She nodded.
“And you spelled your hair red so you’d look like low-level nobility.”
“No one glanced twice at me,” Radane said. “The guards did not know my face. Just my wealth. Even guards I have known since I was a child.”
“Your family owned the boat that sank?” Kiela guessed.
“One of my aunts was an imperial investigator,” Radane said. “She gifted me the boat when the revolutionaries disbanded the office of investigations and confiscated their badges. The new government plans to install their own people, after they finish overhauling the laws, but it’s a lot of change all at once. Everything is in chaos, but without an heir to the imperial throne, it’s bureaucratic chaos, not violence in the streets.”
Larran laid a wet hand on Kiela’s shoulder. “Then the empire won’t be after Kiela? No one will arrest her?”I can stay?she wondered.I can unpack the books, make my jam, share a dinner with Larran . . .
Radane shook her head. “Yes to the first, but the second . . . As far as I know, the laws have not been overwritten yet. What you have done here”—she gestured toward the boat with the books and the sentient succulent—“could still get you arrested, tried, and found guilty. But I am not the one who’d do it.”
Using his leaves, Caz was squeezing saltwater out of his root ball. “So I was right: you were trying to steal the spellbooks for yourself.”
“Only the useful ones,” Radane said.
“All books are useful,” Kiela and Caz said simultaneously.
“Uh-huh, definitely librarians,” Radane said. “I needed spells that would help me hide. I do not wish to ever go back to that life. I want what you have. An ordinary life without the constant fear of assassination.”
That . . . sounded like a very reasonable wish.
“How can we trust you?” Caz said. “You threatened to have us arrested and punished, even though the revolutionaries won—which, by the way, yay.”
Radane countered, “How can I trustyou? You threatened to murder me and hide my body.”
Larran looked startled.
Caz waved his leaves at him. “Not Kiela. She has more morals than common sense.” To Radane, he said, “Can you prove you are who you say you are this time?”
She spread her hands. “No. I have nothing but what I was wearing when the storm hit.”
“You say you’re a wind-speaker,” Caz said. “Why didn’t you spell the storm away?”
“A single wind-speaker cannot work such large magic,” Radane said. “It requires multiple spellcasters to affect a storm. Best I can do solo is summon a pleasant breeze.”
Kiela glanced at Caz. She wanted to trust Radane, but she had already lied once and taken it to an extreme—the cookbook was a particularly unforgivable line to cross. She’d caused a lot of distress in people and plants who Kiela cared about.
Bobbing in the cave, the mermaid cooed, “You are you.”
“What?” Caz asked.
“You are you.”
Kiela understood.Take the librarian out of the Great Library, she’s still a librarian. Take a noble out of her palace . . .She looked at Radane. “You’re still you. When a high noble bathes, how many people must be present?”
“Two,” Radane said. “One to watch inward: to regulate the water temperature, supply the towels, and dry the tile so he or she doesn’t slip, and one to watch outward: to ensure he or she isn’t disturbed or attacked while in a vulnerable state.”
“When did this tradition begin?” Kiela asked.
“After High Lord Irizinth slipped on a bar of soap, hit his head on the tile, and died of his injuries. His brother was blamed for murder and executed before the guilty soap was discovered.”
Caz jumped in. “How many spring festivals must a high noble attend?”
“In an even year or an odd one?” Radane countered.
“Even, but in a year with three rains before the first bloom,” Kiela said.
