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"I appreciate the confidence, Your Iist, but we’re way beyond that Cress is over me and … it’s for the best"

"But you do like her?"

When Thorne didn’t respond, Kai glanced over to see Thorne’s attention fixed on the cockpitFinally, Thorne responded, "Like I said, it doesn’t matter"

Kai looked away Somehow, Thorne’s inability to talk about his attraction to Cress spoke so ht confession After all, he had no trouble estive cooing to do once this is all over?"

"I don’t know," said Thorne "Maybe she will go work for you on your royal stalking team"

Below, the blur of land became beaches and skyscrapers and Mount Fuji and, beyond it, an entire continent, lush and green and welcoh," Thornetrapped in that satellite her whole life She wants to travel"

"Then I guess she should stay with you after all What better way to travel than by spaceship?"

But Thorne shook his head, adamant "No, believe me She deserves a better life than this"

Kai leaned forward to better get a view of his ho out before them "My point exactly"

Thirteen

"When did you learn to e on Winter’s elbow

She preened "A feeeks ago"

Jacin lifted a hand towel from the collection and eyed the precise stitches that depicted a cluster of stars and planets around the towel’s border "Were you getting any sleep?"

"Not very h the basket and handed hi around the border "This one’s runted "I take it the visions were bad that week"

"Horrible," she said lightly "But now I have all of these gifts" She took the blanket back fro the rest of the colorful fabrics "You know keeping busy helps It’s when I’lanced at her frouard for weeks now, but rarely did they get to talk so casually or walk side by side like this--it was expected that guards keep a respectful distance fro to AR-2, one of the doh-end shops set ahborhoods, but this early in the day all of the shops were still closed and the streets empty and peaceful There was no one to care about propriety

"And all these gifts are for the shopkeepers?"

"Shopkeepers, clerks, household servants" Her eyes glimmered "The overlooked machine of Artemisia"

The lower classes, then The people who dealt with the trash and cooked the food and ensured all the needs of Luna’s aristocracy were met They were rewarded with lives much more enviable than the laborers in the outer sectors Full stomachs, at the least The only downfall was that they had to live in Arteaood servant was treated like a prized pet--spoiled and fawned over when they anted, beaten and discarded when they’d overstayed their usefulness

Jacin had always thought that, given a choice, he’d rather take his luck to thethem a lot?" he asked