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the quarry,” said Frid with a sigh. She was holding her hands out while Esa wrapped them with yarn. “I miss hitting things.”
    Liana lay on her side, accentuating the curve of her hip. “The servants bring us food. We don’t even wash our plates. Being a princess’s lady actually means something. We have rank .”
    “I’m surprised Britta couldn’t get more girls into your special academy,” said Bena. “She is the betrothed princess.”
    Miri removed her robes and looked around for Katar, eager to tell her about the conversation with Timon. Katar was gone, but Inga, their gray-haired chaperone, gave her a smile full of wrinkles. Inga sat on the sofa, neither sewing nor spinning. Just watching. Her king-appointed task was to keep an eye on the girls, and it seemed that was all she meant to do.
    “I’m sure Esa would like to attend the Queen’s Castle,” said Bena. “And I wouldn’t mind, if you would know. Instead of sewing in this room all day—”
    “And spinning,” said Esa.
    “And eating food the servants bring us as ladies of rank ,” said Liana.
    “I thought something smelled rank,” Miri mumbled.
    “What?”
    “Nothing, Liana.” Miri sat on the floor and tossed a pillow in the air. “I learned some stuff today I didn’t know before. If I tell you about it, then it’s almost as if you attend the Queen’s Castle too.”
    “I want to hear,” Esa said, turning so she could see Miri and still use Frid’s hands as a spool. Esa’s left arm, injured in a quarry accident years before, hung limp at her side.
    Miri recounted Master Filippus’s introduction of the different subjects. But when she got to Ethics and a painting versus a prisoner, the girls began to argue so passionately two palace guards stormed in.
    “We’re fine, really,” Miri told the bewildered guards. “Which is more than I can say for that murderous prisoner if Frid gets her hands on him.”
    “He killed a child .” Frid was on her feet, gesturing with yarn-wrapped hands. “And you’re talking about freeing him!”
    Esa touched her arm. “It’s just a made-up story.”
    Frid’s face was wide open—all eyes, mouth, and flexed nostrils. “Why? If I were going to make up a story, it wouldn’t be about someone killing children. It’d be about cutting blocks of linder and being so strong I could lift them over my head. And it would be funny . All stories should be funny.”
    One of the guards scratched his beard. “So you girls are all right?”
    “You may go,” Liana said with a wave of her hand.
    Supper came, and Miri asked Inga if she could go eat with Britta. Inga nodded as if she did not care one way or the other.
    In Britta’s chamber, there were several wardrobes painted as brightly as the river houses, and an enormous bed stuffed with feathers and dripping with blankets, but no Britta. Miri sat on the floor and had begun to eat her fish and potato cakes when the door opened.
    “Miri!” Britta caught Miri around her shoulders and knocked her back onto the carpet in a running embrace. “I almost forgot you were here and when I saw you, I had that happy jolt all over again. Isn’t that wonderful? How was your first day?”
    “Amazing! And a little daunting.” She told Britta about the grand castle, old Master Filippus, Timon of Asland. “He has hair so pale it’s almost white. He’s only a little older than we are, but he talks like a master scholar sometimes, I guess because he’s read so many books. Oh, do you think you could get Esa into the Queen’s Castle? And maybe Bena too? I hate to ask for Bena—she can be such a pain sometimes—but she seems interested.”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t. I wish I could.”
    “That’s all right.” Miri thought of what Bena had said. Shouldn’t a princess be able to do such a thing? Miri smiled weakly at Britta and wished she could make the smile stronger. “Um … How’s Steffan?”
    “He’s well. I think he is, anyway. I only get to see him at