"I can't believe you stole my dress!" I shouted at Aldo, spitting mad.

He raised his hands in placation. "I didn't steal it! I hid it! Uh… so that nobody else would steal it!"

From Zev's nervous expression, I suspected he'd put Aldo up to it, but I couldn't prove anything. Aldo had stashed my neatly-folded hand-me-down dress in a gap between old stones along the wharf, and for a very long minute, I'd just about gone apoplectic, thinking I'd had yet another dress stolen at the swimming wharf. "That's like stealing!"

"You got it back…"

"But I thought it got stolen!"

"Dress…" Mailyn hummed. "That’s abali?"

"That's gown," I stated, calming myself and a bit embarrassed now that I realized that I was causing a scene. "Skorsh is dress. Orsmilu riu dat a mellifa skorsh 'av! Little rich girl, what a pretty dress you have!"

"How in the world d'you know that?" Aldo sputtered. Since I was feeling cross at him, I didn't tell him I'd heard it just a few days earlier. I just stuck my tongue out and skipped away.

During my first week in Floria, trips to the Largotto became an almost-daily occurrence, and I gradually got used to the brazen public nudity of Florian rivergoers, though I wasn't yet ready to partake of it myself. Once per week, on Saintsday mornings, the proctors marched all the Scamps – yes, all 1489 of us – down to the river for a weekly bath. This was ostensibly because they wanted us smelling our best for Saintsday services, which were mandatory for Scamps. Most of us didn’t need to be told when to bathe, but there are a handful of stinkers in every batch of children, and they will eschew bathing unless you mandate it (and, even then, some will attempt to get out of it). So I went down with my whole cohort on Saintsday and with a much smaller gaggle of friends and friends-of-friends on the other days. And, more often than not, I needed the bath. In addition to running messages all over the River's Run most days, I also found myself getting into more messes than I'd have liked…

More accurately, I suppose, other Scamps got me into more messes than I'd have liked. Scamps come from all walks of life, but the vast majority come from impoverished households, orphanages, the street, or even worse. I was one of the tiny minority who came from the gentry (and, as far as I am aware, there were none at all from the nobility during my Scampage), and as the only 'rich girl' in my bunk room, I was subject to a lot of petty bullying – at least at first.

Newcomers got kitchen duty for their whole first week to learn the ropes, which meant helping with a different kitchen shift each day and meeting, at least briefly, all of the Scamps in our bunk room. Some shifts were more benign than others, with the third shift being the absolute worst. On my third day, with the third shift, a Kronojic boy named Oltzen asked me if I wanted to learn how to make ‘oeas a la printessa’ – 'eggs princess' to those who don’t speak Frissonic. Wanting to stay on friendly terms, I'd replied in the affirmative - and so Oltzen grabbed me by the hair and shoved my face into a huge bowl of steaming, slightly-goopy eggs.

When I finally wormed out from under him, seething, face singed, and choking on a chunk of egg I'd inhaled during my panicked struggling, he laughed in my face and said, "those are eggs, princess!" And just about everybody else laughed, too. I had egg goop all over my face, in my hair, and all down the front of my dress, and what I couldn't pick out I just had to wear until I got to the Largotto after classes.

At least, under the hot Florian sun, any clothes you scrubbed out in the river would be bone dry an hour and a half later. My group and I learned to keep an eye on our things at all times to prevent theft (even if Aldo did sometimes play pranks), and Mailyn talked me into taking a pair of trousers for my wardrobe (far more common in the donation bins than dresses or even shifts), reasoning that they were a lot less likely to get stolen. My mother would have been horrified - her daughter wearing trousers? But, in Floria, it's not unusual for girls and women to wear them, and some ladies of high standing (like Rose) even prefer sleek, well-tailored, undeniably-feminine trousers over gowns and dresses. The trousers I'd claimed, however, had a ratty hem and holes in the knees. At least they fit me well and were actually a bit less worn than most of the other clothes.

