Shared Harvest

The morning bell rang at six, and by six-fifteen I was balls-deep in the kitchen girl.

Not the way I'd planned it. I had a schedule. The schedule was on the corkboard by the door, written in my mother's tight, slanted hand: *6:00 rise, 6:15 wash, 6:30 breakfast with the household, 7:00 review petitions in the east study.* But the kitchen girl, whose name was Mira and who had been with our household since she was fourteen, had other ideas. She'd been standing at the stove with her back to me, stirring something that smelled like cardamom and butter, and she'd heard my footsteps and turned, and her robe had been untied, and that was that.

"You're early," she said, which was a lie, because I was exactly on time.

"I'm always on time."

"Mm." She pushed back against me, her palms flat on the counter, the wood cutting into her hips. "Then hurry up. The bread's going to burn."

The bread did not burn. I finished in four minutes, which is not a boast, it's just what happens when you've been doing this since you were thirteen and the household has certain expectations. She came with a small, sharp sound, the way she always did, like she was surprised by it every time. Then she wiped herself with a rag, retied her robe, and went back to the stove as if nothing had happened.

I washed my hands in the basin by the door and went to breakfast.

The dining hall was already half full. My father sat at the head of the long oak table, reading a broadsheet, his reading glasses perched low on his nose. My mother sat to his right, already dressed for the day in a high-collared blouse and a skirt that reached her ankles, because she had a meeting with the guild council at eight. My two younger sisters, Sera and Lila, sat across from each other, arguing about something to do with a dress. And at the far end of the table, where the light from the tall windows fell in a long yellow stripe, sat the three women who had been assigned to me for the season.

Their names were Tessa, Anya, and Corin. They were nineteen, twenty-one, and twenty-three, respectively. They had been selected by the household committee from a pool of applicants, vetted for health, temperament, and compatibility, and they had been living in the east wing since the first of the month. I had not yet slept with any of them.

This was, according to my mother, a problem.

"You've been avoiding them," she said, not looking up from her tea.

"I haven't been avoiding them. I've been busy."

"You've been busy for three weeks."

I buttered a roll. "There's a lot to do before the harvest festival. The petitions alone—"

"The petitions can wait." She set down her cup. "Kael, look at me."

I looked at her. She had the same gray eyes I did, the same flat expression that people found difficult to read. She was forty-six years old and had borne four children and had, at one time or another, slept with every man and woman in the household except the cook, who was her brother. She was not a woman who embarrassed easily.

"Your father and I have given you a great deal of latitude," she said. "We've let you set your own pace. We've let you choose your own partners from the staff. But the season is half over, and you haven't touched a single one of the women we selected for you. People are starting to talk."

"People always talk."

"People are starting to talk about *you*. Specifically. They're saying you're cold. They're saying you're not interested in women. They're saying—" She paused, choosing her words. "They're saying you might be more suited to the monastery."

My father turned a page of his broadsheet. He had not looked up once.

"That's ridiculous," I said.

"Is it?" My mother's voice was mild. "When was the last time you initiated with anyone? Not responded. Initiated."

I didn't answer. She knew the answer. It had been two months, at the midwinter feast, when I'd taken the blacksmith's daughter against the wall of the granary because she'd asked me to and because I'd had too much wine and because it had seemed, at the time, like the easiest thing to do.

"Tessa is a trained companion," my mother said. "She spent two years at the temple in Verrin. Anya is a healer. Corin is a scholar, which I thought you'd appreciate. They're not here to trap you. They're here to help you. But they can't help you if you won't let them."

I finished my roll. "I'll make time this afternoon."

"See that you do."

Breakfast continued. Sera and Lila resumed their argument. My father turned another page. I drank my tea and watched the women at the end of the table, who were eating in silence, their eyes on their plates. Tessa was the tallest, with dark hair cut short at the jaw and a way of holding her shoulders that suggested she was used to being looked at. Anya was softer, rounder, with freckles across her nose and a habit of biting her lip. Corin was thin and sharp, with spectacles and ink-stained fingers, and she had not once looked up from the book she'd brought to the table.

None of them looked at me. That was the protocol. They would not initiate. They would not even acknowledge me until I acknowledged them. That was the rule my mother had set, and my mother's rules were not suggestions.

I finished my tea and went to the east study to review petitions.

---

The east study was my favorite room in the house. It had windows on three sides and a fireplace that worked, and the shelves were filled with books that had belonged to my grandfather, who had been a judge in the capital before he retired to the country. I'd spent most of my childhood in this room, reading, avoiding my tutors, watching the light move across the floor.

