providing concealment from all directions. It’s just as it appears to be. Straight and direct.”
If the Seneschal hadn’t just told her she was forbidden to talk to courtiers, she would have shaken him off. As it was, she let herself be guided. She was headed in that direction, anyway. “No surprise it’s empty, then,” she said.
“They call it the Discreet Walk. Although I’m afraid there’s nothing discreet about being seen entering it with someone else.”
“As you’ve just been.”
“And you,” he said.
The path below the arbor was cold and overgrown with moss. Even now, bare as they were, the gnarled ropes of wisteria formed a decent cover, but Judah could see that in the summer the leaves would make an almost solid wall. The blossoms’ perfume would be strong and the air would vibrate with the buzzing of bees and wasps. Someone walking under the arbor then would not be seen, or smelled, or—if they were careful—heard. She was impressed.
“May I, too, be straight and direct?” the courtier said.
“I doubt it.” She liked moss, she decided.
“Don’t be so negative.” Firo sounded amused. “Think of us courtiers as traders from across the Barriers. We may speak a different language among ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speak yours, too.”
Discreet the walk might be, but it was also short. The exit glared with white winter sun, barely fifty feet away. If Judah’s mental map was accurate—and it was—this walk would spit them out not far from the walled-in east garden, which was out of fashion. He wouldn’t follow her there, and on its far side were the kennels and stables. “So speak,” she said.
“You need a friend,” he said. “I’d like to submit myself for the position.”
That surprised her so much that she stopped and stared at him. “You want to be my friend?”
“I do.” The violent colors of his clothes were muted in the dappled shadows under the arbor.
“Why?”
“In my language, I would say that I treasure your unique perspective, that I am entranced by your rapier wit.” His eyes flickered upward. “The stormy scarlet radiance of your hair, perhaps.”
“Storms aren’t radiant.” She felt her cheeks burn nonetheless.
His kohled eyes crinkled. “Yes, well. I’ve realized recently that most of the compliments in my arsenal are sun-based. Comes from living in a country where everyone has golden hair, I suppose. You pose some interesting poetic challenges.” Whatever those challenges were, he brushed them away with one well-manicured hand. “Anyway, mere convention. The words wouldn’t matter. If you’d been raised in the court you’d already know the meaning behind them.”
“Which would be?”
“You have power.”
She laughed. “You’ve taken too many drops from your vial. Your brain is addled.”
“This is why you need a friend,” he said. “You’re one of the most powerful people in the House, and you don’t even realize it.”
“I am the least powerful person in the House. I’m nobody. I barely even have a name.” She began walking again.
He matched her pace. “You have unlimited access to the future Lord and Lady of the City. You have their ears, their friendship and their trust. You’re unconstrained by any obligations of your own; you have no family to advocate for, no agenda to promote, no lands to protect. Also, you probably don’t know this, but the cityfolk love you, to an absurd degree.”
“They do not.” Judah’s teeth were clenched together but her stomach suddenly felt odd.
“Oh, but they do. Why do you think they work so hard to make all the staff scared of you? Because out in the city, toymakers sew sweet little blood-haired dollies for children to play with, and then those children come inside. And they are young and puny and weak, but there are so very many of them, the dirty little things, and you...you’re a folk hero, to them. The nameless nobody foundling who gets to live among the highborn. Why, a word from you, and who knows what would happen?”
“You’re lying,” Judah said, not bothering to disguise her scorn. “The Seneschal would never allow dolls that look like me.”
“To the contrary. The Seneschal encourages it, outside. Raising you with his heirs is the one moderately positive story anyone can tell about Lord Elban.”
As he spoke, one of his eyebrows bent, his head tilted, and his mouth pursed: each gesture so subtle it was barely noticeable, and yet they all worked together to add a layer of nuance to everything he said. She was beginning to see what he meant about speaking another language, but she couldn’t