“We are above a garden. There is no one below. Anyway, the whole High quarter is still asleep. It’s only just past noon.”

“You wasted it.”

“You didn’t want it and neither did I.” She tucked half her smile away when she saw me shake my head. “Very well, I won’t do it again. Let’s find something you do like. We need to nourish you. Since you slept in a tree. Try a pancake with jam.”

“I didn’t sleep in it. At least, not on purpose. I was—”

“Spying?”

She reached across the table to spread the purple jam on a pancake that she placed on my plate. I was too surprised to stop her. This entire breakfast was surreal. No one had ever served me anything before.

“I don’t understand why a councilman would water a tree,” she said. “Middlings with special scripts to serve the High Kith tend to gardens. And clean, and run errands, and generally do all the things no one really wants to do.”

“That’s why it is so interesting.” I took a bite of the jammy pancake. The delicious goo of jam and the sunny taste of butter flooded my mouth. “What is this?”

“Perrin jam.”

“Perrins.” I lowered the next forkful. “I can’t eat perrins. They’re not my kith.”

“Yes, you can.”

I smiled. “You’re right.” I reached for more jam.

“Look at you, taking what you want. So very High of you.”

I made an incredulous noise.

“What?” she said.

I remembered perfectly the last time I’d seen myself in a reflection, in one of Terrin’s mirrors. I hadn’t looked carefully, true, but even so I could see how faded my face was, the grim set of my mouth, the black messy blur of my hair. The idea that anything about me was High seemed like another one of Sid’s jokes. I brushed past her question. “I think there was something in that councilman’s watering can other than water,” I said. “Something that he couldn’t entrust to a Middling gardener. Something that makes that tree tell fortunes.”

She considered this, nodding—not in immediate agreement, but in recognition of a valid interpretation.

“Will there be councilmen at tonight’s party?” I asked.

“Doubtful. They serve the Lord Protector. They are too serious for parties. We should go anyway. I want to know what you make of the night’s entertainment.” Then she hesitated, her eyes roving over me. “Do you like what you’re wearing?”

I glanced down at my pale brown dress with its frayed hem. “I don’t know.”