The petitions were stacked on the desk in a neat pile. Most of them were routine: requests for grain allotments, disputes over property lines, a complaint about a neighbor's pigs. I read through them quickly, making notes in the margins, setting aside the ones that needed more attention.

The last petition was different.

It was written on cheap paper, the kind they sold in the market for a copper a sheet, and the handwriting was cramped and uneven, as if the writer had been in a hurry or in pain. It said:

*To the Lord Kael of House Verrin, from the women of the Lower Quarter:*

*We request an audience. We have a matter of great urgency to discuss, one that concerns the safety of our daughters and the honor of our households. We cannot commit the details to paper. We ask that you come to us, or that you send someone you trust, or that you grant us passage through the gates so that we may come to you. We have been turned away by the city guard three times. We have been told that our concerns are not your concerns. We are asking you to prove them wrong.*

It was signed with seven names. I didn't recognize any of them.

I read it twice. Then I read it a third time, and I noticed something I'd missed the first time: the paper was stained, not with ink or wine, but with something darker. Blood, maybe. Or dirt. Or both.

I folded the petition and put it in my pocket.

---

The afternoon was warm, and the household had gathered in the courtyard for the daily hour of leisure. This was a tradition in our house, one that my grandmother had started and my mother had maintained: for one hour after the midday meal, everyone stopped working. The servants, the guards, the family, the companions. Everyone. They sat in the sun or walked in the garden or played cards at the long table under the arbor. They talked. They touched. They fucked, if they wanted to, though that was optional and no one was expected to participate.

I found Tessa by the fountain. She was sitting on the stone rim, trailing her fingers in the water, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She didn't look up when I approached, but her shoulders shifted slightly, a small adjustment, and I knew she'd seen me.

"May I sit?" I asked.

She looked up then, and her eyes were the color of amber, and her mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "It's your courtyard, my lord."

"It's my mother's courtyard. I just live here."

"Then may I sit?"

"You're already sitting."

She laughed. It was a real laugh, low and warm, not the practiced giggle I'd expected from someone with temple training. "You're not what I expected," she said.

"What did you expect?"

"Someone colder. Someone who'd make me wait longer." She pulled her hand out of the water and shook it dry. "Your mother told me you might be difficult."

"My mother tells everyone I'm difficult."

"She tells everyone you're brilliant, too. And kind. And that you have a habit of ignoring the people who care about you."

I sat down on the rim of the fountain, a few feet away from her. The stone was warm from the sun. "She shouldn't have told you that."

"Why not? It's true, isn't it?"

I didn't answer. She didn't seem to need me to. She turned on the rim so she was facing me, her knees almost touching mine, and she looked at me the way a physician looks at a wound: clinical, patient, not unkind.

"I'm not here to seduce you," she said. "I'm here to help you. If you don't want my help, I'll go back to Verrin and tell the temple that the assignment failed. No one will blame you. These arrangements don't always work."

"And if I do want your help?"

"Then we start with something simple." She reached out and took my hand, turning it over, tracing the lines of my palm with her thumb. "We start with touch. No expectations. No audience. Just this."

Her thumb moved in slow circles. It felt good. It felt like something I'd been missing without knowing it.

"Your mother says you haven't initiated in two months," she said.

"Your mother talks too much."

"She's worried about you. They all are." She released my hand and stood up, brushing dust from her skirt. "Come to my room tonight. After the evening meal. I'll have Anya and Corin with me. We'll talk. That's all. Just talk."

"And if I don't come?"

"Then I'll know you're not ready." She smiled, and this time it was a real smile, with teeth. "But I think you'll come."

She walked away, across the courtyard, toward the east wing. I watched her go. The sun was warm on my face, and the water in the fountain was making a soft, steady sound, and somewhere in the garden one of the guards was laughing at something.

I took the petition out of my pocket and read it again.

---

The evening meal was long and loud. My father had invited guests: a merchant from the capital, his wife, and their two daughters, who were visiting the province on a tour of the northern estates. The daughters were seventeen and eighteen, both pretty in a bland way, both dressed in the latest fashion from the city, both clearly bored. They spent the meal stealing glances at me and whispering to each other behind their hands.

I ate without tasting anything. My mother watched me from across the table, her expression unreadable. My sisters argued about something. The merchant talked about grain prices. The candles burned down, and the servants brought more, and the conversation drifted from politics to weather to the upcoming festival.

