'And back then, once a month, as a family, we'd go out for an evening meal in Grassara's Spice Bazaar, and we'd have meat as our main course. A whole piece of meat to eat myself, and one for my mother and one for my father.' She shook her head. 'My mother was discontented even then. But I guess she always was and always will be. No matter how much we have, she wants more.'

'Sounds pretty normal to me,' Tats said quietly. She opened her eyes and was surprised to see that he had edged closer to her perch without her even feeling it. He was getting better at moving though the branches. Before she could compliment him on it, he asked, 'So when did it all change?'

'It changed when my father started putting more of his time into trying to grow things. Seems like every year we had to move a bit higher and farther out.' She glanced at Tats. He sat astride the limb, with one ankle locked around his other leg. He looked secure if a bit uncomfortable. His attention to her face made her self-conscious. Was he staring at her scaling? At the tiny scales that outlined her lips, at the nub of fringe that ran along her jawline? She turned her face away from him and spoke to the trees. 'The last place we lived before we came to the Cricket Cages was the Bird Nests. Those used to be the poorest part of Trehaug. But then the Tattooed came and then other newcomers and we got pushed out of there.'

The houses in the Bird Nests had consisted of small rooms, woven of vine and lath, with airy narrow pathways that led down several levels before one reached the good wide walkways and branch paths. 'We lived in the Bird Nests for only a couple of years before we saw a flood of artists and artisans moving in. A lot of them were Tattooed, new to the Rain Wilds and needing cheaper rents and neighbourhoods where their neighbours would not complain about noise and parties and strange lifestyles.' Thymara smiled to herself. She had loved living in the Bird Nests as much as her mother had despised it. Artists displayed their creations on every branch. The poorest section of the city became rich in beauty. Wind chimes hung at every crossroads, the safety walls along the paths were tapestries of coloured string and beads, and faces were painted on the rough bark of the tree branches that supported the flimsy homes. Even her family's chambers became bright with colour, for her father often was offered only barter for the small crops he managed to grow. Long before Diana earned a reputation as an inspired weaver, Thymara wore a sweater and scarf made by her clever fingers and the carved chest that held her clothing had been made by Raffles himself. She loved those things not because they were valuable, but because they were daring and new. It was only later that her mother would be able to sell them for prices that amazed them all, but did not console Thymara for their loss.

As always happens, or so her father said, the wealthy patrons of the artists began to frequent the Bird Nests. Not content to purchase merely what the artists made, the patrons began to buy their lifestyles as well. Soon the sons and daughters of the wealthier Rain Wild Trader families were living amongst them, behaving as if they were artists but creating nothing save noise, traffic and a wild reputation for the Bird Nests. Their families were able to pay much higher rents than her father could afford. The wealthy folk who had holiday homes among them demanded safer walkways and wider branch roads, and so they were taxed accordingly. Shops and cafes moved into adjacent trees. The artists who had established themselves were delighted. They were becoming wealthy and well known. 'But the high rents pushed us right out. We couldn't afford to pay the taxes any more, let alone eat in the cafes. We had to sell off all the art my father had received as barter, take what coin we could get, and move up again.' She craned her head and looked up. A few yellow lights in tiny cottages flickered above. 'I suppose the next time we get pushed out we'll end up in the Tops. You get light every day up there, but I hear the rooms rock in the wind almost all the time.'

'I don't think I'd like all that swaying,' Tats agreed.

'Well, no. But I like it here in the Cricket Cages. We get plenty of rainwater, so we don't have to haul it ourselves or buy it from the water-carriers. My mother wove us a bathing hammock when we first moved here, and it's lovely in the summer when the water is naturally warm. Moss grows along the edges, and we get visits from little frogs and butterflies and basking lizards. And it isn't so far to climb to find the flowers that reach for the sunlight. When I can get those, my mother takes them down trunk to sell, in the markets where they hardly ever see the flowers from the Tops.'

As if the mention of her had summoned her, her mother's voice, sharp and angry, split the peace of the evening. 'Thymara! Come in this minute. Now!'

Thymara flowed to her feet. There was something in her mother's voice, something beyond ordinary irritation. A note of fear or danger that set Thymara's teeth on edge.

'Give me a moment,' Tats said and began to untangle himself from the tree limb.

'Thymara!'

'I have to go now!' she exclaimed. She took two swift steps toward him. She heard Tats' gasp as she braced her hands on his shoulders and leapt lightly over him, landed on the still-swaying branch and then scampered across it to the trunk. Something her father had once said of her came back to her. You were made for the canopy, Thymara. Never be ashamed of that! Yet this was the first time she had ever felt a strange pride. Her agility had shocked Tats. His shoulders had been warm when she touched them.

'Can I see you tomorrow?' he called after her.

'Probably!' she replied. 'When my chores are done.'

She went down the trunk swiftly, ignoring the safety line and the foot notches to dig in her claws and rapidly descend. When she reached the two outstretched branches that supported her family's home, she scuttled along them and then swung down to slip in her bedchamber window. She landed on the fat leaf-stuffed cushion that was her bed; it completely occupied the floor of the chamber. A moment later she was in the main room. 'I'm home,' she announced breathlessly.

Her mother was sitting cross-legged in the centre of the small room. 'What are you trying to do to me?' she demanded furiously. 'Is this your idea of revenge, after your father all but forbade me to speak about the offer? Do you seek to shame your whole family? What will folk think of us? What will they think of me? Will you be happy when they drive us all away from Trehaug completely? Isn't it bad enough that because of you we have to live as close to the edge as we possibly can? Is that why you think it's fine for you to shame us completely?'

There was a flower in the canopy Tops called an archer bloom. It was lovely and fragrant, but at the slightest touch to the stem, tiny thorns launched to pepper the assailant.

Her mother's questions stung her like a storm of thorns, each striking her and giving her no chance to react. When her mother paused for breath, her chest was heaving and her cheeks were pink.

'I did nothing wrong! I did nothing to shame myself or my family!' Thymara was so shocked she could scarcely get the words out.

Her words only woke more outrage in her mother's eyes. They seemed to bulge from their sockets. 'What! Will you sit there and lie to me? Shameless! Shameless! I saw you, Thymara! Everyone saw you, sitting up there in plain sight, so cosy with that man. You know it is forbidden to you! How can you let him call on you, how can you let him keep company with you, unchaperoned?'

Thymara's mind scrambled to make sense of her mother's words. Then, 'Tats? You mean Tats? He works for Da, sometimes, at the market. You've seen him, you know him!'