“Tessis? You’re going all the way to Syan?” Briony swayed a little on her tiny stool, dizzy with relief. Bless you, Lisiya—and you, dear, kind Zoria.

“Eventually we shall wind our way thither, yes. Perhaps a few testings of our new material in the outlying towns—The Ravishment of Zoria has never seen a true audience and I would like to let it breathe a few free breaths before it is stifled by the jades in Tessis.”

“The Ravishment…I don’t understand.”

“The Ravishment of Zoria. It is a play of mine, newish, concerning the abduction of Zoria by Khors and his imprisonment of her, and the fateful beginning of the war between the gods. With real thunderstorms, lightning, magical sleights, and the fearful rumble of the gods on their immortal steeds, all for two coppers!” He smiled again. “I am rather proud of it, truth to tell. Whether it is my best work, though, only time and the hoi polloi of Syan will say.”

“But you…you’re all from the March Kingdoms, aren’t you? Why are you going to Syan? Why can’t you do your plays in Southmarch?”

“Spoken as someone who understands little of the doings of artists and nobles,” said Teodoros, his smile gone now. “We were Earl Rorick’s Players, inherited by the earl from his father of the same name. We were also the best and most respected of the Southmarch players—whatever you have heard about the Lord Castellan’s Men is rubbish. The Firmament itself was ours until it burned (that is a theater, child) and then afterward the Odeion Playhouse inside the castle walls and the great Treasury Theater in the mainland city both fought for our works. But young Rorick is dead, you see.”

“Dead? Rorick Longarren?” She only realized after she said it that perhaps it would seem strange she should know his full name.

Teodoros nodded. “Killed by fairies, they say. In any case, he did not come back from the battle at Kolkan’s Field and he has no heir, so we are left without a patron. The country’s guardian, kindly Lord Tolly, does not like players, or at least he does not like players with connections to the monarchy that was. He has given his own support to a group of players—players, hah! They are bandits, so criminal is their writing and their declaiming—under the patronage of a young idiot baron named Crowel. And so there is nothing for us to do but starve or travel.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “We decided travel would be more graceful and less painful.”

After Teodoros went back out to join his fellow players by the fire, Briony curled up on the floor of the wagon—choosing not to put Finn Teodoros’ professed disinterest in women to too harsh a test—and pulled the playwright’s traveling cloak over her. The news that her cousin Rorick was dead had disturbed her, even though she had never liked him. He had been in the same battle as Barrick and had not survived it. She did her best to let the sounds of talking and singing from outside the wagon soothe her. She was among people, even if they were only rough sorts, and not alone anymore. Briony fell asleep quickly. If she dreamed, she did not remember it in the morning.