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or nearly—Sidney’s accent if the peaches in syrup had been laced with rough stones.
    The Abbot sighed. “Greta, may I present Elián Palnik, who comes to us from the Cumberland Alliance?”
    It was the boy—the boy with bound hands. He was slumped into the memory cushion at the back of the book grove, a shadow within a shadow.
    My eyes went right to his hands, but they were not bound now. Even so it took me a moment to find my voice. “Hello, Elián,” I said. I found, to my horror, that I addressed him as I sometimes addressed our more skittish goats. He was just sitting there, but something about him seemed half-tamed.
    â€œHey, Greta,” said Elián. And to the Abbot: “Stoicism? I mean, seriously?”
    He sat forward then, brushing his hair out of his face—he would need to get that trimmed. The bruising around his wrist had gone old and yellow. He looked at me blankly, and then seemed to recognize me. “Wait, you’re Princess Greta.” And another layer of recognition. “It was you—the girl at the door, that day.”
    He had seen me disgrace myself, then. I hoped I wasn’t blushing. “I apologize for reacting.” My voice was steady, at least.
    He sketched a little bow, as much as one can while sitting on a cushion. “It’s okay. I mean, where I’m from, it’s traditional to ‘react’ when someone gets dragged in in chains.”
    â€œElián,” chided the Abbot, his voice like dust. “That’s hardly appropriate.”
    â€œSorry, Greta,” said Elián. “I’m having trouble telling what’s appropriate.”
    He did not sound sorry.
    â€œThat’s enough, I think,” said the Abbot. His eye icons had pulled together. “Greta. Don’t forget your book.”
    I took my book. I did not flee. But I left, and my heart was no longer beating slowly.

4
GUINEVERE
    I t was ten days before I saw Elián again.
    It’s not unusual for a Child newly come to the Precepture to spend some time being tutored privately before joining his cohort, but Elián stayed away longer than any I could remember. And then, one day . . .
    We were harvesting new potatoes. Han and I were forking over the rows, and the others of our cohort were gathering the tubers and laying them out on the wickerwork riddles. I looked up to blink the sweat out of my eyes and saw Elián coming down the slope toward us.
    I felt a gasp catch in my throat. Elián had a proctor with him.
    It was unusual to see a proctor outside at all, and this one was eye-catching. The proctors that swarm the school have a variety of adaptations, but mostly look like overgrown daddy longlegs—knee-high, spindly, and quick. Elián’s proctor was as heavily built as a scorpion, high as my waist, its jointed legs easily clearing the churned places and raised beds.
    At the edge of the potato trench, and with this thing beside him, Elián stopped.
    He shot a round-eyed glance at the proctor, favored our group with a rictus of a smile, and said, “Hi. I’m Spartacus, and I’m here to lead you in a slave revolt against an unjust syst—”
    The proctor touched his belly, and he went down screaming.
    Or, to be fair, it was just one scream. But it was so loud, and so— I can hardly describe it. It was a sound a human might make if turned into an animal. There was nothing of dignity or tradition in it. It was not the kind of sound we Children heard often, and all up and down the garden terraces, white figures fluttered up like a startled flock.
    Unprecedented, that’s what the sound was. Unprecedented. We don’t scream here.
    Not out loud, anyway.
    Elián had folded up with his head on one of the heaps of dirty potatoes. The scorpion proctor took two mincing steps toward him. He flinched, pushed up onto one hand. But his elbow gave way and he went sprawling.
    I knelt to help him, my