While I nibbled on a cracker, I pretended to watch the dancers. Aaru and I weren’t the only people standing on the outskirts of the floor, looking around at the other guests. Across the room, I caught Mother’s eye—and quickly looked away before anyone noticed an energy between us. Still, I wished I could speak with her. Ask her questions about what happened in Crescent Prominence. Hug her.

Maybe there was a way to free her.

I pulled myself up straight, putting on the expression of this Bophan woman who Chenda had painted onto me, not letting it slide for even a heartbeat as I looked for other familiar faces.

There was Dara Soun and several senators, the matriarchs, and the tribunal. Everyone who’d been brought here by ship was standing together, eating and talking among themselves. Not dancing. The only officials who were dancing belonged to the Fire Ministry. But the “guests” all looked healthy. Fed, clothed, and probably given everything they could want. That was the high magistrate’s way: flattery and bribery.

Notably absent: Elbena and Tirta.

I had no doubts that Paorah had taken them from Altan’s safe house the other night, but if he’d wanted to use them, shouldn’t they be here? Maybe they’d make an entrance later, although no one would believe that the Hopebearer would have voluntarily missed the memorial earlier.

I put that worry aside, scanning the room for Ilina’s father. He wasn’t here, but that wasn’t a surprise. I did spot the twenty-five Anaheran guards who stood along the perimeter of the room, but if I hadn’t been looking for them, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Not with all the surrounding splendor, meant to dazzle and distract.

“Do you see our friend?” I leaned toward Aaru so that my elbow brushed his sleeve.

He shook his head. “I don’t know what to look for.”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? Nine might be willing to talk to me, but they didn’t know we were looking for them. And we didn’t know what they looked like—besides like a normal person—so we would have to do this the hard way. Mother always said that people made room for beautiful ladies, and if there was one thing I knew about myself, it was that even scarred, even sharp, even haunted, I was beautiful.

Aaru and I finished our food and handed the plates to a passing servant. Then, with my hand on Aaru’s arm again, I guided him toward the nearest cluster of people I didn’t know. By their dress, most were Daminan, which felt a little dangerous. But when one of the women looked up and waved Aaru and me toward them, no recognition sparked in her eyes, just interest. Introductions went around, and the conversation—about the state of trade now that Idris was gone—resumed with ease.

“Cotton and sugar are what you want to watch.” Thoman was a Daminan businessman, the kind who owned a fleet of cargo ships and sent his captains to command better and better deals for him. “Without Idris, demands on those crops will go up. It’s rare now. Impossible to get more of the Idrisi quality we’re all used to. In Golden Cove”—that was a city on the western side of Damyan—“seamstresses and tailors are already buying all the cotton they can afford. I raised my prices three hundred percent, and I’ve made a small fortune in the last decan.”