“Frankly, no. What I see is a lot of frightened people, none of whom particularly like the way things work, but all of whom think they’ll lose out if anyone else disrupts it. And you know something? They’re wrong and I don’t want to be part of that. You’ve been telling me that I can’t escape the Clan, and I’m afraid you’re right—you’ve convinced me—but that only means I’ve got to change things. To carve out a niche I can live with.” She stood up and walked toward him. “I don’t like the way the families live like royalty in a squalid mess that doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. I don’t like the way their law values people by how they can breed and treats women like chattels. I don’t like the way the outer family feel the need to defend the status quo in order to keep from being kicked in the teeth by the inner families. The whole country is ripe for modernization on a massive scale, and the Clan actually has the muscle to do that, if they’d just realize it. I don’t like the dehumanizing poverty the ordinary people have to live with, and I don’t like the way the crazy fucked-up feudal inheritance laws turn an accident of birth into an excuse for rape and murder. But most of all, I don’t like what they’ve done to you.”

She leaned down and pulled him up by the shoulders, forcing him to stand in front of her. “Look at me,” she insisted. “What do you see?”

Roland looked up at her skeptically. “Do you really think you can take them all on?”

“On my own?” She snorted. “I know I can,” she said fiercely. “All it takes is a handful of people who believe that things can change to start the ball rolling. And that handful has to start somewhere! Now are you with me or against me?”

He hugged her right back, and she felt another response: He was stiffening against her, through his robe. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years. If ever. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Me too, love.”

“But how do you think you’re going to make it work?” he asked. “And stop whoever’s trying to kill you.”

“Oh, that.” She leaned into his arms, letting him pull her back in the direction of the bed. “That’s going to be easy. When you strip away the breeding program, the Clan is a business, right? Family-owned partnership, private shareholdings. Policy is set at annual meetings twice a year, next one at Beltaigne, that sort of thing.”

“So?” He looked distracted, so she stopped fumbling at his belt for a moment.