“Apologized.” That was certainly an improvement.

“She has been under the direction of nand’ Bren’s aishid,” Jegari said with a little look under the brows. “She tasted their food for them. She stood guard at night. She cared for Barb-daja.

She said they were very hard on her, but she agreed they were fair.”

“Ha.” That was good. But it was very sad about her brother, and he remembered her sitting alone at the table, only looking up when he had come into the room. “Has she any news of Lucasi?”

“No. Nand’ Bren has people looking, but it is Taisigi that are doing the looking.”

“That is by no means the best thing, Gari-ji!”

“No, it is not, nandi.”

“Do you suppose they are even doing it?”

Jegari shrugged and made ripples. “One is sure they are looking, nandi, if they know he is in their territory, but how they will deal with him, one hardly knows. Except if Lord Bren says they are looking to recover him—one would think that was true.”

“She must be worried.”

“One would think she is very worried. This is more than her brother, nandi. This is her partnerthat is missing. Within the Guild—that is—very difficult.”

“I shall speak to her,” Cajeiri said. He did not look forward to it. It was serious, grown-up business. It was the sort of thing he preferred grown-ups to do. But Veijico had come back to him, to his rooms, so she still thought she was his.

So he supposed he had to do it. It was what mani would expect. And what mani would expect—well, that was just what he had to do.

So with Jegari’s help he dressed and put himself in order, with a crisp ironed shirt and a fresh coat and trousers despite the late hour, and then he agreed with Jegari that Jegari would leave him alone. He had no private place to talk, just three rooms, so he found something for Jegari to do—going out to find out how nand’ Toby was getting along and what was happening in the house, and maybe to get them supper. And in the meantime Antaro was to have her bath.

So that would leave him only with Veijico for a guard.

That was a little scary, considering she had done things that put her on the wrong side not just of Cenedi and mani but of the Guild, and she had not been a reliable person. She was tall and strong and she was real Guild, and she could kill people faster than you could see it happen.

But Cenedi would not have let her come back into his rooms if she had not satisfied Cenedi and mani about her behavior. That gave him confidence. And he was absolutely sure Cenedi even if he was asleep was aware where she was.

So Jegari went out, Antaro went to the bath, and he went back into the sitting room where Veijico was.

Veijico stood up, properly and politely, finding herself the object of his attention. That, in itself, was an improvement. She looked very tired, and thinner, and just worn down.

“One is very sorry to hear your partner is still missing, nadi,” he said.

A quiet little bow. “Thank you, nandi. One is gratified by your expression.”

A textbook answer, mani would call it.

“Did you want to come back to us?” he asked.

“If nand’ Bren had wished it, nandi, one would have stayed there. They needed me. But they sent me with Barb-daja. Now I am here. If you wish me to leave—”

“Are you sorry to be here, nadi?”

She bowed her head. “One regrets the difficulties, nandi.”

“You left without calling the security office.”

“We saw the kidnappers, nandi. We chased them to stop them.” She bit her lip. Then said nothing at all.

But heknew he had called out to stop the kidnappers. And she did not offer that excuse to him.

That was way better behavior than he had seen.

“You followed my order,” he said.

She gave a little nod, a bow, and said: “We ignored procedures, you being both a minor, forgive me, nandi, and a civilian. One is aware we did not exercise mature judgement.”

“Did Banichi tell you that, nadi?”

“Algini-nadi did, nandi,” she said. Algini was the grimmest of Lord Bren’s bodyguard, and not the one Cajeiri would personally like to have reprimand him. He could imagine Algini, who said very little, might have said exactly those words and made every one of them sting.

He was sorry for her. But he did not forget that she had been rude to Jegari and Antaro, and if he said he was sorry, she might move back in and start running things again, and telling himhow to behave, and ignoring all his orders except the one she absolutely should not have obeyed.

She obeyed orders, he thought uncomfortably, the same way he obeyed orders—he picked the ones he liked and managed not to be there in any official way to hear the others.

So off she and Lucasi had gone to be important and do the big thing, getting Barb-daja back, because they knew they had just made a huge mistake in putting Barb-daja and nand’ Toby in danger.

He had less sympathy for her and her partner when he thought about that.

And about her attitude toward Jegari and Antaro.

And then suddenly, in the middle of remembering all the reasons he had been angry with her, it struck him what he was feeling, right in the middle of his stomach. He discovered the reason she made him nervous, and the reasonhe was just a little scared of her and never really believed she was going to do what he told her.

“You have no man’chi here,” he said to her, right out in the open. “You were never mine, not from the time you came here. Maybe your man’chi is to my father, nadi, but it never was to me.”

There was a lengthy silence after that, and Veijico did not look him in the eyes. She had clasped her hands behind her, and her head stayed a little bowed.

“ Isyour man’chi to my father?” he asked.

A lengthy silence, and she never looked up. She was thinking about that, he thought, or the answer was no, and she was not telling him what she was thinking.

So he did what mani did. He did not give her an answer. He waited.

And waited.

“Nandi,” she said quietly, long after that silence had become uncomfortable. “One is only just realizing—”

He might get the rest of it if he shut up and let her figure out her sentence. So he did, and she still was not looking at him.

“We thought we might be brought into your father’s service,” she said eventually. “But that proved not the case. We were left asi-man’chi.” That was to say, on their own family man’chi to each other, no one else’s. “We did not feel at ease here. We did not find a place.”

“Because I am a child? Or because you do not really have man’chi to my father, either?”

“We began to have, to him,” Veijico said in a low voice. “We thought we might. We wanted to, nandi. But he gave us away. And we tried. But we found none here. We had no idea—”

It was hard to wait. He was entirely upset with what she was saying. But she was getting the words to the surface, finally. And on mani’s example, he just waited, no matter how uncomfortable it was or how long it took. And when she understood that was how it was, she began to answer him.

“We had no idea, nandi, what was wrong here. We did not find a place. We tried. But we—”

Another lengthy silence. He still let it continue.

Veijico cleared her throat. “Nandi, one has no idea of the man’chi in this entire household.

We came here willing to join this household. But it seems to us—”

Third silence.

“It seems to us, nandi,” Veijico said, looking up once, if briefly, “that yourman’chi is not to your father the aiji but to the aiji-dowager. And to nand’ Bren. And even to persons up on the station.”

He took in his breath. Hehad no such idea. “I shall be aiji,” he said angrily. “And I shall haveno man’chi.”

“But now you do, young lord. Or you seem to.”

“Well, there is nothing wrong with it, nadi! Nor are you in authority over me! We are two months short of a felicitous year!”