It was several weeks later when Fortney was stalking across campus in the rain.

  Arden, she discovered, had all manner of rain. Heavy, sheeting downpours, light sprinkles with low clouds, a thick fog that rode the line between mist and rain, and the rain as it was now: an endless, monotonous shower that seemed as though it would not finish until the Final Catastrophe arrived.

  She glowered through the rain.

  Most of the Ardenians carried "umbrellas", something like a folding parasol, but made to fend off rain, rather than sun. They were clever devices, but Fortney didn't have one, because she had no money to buy one.

  She fumed. Rami had been holding the purse for their voyage, and she hadn't seen him since they'd left the ship. All her attempts to find him had failed. Her Ardenian was too limited to conduct any kind of meaningful investigation, and until she could get hold of the man, she was penniless. And walking in the rain without an "umbrella."

  She worried, from time to time, if something had happened to him. But then another annoyance like this would crop up, and she began to devise plans about what would happen to him, once she found him.

  She stalked across campus toward her next class.

  "My lady!" A clear voice rang through rain. At first, she ignored it--she was nobody's lady--but the voice was familiar. She turned to see Edvar Pembroke the drunk striding toward her, a large black umbrella overhead.

  He bustled close and held the umbrella over her.

  "My lady," Edvar said, "this is no weather to face without a mackintosh or a cloak or an umbrella or something."

  "I don't have any of that," she groused, water running from her hair and soaked clothes.

  "Please, my lady, let me escort you."

  Her brow wrinkled.

  "'Escort?' I do not know the word."

  "I will travel with you wherever you're going, and protect you from the rain." He gestured to the umbrella with his signature sass and smile.

  She frowned at him. She had been learning more about the other students, and about Arden over the last couple of weeks. Nothing she'd learned made her any more comfortable in her situation.

  Edvar, here, for example. Superficially, he was polite and gentlemanly. But this was not a man who had any higher calling. He was irresponsible, only ever talking nonsense and sneaking out for his evening drinking. There was no grand purpose that he would ever spend the entirety of himself to achieve.

  All power must have a purpose. Edvar had plenty of power, but no purpose. A world of wealth, and no good thing to do with it.

  He was charming, certainly. But Barzani the fish-seller was charming, and he sold fish. Even the meanest beggar in Namar?n had some goal in life. Edvar simply... existed.

  All that, and the man simply made her teeth itch. She always felt as though he left a greasy flavor on the air wherever he went.

  And yet, the offered umbrella was a welcome respite from the falling rain.

  Fortney frowned fiercely at him.

  "You may... 'escort' me to Gillen Hall. That is where my next class is."

  "Ah, a wondrous coincidence! That is my destination as well! Let us away!"

  They walked, huddled together under the umbrella until they arrived at a forbidding building: tan stone stained with dark streaks of mildew and water-rot. Edvar covered her until she was in the entrance hall.

  She dried to dash the water from her clothes as Edvar shook out the umbrella. He tied it shut and turned to her.

  "Here, my lady. Please take this umbrella as a gift."

  She was taken aback.

  "But then you will get wet."

  "I have my cloak," he said. "I don't know what the men are like in your country, but no true gentleman of Arden would allow a lady to suffer the weather just to keep his own hide dry." He held the umbrella out to her.

  She frowned at his slight. Men of Namar?n were honorable, courageous, and loyal, none of which had anything to do with getting wet. On the other hand, being in the rain without an umbrella was miserable.

  "Please, my lady," he said. "It would honor me if you accepted my gift."

  "Fine." Fortney took it from him, then almost hit him with it when the corners of his lips turned up in a maddening smile. "Thank you," she forced herself to say.

  "It is my pl---" he cut off as a commotion began down the hall.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  The dumpy girl from the first day of class--Milloria was her name, if Fortney remembered correctly--had just tumbled in from a cross-hall. She was in a stumbling run, trying to catch her balance, but the gravity defeated her. She landed hard on the floor with a splat, arms splayed, her books and papers scattering in front of her. She slid several feet before stopping.

  Lorenda Cavendish minced out into the hall after her with a cool smile.

  "Poor, stupid, clumsy Milloria," she began, but then Fortney caught her eye. Lorenda turned her attention. "Oh, the barbarian princess is here," she sneered. She took in Fortney's bedraggled state: her wet hair clumped to her head, her soaked clothes stuck to her body, and the widening pool of water at her feet, and the umbrella clutched in one hand.

  Lorenda cackled a little. "The foolish thing didn't know that you have to open the umbrella for it to work."

  "Ah," Edvar said drily. "And here we have living evidence that good breeding does not necessarily produce good people."

  Fortney fumed at Lorenda Cavendish. She'd argued with her father bitterly about hiding her identity as a princess. But he had prevailed upon her: Fortney's purpose in Arden was to stay safe, and part of that safety was by hiding her royal heritage.

  She'd hated the thought of hiding her heritage, but she understood the need for it. Even if it felt like cowardice.

  Yet, somehow, Lorenda had weaseled the information out, and did not hesitate to use it as a mockery every time she spoke.

  Lorenda turned her sneer to Fortney's companion.

