The Complex where Jex Zanlan was being held prisoner. She had not seen him in two weeks, and she had missed him so much that she thought she might go mad. Even now, she wanted to vault from the balcony and follow that fiery beacon to her lover’s side. She wrapped her hands tightly around the railing and forced herself to focus on the contrasting colors, the blue of her fingers cool against the warm bronze of the bar. She stared so hard that the textures melted together, her fingers became metal and the railing itself became liquid and insubstantial.

Sereva’s voice came from inside the double doors that led to the balcony. “Kitrini? What are you doing out there? Come on in before you catch cold.”

“I’m just watching the city lights come up.”

Sereva had come to the doors to take her own look at the city lights. “Well, don’t stand so close to the railing. You’ll fall and break your neck. And how would I explain that to Granmama?”

Kit couldn’t help grinning, but she obligingly stepped away from the balcony and past Sereva into the office. “She would hardly be surprised. She expects me to come to a bad end, anyway.”

“Everyone expects you to come to a bad end,” Sereva said absently. She had returned to her desk and was bending over to look through papers in a file, frowning down at whatever the words or figures told her. “Granmama is just hoping it will not happen while you’re living with her.”

“Oh, well, make no mistake, I am closer to desperate suicide than I have ever been,” Kit said. “Living with that woman! Every day it’s a lecture about something. A remark I’ve made, a color I’ve worn, the fact that she glimpsed me from the window speaking to some guldwoman I passed on the street—because that won’t do, you know, Sereva, it might encourage the poor misbegotten mistreated fool to think she actually has a friend among the blueshis—”

Sereva straightened to stare at her. “Kitrini! Don’t you ever say such a word! No wonder Granmama worries about you—” Kit shrugged impatiently and begin pacing around the room. Blueshi was the ultimate gulden insult that could be leveled at an indigo, although, frankly, Kit had always liked the sort of lilting twist to the word and would have used it all the time if it wasn’t considered so vulgar. She knew what the “shi” suffix meant in the gulden tongue, though, and her ethics prevented her from encouraging verbal violence, so she restricted herself. Unless she was seriously ruffled.