"You want me to show you how to mend those?" Abie asked. Abie was Nate's cousin, one year older than him and also a Scamp - she slept over in Scamp Bunk #1. Since magical talent tends to run in families, it isn't unusual for siblings or cousins to end up as contemporaries at the Collegium, even if they both come from the Eastriver Downs in Wexland.

Much like Nate or Mailyn, Abie had been purchased from her parents for what amounted to a month's wages for the family (twelve shille, I believe). To this day, parental purchase is the most common way that Scamps are recruited, with children purchased from orphanages or coaxed right off the streets coming in a close second and third. Abie had saved up enough for an actual sewing kit, which she kept in a little biscuit tin in her locker.

"You could teach me to sew? Yes, please! I'd love not to have holes in my clothes!"

And that, in a nutshell, was why I was bullied. If I'd been content to live in rags, the trouble would have quickly died down, but I would not be in rags. Not only did the notion of being a dirty little urchin go against every instinct of my upbringing, I'd already seen that Shadows had style, poise, and a bearing that would make most people soil their pants. They walked and spoke like mere kings were beneath them, and I wanted to be one of them. Yet the best way for me to keep a low profile as a Scamp was to behave like the lowest common denominator, and I absolutely was not going to do that. I walked, talked, and braided my hair like a little Gionian lady, and I'd see that my clothes were tidy, clean, and well-mended even if they were second- or third-hand trousers. As father would say:

"Class is not about money - it is about attitude!" Though, to be fair, the money helps quite a bit.

Abie taught me how to mend my clothes, and I stayed up nights learning how to sew with borrowed needle and thread before buying a small kit of my own and then fixing every item in my very-limited wardrobe to be at least presentable. None of my clothes were nice enough to be better than that, but they were nice enough that, when my detractors were irked, they had no trouble convincing themselves that I thought I was better than everybody - which wasn't true. I just thought I was better than petty child bullies.

It mostly only happened when none of my friends were around and two or more of the 'Tetrad of Terror' were present. These were four kids from my bunk room who hated my guts - Oltzen, Thero, and Nima, a trio of Kronojic kids who probably hated me because I was a Selenite and the 'Gionian Princess' barb was just icing on the bully cake, plus Nima's best mate, Tizzie Drake, a big Wext girl who was trouble no matter how you cut it. The tetrad's favorite bully pastime started out as idle insults and accidental-on-purpose shoulder- and hip-checks, any of which I could take all day, but they soon escalated to trying to trip me. Oltzen especially delighted in getting the uppity Gionian-Selenite girl to tumble and sprawl out on the ground, and his crowning achievement was getting me to fall up to my elbows (and, yes, the front of my shirt and the tip of my nose) in a conspicuous pile of horse manure near the front of the Scamp Hall. Thereafter, my nickname among the Tetrad of Terror became Princess Manure… not the most innovative insult, but the lazy scorn somehow made it even worse.

Needless to say, the manure incident warranted a trip straight down to the Largotto to wash up. At least the frequency of my trips to the river meant I quickly overcome my conditioned modesty.

Mrs. Roost pondered over her Citadel board before slowly sliding her cat pewter catapult into her fortress. "Catapult to B-4," she said. I nodded, carefully printed the move on a slip of paper, and dashed off, sprinting down the River's Run.

Four or five days a week, I worked as a messenger girl with my coterie of friends, and the job earned all of us enough money for as much food from the marketplace as we could eat - the best was when you could do a one pico job for a greengrocer or baker, and they'd give you a whole tollo worth of food instead of cash, and both of you would feel that you'd come out ahead on the deal. I even saved enough for the occasional luxury: street food or sweets; a roll-up bunk pad made of wound hemp stuffed with cotton; a klunky lock for my locker; and a good pair of shoes. Thos had cost me ten tollos, but I didn't regret it one bit. Good footwear is pretty important when you're in the message-delivery business, and I could still use my regular shoes for walking down to the Step Wharf and not worry about the good ones getting stolen.

