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“Can you tell me the next time a ship from Welce comes to the smuggler’s port?” she asked. “I’d like to meet with the captain.”

“I
could
,” he said doubtfully. “But it’s not like any of them linger. The ship would be gone before I’d made it halfway to the city.”

She throttled her irritation. “If I gave you a little money to share with the captain,” she said, “would he or she stay long enough to meet me?”

“That might change things,” he agreed. “Most of those bastards will do anything for money.”

As was so often the case, she had to hide her amusement at his complete unawareness of irony.

“Then here are a few coins. See that they’re liberally distributed—keeping whatever amount seems fair to you, of course. I’ll be in touch again in a nineday or so.”

He pocketed the money, looking quite cheerful. “Pleasure to work with you,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

•   •   •

A
ll these preparations meant little, Leah knew, if she couldn’t get Corene out of the walled city. Assuming the princess could escape the palace itself, she wouldn’t find it easy to elude the guards at the main gate. But the stone wall that enclosed the inner city wasn’t
completely secure; Leah knew of several places where it was possible to slip across the border, and she spent some time visiting each of them.

Most were along the red wall, where the mortar holding the stones in place had loosened over time. There were always sections where the wear of centuries had been aided by the zeal of miscreants, and just enough blocks could be moved to allow someone to wriggle through. Of course, the empress’s men were constantly on the lookout for such breakdowns, and the bolt-holes were always being patched over with stronger materials, but new ones would spring up just a couple of yards farther along. A few discreet inquiries, a few coins judiciously handed out, and Leah was able to find three spots in the wall where someone who was desperate or enterprising could find a way in or out.

After she’d inspected the third escape route, Leah leaned against the sun-warmed stone and watched the afternoon traffic amble by in the summer heat. In the improbable event that Corene had to escape from the palace, Leah would tell the princess to meet her at one of the weak points in the wall. They would slip through the breach and run for whichever port was open, and there Corene would board a friendly Welchin ship that would immediately set sail for Chialto.

Leah frowned. There was a lot of ground to cover between the palace and the harbor—easily ten miles, and the smuggler’s port was even farther out. Leah would need to provide a conveyance of some sort—a wagon, a horse, one of those four-wheeled contraptions. Something that she didn’t need to care for or think about on a daily basis, but that she could commandeer at a moment’s notice if she needed.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, she muttered a Coziquela curse and slumped against the stone. This might take a little cogitation. She knew plenty of people with carts and wagons—and horses, when it came to that—but most of those were in daily use and none of them were conveniently near the palace. She would have to send out some delicate inquiries and come up with a pretty good lie if she was going to provide transportation on demand for a fleeing princess.

She was still thinking the problem over a few days later when a palace footman brought her an envelope from Corene. Inside was the usual opaque message—and a single red bead.

The princess had written:

I’ve decided I MUST go back to the market tomorrow and buy more of these red gemstones. Wouldn’t it be fun if I ran into you there?

Leah rolled the smooth bit of glass between her thumb and finger and felt a prickle of anxiety scratch through her veins. Despite all her preparations, she hadn’t really expected this. She hadn’t truly believed Corene could be in danger.

Would the princess really be at the market in the morning? Would she be able to make it out of the palace after all?

ELEVEN

A
fter some thought, Corene decided not to mention her little adventure to anyone. She could hardly put the details in a letter to her father, of course, since she suspected that Filomara or Garameno read her mail. In her next note to Leah, she made a light reference to the unsuccessful outing, but since her wording was so vague, she couldn’t be sure Leah would take her meaning.

She found herself equally reluctant to relate the story to anyone living at the palace. She didn’t want to accuse the empress of keeping her a prisoner, didn’t want Steff to leap to Filomara’s defense, didn’t want Melissande to start speculating as to why they were being watched so closely. So she just didn’t talk about the escapade.

There were plenty of other things to talk about, anyway. Hardly a day passed without someone sharing some new tidbit about the upcoming gala, which was currently rumored to be a masked festival. But an even more interesting topic was Alette.

