he felt a part of him try and spiral into self-pity again. He didn’t let that happen.

His first appointment with Professor Audel was at the Imperial College, on a clear and sharply cold day that dawned free of snow. Even taking a flyer to the College felt more intimidating without Kiem there. Not only had Kiem known where to go, but his easy confidence also attracted people’s attention. By himself, Jainan had to shake the feeling that everyone was staring at him instead.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a reason to leave the palace grounds alone.

Jainan got lost twice in the College’s twisty buildings, a couple of which were unheated and already below freezing. Professor Audel’s office, when he reached it, was in a corridor as stuffy as a sauna. There was a better-kept section adjoining it—Jainan passed three lab entrances, and glanced in with curiosity, and away with regret. The professor’s room had a nameplate and a doorbell. He gave it his thumbprint.

The door opened. The person behind it wasn’t Professor Audel, but one of her

students.

The student stared as if Jainan had just landed there on an incoming meteor.

“Sweet God, you came.”

Jainan knew that accent. The student was Thean. Jainan fought the urge to step back. “Is Professor Audel in?”

“Professor!” the student yelled behind him—no, her. The way she’d tied her clan neckscarf was definitely female. Jainan had spent so long on Iskat that he was looking for the wrong signals. An unwelcome memory rose from his first few weeks: How do you not understand what a woman is, Jainan? Do they not have them on Thea? At the time, Jainan had laughed. Now he blinked as the student called, “You were right, he’s here!”

“Yes, dear,” Professor Audel said, emerging from an inner part of the rooms.

“Would you do me a favor and make the coffee. Count Jainan—do you go by

‘Count’?”

“No,” Jainan said. The Thean student had mercifully stopped staring at him and gone to unearth a battered samovar from under a pile of old lab equipment.

Disconcertingly, the pattern on her twisted scarf was one of Feria’s. “Just Jainan, please.”

“Jainan, then—why don’t you sit down.” Professor Audel started sorting through more junk behind her desk. “I’m sure I had—where’s it gone?”

Jainan looked around the room. There were only two obvious chairs. One of them was behind the professor’s desk, and the other was occupied by a glass aquarium. The water it held was so dark it must have had a photoagent in it, and it was probably contributing to the faintly chemical smell that permeated the room. A flipper broke the surface and disappeared again.

“Oh, that’s just our goldfish,” Professor Audel said. “Move her.”

“She’s in three hundred liters of water, and the hover assist broke,” the student pointed out. She kicked what looked like an old porcelain samovar, beautiful but chipped, and it emitted a faint chime. “Sit here, Count Jainan.” She met Jainan’s eyes and shoved out a crate. There was a challenge in there that Jainan didn’t understand. “Sorry it’s not the style you’re used to.”