All through the trip back to her hotel and undressing for bed, she thought over what had happened. And her reaction to it. The girls in the Hureshan novels she’d read would be sobbing over being jilted by the man they loved… but had she ever loved Ftangu, or just felt friendly toward him? And felt satisfied that she had her future already worked out? Back before she fell asleep, she’d had no expectation of marrying for love; not many people did and royalty certainly didn’t, but the idea was everywhere in modern Hureshan culture, in songs and novels and radio plays and the way people talked. Probably Kosyan too, though somehow she’d never asked Ftangu about that.

But when Kenet and Ridra had talked about the boys they liked, she had told them about Ftangu, and they’d gushed about how romantic it was, and that had probably led Tailiki to think of her betrothal – hah! – to Ftangu in modern, romantic terms. Even though, when Kenet and Ridra had advised her about romantic things to say in her letters, she’d balked. It didn’t feel right.

Maybe she’d always been his friend, too.

---

When she woke the next morning, she decided to see a bit of the city while she made up her mind whether to stay in Sderamyn or go to Kosyndar or maybe go back to Zintu and ask Pyenta for her job back. She washed up and got dressed, then walked down the stairs and asked the desk clerk if he could recommend a decent restaurant, not too expensive.

“There’s a couple on the next corner,” he said. “Pesyn’s Diner and House of Gyros; turn left as you go out the door, you can’t miss them. And if you like Hureshan food, there’s Droho, a couple of blocks further down Monument Street.”

So she walked down the street and had her breakfast at Pesyn’s Diner, spiced goat on a bed of rice, and thought. Mostly she turned over again the same thoughts from last night, not coming to any conclusion. But walking would probably help her think. She studied the map some more while she finished her meal, then folded it away and set out down Monument Street past her hotel and past the corner of Tufka Street. There should be a park this way.

It was certainly wrong, what Ftangu had done. The question was whether it was unforgivably wrong. Or more particularly, whether Tailiki could forgive Ftangu.

She noticed that a lot of the buildings in this part of the city were built of the same reddish stone as her hotel. As she got further along, there were more concrete buildings, taller on average, some left in their natural grey and some (mostly the shorter ones) painted different colors. Then suddenly they gave way and there was a big open space, with trees and flowers and trimmed grass, benches and tables, statues and a fountain. She crossed the street carefully and entered the park.

Ftangu had put off telling her he didn’t consider himself betrothed to her. For four years. But he’d also kept corresponding with her for four years. He’d mentored her in history and he’d been a lifeline when she’d lost contact with Ridra and Kenet and Mother.

She walked along a trail that began at the park entrance and wound around the fountain in the center toward some trees. There were flowers on either side of the path here as she got close to the fountain. And that statue in the center of the fountain… was peeing into the basin? She couldn’t help it, she bent double and laughed. She hadn’t seen anything that racy since she fell asleep. Huresh was so puritanical, and though Klimsu allowed nude swimming and sunbathing, they were just as squeamish about bodily functions.

If Ftangu had wanted to avoid the awkwardness of an explanation, why had he kept corresponding with her for so long? He could have just stopped answering her letters, particularly when he moved from Kosyndar to Sderamyn, and saved himself a lot of trouble.

She continued past the fountain and toward the trees. The path continued on, surrounded by trees on both sides, a mix of oak and some species she wasn’t familiar with. She was farther north than she’d ever been; she wasn’t sure what trees grew here?

Ftangu must have wanted to be her friend just as strongly as he didn’t want to marry her. That was the only explanation for carrying on the correspondence for years, long past the point where she could help him with his research. Dripota had sent her a kind letter a month or so after she’d gone home, asking how she was doing… and asking a few questions about Tupaskai, like what this disputed word meant and whether that sentence was grammatical. Three or four months later, her letters had dried up, possibly after she wrote a paper on Tailiki’s dialect and moved on to other research topics. But Ftangu, though he’d asked her a few questions like that early on, hadn’t stopped writing when she was no longer useful.

The path emerged from the trees into a grassy area. Some children were playing there, some kind of ball game she wasn’t familiar with. As she continued along, heading back toward the park entrance, the ball landed at her feet.

“Here you go,” she said, kicking it back toward the children.

“You kick pretty good. Want to play with us?” one of the girls asked. “There’s only four on the girls’ team, and five on the boys,” she added, with a glance at one of the boys.

“Sure,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. She wasn’t exactly dressed for sport, but if she started feeling too disheveled, she could bow out. She definitely wasn’t going to see Ftangu before she’d returned to her hotel, bathed and changed clothes.

– Wait. That meant she was seriously considering seeing him again.

After a hasty explanation of the rules, she began kicking the ball back and forth with the children. The girls’ team drove the ball toward the fountain, but lost control of it when one of the boys kicked it hard and it went flying past Tailiki’s head toward the bench at the other end of the field. But one of the girls was well placed to intercept it, and back it went.

Yes, on the whole, she did think she wanted to see Ftangu again, and be friends. He’d said there was too big an age difference for them to get married, and she supposed there was, by modern standards. But the age gap was no obstacle to them being friends. Probably if she went to Kosyndar and asked for the museum job there, she could renew her friendship with Dripota… but it was uncertain. Dripota was maybe twice Ftangu’s age, much older than Tailiki, and maybe she had never viewed her as anything but a research subject.

“Hey!” one of the older girls cried. Tailiki spun to face her. “What island were you on? The ball went right past you!”

“Sorry,” Tailiki said. “I’ll try to pay closer attention.”