Corene and Melissande and Liramelli had decided it was up to them to comfort Alette—whether or not they knew why she needed comforting—and they’d started to drop by her room every afternoon for determinedly cheerful visits. The first few days didn’t go particularly well. Servants
stayed nearby the whole time, limiting conversation to trivialities, and Alette was both listless and monosyllabic.

But the fourth day went noticeably better, due to Melissande’s brilliant idea. “We will have a cultural afternoon in which we celebrate something special about all our countries,” she proposed. “There is a shop by the Little Islands where they sell foods from Dhonsho, and Jiramondi and I went down there yesterday. I bought these odd little cakes that the woman assured me are very popular, and a pretty little tablecloth to put them on. My mother just sent me some boxes of dried lassenberries from Cozique—they are
so
good. Liramelli, perhaps you can bring some keerza for us to drink, and Corene—”

“I’ll bring blessings,” she said. “We can’t
eat
them, but they will make for an interesting activity.”

“Excellent,” Melissande said. “Maybe we can nudge Alette out of her melancholy.”

Certainly the bustle of setting up their afternoon extravaganza was impossible for Alette to overlook, because Liramelli and Melissande had engaged servants to help them set up tables and arrange plates and bring in the hot keerza pot. Somehow, as Liramelli laid items on the brightly printed tablecloth and Corene pulled four chairs from various corners of the room, Melissande managed to thank the maids and kitchen workers and push them all out the door.

So for the first time since Alette’s aborted jump from the tower, they were alone with the Dhonshon princess.

“Come, come! Let us sit!” Melissande invited, and they took their places around the table. Alette moved with a sort of cautious uncertainty, perching on the edge of her chair and staring at the items spread before her as if she couldn’t believe they had materialized.

“All this—for me?” she asked in amazement. She took a fold of the tablecloth between her fingers and rubbed it as if it was silk and soothing to the touch. It was really some kind of cheap cotton, Corene thought, but maybe what Alette was trying to absorb through her fingertips was the color, which was a happy riot of reds and purples and blues.

“We wanted to cheer you up,” Melissande said. “So we each brought in something from our own countries that we could celebrate together.”

“That was very kind.”

Melissande turned to Liramelli. “Shall you begin by pouring keerza?”

Liramelli nodded at Alette. “I thought Alette might start? At meals, before you eat anything, you always say something silently. A prayer, perhaps? And I thought, if you wanted to, you could say it out loud today.”

Alette went absolutely motionless, her big eyes fixed on Liramelli’s face, and for a moment Corene worried that it had been the wrong thing to say. Perhaps Alette hadn’t realized her private moment had been observed; perhaps what she was praying for was to see everyone at the table die painfully from an ingestion of poison. Then she dropped her gaze and bowed her head.

“I would like that,” she said in a subdued voice. The next sentence she spoke was in Dhonshon, and Corene didn’t understand a word. But she saw the multilingual Melissande nod, and Melissande echoed Alette’s final word as if it were a benediction.

“
Now
the keerza,” Melissande said, and Liramelli poured steaming cups for all of them.

“This doesn’t taste nearly as bad as most of it does,” Corene remarked after her first sip.

Liramelli grinned. “It’s a special blend that most purists despise, but people who aren’t used to keerza tend to prefer it,” she answered.

“Indeed, it is almost tolerable,” Melissande agreed. “I can envision asking for a second cup.”

“My father will disown me if he realizes I’ve served it to anyone, so don’t tell him.”

“It will taste even better with dried lassenberries on your tongue,” Melissande said, prying the lid off a white wooden box she had set in the center of the table. Inside were nestled brownish-yellow globes of fruit that were about the size of Corene’s fist. They were sprinkled with some kind of raw sugar and smelled like citrus and honey. “I promise, you will love these.”

The lassenberries were sticky and messy and such an odd color, but they tasted like the distillation of delight, and Corene took a second one out of the box before she’d even finished the first one. “Your father has to send you some every nineday,” she spoke around a full mouth. “I’m not joking.”

