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accordingly.” She looked at Karryn but she was still addressing Jasper Paladar. “You should install a well-trained and highly focused unit that follows your niece wherever she goes—whether it is to the market to buy roses or to the garden to meet a clandestine lover. And every other place in between.”
     
     
    “I wasn’t going to meet a lover !” Karryn exclaimed.
     
     
    Jasper Paladar’s eyes had narrowed thoughtfully. “That is not an attitude that has governed Fortune since I’ve been there.”
     
     
    At first she was surprised by his use of the word, but then she remembered a stray fact she must have learned a long time ago: The principal estate owned by the marlords of Fortunalt was situated in the heart of Forten City and called by the name of Fortune. She had no idea why. Most everywhere else in Gillengaria, the marlords’ estates carried names that were also used to denote the surrounding cities. It was hard to believe Rayson Fortunalt had been whimsical enough to have dreamed up this convention on his own.
     
     
    She replied coolly to the lord’s observation. “It’s an attitude that could save her life. It’s the only one, in fact, that will—if something like this happens again.”
     
     
    “I don’t think I want a House guard that follows me everywhere I go,” Karryn said with a pout. “Do you mean, everywhere? To balls? When I go to visit Lindy?”
     
     
    “Everywhere,” Wen said.
     
     
    “How many?” Karryn’s guardian asked. He gestured behind him to the Fortunalt soldiers patiently waiting in the road. “I emptied the barracks to muster this force.”
     
     
    Wen swept a glance over the mounted men. Hard to tell from a cursory inspection, of course, but they didn’t seem like a particularly impressive group. Some too young, some too old, some too paunchy, some too slack. The best men of Fortunalt had probably been lost in the war. “The absolute minimum would be twelve,” she said. “Four for each eight-hour shift around the clock. You’d be better off with sixteen or twenty. And you don’t just need the soldiers. You need a captain to lead them and facilities for them to train in and equipment for them to carry. Are their swords any good? What about their horses?” Wen shook her head. “You can’t just say, ‘I want a strong guard.’ You have to put some thought and resources into it.”
     
     
    Jasper Paladar let his breath out in a long sigh. “I’ve put most of my thought and resources into other enterprises that seemed just as important at the time,” he said. “But all of that counts for nothing if the serramarra goes missing. I take your point.”
     
     
    Wen nodded. “Good. Then this whole misadventure had some value after all.”
     
     
    “Will you return to Fortune with us?” he asked abruptly. “And lead the guard?”
     
     
    Wen stared at him, completely nonplussed. Karryn gave a little squeal and said, “Oh yes!” but Wen ignored her.
     
     
    “No,” she said shortly.
     
     
    “Why not?” was the cool reply.
     
     
    “You don’t even know me,” Wen said. “You have no reason to believe I am as good as I say—or as loyal as I would have to be.”
     
     
    “I think I do know both of those things,” he said seriously.
     
     
    “Please come back with us, Willa,” Karryn begged. “I’ll feel so much safer if you’re there.”
     
     
    “No,” Wen said again. “I have other—obligations.”
     
     
    “What obligations?” Jasper Paladar asked. “If they will not take too much of your time, we could wait for you.”
     
     
    She gave him a frosty look. “Obligations I am not at liberty to discuss.”
     
     
    Karryn spoke artlessly. “She has to make it up to somebody who died a long time ago.”
     
     
    That made Jasper raise his eyebrows again. Wen was furious. “My reasons are my own,” she snapped. “I do not need to explain them to you. Thank you for your offer, but I am not free to