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She turned her back, without even

Kip moved quickly to his pallet and stripped off his shirt and untied the dagger He pulled the shirt back on and folded his cloak clumsily He opened the chest Inside was a thin, folded blanket Kip set the cloak and the dagger box into his chest, and put the chest at the foot of the bed

"Done yet?" Samite asked

"Um, no! Just a minute"

Kip looked over the beds There were maybe sixty pallets in the room The unoccupied beds--those nearest Kip--were unmade and had the chest underneath them The occupied beds wereplaces, just as there was no privacy

Kip tucked the dagger under theto smooth out the wrinkles so the lu back toward Sa stolen is to hide it under your mattress It’s where the bullies and thieves always look first"

I’ger Even if he took it away fro sous steal it Daiven me a locket?

Kip went back to his pallet, grabbed the dagger, and looked around He walked down five rows to one of the unoccupied pallets, opened the chest under that bed, and tucked the knife under the blanket Better than nothing He slid the chest back under the bed, gri

"Fantastic," he said "What’s next?"

Next was the tailors’, where Kip had to strip down for the fitting The tailors omen One of the in his underwear, he could see straight down her cleavage He spent the next half hour staring at the ceiling and praying And just when Kip was finally leaving, thanking Orhola to mortify him, the other woman cleared her throat and handed him an extra pair of clean underwear "You can wash them once in a while," she said conspiratorially "And your are bathe--he angrily waved off the slave who tried to help hie into his nehite tunic and nehite pants, and new underwear, and a tower slave took his clothes to the barracks Then they went and registered with son his na hall where he was allowed a very small and very fast lunch, and then she showed him where the toilets were on each level of the towers

And then she took him to his first class "I can come inside or I can wait outside Your choice," she said

"Outside Please, outside" He was already euard He looked into the lecture hall, trying to hide his nerves, while other students streaive for a pie right now He asked, "Anything I should, uh, know?"

"You’re expected not to know anything"

Ah, then I ht even exceed expectations

Chapter 12

"Every tiister Kadah said She wasn’t yet ed, but she already seemed wizened, mousy, with hunched shoulders, hair that hadn’t seen a brush or a pick in weeks, green spectacles on a gold chain around her neck, and a thin switch of green luxin in her hand "Your death doesn’tyour satrap of an expensive tool does Your death doesn’tyour community of what it needs to survive does We who draft are slaves Slaves to Orholaht, to the Prism, the satraps, and our cities"

Cheery sort Kip tried to keep his expression neutral as he sat in on his first class at the Chromeria

"Lies first, lessons later," a boy said behind Kip

"What?" Kip asked He looked over his shoulder The boy was, oddly, wearing clear spectacles with thick black any frames in front of thicker black brows The lensesthan his Ruthgari looks--curly light brown hair, small nose, tan skin, brown eyes--were the mechanical spectacles themselves Two colored lenses, one yellow, one blue, rested on hinges, ready to be clicked down over the clear lenses at aKip’s stare "My own design," he said