Marc knew me well enough now to know this wasn’t a topic I cared to belabor, and he changed the subject. “Did you fish much before?”

“When I was younger,” I said. “My father used to take my brother and me, and my friend Sabine would come as well – not because of the fishing, but because she fancies my brother. Sometimes she and I would go, but instead of fishing, we would lie by the banks of the stream and tell stories to each other. And once I learned to read, I would sometimes bring books and read them to her. But I had less time at that point.”

“You learnt to read late,” Marc commented, winding up his fishing line.

I shrugged. “That is a matter of perspective, I suppose. Most Hollow folk can’t read much – there isn’t a need. I wouldn’t have learnt if my mother hadn’t insisted. She started sending tutors to teach me when I was thirteen. I was the only one who received more than a cursory education.” I paused for a minute, then I glanced at Marc, who was silent. “I feel as though that misrepresents them, though. They are very practical folk – everyone knows how to do things. They are a very self-sufficient lot. Just because they can’t read, doesn’t mean they are stupid.”

“I never said it did,” Marc replied.

“I know. But it seems as though you value a different sort of knowledge.”

Marc chuckled softly. “By you do you mean Tristan? Because I have certainly never given you cause to think such a thing.”

I made a non-committal noise. While we had been talking, Victoria and Vincent had decided to wade into the river and were attempting to catch fish with their bare hands. A smile slipped onto my face as I watched their antics. “This city is too small for them,” I said. “I think they are stifled here.”

“The world might be too small for them,” Marc replied, and we both laughed as Victoria threw a fish at Vincent’s head. He promptly grabbed her braid and dunked her under the water.

“When you spoke about your village,” Marc said, “I noticed that you said ‘they’ and not ‘we’. It seemed as though you saw yourself as separate.”

I frowned and plucked at the ribbon on my dress. “I was. My mother and her tutors ensured that. They didn’t just educate me – they changed the way I spoke, the way I moved, the way I acted. At first I tried to be two different people so that I wouldn’t seem strange to everyone, but that didn’t last.” I swallowed hard. “They changed the way I thought – once I could read, especially, it seemed the world grew in leaps and bounds with every passing day. There was so much I wanted to talk about, but no one wanted to listen.” I felt my cheeks flush. “I wanted to leave so badly, and the second I was gone, all I wanted was to go back.”