“We did come straight back,” Qinnitan said in Xixian. She could understand Hierosoline well enough now—the tongues were similar in many ways—or at least make out the sense of most things said to her, but she still did not feel comfortable with her own clumsy speech. “We got lost.”

“It’s so big!” Yazi said. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Mistress. On the Mother, we didn’t!”

Soryaza snorted her disbelief, then spat on the wet floor. “Well, get back to work. And speak Hierosoline, both of you. You aren’t in the south anymore!”

As the laundry-mistress stalked away several of the other women sidled over to find out what had happened. Qinnitan knew most of their names already, although two were new enough she had only seen them and not spoken to them.

“Is she always angry?” asked one of these new workers, an anxious, scrawny young thing with pink-tinged eyes and twitching nose—the others had already named her Rabbit.

“Always,” Yazi said. “Her feet hurt. And her back hurts too.”

“Pah!” said one of the other women. “She’s been saying that for years. Didn’t stop her from picking that boy Gregor up and throwing him out the door when she caught him sleeping in the drying room. Or from kicking over a tub or two when she’s in the mood.”

“Nira, someone said you were a priestess in Xis,” the girl called Rabbit suddenly said to Qinnitan. “Is that true?”

She was always a little slow to recognize her own false name, although she was getting better at it, and speaking Hierosoline slowed her down even more, so it took a moment for the question to sink in. When it did, she felt a chill. By the Dark Queen, does everyone know already? Curse this nest of busybodies, and curse Soryaza—she must have told someone.

Out loud, she said, “I…was not priestess. Just…” She searched for a word, but her command of the language was still weak. “Just helper.”

“In the Hive?” Rabbit asked. “Someone said it was in the Hive. I’ve heard of that place. Was it like they say—did the priests come in and…you know? With the priestesses?”

“Silence, girl,” said one of the other new workers, an old woman with a burn-scarred face and a mouth where dark holes outnumbered ruined teeth. She glared at Rabbit. “Don’t ask so many question. She does not want to talk, maybe.” Her command of Hierosoline was better than Qinnitan’s, but it was easy to hear that she too was a southerner.

“I only wanted to know…!” Rabbit squeaked.

“Tits of the Great Mother, what are you lazy bitches up to?” Soryaza’s voice thundered through the dank room. Her bulky form loomed up out of the washtub fog and the women scattered. “The next one I catch standing and talking might as well go down to the harbor and find a place to stand on Daneya Street with the other whores, because you won’t work for me another moment!”

“Yazi, why are there so many new people?” Qinnitan asked when they were standing over their washing tub again. New faces made her unhappy, and people asking about her history in Xis made her even more so.