could send one of the littles from Aunty Minda’s next door out after it; they were either runners or runners-in-training (also in Papa’s employ) and completely expected to be asked to do things like that. He probably wouldn’t do that, though. He’d go fetch it himself rather than make a child trudge around Haven in miserable weather.