Readying the bath involved a lot of running around and boiling coppers on the fireplace. While everybody else was occupied, Miriam pulled on her overcoat and went exploring, picking up Brilliana as a combination of tour guide and chaperone. She’d been half-asleep from exhaustion when she first arrived—and even more dead to the world after the reception at the palace. Only now was she able to take in her surroundings fully. She didn’t much like what she was seeing.

“This palace,” she said, “tell me about it.”

“This wing? This is the New Tower.” Brilliana followed a pace behind her. “It’s only two hundred and eighty years old.”

Miriam looked up at the roof of the reception room they’d walked into. The plasterwork formed a dizzyingly intricate layering of scalloped borders and sculpted bouquets of fruit and flowers, leaping over hidden beams and twisting playfully around the huge hook from which a giant chandelier hung. The doors and window casements were not built to a human scale, and the benches positioned against each wall looked lost and lonely.

“Who does it belong to?” asked Miriam.

“Why, the Clan.” Brilliana looked at her oddly. “Oh, that’s right.” She nodded. “The families and the braids. You understand them?”

“Not entirely,” Miriam admitted.

“Hmm, I had thought as much.” Brilliana paced toward the far door, then paused. “Have you seen the morning room yet?”

“No.” Miriam followed her.

“Our ancestor Angbard the Sly walked the worlds and accrued a huge fortune. His children lacked the ability, and there were five sons, sons who married and had families, and another six daughters. In that generation some kin married their cousins directly, as was done in those days to forestall dower loss, and the talent was rediscovered. Which was a good thing, because they had fallen upon hard times and were reduced to common merchants. Since then we have kept the bloodline alive by marrying first cousins across alternate generations: Three families are tied together in a braid, two in each generation, to ensure the alliances are kept close. The kin with the talent are shareholders in the Clan, to which all belong. Those who lack the talent but whose children or grandchildren might have it are also members, but without the shares.” She waited at the door for Miriam, then lifted the heavy bolt with two hands and pulled it open.

“That’s amazing,” Miriam said, peering into the vast gloomy recess.