Richard half?expected his dreams to be unsettling, much like they had been in the necropolis. Instead, the next thing he knew, he was staring at a beam of light pouring through the narrow slit?window above his bed.

  For a moment, he was confused. Where was Jason, and why was he on this strange bed?

  Then a voice cut through the haze. “Morning, Richard or, well, afternoon.”

  He turned his head and spotted his two new companions, Hina and Marian. Both were now dressed in simple off?white woolen dresses. They sat together on one of the beds, Hina perched behind Marian, working on what looked like a complicated braid.

  “Where’d you get the dresses?” Richard asked, still groggy.

  “From our packs,” Marian replied without looking up. “No need for us to walk around here armed.”

  Hina added quietly, “Sves are not usually allowed to bear arms, although bodyguards and, for us, Chained Summoned, there are exceptions.”

  Marian pointed toward a small table. “Oh, there’s more food over there. We’re going to go see if Jace needs us.”

  Richard shoved aside the bnket. “Wait, I’ll go with you.”

  “Women only, sorry buddy.” Marian gave a small, apologetic nod.

  “Wait, what?”

  Hina gnced over her shoulder. “An unmarried man can’t simply walk into a woman’s room without her permission.”

  “But we’re all in the same room,” he argued.

  “We don’t count,” Marian shot back.

  Richard rolled his eyes and sat up, looking at the bowls of stew and the half?loaf of coarse brown bread. “Fine. So what am I supposed to do?”

  Marian pointed at the pile on the floor. “Grab your clothes and get them washed. Grab ours too, please. Do you have an extra tunic?”

  “I’ve got one more and the shirt I was summoned in.”

  “Good enough. Jace will have to buy you something more appropriate.”

  Richard groaned. “Then what?”

  “Eat,” Hina suggested with a shrug.

  “Then walk around if you want,” Marian added, tucking her brush away. “Just don’t leave the building. Chained Summons get a little more freedom than most. I’ll see if I can get some coin from Jace, and the three of us can spend it in the tavern downstairs ter.”

  That perked him up. “Oh, that sounds good. Any decent drinks in this world?”

  “Maybe,” Marian said dryly. “Frankly, as long as it gets me good and drunk, that’s all I care about.” She turned to Hina. “Ready?”

  The two slipped out, their footsteps fading down the hall and leaving Richard alone with his breakfast.

  Down the corridor, in a room far rger than theirs, Jace’s eyes drifted open. She didn’t wake abruptly like Richard; instead, she shifted beneath the warm bnkets, slowly breaking away from Morphis's grip.

  For a moment, she too was disoriented, until the faint scent of vender and incense brought her to the present. It was, well, pleasant. For the first time in what felt like ages, she wasn’t cold, or hungry, or fearful of something crawling out of the dark.

  She sat up, stretching stiff muscles, and only then noticed she wasn’t alone.

  A young woman in a blue?trimmed servant’s robe stood near the door, hands folded, head bowed. She must have been waiting for Jace to wake.

  “I hope you slept well, honored one,” the girl said softly. “Your companions asked that we notify them when you rose. Shall I fetch them?”

  Jace blinked. It was still strange how everyone acted around her. After st night, she suspected she’d better get used to it.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  The girl bowed and slipped out.

  Jace swung her legs over the side of the bed. Only then did she realize she had been dressed after her bath in a soft, light-green linen dress, beautifully embroidered with yered folds.

  Her own clothes, freshly cleaned and neatly folded, sat on a nearby chair alongside a low table. The table held a pitcher of water, a towel, and a small bowl of fruit, all clearly brought in while she slept.

  A knock sounded.

  “Jace?” Marian’s voice called. “It’s us.”

  Jace straightened instinctively, unbidden, an unconscious habit of the women from her dreams. “Enter.”

  The door opened, and Marian and Hina stepped inside, both offering small bows before rexing.

  “You look better,” Marian observed with a grin.

  Hina closed the door behind them, checking the hall first. “Sleep well?”

  “I did,” Jace replied. “How about the three of you?”

  Marian waved a hand dismissively. “We’re fine. Richard’s awake too.”

  Jace raised a brow. “Surprised he isn’t here.”

  “Women only.”

  “What, really?” Jace blinked.

  “You’re unmarried,” Hina reminded her with a small shrug.

  “Huh. Okay.”

  Marian gnced at the bowl of fruit. After Jace nodded permission, Marian selected a bright red fruit, sat down, and began eating.

  Hina csped her hands. “Master… what is our pn for today?”

  Jace grimaced and rubbed her forehead. “Please don’t call me that.”

  Marian tapped her colr. “As long as we wear these, get used to it. It’s safer for all of us.”

  Jace looked toward the window, where the sun was beginning to set. “Rest for now. Unless something urgent comes up, there’s no reason to rush.”

  Marian took a bite of the fruit. “Sounds good to me. This is a pretty nice pce.”

  “Oh, how are your rooms?” Jace asked. She gnced at their colrs and winced. “They didn’t shove you in some utility closet, did they?”

  Both women giggled.

  “No,” Marian said. “There’s a servant room nearby with four beds.”

  Jace sighed. “Richard must have been thrilled.”

