When Whimsy entered the Healer's Hall, Dalliance almost didn't recognize her. Gone were the frills, lace, ruffles, and petticoats.

  Instead, she wore a severe, nearly straight skirt, scarcely wider at the bottom than at the top. Over this, she wore what could have passed for an apron of the same color, with a broad belt of matching cloth tied in a complicated knot around her center. It didn't look very comfortable. Instead of her usual bright colors, or even the bright colors of the temple attendants and priests, Whimsy wore charcoal gray with black panels edged in white. Dalliance supposed these darker clothes might be better for the people who had to do more cleaning. Maybe. He wasn't actually sure what novices did, but anytime he'd ever seen people get the opportunity, they shuffled off labor they didn't like to the youngest person available who could do it.

  All told, she probably wasn't enjoying her time here as much as she'd expected, but her face lit up when she saw him, and she ran over to throw her arms around him.

  "That hurts," he gasped.

  She didn't move, her face pressing into his chest. She was crying, now.

  It really hurt.

  The edge of her chin and the point of her nose were both pressing against the innumerable wounds which dotted his chest, which, though staunched by magic afterward, had been recently debrided with boar-bristle brushes (that had hurt, too). Still, he couldn't bring himself to push her off.

  He was all she had now, and she was all he had. He let himself sit with that knowledge.

  After he'd sprung her free . . . that had really been it. That had been the first step on a path that would lead to cutting off his family. Though, he consoled himself, Da—Cadence—had started it.

  "So," he said awkwardly as the silence drew on. The temple attendant stood watching; this reunion was clearly going to be supervised. Not that he blamed her. Though he'd said Whimsy was his sister, that didn't mean she could prove it. Propriety had to be maintained, though it did put a time limit on their conversation.

  "Are they feeding you?"

  She sobbed. "How is that the first thing you ask?"

  "Well," he admitted, "I didn't know how far the thaums would really go, and you don't have a way to get more. So I was . . . "

  "They're feeding me," she said impatiently. "I was in a box until after nightfall! That's like ten hours. Alone. In a box, in the dark, under a wagon. Ten hours! And then when I got out, I was alone, and I didn't know where I was."

  They had talked about that. When Miss Thicket Wimple returned to the city, she was supposed to go to the market for supplies and then go home.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "She went to the carter's yard first," Whimsy said. "They backed the cart into a stall and closed and locked the doors."

  Oh. In retrospect, it should have occurred to him that he didn't know whether Miss Wimple had a barn to store the cart. Living in the city, presumably not.

  "I was bruised, and in the dark, and it was hot," she continued. "And then when I got out, I was locked in a stall."

  "How did you get out?"

  "I didn't!" she cried. "I slept on the cart, and in the morning, Miss Thicket Wimple brought me to the Temple."

  Dalliance hadn't been sure he could trust the schoolmarm, but he was glad to hear it.

  "I came and saw you," she said, "when they first brought you here. The Headmistress says there aren't very many Rathers, so we kind of stand out."

  The temple attendant snorted. Dalliance looked over, and she pretended to be looking at her paperwork.

  "I know you don't have much time," Whimsy said. She pulled herself away from him and looked at him seriously, using her serious voice. He didn't know how much she had already told anyone, or how much she actually knew. The whole thing had been so spur-of-the-moment. Now that the relief was kicking in—that it had worked, that they had worked—it occurred to him that it would be really nice if she didn't tell people he could dodge arrows and such things.

  "Is there anything you need to tell me?" he asked her.

  And engaged [Prediction].

  He hadn't noticed the amulet around the attendant's throat, but it pulsed with a faint white light. She glanced down at it, then up at him sternly. "Young man," she said, "I told you—"

  But he wasn't listening to her.

  Because his sister had heard, "Is there anything you need to tell me?" and thought about how bad the food was, and decided not to tell him. She'd thought, I miss our horses, and decided not to tell him. She'd cycled through a litany of childish concerns, and one less so.

  “You saw Uncle?” Dalliance was horrified. Solidarity Rather, [Legion Captain] on permanent Wall-top duty.

  "He was here for his prayers. It just happened," she said.

  Of all the luck.

  "He asked me if I wanted him to take me home, and I said no," she said. There was a steel in her voice he didn't expect to hear. "I told him I was going to be an [Archer] when I grew up, and he told me he'd find me a nice place to stand, with plenty of targets."

  She sniffed.

  The idea of Uncle Solidarity taking her seriously hadn't occurred to Dalliance.

  Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

  She didn’t stay very long after that before being ushered out by a scowling temple attendant, but she promised him she would be back at lunch. The Headmistress was giving her special dispensation on account of him being her brother.

  That was nice of her, he supposed.