Pres: There's the wench fancies herself a lady.

Alvinos: Nay, she is a princess.

Pres: Aye, sir, and you fancy yourself a swain

when those honeyed words attract naught but ants.

Alvinos: I'll grant that ants know honey; likewise, I can smell a crown.

-Ricard Spurspar, from Three Houses of Prosecay

I think we were all a bit surprised when Rose Argent invited us to lunch after our morning classes the next day. Sure, she popped in to check on us whenever she was in town - usually every few months. Ever since she'd rescued Mailyn and me from the depredations of a necromantic cult, she paid us a special interest that no other Scamps got. However, this was the first time she'd ever taken us for food. It wasn't even street food - she took us to a little open-air café in south River's Run for our second meal at a restaurant in two days. I'd never even done that back on Barsoa, and Aldo and Mailyn could count the number of restaurants they'd dined in ever on their fingers.

"Are you looking forward to being Sneaks?" she asked us. She sipped from a skinny little glass of fizzy wine - I believe the vintage comes from Prosecay, but I have no idea what they call it.

Aldo nodded excitedly. "I am! Though I'm already pretty sneaky… could I get promoted to Greycloak, maybe?"

Rose laughed like the chiming of silver bells, the little jewels in her hair glittering as she did. "No, Aldo, it doesn't work that way. It's not even about being sneaky… Sneaks are called that for historical reasons, from back when the Collegium was a lot smaller and had a different mission. These days, you can just think of it as being a junior student."

"And the Greycloaks are the senior students," I stated sagely.

"That's right." Rose flagged down our waitress and slipped her an octavo, gesturing toward her empty wine cup. "I'll take a bottle of whatever this was for the road." The waitress nodded and scurried off - Rose wasn't exactly hiding that she was a Shadow, and that tended to get you exemplary service. It intimidated most people. Not me, though.

"I can't wait to be a Shadow," I gushed. Having finished about a third of my meal, a Kronojic seafood stew that reminded me of a dish our family cook used to prepare, I did something that would have horrified my mother: I requisitioned about half of the rice crackers that had been set out for the table and proceeded to crush them up and add them to the stew, stirring it into a starchy, glutinous porridge. When I'm dining alone, I still do the same thing.

"And people say I have bad manners," Aldo said.

I just rolled my eyes. For the record, Aldo did have pretty bad table manners. I might have mushed my stew up into a starchy mess, but I still ate it like a perfect lady, not a drop nor a crumb anywhere but down my gullet.

Rose's sculpted eyebrows edged upward. "So… Vix… can't wait to be a Shadow? Why's that?"

That was easy enough. "I'm going to find the people who took my family and make them pay."

Rose nodded. "Revenge, then? What about finding your family?"

"I'll do that, too."

"Remember, Vix, that being a Shadow means serving Nurass. I have lots of things that I'd like to do with my life, but I've got to fit those things around my duty. I can't just go gallivanting into Floria Harbor whenever I feel like visiting old friends or getting some decent street food. I've got a ship and a mission, and I've got to prioritize that over whatever wants I may have."

I nodded, imagining that my work as a Shadow couldn't help but take me to the far corners of the world. That was how it worked, right? Meanwhile, the conversation had continued without me:

"You got your own ship?" Mailyn blurted.

"I did," Rose said, her chest puffing out. "I'll give you a tour sometime - though not today. I've got a meeting at the Shadow Hall in an hour…"

"The Shadow Hall?" Aldo said.

Rose shrugged, as if meeting in Nurass's seat of power wasn't a huge deal. "As far as I know, there's only the one, so yes. And, on that note, I've got to go - one doesn't keep the tyrant waiting. You kids have the tab on this, right?"

"What?" we all said.

"Kidding! This was a good chat. Next time, we'll do it on the Thorned Drake - that's my ship." She took her bottle of wine from the waitress and handed her whatever else was owed for the meal before strutting out into the busy lunchtime streets of River's Run, quickly disappearing into the crowd.

