“Who loves someone else,” Kit said. He had said he did not, but he could have been mistaken; Leesa might be more a part of him than he realized.

“But if he did not? If Analeesa Corova discovered his crazy adventure and said she wanted no part of him? What then? Would you marry him, if he asked you? Would you love him?”

Kit spun around to face her. “How could I do that?” she demanded, almost in tears. “I have spent my whole life denying the importance of, the existence of, the Higher Hundred. I have fought against prestige and family connections—I have disdained everything the high-caste indigo stood for. How could I suddenly say, ‘I’ve changed my mind. This is what matters to me after all. I want to be safe within the society I have mocked.’ I don’t think my conscience would let me do that, no matter what my heart desired. It would be like, after all this time, letting Granmama win in the end.”

“Do you really think,” Sereva exclaimed, “that Granmama would be pleased to see you marry a man so outrageous that he would investigate the leader of his own city, collude with the ruler of the gulden, and threaten your life—all before breaking his engagement with a wonderful girl merely to take your hand in marriage? Do you think she would consider a man like this an improvement? She wanted you to marry some boring, brainless high-caste second son who fit her notions of propriety and decorum. This Nolan person would not have pleased her at all. Don’t let the fear of Granmama’s approval keep you apart from a man you love.”

The sarcasm made Kit blush; she was not used to such a tone from her cousin. “He still represents everything I have consciously rejected in my life,” Kit said defensively. “It is not Granmama’s approval I have to worry about, but my own opinion. I swore I would never marry an indigo man, and my reasons were good. How can I break that promise? How can I allow myself to change so much?”

“Well, if you plan to marry—or not marry—for political reasons, then you are just as bad as any blueskin heiress who plots with her grandmother, looking for a mate,” Sereva said flatly. “I thought your high ideals would save you from that mistake, at least. No one who marries for love marries for her principles at the same time.”

Kit turned away, feeling suddenly exhausted and shrunken. “You don’t understand,” she said in a small voice.

“I understand, all right,” Sereva said. “You’re afraid.”

Kit laughed shortly. “Of everything you can think to name,” she said over her shoulder. “That at least shouldn’t make me unique.”