In higher-class precincts, winter folk would not stir for another hour, but summer kids got used to rising in bitter cold — such was the irony of their name. Maia sighed, and began slipping into her new traveling clothes. Black tights of stretchy web-cloth, a white blouse and halter, plus boots and a jacket of strong, oiled leather. The outfit was more than many clans provided their departing var-daughters, as the mothers diligently pointed out. Maia tried hard to feel fortunate.

While dressing, she pondered the severed braid. It was longer than an outstretched arm, glossy, yet lacking those rich highlights each full-blooded Lamai wore as a birthright. It looked so out of place, Maia felt a brief chill, as if she were regarding Leie's detached hand, or head. She caught herself making a hand-sign to avert ill luck, and laughed nervously at the bad habit. Country superstitions would betray her as a bumpkin in the big cities of Landing Continent.

Leie hadn't even laced her braid very well, given the occasion. At this moment, in other rooms nearby, Mirri, Kirstin, and the other summer fivers would be fixing their tresses for today's Parting Ceremony. The twins had argued over whether to attend, but now Leie had typically and impulsively acted on her own. Leie probably thinks this gives her seniority as an adult, even though Granny Modine says I was first out of our birth-momma's womb.

Fully dressed, Maia turned to encompass the attic room where they had grown up through five long Stratoin years — fifteen by the old calendar — summer children spinning dreams of winter glory, whispering a scheme so long forming, neither recalled who had thought it first. Now . . . today . . . the ship Grim Bird would take them away toward far western lands where opportunities were said to lay just waiting for bright youths like them.

That was also the direction their father-ship had last been seen, some years ago. "It can't hurt to keep our eyes open," Leie had proposed, though Maia had wondered, skeptical. If we ever did meet our gene-father, what would there be to talk about?