Behind the primrose girl stood a man and a woman dressed in undyed linen. They bowed low as Talon entered the house.

Servants! Storm couldn’t help staring at the pair, who kept their eyes carefully downcast. She had heard that Pact members had people living in their houses whose only jobs were to wait upon their masters, bringing them clothes and food, and doing all the cleaning and cooking, but she had hardly believed such tales.

Talon reached out a crimson-spiked hand and his daughter grasped his fingers with a flutter of a yellow silk sleeve. They turned to face Storm, as though waiting for her applause.

Show-offs! said Storm’s mind-voice. Both of them. But she was entranced in spite of herself.

“Betaan, here is our guest, Yanlin’s famous Weather-witch. I am sure the two of you will become fast friends.”

Talon’s daughter granted Storm a bright smile, then bent her head in greeting. Long plaits of glossy black hair, twined with rose-coloured ribbons, spilled over her shoulders. Storm gazed with longing at the other girl’s beautiful hair. When she had been made a non-sex, her cherished plaits, laced with ribbon and as long as her arm, had been cut off and what remained of her hair tied in a topknot. Her neck and shoulders felt suddenly naked. Betaan made her feel too clumsy, too sea-browned, too plainly dressed, too everything!

“Show Storm where she is to live, Daughter,” directed Talon. “She will doubtless wish to tidy up for this evening.”

Talon clicked his fingers and the male servant darted forward to help him remove his outer robe. The head of the Pact held out his right foot, and the man knelt to untie the toe and remove the shoe. He presented his master with embroidered silk slippers, and Talon scuffed his feet into them.

“I bid you farewell until this evening, Storm,” said Talon. “We have arranged a gathering of the Fifteen Families. Betaan will keep you company until then.” He gave her a graceful bow and strode off into the interior of the house.

“Come with me.” Betaan made the command sound like a request. Her voice was breathy, like a wooden flute. “I’m sure we will become great friends.”

Was that a command too? Storm wondered, as she followed Talon’s daughter up a flight of stairs.

5

She had never been in a building with more than one floor. Storm climbed the wooden stairs slowly, staring at the paintings covering the walls. They showed people dressed like Talon and his daughter wandering through lush gardens, feasting, riding in gilded palanquins, overseeing the unloading of cargo in Bellum’s harbour. Betaan’s ancestors, Storm imagined. Those who had lived in this huge, rich house in distant times. It made her heart thump to see dead eyes looking out from the paintings as though they could still see.