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Up until then, every seer in the group alternated between Arabic and Prexci, even Kat, who appeared to be fluent in both. My crash-course in Arabic as a lead-up to this op left my fluency spotty but serviceable. I could understand it, which had been my primary goal. I could also speak it?reasonably well, according to Revik?just with a thick accent.

Since I’d had no illusions I’d learn it well enough to pass as a native under our time constraints, both things more or less met my goals.

I found the orange-eyed seer watching me closely as those thoughts flickered through my mind, curiosity reflected in his nearly opaque irises.

“Depends on what you mean,” I said, answering in the same.

He smiled. “You are American.”

“I learned English there, yes,” I said, realizing my mistake.

I likely wouldn’t have been able to hide the American accent in Prexci, so maybe it didn’t matter, but I still had to force my eyes forward, to not glance at Kat to see if she’d recognized my voice when I spoke the only language she’d ever heard me speak.

I’d been teased by Maygar and others that my Prexci had a mish-mash of accents, anyway, given that I’d originally learned it from Revik. Since Revik alternated between German, Russian, American and British accents in his own Prexci, in addition to the formal variants he knew, I’d adopted a lot of his quirks.

I hadn’t been trained to mimic accents yet, and now I was regretting that, too.

Either way, I doubted I could have pulled off pretending I didn’t know English.

“Regarding the dancing,” the orange-eyed seer said, circling back to his first question as his eyes drifted down my body. “I mean sexually, of course. Could you entice a man in this way?”

I felt my mouth firm, but only shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You have never done this?”

“Only for boyfriends,” I said, giving him a harder look.

A faint smile touched his lips, reaching his eyes. “We will try this with you, yes? I suspect you will be quite good at it, sister.”

I fought not to roll my eyes.

I also refrained from pointing out that him calling me “sister” when he’d just purchased me and stuck a sight-restraint collar around my neck was about as disingenuous as one could get.

He must have picked up a smattering of my thoughts that time, because from next to me, he clicked softly under his breath, giving me a sadder-looking smile.

“We must all sometimes make sacrifices, my beautiful sister,” he murmured. “Is that not true? For the longer game?”

“Spoken like one who defers all those sacrifices to others,” I muttered back in Prexci. “But it is a lovely sentiment, my fortunate brother. Truly.”

He surprised me by laughing, then by looping his arm through mine.

“Indeed,” he said, smiling when I glanced up. “You are most correct, of course.”

I refrained from rolling my eyes a second time.

“I am Alrick,” he told me, still watching my face, although I no longer returned his lingering stare. “I am very pleased to meet you, sister Ralla.”

I bowed my head, making my indifference clear.

“And your employer?” I said. “What is his name, brother?”

Smiling, Alrick made a noncommittal gesture with one hand. “I will let him introduce himself,” he said cryptically. “I will say, I very strongly suspect that he will be even more pleased with you than I am, my beautiful sister.”

I didn’t answer, but again had to suppress an eye-roll.

I was starting to feel like I was back in Beijing, surrounded by flatterers and fools. It should make them easy to manipulate, at least.

“…If he is not,” Alrick added, still smiling. “I may just purchase you for myself.”