  "Edvar," Lorenda said. "I shouldn't be surprised that a lush like you would be hanging around with our resident savage. Really, don't you think we should keep the riff-raff in little cages somewhere? Like a menagerie." She waved her hand dismissively. "I will say, you are quite inventive in finding new ways to embarrass your family."

  Edvar gave her a mocking bow.

  "Lorenda. I see that you still lack the self-awareness to address your social superiors properly. Truly, you are an inspiration to meager landholders everywhere."

  Lorenda scoffed.

  "Superior? You? My family has held good Arden land for generations."

  "Yes, ancestral land that would fit in one of my father's ornamental ponds." He feigned a yawn. "I'll admit, it does get tiresome crossing all our family countryside to get to the manse. It must be very convenient for you to have the family borders so close to your hovel. Sorry, I meant house."

  Lorenda flushed brick-red.

  "You--! You just go have fun with your dirty little princess!" She turned to storm off, kicking one of Milloria's feet on her way by. Milloria was still trying to gather her things. Edvar went over to help her, and Fortney followed.

  "This Lorenda does not understand the purpose of power," Fortney growled. "She is but a child in a grown-up's body."

  "An insightful observation," Edvar said. "I cannot not speak ill of a lady, but that means I can speak ill of Lorenda Cavendish. Unfortunately, her father is good friends with the headmaster of the Polytechnic, so her behavior is overlooked."

  Fortney stared at the great hall. The air was humid and oppressive, and her stomach churned with anger at the injustice.

  "I hate Arden," she said.

  "Ah, that makes you half-Ardenian already," Edvar responded. He gave her a mocking half-bow. "Welcome to our country."

  Fortney sat quietly in her room after classes, staring out the window and unconsciously rubbing her stump. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Bright sunlight refracted through the water still dripping from the roof.

  She'd gotten the room sorted out as best she could. She had still seen no sign of a "room mate." It was likely that the school had simply made a mistake, and had put her in a storage room of some kind. Which was fine, as far as she was concerned.

  After a week with no room mate, Fortney had started to re-organize the room some, being as respectful as she could of--whoever's belongings these were. She'd tidied up the desks, organized the books, and moved boxes into orderly rows on one side of the room.

  True to Captain Boloq's word, her own belongings had arrived the morning after she did. But it was only a couple of trunks worth of clothes and a few personal items. The little brass mirror was in there, too, but she left it buried at the bottom of the trunk, where it belonged. Her new umbrella stood in the corner, rolled up.

  She got up and sat at the desk, pulling out a sheet of paper. She began scratching out a letter in Namar?nian.

  Writing was another skill she was having to relearn. Without a second hand to secure the paper, she'd had to practice pinning the paper with the fleshy part of her hand while her fingers dragged the reed pen around. The result was messy and imprecise.

  "Dearest Father," she wrote, "Protector of the Eastern Wastes, Light of Namar?n and crown of Baradon,

  "I hope that the crushing of the rebellion is well underway. Arden is a country of dishonor and filth. I have seen no good thing here. Its people are wayward, selfish, and cruel. I desire only to return home as soon as possible."

  She paused, looking out the window for a bit, then turned back to her letter.

  "I cannot understand their society. It is backward and wicked. It is no mystery to me that they are so accomplished at crafting weapons. Their very words are weapons, wielded against each other when their fists and their feet will not avail."

  Fortney sighed and set the pen aside. She was venting. She could not send this to her father. He already had so much to manage back home, he did not need the selfish mewling of his useless daughter to add to his distress.

  She pulled out a fresh sheet and addressed it.

  "Dearest Father, Protector of the Eastern Wastes, Light of Namar?n and crown of Baradon."

  She stared at the blank sheet, trying to think of something pleasant to say. Some positive spin to put on her time here. But nothing was coming to mind. She turned back to the window.

  Outside the tall windows hung a device that she had wondered about since she'd arrived. Arden was full mysterious machines, and the Ardenians seemed to simply take them as a matter of course. The use of most of them was unclear to her, and some were dangerous, so she left them alone.

  The device outside the window seemed harmless enough. It was a glass bulb filled with some kind of red fluid. At the bottom was a flange with bright little flowers, cunningly wrought of fine brass. Unlike most of the devices of Arden, it didn't seem to have a mechanism or engine associated with it.

  Now, though, something was happening.

  With a low, buzzing thrum, a tiny creature approached the device. It flew close and stopped, hovering in midair.

  Fortney's eyes opened wide.

  The creature was no longer than her thumb, bright iridescent green, with red and white bands on its neck. It had a long, thin nose, and dainty little black, round eyes.

  It hung in the air, seeming to look at her. She nearly held her breath.

  It was the first beautiful thing she'd seen in Arden.

  "Hello, little creature," she said quietly. She did not move; she didn't want to scare it away.

  It darted forward and dipped its nose into one of the brass flowers briefly, then pulled back. Fortney could hear the hum of its wings through the window. It dipped in again.

  "Are you eating?" she asked, her eyes still fixed on the creature in charmed wonder. "Is that what that is? A... a feeding device?" She smiled.

  The hovering creature dipped into the flower a few more times, the buzzed away. Fortney watched it go. She sat by the window for a few minutes to see if it would return.

  Then she turned back to her letter. Now she had something to write about.