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Halemtat doesn’t like the Halemtat crackers.”
    Beside him, a fully quilled Rejoicer said, “Halemtat doesn’t like much of anything. I think a proper prince ought to rattle his spines once or twice a year at least.”
    Marianne frowned up at Nick, who grinned and said, “Roughly translated: Hapter thinks a proper prince ought to have a sense of humor, however minimal.”
    “Rattle your spines, Halemtat!” shouted a voice from the crowd. “Let’s see if you can do it.”
    “Yes,” came another voice-and Marianne realized it was Chornian’s-”Rattle your spines, Great Prince of the Nutcrackers!”
    All around them, like rain on a tin roof, came the sound of rattling spines. Marianne looked around-the laughter swept through the crowd, setting every Rejoicer in vibrant motion. Even the grand
    vizier rattled briefly, then caught himself, his ruff stiff with alarm.
    Halemtat didn’t rattle.
    From his pouch, Chornian took a nutcracker and a nut. Placing the nut in the cracker’s smirking mouth, Chornian made the bite cut through the rattling of the crowd like the sound of a shot.
    From somewhere to her right, a second crack resounded. Then a third.... Then the rattling took up a renewed life.
    Marianne felt as if she were under water. All around her spines shifted and rattled. Chornian’s beaded spines chattered as he cracked a second nut in the smirking face of the nutcracker.
    Then one of Halemtat’s guards ripped the nutcracker from Chornian’s hands. The guard glared at Chornian, who rattled all the harder.
    Looking over his shoulder to Halemtat, the guard called, “He’s already clipped. What shall I do?”
    “Bring me the nutcracker,” said Halemtat. The guard glared again at Chornian, who had not stopped laughing, and loped back with the nutcracker in hand. Belatedly, Marianne recognized the smirk on the nutcracker’s face.
    The guard handed the nutcracker to the grand vizier-Marianne knew beyond a doubt that he recognized the smirk too.
    “Whose teeth carved this?” demanded Halemtat.
    An unclipped Rejoicer worked his way to the front of the crowd, sat proudly back on his haunches, and said, “Mine.” To the grand vizier, he added, with a slight rasp of his quills that was a barely suppressed laugh, “What do you think of my work, Corten? Does it amuse you?

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    You have a strong jaw.”
    Rattling swept the crowd again.
    Halemtat sat up on his haunches, his bristles stood straight out. Marianne had never seen a Rejoicer bristle quite that way before. “Silence!” he bellowed.
    Startled, either by the shout or by the electrified bristle of their ruler, the crowd stopped rattling.
    As Marianne watched, the crowd spread itself thinner. The laughter had subsided only because each of the Rejoicers had gone as bristly as Halemtat. Chornian shifted slightly to keep Marianne and Nick near the protected cover of his beaded ruff.
    “Marianne,” said Nick softly, “That’s Tatep.”
    “I know,” she said. Without meaning to, she’d grabbed his arm for reassurance.
    Tatep.... He sat back on his haunches, as if fully at ease-the only sleeked Rejoicer in the courtyard. He might have been sitting in Marianne’s office discussing different grades of wood, for all the excitement he displayed.
    Halemtat, rage quivering in every quill, turned to his guards and said, “Clip Tatep. Hashay.”
    “No!” shouted Marianne, starting forward. As she realized she’d spoken Dirtside and opened her mouth to shout it again in Rejoicer, Nick grabbed her and clapped a hand over her mouth.
    “No!” shouted Chornian, seeming to translate for her, but speaking his own mind.
    Marianne fought Nick’s grip in vain. Furious, she bit the hand he’d clapped over her mouth.
    When he yelped and removed it-still not letting her free-she said, “It’ll kill him! He’ll bleed to death! Let me go.” On the last word, she kicked him hard, but he didn’t let go.
    A guard produced the ritual scissors and handed them to