It was one of the longest, most tangled, and most impassioned speeches Kit had ever heard her cousin give. No wonder, though; here, wrapped up in the tight swaddling of filial love, were all the painful issues of the day, issues about gender and heritage and how society valued an individual’s contribution to its greater good. Even unconventional people were wrestling with some of the same questions, and Sereva was not used to having to challenge her most basic assumptions.

“You’ve got time, after all,” Kit said neutrally. “He’s only twelve. In a few years, you may see so many blueskin men taking on jobs in the city that it will seem like the right thing for everyone to do. But if you hold him back now—”

“I know! Exactly! He’ll lose his advantage, he’ll lose his initiative, and then he won’t even have a chance to show us how good he could be! The strange thing is, I don’t think this decision would be nearly so hard if he was my daughter instead of my son. I even think—if one of them had been a girl—I would have spent most of my energy deciding how to direct her. But I can’t stand the thought that my children won’t have the same chances as Yasmina Boswen’s girls. Bascom’s as smart as Marrina. And I won’t hold him back.” She smiled a little painfully over at her cousin. “So you see, you’re not the only rebel in the family.”

“I won’t tell Granmama,” Kit said, returning the smile. “It would do her in. And just for the record, I’m proud of you.”

“Not exactly a comfort to have you on my side,” Sereva said, but she laughed.

Kit laughed back. “Someday it will be,” she said. “Just wait and see.”

*   *   *

So that was the evening, which lasted much longer than Kit was accustomed to. It was close to midnight before they finalized plans for Kit to return the following day, carrying enough luggage to see her through a week. Then Sereva bundled her into the limousine and adjured Simon to drive extremely carefully. Not that there was far to go. For Sereva, for Granmama, for any respectable blueskin matron, there was only one neighborhood in which to locate the town house, and that was a small enough district that, in daylight, Kit wouldn’t have minded making the trek on foot. But now, in the dark and full of food and wine, she was just as glad to be spared the effort. She snuggled deep into the plush leather of the seat and drowsed until Simon pulled up before her grandmother’s house.