  “Ahh, he didn’t mind so much when I fshed him my tits,” Marian smirked.

  Hina sighed and filled in the details.

  “Another reason we should get those colrs off you,” Jace murmured.

  “About that…” Marian shifted. “Hina and I were thinking you remove hers but leave mine on.”

  Jace stared at her. “Why?”

  Marian tugged Hina down beside her and dropped a bright yellow fruit into Jace’s p. “Truthfully? I’m leaning pretty heavily on you when I speak the High Cant.”

  Jace frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “There are two main nguages,” Marian expined. “Plenty of dialects, but two primaries: High Cant, and the other one, just called the Trade Language.”

  Jace switched to the nguage they’d spoken in the dungeon. “So is this the Trade Language or the High Cant?”

  “High Cant,” Hina answered. “Though you speak a priestly or noble dialect.”

  Marian nodded. “Even if you changed clothes, the way you speak and carry yourself screams noble.”

  Hina switched nguages. “Do you understand me?”

  For a moment, the words blurred, then Jace nodded slowly and replied, “This is the Trade Language.”

  “Yes,” Marian said with a smile. “And you speak it like someone who’s not familiar with it.”

  “Fine,” Jace conceded. “So why only Hina? Can’t you speak the nguages after… what, two years?”

  “Hina sounds like a native when we’re not chained,” Marian admitted. “I hated the family. I never cooperated with them if I could help it. Somehow that kept me from learning it properly.”

  She pointed at Hina. “That’s why this one was allowed to take care of the Young Miss.”

  “They did not have me chained when I went to the temple with her,” Hina added. “But we should wait until after we move to another lodge.”

  Marian smiled. “I figure I can learn the nguage by leaning on you.”

  Jace shook her head. “I don’t know why you trust me, really.”

  “Because the first thing you thought was not to kill us and afterward, remove our colrs,” Marian pointed out.

  “I see.”

  “Unfortunately, your ex-….”

  “It will be unwise for Richard to remove his,” Hina warned.

  “So I gather,” Jace murmured. “How long?”

  “A year,” Hina said.

  “Maybe,” Marian added. “If he stays chained and keeps working on it. It’s not his fault, but he acts like most new summons.”

  Hina lowered her voice in Japanese. “But the way he is now…”

  “I understand,” Jace replied in the same nguage, startling them both.

  She continued in Japanese. “So tell me more about this pce.”

  Left alone, Richard finished the st of the stew and bread, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and looked about the small room. Suddenly bored, he stood, stretched, and grimaced at the state of his clothes, sweat?stiff, grimy, with some dark stains on the sleeve, not sure whose blood. Worst of all, it still carried the stench of Maran Shahr.

  “Yeah, no,” he muttered.

  Thankfully, with the girls gone, he stripped off all his clothes, grabbed a cloth, and did his best to scrub the grime and sweat from his skin. The water was cold, but it felt good.

  Once he felt halfway human again, he dug into his pack and pulled on one of the cleaner tunics, Jason’s old one, that they took off the wizard who brought them here. Surprisingly, it was a little loose in the shoulders, but at least it didn’t smell like death.

  “Laundry,” he said to himself. “There’s gotta be undry somewhere.”

  He gathered the pile of dirty clothes, his and the girls’, and stepped into the hallway. It took him no time at all to become lost. The lodge was a maze of stone corridors and wooden doors. Thankfully, after several wrong turns, he spotted a servant.

  “Uh, hey,” Richard said, holding up the bundle. “Laundry? Wash? Clean?”

  At the confused look, he then mimed scrubbing clothes.

  The servant blinked, then smiled in understanding and gestured for him to follow.

  “Thank God,” Richard breathed, trailing after him.

  They descended a narrow staircase to the back of the lodge. Warm air and the scent of soap filled the small courtyard, which opened onto an area with four heated copper cauldrons. In front of them, two women worked while speaking to a third.

  Thanking the man, he stepped forward, noticing that two wore the lodge’s servant dresses, but the third wore a nicer blue wool dress. Still, the colr said she was a sve.

  All three looked up when Richard entered.

  The two servants exchanged a grin, eyes sweeping him from head to toe with open amusement. One whispered something to the woman in blue, who arched a brow and stepped forward, her slow, confident smile widening as she swung her hips.

  Richard stepped back.

  She then ughed and said something teasing.

  Richard blinked. “Uh, hi?”

  Her smile widened as she looked him over, then replied with a phrase, this time accompanied by a pyful tilt of her head.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying,” he admitted, helpless, but grinned.

  The two servants giggled behind their hands.

  The woman in blue waved them off, then handed the bundle of clothes to the two servants, then reached out and took Richard gently by the wrist, tugging him toward a side door.

  “Wait, what..?” Richard gnced back, bewildered.

  The two servants only grinned wider and gave him a little wave.

  It was only then that he noticed that another woman, dressed like the one holding his hand, had risen from a bench off to the side and was following them.

  Before he could piece together what was happening, the woman in blue gave a delighted little giggle, pushed open a door, and pushed him inside.

  Richard stumbled over the threshold, and she was quick to follow as the second woman closed the door behind them.