Hiding in a crowd so seamlessly was a pretty impressive trick, even if it was one that any inveterate Scamp could do. The three of us were very street-smart, our instincts honed over two and a half years of Scampdom, and Aldo's was honed even more than that. He'd been a street kid before getting recruited by Rook, after all. Yes, indeed, we were a cut above the average street rat…

Which only made things more embarrassing when four random people got the drop on us not a block later. To make matters worse, they weren't inveterate criminals or even particularly canny. They just happened to know our route and got the better of us when, still giddy from our free restaurant meal, we wandered across the West Bank Trade Road, which separated River's Run from Mini Gionika. We'd just passed the kofimanza when strong hands reached out and pulled me bodily around a corner and into a secluded little back-area.

I reacted immediately, but to no success. The grip that had me was much stronger than my own, my blade was out of reach, and the several kicks I landed hit a man's well-muscled thigh. As I calmed enough to look the wild-eyed, bearded man in the face, I remembered the tried and true technique of children's self-defense: when all else fails, bite!

"Ah! Little Gionian tart!" the man shouted in accented Perditalog, tossing me bodily into the nearby wall - where my landing was, fortunately, buffered by Mailyn.

As Mailyn and I struggled to our feet, I got my first good look at our assailants: three men and one woman, all of them with the sweaty look of workhouse laborers. The workhouses of Floria exist for those without the resources or inclination to pay for their own lodgings or secure their own employment.

Floria's workhouse administrators find work and provide food and lodging for however long it takes folks to get on their feet - with the dual caveats that a modest portion of their earnings go to the workhouse, and the jobs provided were rarely easy or pleasant. Hard labor, sewage detail, and stables work were the most common jobs and, from the smell of it, at least some of our assailants were in the smellier categories.

Aldo flicked his blade out and, ever the chivalrous one, inched over toward us. "You'd better leave us be, ya bastards! We're from the Collegium."

There was a little surprise at that, but the woman nudged the biggest of the men, broad of shoulder and nearly bursting out of his tattered coveralls, his angry hazel eyes glaring into me beneath a dark and weather-beaten brow. In fact, all our of our assailants might have been cousins with their coal-dark hair, golden-tan complexions, and hazel or gray eyes.

"Well, Rex, you got your three little hoodlums. What's your brilliant plan now?" the woman said in flawless Kronojic.

"I… we…" the big man grit his teeth and turned toward us, meaty fists balled up like they could crush stone. "They're not Collegium - they're Gionian spies. You saw it the same as me, jabbering away in that damn language and making nice with the Gionian thugs this district calls guards. They might go to the Collegium, but they're the princes spies. I'd stake my life on it."

"What's he going on about?" I muttered.

"He's crazy," Mailyn whispered back.

"I don't even work in Mini Gionika," Aldo said under his breath. Pa Akraszovic operated out of Little Kulsiniy.

"We'll take 'em in to the authorities," one of the other men said. "They say Floria don't like the high prince."

"Or we could just, you know… leave," the other said, a young man with a wispy beard and acid-splotched chemical goggles dangling around his neck. "They don't know who we are…"

"Well… she told us coveralls guy's name is Rex," Aldo observed - in Kronojic, of course. That's what they were speaking in, after all.

"And you've got chemical goggles and the tannery's only a few blocks that way," I said, pointing downriver.

"Which is next to the public stables, and you've got manure caked on your boots," Mailyn added. It wouldn't take long at all to track them down if we had a mind to.

"Honored Asuna, of course they all speak Kronojic," the woman muttered.

"Which means it's not so incriminating that we speak Gionian," I said. "Right?"

Our four assailants clearly didn't see it that way. And the revelation that we knew where half of their number worked was inching the big bearded guy back toward wild-eyed violence territory. And… wait…

I took a step forward, pointing at the woman. "You said 'Honored Asuna'… you four are all Selenites?"

Most of my people were driven out of Kronoj during the progroms, and almost as many were butchered. But they still existed in remote enclaves in inner Kronoj, and some émigrés even moved back to the country when Mad King Maunley was finally deposed. A fair number of the Selenite community in Barsoa were refugees from Kronoj, my family included. And many of us ended up being double-refugees these days if we somehow escaped being sold into indenture.

