“She might make a good recruit for your father, then,” Kat observed.

Abi chuckled. “You’d make a good recruiter.”

Kat raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m not already?”

“If you were, I’d know.” Abi laughed as Kat stuck her tongue out at her. “I would, and you know it!”

“Well, it’s not for lack of looking, I just haven’t found anyone outside of the Heraldic Trainees I’d trust enough,” Kat admitted. “And your father doesn’t need agents among the Trainees, he needs a couple among the houses on the Hill.”

“’Struth,” she replied as they got to her door. “Coming in?”

“Not tonight. I have an exam in the morning. I’m a Princess, you’d think they’d just pass me without the work, but no!”

Abi laughed. “All right then, good night. Don’t make your head explode with studying!”

“Small chance of that,” Kat grinned back and went on down the hall to the door to the Royal Suite at the end of it.

Now, let’s see how much farther ahead I can get than the rest of my class, so I can get as much time off during the Fair as possible. I have the feeling I might need it.

6

By dint of a lot of candle-burning and serious study, Abi managed to get a whole week ahead of the rest of the Blues in her class—and made sure her father knew about this. So when the first day of the Fair dawned, he had managed to wrangle a week’s worth of time off for her, citing “family matters.”

She and Perry went down together; their initial project was to memorize the layout of the Fair, which differed slightly every year, due to the placement of the large entertainment and food tents. They spent the entire first day just walking the Fair over and over, so that both of them knew the entire Fair as well as they knew the layout of the Palace, the Collegia, and the Great Houses on the Hill.

Having done that, they split up for the second day. This time, instead of concentrating on the Fair itself, they concentrated on the fairgoers. Both of them were dressed so as to be as inconspicuous and unmemorable as possible. They both wore simple outfits of a linen shirt, canvas trews that were well-worn but not shabby, and a canvas tunic that didn’t match the trews. This outfit was not so good that it would attract the attention of a thief, but also did not signal poverty and thus might attract the attention of the Watch and suspicion from vendors. Insofar as the Watch was concerned, they wanted to avoid being trailed by a large, armed uniform fellow wearing a warning frown, because that would just draw unwanted scrutiny.