“You just have to let go, Fift,” Squell said. “It’s not too late! No permanent harm has been done. But you have to let these dangerous temptations go!”

Squell’s tears, vir flushed pink face, the fact that ve was filling Fift’s room with vir fluttery emotional vailish excess—it was too much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Father Squell,” ze said. Maybe the house would claim ze was lying; ze didn’t care. “You’re just being unfair. Shria’s my friend and it’s not vir fault . . . ve’s doing vir best to fix things. Vir ratings, I mean.” Hrotrun would have to accept Shria’s challenge, and their conflict would be moved to the mats where it belonged. Shria would win, and it would be a coup for vem to win a formal match so young, which would blot out the disgrace of the riot and save vir cohort. “Look, maybe I could . . . I could take a break, stay at home, for a few weeks, okay? But—”

Ze was a little ways past the apartment on a lane that meandered through gardens and pavilions down to the edge of Foo. It was a strange message from Dobroc, all right. There was something charmingly quirky about its randomness. Abador gave Minth the Singing Fruit while sitting on a noise-canceling couch in the middle of a maelstrom, before Minth’s hour of destiny. It was a famous, and moving, story. But Abador was a Vail, which made the whole allusion rather strange!

Although Fift had never gotten one zirself before, ze knew that Staids zir age sent each other flowery letters full of classical citations and subtle allusions to mutual devotion all the time. But the Temptation of Minth? If Dobroc was sedately flirting, why not reference some devoted Staid couple—why not Sprioli and Funarn, or Ranim and Pugari, or even Imim and Balranti?

At the edge of a metalscrap garden, zir pace slowed. Was it actually an insult? An accusation? Was even Dobroc insinuating things about Shria? No, that was surely paranoid . . .

“A few weeks might do it,” Squell said, “as long as you don’t get any more audience! That’s the important thing. If we can just keep this a private matter until things stabilize again. Oh, I’m so angry at the Clowns!”

No. That made no sense. Seeking out a more marginal Staid just to mock zir didn’t fit Dobroc’s profile; ze was no Umlish. But it would also be very odd for Dobroc—a staidchild who’d made it to ranked dialectical subcurrent initiator at the age of seventeen—to choose an inapt passage!

Of course . . . Dobroc also knew full well that Fift’s parents would read whatever ze sent Fift. What if the murkiness was intentional? What if ze were trying to slip some kind of secret subtext past them?