“Alas, they are only in season for about half a quintile and there are
never any left because people eat them all up. As you can imagine,” Melissande replied.

“I can’t believe you were generous enough to share them with us,” Corene said.

“I know. I am already regretting it.”

Alette spoke up without being prompted. “I think you will like the seed-wax cakes as well,” she said. “Unless the cook was not very good.”

Like the lassenberries, the seed-wax cakes weren’t much to look at—hard, flaky biscuits flecked with bits of black and drizzled with a dried red sauce. But they made a satisfying crunch when you bit into them, Corene found, and loosed a complex medley of sweet flavors on the tongue. A sip of bitter keerza between bites enhanced the taste of both.

“This is the best meal I’ve had since coming to Malinqua!” Corene exclaimed.

“I am not sure lassenberries and seed-wax cakes really constitute a meal, but I think I agree with you,” Melissande said.

Alette’s face relaxed into something resembling a smile. “It is certainly the most enjoyable one I’ve had,” she said. She actually addressed a question to Corene. “But did you not bring some delicacy from Welce for us to share?”

“Not food,” Corene said. “A ritual.”

She had carried the blessing coins in the red velvet bag Josetta had provided, and now she poured them all into an empty bowl in the center of the table. The small brass coins made a happy clinking sound against the china.

“In Welce, as some of you know, everyone is affiliated with one of the five elements of earth, wood, fire, air, or water, and each of the elements is associated with eight blessings,” Corene said. “When children are born, their parents find a temple and have three strangers pull blessings for them, and these blessings are considered theirs for a lifetime. We also go to temples anytime we need guidance, and pull a blessing or two for that particular day. You can pick your own blessings, but it is always considered best if others do it for you—and because three is one of our propitious numbers, it is even
better
if three people pull them.” She gestured around the table. “There are four of us. I thought we should all choose for each other.”

Alette looked grave. “What if we pick the wrong ones? Bad ones?”

Corene shook her head. “It’s impossible. They’re all blessings. They’re all good.” She didn’t bother to mention the ghost coins that lurked in the blessing barrels at some temples—very old coins that had been worn so smooth by much handling that it was impossible to tell what the original glyphs had been. The ones Josetta had sent were all freshly minted; no troubling ghosts lurked in this bowl.

“I will go first,” Melissande said. “All of you pick blessings for me.”

Liramelli and Alette watched closely as Corene swirled her fingers through the pile and pulled out a coin. “Charm,” she said, and laughed. Of course this was a blessing that would be bestowed on Melissande.

Liramelli went next, and showed Corene the coin she’d drawn. “Beauty,” Corene deciphered.

“Accurate so far,” Liramelli said.

Alette focused seriously on the task of mixing the coins and pulling a single one from the bowl. “Flexibility,” Corene said. “Accurate on
all
counts, I would say.”

“Indeed, I like these very much!” Melissande said. She had pulled out a piece of paper and was jotting down the attributes. “I am quite sure I would like someone who had all these traits.”

“Me next,” Liramelli volunteered.

Corene was hardly surprised when Liramelli turned out to be endowed with gifts of honesty, loyalty, and kindness. “We hardly even had to pull blessings to learn
that
,” she said.

“Of course, you could just be making these up as they occur to you,” Melissande pointed out.

Corene laughed and dug in a pocket of her tunic. “I knew you would think that! So—here—I brought Josetta’s list of the blessing glyphs and what they mean.”

Melissande flattened the paper on the table between her and Liramelli, and they studied it intently. “Indeed, she appears to be telling us the truth,” Melissande judged. “How much fun this is! I would enjoy drawing a blessing every day, I think.”

“That’s what I do. Well, unless I forget. Now the three of you pick blessings for me.”

This was quickly done, and in a moment Corene was looking at the
symbols for vision, courage, and luck. A little thrill went down her back. These were the same coins Josetta, Zoe, and Rafe had drawn for her before sending the bag of blessings to Malinqua. The same ones stamped on the gold, silver, and bronze rings she wore on her right hand. She didn’t mention this fact, merely thanked the others and tossed the little disks back in the bowl.