After the meal, I excused myself and went to the east wing.

Tessa's room was at the end of the corridor, past the rooms where Anya and Corin slept, past the small library that had been converted into a sitting room. The door was slightly open, and a warm light spilled into the hallway. I knocked.

"Come in."

The room was small but comfortable. A bed, a wardrobe, a table with three chairs. A fire in the grate. Tessa was sitting in one of the chairs, and Anya was on the bed, and Corin was standing by the window, looking out at the dark garden. They all turned when I entered.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Tessa said.

"I wasn't sure either."

"Sit down. Please."

I sat in the empty chair. Anya smiled at me, a nervous smile, and bit her lip. Corin didn't smile. She just looked at me, her spectacles catching the firelight, her expression thoughtful.

"We're not going to do anything tonight," Tessa said. "I told you that. We're just going to talk."

"About what?"

"About you. About what you want. About why you've been avoiding us."

"I haven't been avoiding you."

"You've been avoiding everyone." Corin's voice was sharp, precise. "I've been watching. You eat with your family, you work in your study, you walk in the garden alone. You don't touch anyone. You don't let anyone touch you. You haven't even looked at us since we arrived."

"I looked at you at breakfast."

"You looked at your plate."

I didn't have an answer for that. She was right. I'd been looking at my plate. I'd been looking at my plate for three weeks, and before that I'd been looking at my plate for two months, and before that I'd been looking at my plate for as long as I could remember.

"Why?" Tessa asked. "Why do you do it?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

I looked at the fire. The flames were small and steady, eating the wood slowly. "When I was thirteen," I said, "my father took me to the temple in Verrin. There was a ceremony. All the boys of my age were there, and all the girls, and we were told that this was the way of our people, that this was how we honored the gods and the harvest and each other. And I did what I was supposed to do. I took the girl they gave me, and I did what I was supposed to do, and everyone watched, and when it was over, my father clapped me on the shoulder and said he was proud of me."

"And?"

"And I felt nothing." I looked at Tessa. "I felt nothing at all. Not pleasure, not shame, not pride. Just... nothing. And I've been feeling nothing ever since."

The room was quiet. The fire crackled. Anya shifted on the bed, and the mattress creaked.

"That's not uncommon," Tessa said. "Many people feel that way at first. It passes."

"It's been eight years."

"Then maybe it's not about the ceremony." She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Maybe it's about something else. Something you haven't told us."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. There were things I hadn't told anyone, things I'd been carrying since I was a child, and I wasn't ready to put them into words. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Corin left the window and came to stand behind Tessa's chair. "We're not here to force you," she said. "We're not here to judge you. We're here because your mother asked us to help you, and because we want to help you, and because we think you're worth helping. But we can't do anything if you won't let us in."

"I know."

"Do you?"

I stood up. "I should go. It's late."

"It's not late. It's barely nine."

"I have work to do."

"Kael." Tessa's voice was soft. "Stay. Just for a little while. We don't have to talk about anything important. We can just sit here. Together."

I looked at her. I looked at Anya, who was watching me with wide, hopeful eyes. I looked at Corin, who was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

And I sat back down.

---

We talked for an hour. Not about anything important. About books, about music, about the harvest festival and the merchant's daughters and the way the cook always burned the bread on Tuesdays. Anya told a story about a patient she'd treated in Verrin, a man who'd swallowed a live frog on a dare and had to have it removed. Corin talked about her research, something to do with the old laws and the way they'd been interpreted over the centuries. Tessa listened more than she spoke, but when she did speak, it was always the right thing.

And somewhere in the middle of it, without meaning to, I started to relax.

It was a small thing. My shoulders dropped an inch. My hands unclenched. I stopped counting the minutes until I could leave. I stopped thinking about the petition in my pocket, and the bloodstains on the paper, and the seven names I didn't recognize.

I just sat there, in a warm room, with three women who wanted nothing from me except my company.

It was nice. It was strange and unfamiliar and nice.

When I finally stood up to go, Tessa walked me to the door. "Thank you," she said. "For staying."

"Thank you for asking."

"We'll do this again tomorrow. Same time."

"All right."

She reached up and touched my face, just for a moment, her fingers light on my cheek. "Goodnight, Kael."

"Goodnight."

I walked back to my room through the dark corridor. The house was quiet. Everyone was asleep, or pretending to be. I undressed and got into bed and lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, thinking about nothing and everything.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel alone.

