I had not realized that it was a holiday. Fire Day; some Amn celebration I’d heard of, but never paid much attention to. When T’vril brought me out of my room, I heard the sounds of laughter and Senmite music drifting through the corridors. I had never liked the music of this continent; it was strange and arrhythmic, full of eerie minors, the sort of thing only people with refined tastes were supposed to be able to comprehend or enjoy.
I sighed, thinking we were headed in that direction. But T’vril cast a grim look that way and shook his head. “No. You don’t want to attend that celebration, Cousin.”
“Why not?”
“That party is for highbloods. You’d certainly be welcome, and as a halfblood I could go, too, but I would suggest that you avoid social events with our fullblooded relatives if you actually want to enjoy yourself. They have… odd notions of what constitutes fun.” His grim look warned me off further questioning. “This way.”
He led me in the complete opposite direction, down several levels and angling toward the palace’s heart. The corridors were bustling with activity, though I saw only servants as we walked, all of them moving so hurriedly that they barely had time to bob a greeting at T’vril. I doubt they even noticed me.
“Where are they all going?” I asked.
T’vril looked amused. “To work. I’ve scheduled everyone on rotating short shifts, so they’ve probably waited until the last minute to leave. Didn’t want to miss any of the fun.”
“Fun?”
“Mmm-hmm.” We rounded a curve and I saw a wide set of translucent doors before us. “Here we are; the centeryard. Now, you’re friendly with Sieh so I imagine the magic will work for you, but if it doesn’t—if I disappear—just return to the hall and wait, and I’ll come back out to get you.”
“What?” I was growing used to feeling stupid.
“You’ll see.” He pushed the doors open.
The scene beyond was almost pastoral—would have been if I hadn’t known I was in the middle of a palace hovering a half mile above the earth. We looked into some sort of vast atrium at the center of the palace, in which rows of tiny cottages bordered a cobblestone path. It surprised me to realize that the cottages were made, not of the pearly material that comprised the rest of the palace, but of ordinary stone and wood and brick. The style of the cottages varied wildly from that of the palace, too—the first sharp angles and straight lines I’d seen—and from cottage to cottage. Many of the designs were foreign to my eye, Tokken and Mekatish and others, including one with a striking bright-gold rooftop that might have been Irtin. I glanced up, realizing that the centeryard sat within a vast cylinder in the body of the palace; directly above was a circle of perfectly clear blue sky.
But the whole place was silent and still. I saw no one in or around the cottages; not even wind stirred.
T’vril took my hand and pulled me over the threshold—and I gasped as the stillness broke. In a moment’s flicker there were suddenly many people about, all around us, laughing and milling and exclaiming in a cacophony of joy that would not have startled me so much if it hadn’t come out of nowhere. There was music, too, more pleasant than the Senmite but still nothing I was used to. It came from much closer, somewhere in the middle of the cottages. I made out a flute and a drum, and a babel of languages—the only one I recognized was Kenti—before someone grabbed my arm and spun me around.
“Shaz, you came! I thought—” The Amn man who’d caught my hand started when he saw my face, then paled further. “Oh, demons.”
“It’s all right,” I said quickly. “An honest mistake.” From behind I could pass for Tema, Narshes, or half the other northern races—and it had not escaped me that he’d called me by a boy’s name. That was clearly not the source of his horror. His eyes had locked on my forehead and the fullblood circle there.
“It’s all right, Ter.” T’vril came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “This is the new one.”
Relief restored color to the man’s face. “Sorry, miss,” he said, bobbing a greeting to me. “I just… well.” He smiled sheepishly. “You understand.”
I reassured him again, though I was not entirely sure that I did understand. The man wandered off after that, leaving T’vril and me to ourselves—inasmuch as we could be alone amid such a horde. I could see now that everyone present wore lowblood marks; they were all servants. There must have been nearly a thousand people in the centeryard’s sprawling space. T’vril was so good at keeping them unobtrusive that I’d had no idea there were this many servants in Sky, though I suppose I should have guessed they would outnumber the highbloods.