[There's a flat stare, of course she was judging.] My point was that some of us were not truly free to begin with, outside the Circle. It isn't as simple you make it sound; opportunities to matter were never going to happen for a city elf.

[Perhaps when Adalia sees an alienage with her own eyes, she'll begin to understand. Inessa tells herself silently that this young woman is new, that there's much she hasn't seen. Perhaps all she needs is time and personal experience to fully understand.]

Shemlen is an ancient elven word for humans. It means 'quick children', as elves were once thought to be immortal, so humans aged very quickly before their eyes. City elves often shorten that to just 'shem' or 'shems', for the plural form.