The meeting is set, my lady,” Thame said. “The men are eager. Your work in T’Telir is gaining more and more notoriety.”

Vivenna wasn’t sure what she thought of that. She sipped her juice. The lukewarm liquid was addictively flavorful, although she wished for some Idrian ice.

Thame looked at her eagerly. The short Idrian was, according to Denth’s investigations, trustworthy enough. His story of being “forced” into a life of crime was a tad overstated. He filled a niche in Hallandren society—he acted as a liaison between the Idrian workers and the various criminal elements.

He was also, apparently, a staunch patriot. Despite the fact that he tended to exploit his own people, particularly newcomers to the city.

“How many will be at the meeting?” Vivenna asked, watching traffic pass on the street out beyond the restaurant’s patio gate.

“Over a hundred, my lady,” Thame said. “Loyal to our king, I promise. And, they’re influential men, all of them—for Idrians in T’Telir, that is.”

Which, according to Denth, meant that they were men who wielded power in the city because they could provide cheap Idrian workers and could sway the opinion of the underprivileged Idrian masses. They were men who, like Thame, thrived because of the Idrian expatriates. A strange duality. These men had stature among an oppressed minority, and without the oppression, they would be powerless.

Like Lemex, she thought, who served my father—even seemed to respect and love him—all the while stealing every bit of gold he could lay his hands on.

She leaned back, wearing a white dress with a long pleated skirt that rippled and blew in the wind. She tapped the side of her cup, which caused a serving man to refill her juice. Thame smiled, taking more juice as well, though he looked out of place in the fine restaurant.

“How many are there, you suppose?” she asked. “Idrians in the city, I mean.”

“Perhaps as many as ten thousand.”

“That many?”

“Trouble on the lower farms,” Thame said, shrugging. “It’s hard, sometimes, living up in those mountains. Crops fail, and what do you have? The king owns your land, so you can’t sell. You need to pay your levies . . .”

“Yes, but one can petition in the case of disaster,” Vivenna said.

“Ah, my lady, but most of these men are several weeks’ travel from the king. Should they leave their families to make a petition, when they fear their loved ones will starve during the weeks it will take to bring food from the king’s store house if they are successful? Or do they travel the much shorter distance down to T’Telir? Take work there, loading on the docks or harvesting flowers in the jungle plantations? It’s hard work, but steady.”

And, in doing so, they betray their people.

But who was she to judge? The Fifth Vision would define it as haughtiness. Here she sat in the cool shade of a canopy, enjoying a nice breeze and expensive juice while other men slaved to provide for their families. She had no right to sneer at their motivations.

Idrians shouldn’t have to seek for work in Hallandren. She didn’t like to admit fault in her father, yet his was not a bureaucratically efficient kingdom. It consisted of dozens of scattered villages with poor highways that were often blocked by snows or rockslides. In addition, he was forced to expend a lot of resources keeping his army strong in case of a Hallandren assault.

He had a difficult job. Was that a good enough excuse for the poverty of her people who had been forced to flee their homeland? The more she listened and learned, the more she realized that many Idrians had never known anything like the idyllic life she’d lived in her lovely mountain valley.

“Meeting is three days hence, my lady,” Thame said. “Some of these men are hesitant after Vahr and his failure, but they will listen to you.”

“I will be there.”

“Thank you.” Thame rose—bowed, despite the fact that she’d asked him not to draw attention to her—and withdrew.

Vivenna sat and sipped her juice. She felt Denth before he arrived. “You know what interests me?” he said, taking the seat Thame had been using.

“What?”

“People,” he said, tapping an empty cup, drawing the serving man back over. “People interest me. Particularly people who don’t act like they’re supposed to. People who surprise me.”

“I hope you aren’t talking about Thame,” Vivenna asked, raising an eyebrow.

Denth shook his head. “I’m talking about you, Princess. Wasn’t too long ago that—no matter what or who you looked at—you had a look of quiet displeasure in your eyes. You’ve lost it. You’re starting to fit in.”

“Then that’s a problem, Denth,” Vivenna said. “I don’t want to fit in. I hate Hallandren.”

“You seem to like that juice all right.”

Vivenna set it aside. “You’re right, of course. I shouldn’t be drinking it.”

“If you say so,” Denth said, shrugging. “Now, if you were to ask the mercenary—which, of course, nobody ever does—he might mention that it’s good for you to start acting like a Hallandren. The less you stand out, the less likely people are to connect you to that Idrian princess hiding in the city. Take your friend Parlin.”

“He looks like a fool in those bright colors,” she said, glancing across the street toward where he and Jewels were chatting as they watched the escape route.

“Does he?” Denth said. “Or does he just look like a Hallandren? Would you hesitate at all if you were in the jungle and saw him put on the fur of a beast, or perhaps shroud himself in a cloak colored like fallen leaves?”

She looked again. Parlin lounged against the side of a building much like street toughs his age she’d seen elsewhere in the city.

“You both fit better here than you once did,” Denth said. “You’re learning.”

Vivenna looked down. Some things in her new life were actually starting to feel natural. The raids, for instance, were becoming surprisingly easy. She was also growing used to moving with the crowds and being part of an underground element. Two months earlier, she would have been indignantly opposed to dealing with a man like Denth, simply because of his profession.

She found it very difficult to reconcile herself to some of these changes. It was growing harder and harder to understand herself, and to decide what she believed.

“Though,” Denth said, eyeing Vivenna’s dress, “you might want to think about switching to trousers.”

Vivenna frowned, looking up.

“Just a suggestion,” Denth said, then gulped down some juice. “You don’t like the short Hallandren skirts, but the only decent clothing we can buy you that are ‘modest’ are of foreign make—and that makes them expensive. That means we have to use expensive restaurants, lest we stand out. That means you have to deal with all of this terrible lavishness. Trousers, however, are modest and cheap.”

“Trousers are not modest.”

“Don’t show knees,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Denth shrugged. “Just giving my opinion.”

Vivenna looked away, then sighed quietly. “I appreciate the advice, Denth. Really. I just . . . I’m confused by a lot of my life lately.”

“World’s a confusing place,” Denth said. “That’s what makes it fun.”

“The men we’re working with,” Vivenna said. “They lead the Idrians in the city but exploit them at the same time. Lemex stole from my father but still worked for the interests of my country. And here I am, wearing an over-priced dress and sipping expensive juice while my sister is being abused by an awful dictator and while this wonderful, terrible city prepares to launch a war on my homeland.”

Denth leaned back in his chair, looking out over the short railing toward the street, watching the crowds with their colors both beautiful and terrible. “The motivations of men. They never make sense. And they always make sense.”