“What I’m saying is, we grate on each other night and day. I go out of my way to avoid her—and in that ancestral mansion you would think it would be easy—but she’s decided I’ve come home to her to reform. I do my best to be meek and sweet-tempered when I’m around her, but we all know I’m not meek and sweet-tempered. It’s wearing on me.”

“She only wants what’s best for you. She only wants you to be well and happy.”

Kit flung herself into a chair and stared at her cousin. After her father had died, Sereva was the only family member Kit could honestly say she liked. Of course, she had had no dealings with her father’s relatives, for they had cast him off before she was born. It was her mother’s family she had to contend with, Granmama especially. Lorimela Candachi had shown every sign of trying to reclaim her granddaughter, replacing the daughter she had lost to a mid-caste indigo boy nearly thirty years ago. The fact that Kit had no wish to be reclaimed did not deter Granmama at all.

“She does not care if I am well or happy,” Kit replied, speaking each word with precision. “What she wants is to indoctrinate me. She wants me to be just like her. And like you, and like every other Candachi woman in the history of Inrhio.”

“I’m happy to hear you rate me so highly,” Sereva said. “I’m glad you think I’m just as good as every other blueskin woman that you despise so much.”

Kit grinned slightly. “Well, you are just as bad as the rest of them. You’re a high-caste indigo woman with a well-run ancestral estate, a handpicked husband, and an unshakable belief that the world goes on exactly as it should. Why should I think you’re any different from the rest?”

“Because I put up with you,” Sereva answered a little curtly. “That ought to earn me a little credit in your eyes.”

Kit’s expression softened. “Oh, it does. To tell you the truth, I’ve never understood why you do put up with me. I can’t be an easy friend for someone like you to have.”

Sereva slung her briefcase strap over her shoulder and flicked off the overhead lamp. Instantly, darkness leapt inside the room, crouched at their feet and looked around. The moving lights of traffic made flowing, uncertain patterns on the pale walls. Sereva took three swift steps to her cousin’s side, and Kit rose quickly to her feet.