Being a messenger is good for stamina, too, at least if you're serious about it, and I took my job plenty seriously. I don't think I lost much weight on account of the bottomless breakfasts at the Collegium, and I was pretty slim to begin with. My legs became lean and athletic, though, and my feet and hands grew callouses from pivoting on an octavo, swinging around corners and bollards, and generally scampering about the River's Run marketplace like a little monkey. Within a few weeks, I could run from the northern extent of the River's Run marketplace all the way down to the Bannered Temple (just north of the Sun's End Bridge) in about eight minutes without getting winded. Aldo could keep up with me, but nobody else could, probably because they didn't take messaging as seriously as I did. You had to run from the moment you'd got the message (and/or small package) to the moment you'd arrived at your destination.

I dashed down the little stretch of food stalls, not even slowing despite the enticing aroma, dodged my way through a crowd of nattering parishioners wandering northward away from the temple, and scampered up the wooden steps to Mrs. Choso's cozy bookshop.

"Hello, Mrs. Choso! Catapult retreats to B-4!" I chirped, handing Mrs. Choso the little slip confirming the move.

The bookseller frowned, pondering over her citadel board. "She's retreating? What is that woman thinking," she muttered, sliding the piece back. Then she clicked her tongue in consternation. "Oh… the wily witch! Okay, two can play at that game. Pikemen phalanx at B-6." She watched as I printed the move on a fresh slip of paper. "Your Perditalog is getting much better, Vix!"

"Thank you! Can I really have a book on Ashday?"

Mrs. Choso chuckled to herself and smiled. "You remembered that, did you?" A few days before, she'd told me that, if I acted as the citadel liaison between her and Mrs. Roost for a whole week, then she'd let me pick a book from the bargain section for myself. Given that the used books in the bargain section were still four or five tollos, and I was still getting paid a tollo per four moves, that was simply too good a deal to pass up… and definitely too good for me to forget about. I pored over the volumes, my envious fingers running along the spine of a Silvia Valia: A Gentlewoman Thief adventure novel. Sadly, it was not in the bargain section, and Mrs. Choso noted it. "Yes, girl, any bargain book. Now… I really want to find out what that old crone is planning, so off you go now!"

That snapped me out of my reverie. "Yes, Mrs. Choso! Sorry! Thank you!"

Mrs. Choso and Mrs. Roost ran a bookstore and a stationery shop, respectively, at extreme opposite ends of the market (so, about a kilometer apart), respectively. Being in the paper goods business, they both also offered translation and calligraphy services, and their friendly rivalry had at some point shifted into a habit of daily games of Citadel, the most popular game of strategy in Floria. During the lazy summer months, when less business came downriver, they would meet in person for tea. But during the autumn, such as now in the month of Festinel, it was more practical to hire us Scamps as intermediaries. To Nate's chagrin, I'd fast become the ladies' favorite on-call Scamp go-between because I was very polite and attentive when they prattled on about citadel, books, or local politics, asking polite questions and telling them their opinions were very, very interesting, which is what adults liked to hear. Conversely, Nate or Mailyn would just stand there, awkwardly shifting back and forth on their feet as the merchant considered her next move, and Zev or Aldo were liable to just wander off and not show back up for an hour, if at all, if they got bored with the conversation.

I tore off, dashing past a startled customer and out into the southern River's Run marketplace, out beneath the shadow of the Bannered Temple's towering steeple. The Largotto occasionally glimmered in the distance as I ran, peeking through the shops as I sped past the bustling cross streets sloping down to the riverfront. As I ran, my shoes barely touched upon the cobblestones, patting down like a stone skipping across a lake of cobblestones, and my face broke into a grin. I forgot all about getting pushed into manure. Visions of books flitted through my head - there were at least three bargain shelf books that I had my eyes on, and if Mrs. Choso let me have one every week… why, I'd have a library of my own in no time!