“I don’t think it is.”

“Such a relief,” she said dryly. “It’d be a little late for you to decide I’m immoral. Are we done talking about me? Because I want to show you something.”

“But I need to know the rules.”

“Rules?” She widened her eyes. Laughing, she said, “Are you asking for a handbook on the seduction of women? It is an art, Nirrim, not a science. Oh, you didn’t like that. Such a scowl! Are you going to stamp your foot?”

“You make light of everything.”

“I make nothing too heavy to bear.”

“I am not asking how you make women love you.”

“Who said anything about love?”

“I need to know the rules here in the High quarter. If they’re different from what I grew up with. All the rules.”

“Well, all the rules is quite a tall order. Let’s start with the one you keep tiptoeing around so delicately, like you’re going to offend me, which you won’t, probably, unless you do decide I am a deviant monster, which some people do, but none whose company I care to keep. It is not against the law in the High quarter for a woman to be with a woman or for a man to be with a man. No one is going to prison for it. I’m not sure why it’s different in the Ward, except that the Council wants the Half Kith to make babies. To build up the workforce, I imagine. Here, beyond your wall, the High Kith are concerned with concentrating wealth within families, which means having one or—at most—two children. And the High Kith care most about pleasure, so they don’t mind others seeking it. Are there some who might look at me with dislike? Yes. Will they get in my way? They had better not. Even that lord who had me arrested for thievery probably cared less that I was a woman than that his wife had played him for a fool. Now. Are the rules clear? Need we talk about people hating me?” Her tone was airy, but her dark eyes now had a hard, lacquered look to them. “We can do that if you want, but it’s an ugly topic for a pretty day.”

“No.” It hurt to think of anyone hating her. “I want to see what you want to show me.”

It was a tree, set apart from the others, smaller, wizened—and, oddly, with patches of gold on its trunk. I walked barefoot across the grass to it, sandals still dangling from my hand.