It struck me as a really funny thing to ask, but I said, “Green.”

While Marcus stood in the middle of the bedroom, Gentry and I made the two twin beds with green sheets. All those years of sleeping on people’s couches and floors had done a number on my bed-making skills. Mine ended up looking slept in from the start, but the one Gentry made for Marcus had hospital corners.

“If thou needest aught, I am in the chamber next,” Gentry said as he bowed. Then he went out and shut the door.

Sometimes you had to talk Marcus down to a nap, but he was so tired all I had to do was take off his shoes. I was out almost as fast.

I woke up to a sound I couldn’t identify. Whacking and grunting, and every once in a while a thud and a shout. The light in the room had changed, from bright to soft yellow. I almost didn’t understand what that meant, because I never got to take naps in the afternoon. It felt more like waking up in a different universe than like time had passed. I reached for my phone, but I’d forgotten to plug it in, and it was dead.

The whacking and grunting had stopped, so that I wondered if I’d dreamt it. Marcus was still sleeping, and even me kissing his forehead didn’t wake him up, so I left him there. There was nobody out in the great room or in the kitchen, but I could smell dinner cooking. I was about to go look in the dining room when the patio door opened and Gentry walked in. His hair was dripping wet and he was wearing something that looked like quilted pajamas.

“Is it raining out?” I said. It didn’t make sense to me, because I hadn’t heard rain, but I couldn’t come up with any other reason that he would be soaking wet.

“Nay.” Before he could say anything else, a kid walked through the door behind him.

“Oh, wow! You’re Lady Zhorzha,” the kid said. He was maybe fifteen, Asian, a little taller than Gentry. Also damp and wearing quilted pajamas.

“My brother Trang,” Gentry said.

We were about to shake hands when Charlene called from the dining room, “You boys take those nasty, sweaty clothes off!”

Not rain. Sweat. I pulled my hand back and Trang grinned at me.

“Sorry, we were jousting,” he said, which I remembered was how Gentry had injured his shoulder.

Charlene came in carrying a laundry hamper, and the two of them stripped down to T-shirts and running shorts that were plastered to them with sweat.

“Dinner’s almost ready, so you two need to get cleaned up,” she said.

“Can I do anything to help?” I said.

“No, come and meet my husband.”

I followed her into the dining room and shook hands with her husband, Bill, who was a big bald white guy with a gray beard.

“Well, we are honored to have you here, Lady Zhorzha,” he said. I couldn’t tell whether they were being serious with that.

“Thank you for having me.” How many times had I said that to how many people? How many friends’ parents’ houses where I tried to be as polite and invisible as I could?

“Bill.” Charlene tilted her head toward the table. He reached out and folded over the newspaper in front of him. Today’s paper. With LaReigne’s face now hidden. That jolted me back to reality. I took a step backward and almost fell over on top of a little girl in a wheelchair who’d come up behind me. She was so tiny I couldn’t guess how old she was—maybe four or five—but she wore great big glasses and her hair in a pair of afro puffs.

“Oh god, I’m sorry,” I said.

“And this is Elana, Gentry’s sister,” Charlene said.

“Lady Elana,” the girl said.

“Well, Lady Elana, this is Lady Zhorzha,” Bill said.

I didn’t know what to make of the fact that she looked starstruck. She held out her hand, so I took it very gently, because it seemed too fragile to shake.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lady Elana,” I said.

The starstruck fell off that fast. She squinted at me and pulled her hand back.

“You’re not really Lady Zhorzha. You don’t talk right at all.”

I looked at Charlene and Bill, hoping for some help, but she rolled her eyes and he was trying not to laugh.

“I’m sorry, but I really am Zhorzha,” I said. Elana wasn’t convinced.

“Dinner’s about ready. Why don’t you get Marcus up and herd the boys this way?” Charlene said.

Marcus came awake the way he always did, as belligerent as a prizefighter, but I rousted him out and got him to the bathroom. Just like Gentry had said, his room was next to mine. Because Charlene had told me to “herd the boys” to dinner, I knocked, but the door wasn’t latched, and it swung open.

The room was almost identical to the guest room. Two twin beds. Two nightstands. Only it wasn’t a bedroom. It was an armory with beds in it. All over the walls, hanging off hooks and sitting on shelves, were swords and helmets and shields and pieces of armor I didn’t know the names for. Chain mail shirts and big metal gloves. And more swords. And knives. And an axe. And a thing that looked like an axe on a long pole.

“My lady,” Gentry said, as he stood up from the foot of his bed, wearing nothing but boxers. Of course, because he’d just taken a shower, and I’d barged into his room without being invited. At least Trang was dressed.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting the door—”

“You do have swords,” Marcus said. He pushed past me so I couldn’t close the door, and stood there as saucer-eyed as I felt, staring at all the glittering blades.

“I have, Master Marcus.” With us there as an audience, Gentry pulled on a T-shirt and shorts. Still barefoot, he stepped up onto his bed, lifted the biggest sword off the wall, and brought it down to us. It was a two-handed sword, and it must have been heavy, but Gentry didn’t have any trouble with it.

“It’s big,” Marcus said. It was taller than him. He stared at it with the kind of amazement that was usually reserved for giant Christmas trees and people in superhero costumes.

“Yea,” Gentry said. He looked off to his left and laughed. “A bastard sword for a bastard.”

CHAPTER 8

Charlene

   Zee was not quite what I expected. White and redheaded, that much I knew, because Gentry had described her as “flame-haired and fair.” Nobody had had the sense to put the girl in a hat when she was little, and she was freckled all across her cheeks and down to her décolletage. She was taller than Gentry by several inches, at least five eleven. I’d imagined her as a delicate Arthurian princess, but she was solid, with a broad, nervous smile. Trying hard to be polite, but the kind of girl who puts on her good manners like clean, white church gloves. Not the sort of thing you wear all the time.