“Obviously, such activities do not keep you well enough occupied,” Dasai said, “if you have so much extra energy that it must be expended running after dancers in the dark. I would prefer you employ such energies in something useful.”

“Yes, Ora Dasai.” Roh walked back to his bedroom. Luna and Kihin were still talking.

Luna looked much younger in the low light, slender and spry; his eyes were big and nearly black, the lashes long and delicate like a child’s. Luna slid off the bunk and said, in slightly accented Dhai, “I should go.”

Roh sat down at his desk to write a letter. It was time. He hunched over the low desk, working through the Kai cipher in his head.

“What are you writing?” Kihin asked.

“Nothing,” Roh said.

It was true. For all the scribbling, the only thing the note really said was:

Ora Dasai has found two texts. May be omajista guides. Says many records related to training omajistas may have been purged. Will write again when we find one of those texts. Invaders progress about the same. Patron says they will stay here through the winter.

But Roh had not had time to look for anything at all while dancing in the dark. His mornings in the archives, he merely acted as a runner, and Dasai didn’t talk about how much he learned from the book. Roh hadn’t read any more himself. Chali chided him for it, but Dasai seemed to prefer it. Dasai wanted him to get something of use from the dancers, he knew, but the more dead ends they ran into, the more resolute Roh became in why he was really here. He wanted to be a sanisi, not a spy. Because as hard as he tried, all he could think of was Abas’s smooth skin, and whirling sanisi in the courtyard, dancing with air and death.

Chapter 30

30

“Did you sleep?” Liaro asked from the doorway.

Ahkio peered up at him from the stack of temple maps on the tea table in his rooms. Para was well above the horizon, and a hint of the double suns already kissed the treetops. He’d lost track of time. “No. Did you?”

“Not really,” Liaro said, shutting the door, “but I suspect I had a lot more fun than you did. What’s this?”

Ahkio turned the pages over. “A very old conversation between my aunt and my sister.”

“You mean Nasaka?”

“No. Etena.”

“Really? Well. That’s interesting. You know you have a bunch of clan leaders downstairs who want to keep talking government today.”

“I’m aware.” Ahkio rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to bathe and change. If Caisa comes in, tell her to leave these pages for me today. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Does this tell you what Kirana was up to in the temples?”