Page 42 of The House of the Red Balconies

Zo thought about that while Hylas was gone, instead of falling back to sleep as he’d planned. Maybe Hylas had been afraid someone would see him going into Zo’s room if he went in from the hall? It was more or less a secret that they visited each other so much. They were never together outside their corner of the house.

He closed his eyes but wasn’t asleep when Hylas returned. He pushed himself up onto one elbow in bed to show his intention of following Hylas’s advice.

“Sorry I took so long,” Hylas said, setting the fresh pot of tea on the tray.

He picked up the bowl of cold tea and drained it in a couple of gulps instead of tossing it out. Zo winced, but Hylas didn’t seem to notice that. He refilled the bowl from the pot and offered it to Zo.

“Elpis was telling me all about Pani and Menthe’s frescoes.”

“Mm.” Zo sat up, cradling the warm bowl. “It’s the talk of the house. Who’s Elpis?”

Hylas had taken a seat on the floor by Zo’s bed. “The cook.”

“Isn’t the cook a man? Tio, Timo-something?”

“Timoto. He’s the night cook. Elpis is the day cook.”

“Oh. Shocking that I didn’t know that, isn’t it?”

“A little bit.”

“You’re friends with the kitchen staff. I remember you saying that, a long time ago, when I made a joke about how they must like you because they’d given you the good tea.”

“I spent many years with no friends and am making up for lost time.”

Zo looked down at Hylas. His own life hadn’t exactly been full of friendship before he came to this place—and then he’d spent most of this year sulking in his room, ignoring the friends he did have because it was too much work to try to make them understand his suffering. And even then, to befriend the kitchen staff—that, he realized with shame, would never have occurred to him.

“I know you said you lost your status in your homeland. Do you think of yourself as a commoner?”

“Absolutely. That surprises you?”

“Well. Yes. It sounded unjust, the way you were treated by your people. I guess I’d imagined you would rebel against that in your heart, if nowhere else.”

“I do think it unjust now, but for most of my life I haven’t. And I wouldn’t want that status back, not with what it means in Ariata. Though … I have started using my old surname again, which I’m not at all entitled to do.” He shrugged. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it? It was that business with the dam at Koilas. I was starting to be … well, talked about, and I felt I needed a double name—most people who are in the public eye have two names. I could have invented one, I guess, but I liked my actual family name.”

“What is it?”

“My surname? Mnemotios.”

“Muh-neh … ”

“Mnemotios.”

“Neh-moh … Mneh?”

“Yeah. Mneh. Motios.”

“That’s a tongue-twister.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re an accomplished young man. You don’t have any difficulty pronouncing names.”

“All right, all right. Mnemotios. Hylas Mnemotios. It is a nice name.”

There was a knock at Zo’s front door. Hylas started.

“Message for you!” came Mistress Aula’s voice, sounding unusually cheerful.

Hylas was already on his feet. He slid the garden door open silently and slipped out as Zo was calling, “Coming!”