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I snort My pounding pulse is finally slowing "As if bugs ever scare you You’re the one who flattens them with your sandal Bett’s the screamer"

"Father doesn’t know that, does he?" She yanks my hair back into an unfashionable puff-tail, a quick way to make my coily hair look neat "It was a close call If he found out,for you, Jes! This is the last time!"

"The oracle speaks," I mutter

"Don’t say that! It’s bad fortune to mock the oracles!"

She stale, which makes her pull ood, and afterward pauses to stare at her own tresses all tied up in pretty ribbons She drinks in every bit of Patron beauty she has inherited froht black hair, the lips whose color she emphasizes with carmine stick Yet even Amaya can’t quite pass as a Patron In the way her lips part slightly I see how it hurts her, knowing she will always be second best in the circles we live in

"You look lovely," I say

"Amaya? Are you in here?" Her friend Denya waits behind the closed entry drape for permission to enter "Lord Ottonor is about to receive visitors! You better hurry!"

I grab my linen finery as a servant lifts the drape Denya steps into our little refuge and stops, trying not to stare at on over my dark body

Amaya places herself between Denya and the couch to hide the Fives clothes draped in full view "Glad tidings! Who is co, Denya?" she asks in what Maraya calls her bird-twitter voice "I simply can’t wait to see!"

"A party froreat honor for Lord Ottonor to host a palace lord at his balcony!" Denya is a soldier’s daughter, like us, but both her parents are Patron-born She has the courtesy to be e, for which I like her Her gaze catches on the tunic and leggings, and her forehead wrinkles as she puzzles "Is your headache better, Jessamy Tonor?"

"Salutations, Denya Tonor," I reply, for every person who lives under a lord’s sponsorship takes the clan nauishing here with a headache I have been reciting poetry to improvein the new day

What the oracle speaks, your heart yearns to obey"

"You are so dutiful, Jessarabs Amaya’s hand and hauls her to the entry drape For all that Denya is pure Patron and pretty enough, she knows Amaya is the laaron’s party as they arrive I’ve seen the If we pick the right place to stand, he ht speak to us!"

"Truly?" A clothes to the far

They slip outside just as a roar of disappointment bellows from the spectators An adversary has failed to complete one of the obstacles I slowly tuck the clothes away in my satchel It was far easier to clio stand ahter who looks like me out in public But I don’t want hi will dishonor Mother So I walk out along the cloth-walled passageway to the balcony where Lord Ottonor and his entourage watch the trials under the shaded co

Lord Ottonor sits on a cushioned chair with an excellent view of the playing court below My father’s sponsor is an avid spectator of the Fives He ran the I find it hard to look at this old ray froh to compete at the Royal Court, much less as an Illustrious

"This set has no adversary as adept as that last pair," he wheezes as everyone listens attentively They don’t even notice reen belt He’ll never get past the rope bridge if he can’t figure out it is rigged to collapse I put no odds on the red-belt girl She’s slow like day-old porridge, ha ha!"

The h politely A table laden with fruit, roasted shriar sits close enough that he can gesture to whatever he wants Right nowhi off the fattest and juiciest with a pair of lacquered tongs