Miriam went into a state of acute culture shock almost immediately, allowing the Misses Kara and Brilliana to steer her like a galleon under full sail. Someone bellowed out her name—or the parcel of strange titles by which she was known here. She shook herself for a moment when she saw heads turn to stare at her—some inquisitive, some surprised, others supercilious, and some hostile—the names meant nothing to her. All she could think of was trying not to trip over her aching toes and keeping the glassy-eyed shit-eating grin steady on her rouged and strained face. This isn’t me, she thought vaguely, being presented to a whirl of titled pompous idiots and simpering women swathed in silk and furs. This is a bad dream, she repeated to herself. She shied away from the idea that these people were her family, that she might had to spend the rest of her life attending this sort of event.

Miriam had done formal dinners and award ceremonies before, dinner parties and cocktail evenings, but nothing that came close to this. Even though—from Olga’s vague but enthusiastic description of the territories—Niejwein was a small kingdom, not much larger than Massachusetts and so dirt-poor that most of the population lived on subsistence farming, its ruling royalty lived in a casual splendor far beyond any ceremonial that the head of a democratic nation would expect. It was an imperial reception, the prototype that the high school prom or its upmarket cousin, the coming-out ball, aped. Someone clapped a glass into her gloved hand—it turned out to be a disgustingly sweet fruit wine—and she politely but firmly turned down so many invitations to dance that she began to lose track. Please, make it all go away, she whimpered to herself, as Kara–Brilliana steered her into a queue running along a suspiciously red carpet toward a short guy swathed in a white fur cloak that looked preposterously hot.

“Her excellency Helge Thorold Hjorth, daughter and heir of Patricia of Thorold, returned from exile to pay tribute at the court of his high majesty, Alexis Nicholau III, ruler in the name of the Sky Father, blessed and awful be he, of all of the Gruinmarkt and territories!”

Miriam managed a deep curtsy without falling off her heels, biting her lip to keep from saying anything inappropriate or incriminating.