---

The next morning, I woke before the bell.

The sky was still gray, the birds just starting to stir in the garden. I dressed quickly, without waking Mira, and went down to the kitchen. She was there, as always, standing at the stove, her robe tied properly this time.

"You're early again," she said.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Mm." She handed me a cup of tea. "Sit down. The bread's not ready yet."

I sat at the small table by the window and watched her work. She moved with the ease of long practice, her hands sure and quick, her attention on the dough. She was thirty-two years old, and she'd been with our household for eighteen years, and she'd slept with every member of my family except my father, who had never asked. She was the closest thing I had to a friend.

"Tessa told me you came to her room last night," she said.

"Did she?"

"She came by the kitchen after. She was smiling." Mira shaped the dough into loaves and set them aside to rise. "She likes you."

"She's paid to like me."

"She's paid to help you. There's a difference." She wiped her hands on her apron and sat down across from me. "You know, when I was your age, I was the same way. I didn't want anyone to touch me. I thought there was something wrong with me."

"What changed?"

"I met someone who didn't push." She smiled, a small, private smile. "She just waited. And eventually, I was ready."

"Who was she?"

"Your mother."

I stared at her. She laughed.

"It was a long time ago. Before you were born. She was young, and I was younger, and we were both lonely. It didn't last. But it taught me something." She reached across the table and took my hand. "You don't have to be ready on anyone's schedule but your own. Not your mother's, not Tessa's, not mine. Yours."

I squeezed her hand. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Just eat your breakfast."

---

The petition was still in my pocket. I took it out after breakfast and read it for the fourth time, and then I went to find my father.

He was in his study, surrounded by ledgers and correspondence, his reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked up when I knocked.

"Kael. What is it?"

I handed him the petition. He read it slowly, his expression unchanging, and when he was done, he set it down on the desk and looked at me.

"Where did you get this?"

"It was in the pile. With the other petitions."

"And you read it."

"I read all the petitions."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "The Lower Quarter has been a problem for years," he said. "They don't pay their taxes. They don't follow the laws. They cause trouble."

"They're asking for help."

"They're asking for attention. There's a difference." He picked up the petition and held it out to me. "Forget about it. It's not your concern."

"It's addressed to me."

"It's addressed to the Lord of House Verrin. That's me. Not you. Not yet." He set the petition down again. "When you inherit this house, you can make your own decisions about who to help and who to ignore. Until then, you follow my lead."

"And what's your lead?"

"My lead is that we don't get involved in the affairs of the Lower Quarter. We don't have the resources. We don't have the authority. And we don't have any obligation to people who have never done anything for us."

I picked up the petition. "They say their daughters are in danger."

"Everyone's daughters are in danger. That's the world we live in." He put his glasses back on and turned back to his ledgers. "Close the door on your way out."

I closed the door. I stood in the hallway for a long moment, the petition in my hand, the bloodstains dark against the cheap paper. Then I folded it and put it back in my pocket and went to the east study to review the rest of the petitions.

But I couldn't concentrate. The words blurred on the page. The numbers stopped making sense. I kept thinking about the seven names, and the blood, and the women who had been turned away by the city guard three times.

And I kept thinking about what my father had said: *That's the world we live in.*

Maybe it was. But that didn't mean I had to accept it.

---

That afternoon, I went to the courtyard for the hour of leisure. Tessa was there, sitting by the fountain, and Anya was with her, and Corin was reading on a bench nearby. They looked up when I approached.

"You came back," Tessa said.

"I said I would."

"You said you'd come to my room. You didn't say you'd come to the courtyard."

"I'm full of surprises."

She smiled. "Sit with us."

I sat. Anya moved closer, her knee pressing against mine, and I didn't pull away. Corin kept reading, but I noticed she'd turned a page without looking at it.

"I want to ask you something," I said.

"Ask."

"The Lower Quarter. Do you know anything about it?"

Tessa's smile faded. "Why do you want to know about the Lower Quarter?"

"I got a petition. From some women there. They say their daughters are in danger."

"What kind of danger?"

"They didn't say. They couldn't commit it to paper." I took the petition out of my pocket and handed it to her. "Read it."

She read it slowly, her brow furrowed. Anya read it over her shoulder. Corin set down her book and came to join them.

"This is serious," Corin said. "If they're asking for an audience, it means they've exhausted every other option."

"Do you know what it's about?"

