Almeysia snorted. “Woodland. Not surprising, then, to see this sort of behavior from you. I’ve told the Kai time and again not to permit you feral dissidents here. The scullery master will be informed of this trespass. Go, before I toss you to the pitcher plants.”

Lilia squeezed past skinny Almeysia and limped down the steps as quickly as she could.

They made it down four more flights before Roh said, “Why was Almeysia taking the scullery stair? She’s allowed to be up there. She could have taken the main stair.”

“She was talking to someone,” Lilia said. “I heard voices.”

“But she was alone.”

“Should we start spying on her, since we’ve already broken a temple law?”

“It wasn’t a very big temple law,” Roh said cheerfully.

“I bet when you’re that old, you’ll talk to yourself, too.”

“It’s a lot like talking to you,” he said, “only I get a lot more compliments.”

They walked down the rest of the stairs in silence. Little lightning jabs of pain spread up Lilia’s leg from ankle to knee. Every few breaths, she coughed. She focused on her breathing and pushed out of the scullery stair and back into the banquet hall. A few Oras generally worked there between meals, sipping cinnamon tea or smoking Tordinian cigarettes, but she saw no one there now. She limped to where she had hidden the laundry, hoping Roh wouldn’t follow.

That’s when she saw the stir of figures standing under the entrance to the foyer. At least a dozen novices and drudges fixed their attention on the giant amberwood door.

Lilia came up behind them, dragging the laundry. A very tall, dark man stood in the foyer, speaking with four of the senior Oras. He wore a long black coat. She saw the hilt of a blade sticking up through the back of it. In Dhai, only trained members of the militia were allowed to carry weapons.

“Who is he?” Roh asked as he came up behind her.

One of the novices, a boy named Kihin, glanced back at them and said, “He’s a sanisi, all the way from Saiduan.”

“I’ve seen sanisi in books,” Roh said. “He doesn’t look like a sanisi. Not a real one.”

“Ora Ohanni found him trying to get through the webbing around the garden,” Kihin said. “I guess they don’t have web fences there. My father says–”

But at that moment, the sanisi raised his voice and turned toward them. “Bring me to your Kai or I will cut my way to her. I’m here to save your maggoty, cannibalistic little country. Against my better judgment.”

The sanisi’s gaze met Lilia’s. He frowned. She stepped behind Kihin, trying to avoid the stranger’s look. Roh glanced back at her.