Chapter 3

"Stop that!” Sophia cried out, surprising herself as much as she seemed to surprise the boys there. Normally the rule was that you walked past whatever was happening in the orphanage. You stayed quiet and remembered your place. Now, though, she stepped forward.

“Leave her be.”

The boys paused, but only to stare at her. The oldest set his eyes upon her with a malicious grin.

“Well, well, boys,” he said, “looks like we have another one who isn’t where she should be.”

He had blunt features and the kind of dead look in his eyes that only came from years in the House of the Unclaimed.

He stepped forward, and before she could react, he grabbed Sophia's arm. She went to slap him, but he was too quick, and he shoved her to the floor. It was in moments like this that Sophia wished she had her younger sister’s fighting skills, her ability to summon an instant brutality that Sophia, for all her cunning, just wasn’t capable of.

Going to be sold as a ***** anyway… might as well have my turn.

Sophia was startled to hear his thoughts. These had an almost greasy feel to them, and she knew they were his. Her panic welled up. She started to struggle, but he pinned her arms easily.

There was only one thing she could do. She screwed up her concentration, calling on her talent, hoping that this time it would work for her.

Kate, she sent, the courtyard! Help me!

"More elegantly, Kate!” the nun called. “More elegantly!”

Kate didn’t have a lot of time for elegance, but still, she made the effort as she poured water into a goblet held by the sister. Sister Yvaine regarded her critically from beneath her mask.

“No, you still haven’t got it. And I know you are not clumsy, girl. I have seen you turning cartwheels in the yard.”

She hadn’t punished Kate for it, though, which suggested that Sister Yvaine wasn’t one of the worst of them. Kate tried again, her hand trembling.

She and the other girls with her were supposed to be learning to serve elegantly at noble tables, but the truth was that Kate wasn’t built for it. She was too short and too tightly muscled for the kind of graceful femininity the nuns had in mind. There was a reason she kept her red hair hacked short. In the ideal world, where she was free to choose, she yearned for an apprenticeship with a smith or perhaps one of the groups of players who worked in the city—or perhaps even a chance to go into the army as the boys did. This graceful pouring was the kind of lesson her big sister, with her dream of aristocracy, would have enjoyed—not her.

As if the thought summoned her, Kate suddenly snapped to as she heard her sister’s voice in her mind. She wondered, though; their talent wasn’t always that reliable.

But then it came again, and there, too, was the feeling behind it.

Kate, the courtyard! Help me!

Kate could feel the fear there.

She stepped away from the nun sharply, involuntarily, and in so doing she spilled her jug of water across the stone of the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I need to go.”

Sister Yvaine was still staring at the water.

“Kate, clean that up at once!”

But Kate was already running. She would probably find herself beaten for it later, but she’d been beaten before. It didn’t mean anything. Helping the one person in the world she cared about did.

She ran through the orphanage. She knew the way, because she’d learned every twist and turn of the place in the years since that awful night they dropped her here. She also, late at night, sneaked out from the ceaseless snoring and stench of the dormitory when she could, enjoying the place in the blackness when she was the only one up, when the tolling of the city’s bells was the only sound, and learning the feel of every nook in its walls. She sensed she would need it one day.

And now she did.

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