"I might." She sat down on the rim of the fountain, next to Tessa. "I've been researching the old laws. The ones that govern the Lower Quarter. There's a provision in the city charter, something that dates back to the founding, that gives the Lord of House Verrin certain rights over the people who live outside the walls."

"What kind of rights?"

"The right to tax them. The right to conscript them. And the right to..." She hesitated. "The right to claim their daughters."

The words hung in the air. The fountain burbled. Somewhere in the garden, a bird sang.

"What does that mean?" I asked. "Claim their daughters?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like." Corin's voice was flat. "Once a year, on the night of the harvest festival, the Lord of House Verrin is entitled to select one girl from the Lower Quarter and bring her into his household. She becomes a servant, or a companion, or a concubine. It depends on the lord. But the point is that she doesn't come back."

"And this is still the law?"

"It's still on the books. It hasn't been enforced in fifty years, not since your grandfather's time. But it's never been repealed."

I looked at the petition in Tessa's hands. The bloodstains. The seven names. The women who had been turned away by the city guard three times.

"They think my father is going to claim one of their daughters," I said.

"They think someone is. The law says the Lord of House Verrin, but it doesn't specify which one. It could be your father. It could be you." Corin met my eyes. "It could be anyone acting on your family's behalf."

"That's insane. My father would never—"

"Your father is a practical man. He wouldn't do it for pleasure. But he might do it for politics. If there's a family in the Lower Quarter that's been causing trouble, if there's a debt that needs to be paid, if there's a message that needs to be sent..." She shrugged. "The law gives him the power. Whether he uses it is another question."

I stood up. "I need to go."

"Where?"

"To the Lower Quarter. I need to talk to these women."

"You can't." Tessa stood up too, her hand on my arm. "The city guard won't let you through the gates. They've been turned away three times, remember? What makes you think they'll let you in?"

"I'm the son of the Lord of House Verrin. They'll let me in."

"And then what? You'll talk to these women, and you'll hear their concerns, and then you'll come back here and do nothing. Because that's what your father does. That's what all the lords do."

I pulled my arm away. "You don't know me."

"I know enough." Her voice was sharp. "I know you're a good man who's been taught to be passive. I know you've spent your whole life letting other people make decisions for you. I know you're afraid of something, and I don't know what it is, but I know it's holding you back."

"Tessa." Anya's voice was soft, a warning.

"No. He needs to hear this." Tessa stepped closer to me. "If you go to the Lower Quarter, you're not just risking your own safety. You're risking the safety of everyone in this house. Your father will be furious. Your mother will be disappointed. And the women who asked for your help will be worse off than they were before, because they'll have drawn attention to themselves, and attention is the last thing they want."

"So what do you suggest I do?"

"I suggest you think. I suggest you plan. I suggest you find out what's really going on before you go charging in like a hero from a ballad." She crossed her arms. "You want to help these women? Then help them. But do it smart."

I looked at her. I looked at Anya, who was watching me with worried eyes. I looked at Corin, who was watching me with something that might have been respect.

"All right," I said. "I'll think about it."

"Good."

"But I'm not going to forget about it. And I'm not going to let my father ignore it."

"That's all I'm asking."

I turned and walked away, across the courtyard, through the garden, back into the house. My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking. I didn't know what I was feeling, but it was something. Something I hadn't felt in a long time.

---

That night, I went to Tessa's room again.

She was alone this time. Anya was visiting her family in the village, and Corin was in the library, researching something. Tessa was sitting on the bed, brushing her hair, and she looked up when I came in.

"You came back."

"I said I would."

"You also said you'd think about it. Did you?"

"I thought about it." I sat down in the chair by the fire. "I thought about it all afternoon. I thought about it during dinner. I thought about it while I was pretending to read petitions."

"And?"

"And I don't know what to do." I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees. "I want to help them. I do. But you're right. If I go charging in, I'll make things worse. And if I do nothing, I'll be just like my father."

"Your father isn't a bad man."

"He's not a good one either."

Tessa set down her brush and came to sit on the floor at my feet. She looked up at me, her face soft in the firelight. "What do you want, Kael? Not what you think you should want. Not what your mother wants. What do *you* want?"

I looked at her. I looked at the fire. I looked at my hands, resting on my knees, the hands of a man who had spent his whole life doing what was expected of him.

"I want to feel something," I said. "I want to feel something real. I want to stop going through the motions. I want to stop pretending."

"Then stop pretending."

"It's not that simple."