So she focused on the game until its conclusion. The boys were the first to reach twenty points, though the girls weren’t far behind with eighteen. Everyone shook hands, and then the children split up, heading this way and that toward their homes, or toward the candy shops or newsstands to spend their pocket money.

Tailiki was going to rest a bit, then look for a place to eat lunch, but the older girl came up to her. “I’m Sekadra,” she announced.

“I’m Tailiki,” Tailiki said. “That was a good game.”

“I’ve played better, but yeah. What were you thinking about when you let that ball fly past you?”

“Let’s sit down,” Tailiki said. “I’m a bit out of breath from all that running.”

So they sat down on one of the benches. “I bet you were thinking about your boyfriend,” the girl said.

“Not exactly,” Tailiki said. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“Good,” Sekadra said. “My big sister has a boyfriend and she never shuts up about him. I figured since you’re about her age, you’d be the same.”

“Maybe at some point.”

“Where are you from? You talk funny.”

“Huresh.”

“You don’t talk like the kids from Huresh at school.”

“I’m from Huresh, but my native language isn’t Hureshan. It’s Tupaskai.”

“What’s that? Why?”

“It’s a long story. Sure you want to hear it?”

“I’m all ears.”

So she told her. Not quite all of it, at first; she started with the Generous Ones coming to her naming ceremony and putting blessings and curses on her. How she’d grown up knowing only a capella music, and having no idea you could make music in any other way. How she’d found this strange object in an old chest at the summer palace, and in the course of fiddling with it, made it produce a nifty sound… moments before she and everyone in the palace fell into a deep sleep that lasted a thousand years.

“No way!” Sekadra said.

“Yes, it actually happened. One thousand and four years ago. You want to hear this story or not?”

“Go on!”

So she told how she’d woken up with a strange man kissing her. How the rest of her family and courtiers and servants had woken up, too. How the archaeologists had explained the situation, and how they’d evacuated from the palace by airship, the woods being too dense to quickly clear roads through even after the unnatural thorns vanished.

“And then we lived in Huresh for a few years, until my father got in trouble,” she added reluctantly. “And then the police wanted me for questioning, thinking I was involved in his crime. If he actually did what they said he did. Anyway, some friends helped me hide, and then get out of the country, but Hureshan agents tracked me down in Neshinark, so I came here. Not directly, but stopping a while in Klimsu.”

“Wow. Is that all true?”

“Every bit of it.”

“So you’re here to stay?”

“I think so. I’m staying in a hotel for now. I’ll probably start hunting apartments tomorrow.”

“Do you know anybody in Sderamyn?”

“My friend Ftangu,” she said, making it real. “He’s one of the archaeologists who found us and woke us up.”

“Is he the guy who kissed you awake?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“I don’t. The curse meant he had to kiss me to wake me up, but it wasn’t romantic. I thought it was, but…” She sighed. “He explained that it wasn’t. It was a silly misunderstanding that went on way too long, but.”

“Huh. That’s weird.”

“It kind of is. But…” She struggled to express what she had been starting to think. “I don’t think I actually need a boyfriend or husband. What I really need is a friend. And I’ve got one.”

“Do you want another one?”

“You mean you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yes, I’d like to be your friend.”

Sekadra tilted her head to look at Tailiki’s watch. “I guess I better go home for lunch. You want to come?”

“I don’t think your mother would be all right with a stranger dropping in like this…”

“You’re my friend now, and my friends come home for lunch with me a lot.”

“Without checking with your mother?”

“Sure, it’s fine.”

“Well, maybe so.”

---

Sekadra lived in a tall concrete apartment building not far from the park. The building had an elevator, unlike Tailiki’s hotel. Sekadra’s mother, Kyna, might have been used to boys and girls Sekadra’s age dropping in for lunch, but she was at least a little surprised at Tailiki’s arrival. She didn’t balk, though, just asking Tailiki what she wanted to drink with her sandwich. She asked for tea.

“Where are you from?” Kyna asked, and before Tailiki could answer, Sekadra poured out the whole story, not in any particular order. Tailiki contributed a bit here and there to the flood of words.

“Oh, yes, I remember there was something in the papers about it a few years ago,” Kyna said. “You’re that princess?”

“Not anymore, but yes.”

“So you’re new in town and looking for work?” Kyna asked. “And you said you had lyceum in Huresh?”

“Yes, I had to leave the country before I quite finished, but I was doing well in my classes.”

“Well, my husband says they’re hiring a secretary at his agency. He’s a literary agent, you know, he mediates between the publishers and authors and translators, and they want to get a secretary who knows Hureshan if they can; you should apply.”

“I will, thank you. What is the address?”

Tailiki wrote it down.

After lunch, Sekadra earnestly invited Tailiki to come back sometime, “or come play ball with us in the park again.”

Kyna nodded her approval. “I think she likes you.”

---

When Tailiki got back to her hotel, she wrote out two notes. One to Ftangu, saying she forgave him and wanted to still be friends, and would tomorrow afternoon be a good time to hang out? And one to the Mipresen Literary Agency, offering her services as secretary and asking when would be a good time to come in for an interview.

She rested and read for the rest of the afternoon. Just as she was about to go out for supper, the mailman brought a reply from Ftangu.

Tomorrow afternoon would be wonderful. Let’s say around two? I’ll invite Dipredra – we probably ought not to meet without another woman present, just to avoid rumors – and Kofpasar and Tuilen. They’ve been wanting to meet you.

It was the shortest message she’d ever gotten from him, but one of the most welcome.