Ysabet ends up going home after the first month. The money's good, but she's already gotten more of it than she's ever had at one time in her entire life. She buys a sturdy chest to keep it in and never takes off the key, even at night. It might be worth sticking around if they were still arguing about whether to bring back the schools, but the education committee's already figured out that there's not enough money for them, so it doesn't seem like there's anything to worry about.

(She's replaced by a sixteen-year-old woman with an infant and a toddler, who trades her vote to one of the Pharasmins in exchange for a recommendation on who to hire to watch her children during the convention.)

Ysabet's children are all glad to hear that she's back from the convention to watch her grandchildren again. Zoe's finally as tall as the little dent in the door. Pharasmo is talking in full sentences. Dorotea got into a fistfight with one of the neighbor girls, and when her parents told her she wasn't allowed to do that anymore she told them she was going to be a cleric of Gorum, just you wait and see. Not much has changed, really, except that if anything goes really badly they'll have some money to spare for it.

There's rumors every now and then about what the convention's up to this time (getting rid of taxes! banning the church of Iomedae! making all wars illegal!), but she doesn't really put any stock in them.

A few months after the convention, there's an announcement that they're bringing back the schools. Charging money for them, too. Even the Asmodeans didn't try to make people pay for the "privilege" of attending. 

Maybe she should've stuck around after all.

If it were only up to her, she'd just have simmered privately about it. But her son Dioclecià is old enough to really remember what Genoveva was like before the Asmodeans stole her. He asks her if she thinks they really mean it, when they say you can choose whether to send your kid, and— 

They didn't kill that Iomedaean, now, did they. They didn't even kill people for voting against what the Queen wanted. Ysabet reckons they might actually mean it, when they say they won't punish you unless you actually broke the law. 

When the schools open, no one in Ysabet's entire village sends their child. It's the proudest she's ever been.