“Hey, the hermit’s come out to join us,” Colt greeted him with his usual edged voice. “Have you decided we’re good enough company for you after all?”

Nolan gave a faint smile. “Sorry,” he said. “Leesa left this morning, and I guess I’m sort of daydreaming.”

“Nothing like food to take your mind off the lack of sex,” Colt said, and Melina burst out laughing. Nolan felt a moment’s shocked outrage sparkle down his spine, but when he saw Pakt’s grin, he managed a weak smile of his own.

“I don’t know,” Nolan said. “It would have to be pretty damn good food.”

“And this isn’t,” Melina said, handing him a sandwich, “but it will have to do.”

“So tell me,” Pakt said, pulling up a chair. As usual, the two gulden men, Melina, and Nolan had fallen into a small closed group while the others held their own conversations around them. It struck Nolan as strange that this should seem so familiar, these three friends, these three mismatched cohorts. “Melina tells me you were both at this famous ball last night. What really did happen with the guldman?”

Nolan shot him a quick, uneasy glance, and then looked over at Colt. Pakt seemed genuinely interested; Colt appeared more suspicious.

“How did you hear about that already?” Melina demanded.

“Word travels fast,” Colt said tightly.

Melina shook her head in wonder. “Well. I don’t want to say anything that riles you, but he was the last person any of the indigo expected to see there. And I know Aliria Carvon was merely trying to be shocking, but I think she really was being deliberately cruel, because she should have known that the last place he would be treated with any civility would be a Higher Hundred ball. He didn’t belong there, and the whole evening became awkward because he was there.”

“I agree he didn’t belong,” Pakt said. “But having brought him there, didn’t she at least owe him some courtesy? As I heard the tale, she abandoned him the minute they came through the door.”

“An hour or so after they arrived,” Melina corrected. “But yes, she abandoned him. And yes, she treated him badly. And I for one think she got what she deserved.”

“Hardly,” Colt said in a low voice. “What she deserved was to be killed for deliberate dishonor.”

“An old code,” Pakt said to him in a gentle voice. “Even in Geldricht, a death over a dishonorable deed is no longer considered honorable in itself.”

“It is by some,” Colt said.