"It is that simple. It's just not easy." She reached up and took my hand. "You've been numb for eight years. You've been living in your head, in your books, in your petitions. You've been avoiding the world because the world hurt you. But the world is still there. It's still waiting for you. And it's not going to wait forever."

I looked at her hand in mine. Her fingers were warm. Her skin was soft. She was twenty-one years old, and she'd spent two years at the temple in Verrin, and she'd been sent here to help me, and she was the first person in a long time who had looked at me and seen something worth saving.

"I don't know how to start," I said.

"Start with this." She lifted my hand and pressed it to her cheek. "Start with touch. Start with now."

I touched her face. I traced the line of her jaw, the curve of her cheek, the softness of her lips. She closed her eyes and leaned into my hand, and I felt something shift in my chest, something small and fragile, like a door opening.

"I'm not going to sleep with you tonight," I said.

"I know."

"But I want to stay here. With you. Just for a little while."

"All right."

She stood up and led me to the bed. We lay down together, on top of the covers, fully clothed. She curled against my side, her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest. The fire crackled. The wind moved through the garden. Somewhere in the house, a clock struck ten.

And for the first time in eight years, I felt something other than nothing.

I felt hope.

---

The next morning, I woke in Tessa's bed, alone. She was gone, but there was a note on the pillow: *Gone to breakfast. Come find me.*

I got up and stretched. My body felt different. Lighter. As if something heavy had been lifted from my shoulders. I walked to the door and opened it, and nearly collided with Corin, who was standing in the hallway with a book in her hand.

"Oh," she said. "You're here."

"I'm here."

She looked at me over her spectacles. "You stayed the night."

"I did."

"Did you—"

"No."

She nodded, as if that answered a question she hadn't asked. "Good. That's good." She hesitated. "I've been thinking about your petition. The one from the Lower Quarter."

"And?"

"And I think I found something. Something that might help." She held up the book. "It's a history of the city. Written about a hundred years ago. There's a chapter on the Lower Quarter, on the way the laws were applied in the early days. It's not pretty."

"What does it say?"

"It says that the right to claim daughters was never meant to be a punishment. It was meant to be a protection. The lords were supposed to take girls who had no other options, girls who would have starved or been sold into slavery, and give them a place in their households. It was supposed to be a mercy."

"And it became something else."

"Everything becomes something else." She closed the book. "But the original intent is still there. In the law. If you wanted to, you could argue that the right to claim daughters comes with a responsibility. A duty of care. You could argue that your father has an obligation to these women, not just a right over them."

I stared at her. "You're saying I could use the law against him."

"I'm saying you could use the law to help them. If you were careful. If you were smart." She smiled, a small, sharp smile. "And if you had someone to help you."

I looked at her. I looked at the book in her hands. I looked at the hallway, the house, the world that had been waiting for me to wake up.

"All right," I said. "Let's get to work."

---

That afternoon, I went to the courtyard for the hour of leisure. Tessa was there, and Anya, and Corin. They were sitting together under the arbor, talking in low voices. They looked up when I approached.

"I have a plan," I said.

"Of course you do." Tessa smiled. "Sit down and tell us."

I sat. I told them. And as I talked, I felt something growing in my chest, something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Purpose.

The plan was simple. I would request an audience with the city council, the body that governed the Lower Quarter. I would present the petition. I would argue that the law required my family to protect the women of the Lower Quarter, not prey on them. And I would ask the council to investigate the threats the women had described, to find out who was behind them, to bring them to justice.

It would take time. It would take patience. It would take allies I didn't have and resources I wasn't sure I could access.

But it was a start.

And for the first time in my life, I was ready to start.

---

The evening bell rang at six, and by six-fifteen I was standing in the doorway of the dining hall, watching my family gather for the evening meal. My father at the head of the table. My mother to his right. My sisters across from each other, still arguing about something. The servants moving quietly around the edges of the room.

And at the far end of the table, where the light from the tall windows fell in a long yellow stripe, sat Tessa, Anya, and Corin. They were looking at me. Waiting.

I walked to my place and sat down. My mother glanced at me, her expression curious.

"You look different," she said.

"Do I?"

"Less like a ghost." She picked up her cup. "Did something happen?"

"Nothing much." I picked up my own cup and took a sip. "I just decided to stop pretending."

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she smiled, a real smile, the first one I'd seen from her in months.

"Good," she said. "It's about time."

I smiled back. And for the first time in a long time, I meant it.