Her middle brother was looking better and better these last four months. Less scrawny, more solid. He almost constantly had mathematical problems with him. Father had once railed at him for that, claiming it was feminine and unseemly—but, in a rare show of dissension, Father’s ardents had approached him and told him to calm himself, and that the Almighty approved of Wikim’s interest. They hoped Wikim might find his way into their ranks.

“I heard that you got another letter from Eylita,” Shallan said, trying to distract Balat from the sketchbook. She couldn’t keep herself from blushing as he turned page after page. Those weren’t meant for others to look at. They weren’t any good.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning.

“You going to have Shallan read it to you?” Wikim asked, throwing the ball.

Balat coughed. “I had Malise do it. Shallan was busy.”

“You’re embarrassed!” Wikim said, pointing. “What is in those letters?”

“Things my fourteen-year-old sister doesn’t need to know about!” Balat said.

“That racy, eh?” Wikim asked. “I wouldn’t have figured that for the Tavinar girl. She seems too proper.”

“No!” Balat blushed further. “They aren’t racy; they are merely private.”

“Private like your—”

“Wikim,” Shallan cut in.

He looked up, and then noticed that angerspren were pooling underneath Balat’s feet. “Storms, Balat. You are getting so touchy about that girl.”

“Love makes us all fools,” Shallan said, distracting the two.

“Love?” Balat asked, glancing at her. “Shallan, you’re barely old enough to pin up your safehand. What do you know about love?”

She blushed. “I… never mind.”

“Oh, look at that,” Wikim said. “She’s thought up something clever. You’re going to have to say it now, Shallan.”

“No use keeping something like that inside,” Balat agreed.

“Ministara says I speak my mind too much. That it’s not a feminine attribute.”

Wikim laughed. “That hasn’t seemed to stop any women I’ve known.”

“Yeah, Shallan,” Balat said. “If you can’t say the things you think of to us, then who can you say them to?”

“Trees,” she said, “rocks, shrubs. Basically anything that can’t get me in trouble with my tutors.”

“You don’t have to worry about Balat, then,” Wikim said. “He couldn’t manage something clever even in repetition.”

“Hey!” Balat said. Though, unfortunately, it wasn’t far from the truth.

“Love,” Shallan said, though partially just to distract them, “is like a pile of chull dung.”

“Smelly?” Balat asked.

“No,” Shallan said, “for even as we try to avoid both, we end up stepping in them anyway.”

“Deep words for a girl who hit her teens precisely fifteen months ago,” Wikim said with a chuckle.

“Love is like the sun,” Balat said, sighing.

“Blinding?” Shallan asked. “White, warm, powerful—but also capable of burning you?”

“Perhaps,” Balat said, nodding.

“Love is like a Herdazian surgeon,” Wikim said, looking at her.

“And how is that?” Shallan asked.

“You tell me,” Wikim said. “I’m seeing what you can make of it.”

“Um… Both leave you uncomfortable?” Shallan said. “No. Ooh! The only reason you’d want one was if you’d taken a sharp blow to the head!”

“Ha! Love is like spoiled food.”

“Necessary for life on one hand,” Shallan said, “but also expressly nauseating.”

“Father’s snoring.”

She shuddered. “You have to experience it to believe just how distracting it can be.”

Wikim chuckled. Storms, but it was good to see him doing that.

“Stop it, you two,” Balat said. “That kind of talk is disrespectful. Love… love is like a classical melody.”

Shallan grinned. “If you end your performance too quickly, your audience is disappointed?”

“Shallan!” Balat said.

Wikim, however, was rolling on the ground. After a moment, Balat shook his head, and gave an agreeable chuckle. For her own part, Shallan was blushing. Did I really just say that? That last one had actually been somewhat witty, far better than the others. It had also been improper.

She got a guilty thrill from it. Balat looked embarrassed, and he blushed at the double meaning, collecting shamespren. Sturdy Balat. He wanted so much to lead them. So far as she knew, he’d given up his habit of killing cremlings for fun. Being in love strengthened him, changed him.

The sound of wheels on stone announced a carriage arriving at the house. No hoofbeats—father owned horses, but few other people in the area did. Their carriages were pulled by chulls or parshmen.

Balat rose to go see who had come, and Sakisa followed after, trumping in excitement. Shallan picked up her sketchpad. Father had recently forbidden her from drawing the manor’s parshmen or darkeyes—he found it unseemly. That made it hard for her to find practice figures.

“Shallan?”

She started, realizing that Wikim hadn’t followed Balat. “Yes.”

“I was wrong,” Wikim said, handing her something. A small pouch. “About what you’re doing. I see through it. And… and still it’s working. Damnation, but it’s working. Thank you.”

She moved to open the pouch he’d given her.

“Don’t,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Blackbane,” Wikim said. “A plant, the leaves at least. If you eat them, they paralyze you. Your breathing stops too.”

Disturbed, she pulled the top tight. She didn’t even want to know how Wikim could recognize a deadly plant like this.

“I’ve carried those for the better part of a year,” Wikim said softly. “The longer you have them, the more potent the leaves are supposed to become. I don’t feel like I need them any longer. You can burn them, or whatever. I just thought you should have them.”

She smiled, though she felt unsettled. Wikim had been carrying this poison around? He felt he needed to give it to her?

He jogged after Balat, and Shallan stuffed the pouch in her satchel. She’d find a way to destroy it later. She picked up her pencils and went back to drawing.

Shouting from inside the manor distracted her a short time later. She looked up, uncertain even how much time had passed. She rose, satchel clutched to her chest, and crossed the yard. Vines shook and withdrew before her, though as her pace sped up, she stepped on more and more of them, feeling them writhe beneath her feet and try to yank back. Cultivated vines had poor instincts.

She reached the house to more shouting.

“Father!” Asha Jushu’s voice. “Father, please!”

Shallan pushed open the slatted wood doors, silk dress rustling against the floor as she stepped in and found three men in old-style clothing—skirtlike ulatu to their knees, bright loose shirts, flimsy coats that draped to the ground—standing before Father.