"They're too smart. I don't think they're even kids," the third man whispered - loud enough for everybody to hear, obviously.

"We're not very short Gionian spies," I sighed and then switched languages: "I'm a Selenite, just like you! I'm not even close to a Gionian…" I switched to Perditalog: "We all hate Gionians. Right?"

"Hate is a strong word," Mailyn started. Then Aldo elbowed her and she changed her tune: "Er… that's right! We hate Gionians more than anything! I just wish I could stab all their eyes out to use as, uh, earrings!"

"Maybe laying it on a bit too thick there," Aldo muttered.

The younger man glared at me. "How do we know you're a Selenite?"

If there'd been one scholar between the four of them, they might have observed that the slightly-wavy, coal-dark hair, the intense green eyes, and distinct cupid's bow lips were all stereotypical traits of Selenite royalty. In fact, family legend has it that my great-great-great-great grandmother was one of the last Selenite queens… though the family genealogy is long lost and I have no way to confirm that. The point is, none of these four were exactly scholars - they were refugees relegated to the city's dirty, thankless, tollo-per-hour jobs. And, obviously, they had a thing against Gionians, so it would be best if we convinced them that we were none too fond of our home country.

"I can recite the Central Suras," I said. I had a lot more than just those memorized, thanks to my childhood tutoring, but I didn't know the whole Asuranad and wasn't about to claim that I did.

The big guy crossed muscle-corded arms. "Okay, little miss, let's hear 'em."

"I am Asuna the Most High, thy god, thy maker, thy parent, and I say thus unto you:

There is no god but me, there are no archangels but mine and, if you be my children no other worship shall you have.

There is a kingdom for you upon the earth and one in heaven, and the stewardship is your charge and your honor.

Teach your children my ways, and to the outsider…"

"Say, do you know the Central Suras, Rex?" the woman in the group interjected, glancing at the bushy-bearded man.

"Um… no…"

"Me either. So how will we know she's got them right?"

"Well I want to hear her," the young guy said. "I reckon I'll be able to tell."

"Ugh. Fine. Well… go on, girl!"

I finished reciting the twenty Central Suras, and everybody in the group agreed that they sounded pretty much right. They were, in fact, exactly right, word-for-word in the High Selen translation, with the one conceit that they were translated into modern Selenite from the original Archaic Sele.

"So… we're not Gionian spies, right?" I said.

"Then why in the world are you working for them?" Rex still didn't care for me.

"Because Florian Gionians aren't the same as Duke Orso," I said. "Even in Barsoa, most Gionians aren't so bad. They're folks just like us, going about their business, and we all happen to be good at some of the business they need."

"Yeah, but that still don't explain why you're at that shadow school…"

"The Collegium," Mailyn interjected with a smirk. Now that the worst threat of danger was over, she was getting a kick out of this.

"I'm there because they're going to teach me to be strong, and then I'm going to rip Duke Orso out of his palace and toss him into the sea, and Selenites will be safe all across Gionia…" I blushed a bit, realizing that my plan sounded a bit like an adventure spatback now that I said it out loud. "I swore an oath," I added.

"Yeah? To who?"

"To whom," Mailyn mumbled.

"I swore it in front of the Most High, and I swore it to myself and to my family… for my family," I said, tears beading on my eyelids as I worked myself up. I often tried to push these thoughts from my mind and wasn't well-prepared to touch upon that emotional nerve.

"Hmm," the woman said. "I think we ought to take the girl to see the bond-priests."

I shrugged. "Yeah? Well… I've got work," I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. "You can leave a message with Mr. Hianchi if that's not too scandalous for you. Come on, guys."

As we left the little secluded courtyard and made our way out to the street, the middle guy muttered: "We're… just letting them go?"

"You want to try to keep 'em here, be my guest," the woman said. Indeed, we were already well away and safely off to our afternoon activities.