After dinner, Kihin climbed into his bunk above Roh and said, “I bet the other scholars won’t work with us because we’re Dhai. You saw they didn’t let Luna eat with us.”

“Luna’s that other Dhai, the… slave?” Roh said.

“Yes, Aramey told me,” Kihin said. “Luna was a Woodland Dhai. Some Dorinah raiding party caught him on the coast and sold him off to the Saiduan.”

“You best be using hir correct pronoun in Saiduan,” Dasai said, in Saiduan.

“I’m not an impolite person,” Kihin said, also in Saiduan. “I’m aware of hir pronoun.”

Roh sighed, and said in Dhai, “Ora Dasai, why would the Patron bring us all this way and then not have us all work together? Do they want to save this place or not?”

“That’s a matter of degree,” Dasai said.

Roh turned. Dasai stood in the doorway, leaning on his cane. “How did the dancing go?”

“They all hate me,” Roh said. “The same way all the scholars hate us. I thought all those stories were a long time ago. Why do they still hate us?”

“Give it time.”

“Time’s something we don’t have,” Kihin said, “if omajistas are dropping people into Saiduan.”

“Why don’t the Saiduan do things that make sense?” Roh said. “None of this is logical at all.”

“Logic?” Dasai said. “People do not take actions based on logic. We make choices based on emotion. Every one of us. Then we use what we call logic to justify our choices. People don’t do things that make sense.”

“I’m very logical,” Roh said.

Dasai raised his brows. Roh saw a rare smile touch the corners of his lips. “You are one of the most impulsive people I know,” Dasai said, “and I have trained hundreds of novices and scholars.”

Kihin snickered.

As the long, cold days in Saiduan continued to pass, the dancing did not get any easier. Roh moved from the more familiar forms to the vonov, which, as the Patron had told him, was much more fluid and required a closer proximity to the other dancers. Despite the fact that the rest of the keep was drafty, an hour into practice, they all danced shirtless, and Roh found he moved with and among a throng of wiry, beautiful dancers. He did not allow himself to dwell on that until after he finished a set, and then he gazed out at the dark-eyed, dark-skinned men and was slightly breathless, too warm. He had to avert his eyes, temper desire.

One of the dancers, a sloe-eyed man called Abas, pressed a hand to the small of Roh’s back after one of the sets. Roh started. He was trying to get used to the casual, nonconsensual touching, but it still bothered him.

Abas said, “You are not so hopeless, boy. Does that chaperone never leave you?”

“I’ve been told I’m dangerous without a chaperone.”