squeezed the copper into a tight circle binding her hair.
She picked up the note and unfolded it. “Viridiana, after your classes this morning, please come to the private dining hall. Elene wishes to meet you. Sister Ariel”
Vi couldn’t breathe. Elene? Oh, fuck. She’d known Elene would show up eventually, but so soon?
The door burst open and a wild-eyed, frumpy teenager stared around the room suspiciously, her arms raised as if she were summoning vast powers. “What’s going on here?” the girl demanded. “You were using magic! Twice! Don’t deny it.”
Vi laughed, first nervously, then openly, glad for the distraction. The girl was practically wheezing from running. Her cheeks were flushed, sweat beading on her pale forehead under dark hair. She was fat enough and short enough that Vi wondered if this lard barrel had been the prior owner of her shift. She was perhaps fifteen, her white cotton dress edged with blue, and a brooch of gold scales prominent on her chest. “You got me,” Vi said.
“You admit it!”
Vi raised an eyebrow. “Of course. Now get out. And knock next time.”
“It’s forbidden!”
“Knocking’s forbidden?” Vi asked.
“No.”
“Then try it next time, Chunky.”
“My name is Xandra, and I’m the Floor Monitor. You used magic, twice. That’s two days in the scullery for your first offense. And you disrespected me. That’s a week!”
“You little shit.”
“Swearing! Another day! They told me you’d be trouble.” Xandra was shaking. It made her fat jiggle.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Vi said.
“Disrespect, swearing again! That’s it! You’ll report to the Mistress Jonisseh for a switching immediately.”
“You call that disrespect, you squealing sow?” Vi stepped forward. Xandra opened her mouth and raised her arms. Vi said, “Graakos.”
The shield snapped in place instantly, and whatever Xandra threw at her grazed right off it. Vi grabbed the girl’s arm, twisted and heaved her out of the room. Xandra slid a good ten paces across the hallway’s polished floor. As Vi stepped into the hall, she saw at least thirty little girls staring at her, wide-eyed, most of them under twelve.
“Please knock next time,” Vi said. She turned on her heel and slammed the door.
From the hall, she heard Xandra quaver, “Slamming a door, that’s—”
Vi opened the door and stared daggers at the girl, who was still lying in a heap against the far wall. The words dried up in Xandra’s mouth. Vi slammed the door again, and sat on her bed, picked up the note, tried not to cry—and failed.
38
In all his life, Kylar had never seen the people of the Warrens so happy. Agon’s Dogs had stayed with the wagons full of grain and rice to manage the distribution. All the Dogs were members of the Sa’kagé, and they had taken it into their minds to make sure that the food was fairly distributed. “We got our bit coming,” Kylar heard a Dog tell a scowling Sa’kagé basher. “I’ve heard it from high up. Now make sure those guild rats share!”
The Rabbits joined long queues that moved slowly but steadily forward, and a hard-bitten old coot broke out a tin whistle, sat on his new sack of rice, and began to play. In moments, the Rabbits were dancing. A woman soon had several pots boiling and anyone who dropped a measure of their rice or grain into one pot immediately could take a full, seasoned measure from another. She served bread and rice and soon wine. Someone offered herbs, someone else butter, another meat. In no time, it was a feast.
In a break between songs, one of Agon’s Dogs stood up and yelled. “Ya might recognize me. I’m Conner Hook, and I grew up in this neighborhood. I seen ya and I know ya and I’m tellin’ ya now, by the High King’s bollocks, if any of ya come tru’ the line twice, I’m callin’ out yer name, and we’re gonna fookin’ add yer ass to the meat pot, got it?”
A cheer went up—and the line thinned considerably. For the Rabbits, to whom corruption was the unquestioned norm, it was a gift as unexpected as the free food itself. Kylar listened, and heard many a toast to Logan Gyre and many variations of the tale of him slaying an ogre and teary, drunken renditions of his speech establishing the Order of the Garter, and the word “king” muttered a dozen times. He smiled darkly, then froze.
He glimpsed a lean woman with long blonde hair on the far side of the square. In contrast to the Rabbits, she was so clean