A small smile flickered across her face. “It’s that obvious, is it? I do despise so much about the indigo. Maybe because my father did. Maybe because I think—with all their advantages—they really should be better than they are. You’re right that they’re no worse than the gulden. But they’re almost as restrictive. They’re not as violent to their own people, but they’ve been ruthless with the gulden. I expect them to be more enlightened, I suppose, and I’m furious that they’re not. They’re greedy and small-minded and obsessed with prestige, and I don’t see how that makes them superior to the gulden in any way. And the fact that they think they are galls me no end.”

“Then if you’re so interested in change,” he said, “why don’t you work to change your own race?”

Now it was her turn to look out the window, letting the shadows of the passing landscape mask the thoughts behind her eyes. “Maybe I will,” she said. “How do you know? Maybe I’ve been doing it all along.”

*   *   *

They did not speak for another two hours, by which time it was almost full dark. They were in more densely populated territory now, and every thirty minutes or so they passed through another town. Here the streets were extremely wide and the houses were gigantic—huge, rambling structures in which additional stories appeared to have been grafted on at random, with no attention paid to previous materials or styles. They were built of a motley but somehow pleasing assortment of red brick, pastel granite, painted wood, dark marble, and white stone, with accents of copper, ceramic, and plaster. Every house, even the smallest, blazed with color against the twilight, and even the meanest lawn was freshly mowed and neatly trimmed.

Nolan pointed as their train eased through one such town. “Those houses are enormous,” he said. “Who lives there? Rich people? How can there be that many wealthy people in one place?”

Kit shook her head. “Those are clan homes. Multigenerational. You might have as many as ten families living under one roof. Typically, that would be a man and his wife and his unmarried children—as well as his married children, with their spouses and children—and sometimes their children. Occasionally, two brothers will share a house, and all their offspring. Occasionally, a widowed woman will return to her clan home, if there has been no husband found for her elsewhere.”

“And why are they built so oddly? As if they were just thrown together?”