“I know it’s boring.” She closed the book, setting it on her outstretched legs. “That’s sort of the point.”

“Why would that be the point?”

“Because if it’s boring,” Brella explained, “people won’t pay attention to it.”

Scratch ran her hand over the nape of her neck, feeling the newly shorn strands. When they had reached the clearing, Brella had tidied up Scratch’s new haircut. There were no mirrors, nor a reflective pool in which she could admire herself, but, by Brella’s satisfied glances, Scratch suspected she looked a bit of all right.

“Why wouldn’t the king want people to pay attention to his decrees? I’ve met him. The man loves the sound of his own voice.”

Brella paused for a long moment. “Do you know how nationality works in Ivinscont?”

“Um, if you’re born in Ivinscont, you’re a national of Ivinscont?”

“For most, yes. Not for all. Not for Kyrians or Westerners.”

Scratch sat up at that. “Now, I know that’s not true.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. Once those states became part of our land, their people came under our flag. A strong and watched o’er people—”

“Under our banner high. I know, Scratch.” Brella sighed and closed the book, laying it on her outstretched legs. “But.”

“But?”

“But.” She tapped the cover with a long finger. “Decree Seventy-Six: though they be lawful Ivinscontians, the people of Kyria will for life maintain their national status as Kyrians, as will the generations that they beget. Decree Ninety-Four added Westerners to that, too.”

“You have it memorized?”

She waved her hand noncommittally. “Most of it. Anyway, Seventy-Six means they’re Ivinscontians, but they’re also not Ivinscontians.”

Scratch scrunched her forehead. “But that’s good, right? If they want to maintain any, you know, feeling for where they’re from, what their region was like before it was Ivinscont, they get to keep that.”

Brella tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Sure. But.”

“More but.”

She huffed out a laugh. “With me, Scratch, you’ll always get more ‘but.’”

How Brella managed to ignore the heat rising to Scratch’s face, she didn’t know. It felt like an inferno.

“But,” Brella continued heavily, “that also means they’re a different class of person. Kyrians and Westerners can’t join guilds.”

“They can’t?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “They can join the Academy.”

“Yes.”

“I doubt they would have the coin to join guilds anyway,” Scratch reasoned. “I certainly couldn’t have. I didn’t have a copper.”

“Nor did I, not so long ago.”

“So what’s the trouble, really? The Academy is the only way for someone with no coin to end up with any coin.”

Brella took a deep breath. “The Academy is another issue entirely.”

“Oh gods, Brella. Not another ‘but.’”

“I didn’t say ‘but’!’”

“It was implied.”