“Ho, there you are! Wait for me!”

Qinnitan flinched reflexively—in the back of her mind she was always waiting for the moment one of the autarch’s minions would lay a hand on her—although within half a heartbeat she had known who it was.

“Nikos.” She sighed and turned around. “Were you following me?”

“No.” He was taller than his father Axamis, all the size of a man and none of the gravity or sense, the fuzz of his first black beard covering his chin, cheeks, and neck. He had trailed her like an oversized puppy since his father had first brought her home. “But he was, and I followed him.” Nikos pointed at the small, silent boy who was standing so close to her he must have come within arm’s reach without her even hearing.

“Pigeon!” she said, frowning at him. “You were to stay in bed until you’re well.”

The mute boy smiled and shook his head. His face was even paler than usual, and he had a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. He held out his hands, palm up, to show that as far as he was concerned he was too healthy to be left at home.

“Where are you going, Qinnitan?” Nikos asked.

“Don’t call me by that name! I wasn’t going anywhere. I was thinking, enjoying the quiet. Now it’s gone.”

Nikos was immune to such remarks. “Some big ships just came in from Xis. Do you want to go down to the harbor to look at them? Maybe you know some of the people on board.”

Qinnitan could not think of anything more foolish or dangerous. “No, I do not want to go look at them. I’ve told you—your father has told you—that I can have nothing to do with anyone from the south. Nothing! Do you never learn?”

Now he did look a little hurt, her tone finally piercing the armor of his nearly invincible disinterest in anything outside his tiny circle of familiarity. “I just thought you might like it,” he said sullenly. “That you might be a little homesick.”

She took a breath. She could not afford to anger Nikos as long as she lived in his house. The problem was, the boy fancied her. It was ludicrous that she was suffering from the unwanted attentions of a lumbering child her own age when only weeks before the greatest king in the world had kept her locked away in the Seclusion, threatening death to any whole man who so much as looked at her, but along with freedom, she was learning, came the costs of freedom.

She let Nikos trail after her as they climbed the winding streets of Fox-gate Hill in the shadow of the old citadel walls, up into the crocus-starred heights where shops and taverns gave way to the houses of the wealthy, pretty white-plastered places with high walls that concealed gardens and shady courtyards, although all these secrets could be seen from the streets above, so that each level of society was exposed to the inspection of its wealthier neighbors. These houses, despite their size and beauty, still stood close together, side by side along the hilly roads like seashells left along the line of the retreating tide. She could only imagine what it would be like to live in such a place instead of Captain Dorza’s noisy, rickety house that smelled of fish and spilled wine. She wondered even more acutely what it would be like to have a house of her own, a place where no one entered without her permission, where she did what she wanted, spoke as she wanted.