Staria looked toward the central building to where Janna sat in the sunlight beside one of her sisters, and her sharp brows lowered. “Don’t trust that one. She reports everything to her mother.”
Klym was careful not to make a face. She’d assumed as much. Janna had, after all, known her mother for her whole life, and Klym for only days. If Klym had known her mother, she’d have told her everything. “That doesn’t make her a liar. Is it true? Will you have friends there?”
“Monna will be there. We are friends.” Staria sighed. “Maybe someone will come along and save me. Maybe I’ll meet a handsome man at the feast, and he will take me away to some other planet.” She kicked at a fish that darted too close. “What are you wearing to the feast?”
She frowned. The feast would come on their last night together. Her stomach tightened. She’d be gone by then. She’d sworn it. “Does it have to be something special? Tor had all these outfits sent for me.”
“Half the reporters in Tamminiawill be there, along with all the nobles, and officials from the other countries, not to mention emissaries of the Alliance. Everyone will be staring at you.”
“How do I get something new?”
“A few of us are going to town this afternoon. To visit my cousin. She’s a tailor.” Staria leaned back on slender arms, her palms on the stones behind her, and made the sort of face people make when they are about to volunteer for something vile. Her friend Malina had made that exact face when she’d claimed ownership of a forbidden book when Tutor Heilani had found them reading it. “I guess you could come.”
It was a step. A huge one. If Staria started to trust her, maybe the others would too.
“I’d love that.”
Staria slid her feet from the pond. “It won’t take long. We will be home before dinner.”
Klym glanced at Janna at the other end of the courtyard. It would be so much fun. To go into town with the girls, to go shopping, to feel just for a moment in this strange and confusing place as if she belonged. But first… “I need to check with Tor.”
Staria’s brow quirked. “He keeps you tightly watched.”
“Is that unusual?” She pushed out her lower lip. “Dillan let us do as we pleased as long as we didn’t interrupt him when he was working. Or if we were nearing a heat, he always insisted we stay at the cassia.”
Klym hesitated. “How long will it take?”
“An hour, maybe two.”
“I’m going to go ask.”
TOR WAS IN HIS STUDY. Klym hesitated outside the door, rehearsing the speech she’d planned. Historically, Tor did better with her when she asked in a polite and dignified manner, laying on just a touch of emotional plea, like on Friggoria when he’d taken her into town. He did not respond well to threats or demands.
She sucked in a breath and pushed her hair over her shoulder.
He was deep in conversation with Gaspart. They sat in the broad leather chairs in the seating area, staring at a wall screen with a map of Vesta on it. Gaspart’s fingers were threaded over his massive belly. Tor’s legs were sprawled negligently wide, surprisingly wide, given the state of affairs under his skirt.
There was no one to see, but still.
She cleared her throat, and his gaze snapped to her face, brows low.
When he registered her presence, his frown disappeared and he held out a hand. “Come in, Klym. Gaspart was just leaving.”
“I was, was I?” Gaspart heaved himself up from his chair with both hands.
Klym pursed her lips, toying with her pearls. Better wait for him to ask.
Tor drummed the flats of his hands on the sides of his chair, studying her body. “You look happy.”
“I am.”
Dimples flickered and a wide, white grin spread across his face. “Come here, amiera. I’ll make you happier.”
She sucked in a long breath and crossed the room, stepping between his spread thighs.
He tugged her down so she was sitting on his lap. “So, what can I do for you, Selissa?”
She touched her hand to his hair, toying with a loose end. “Apparently I need something nice to wear to the feast.”
He hummed happily, his eyes closing when she touched his hair. “You’ve got tons of clothes.”
That made her laugh. “We’ll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of tons. I have a few outfits. I want something special.”
“Okay. I can have a tailor come up. They’ll make whatever you want.” He slid a hand up her waist, pulling her forward so he could get his nose right between her breasts. He sucked in a long breath.
She pushed at his shoulders and got nowhere. “The thing is, Tor, a group of the felanas are going into town to visit a tailor there.”
He grumbled and pulled a breast from her blouse, nibbling away until she went positively lightheaded. “No, I had something else in mind.”
He shifted her so she was in his lap, her legs on either side. “You can’t go into town, Klym.”
She pushed at his shoulders again, and this time he let her, a deep line between his brows.
“Why not?” she asked.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“So it’s just like the Institute, then? It’s just like with Spiro? I’m here in a pretty cage, locked away for my own safety.”
His jaw tightened, and he picked her up off his lap and set her on the floor. With a cranky glare, he rose from his seat and strode across the room. “This is not Argentus. And it’s not your Institute. And you’re the fucking selissa.”
Her eyes burned. “You don’t understand. They invited me, Tor. Don’t you see what that means?”
He put a hand on his hip. “There’s a civil war brewing out there.”
“B-b-but Staria says Dillan let them do whatever they wanted. Even his selissa, Monna.”
He scoffed, digging around in a desk drawer, not even bothering to look at her. “Well, he had twenty-seven of
