Have an Excerpt!

I'm doing NaNoWriMo.
Today you're getting an excerpt. Not really edited, but what of the stuff I put up here is?

Yes, Alex is autistic. No, she doesn't know she's autistic. No, she's never going to find out.
This isn't where the story actually starts, but it was the first thing written- I'm not actually writing in order, and it seems like Alex and Kaili are each getting about a books worth of stuff before they meet.

Alex leaned against the palace wall, absently gliding her fingers against the smoothness of the marble, and waited, ignoring the servants bustle as they moved tables and hung banners outside. She was hours early for the tournament sign-up, which would not open until noon: she preferred to avoid the explanations her mother would demand if she left dressed as a boy with her breasts bound, carrying the sword she wasn't supposed to have, with her hair in a style used by long-haired young men instead of the proper ladies bun she hated spending her time on. She also preferred not to be late or poorly dressed for the banquet that evening. “I spent my afternoon signing up for a tournament” would get her in more trouble than no explanation at all. So she made sure to be early.

It paid off. She was the first to sign up, which meant she was the first to leave. On her way out, she noticed Jasson entering the courtyard. She hoped he didn't recognize her. That was one headache she didn't need.

Then Alex remembered. She'd planned well for getting out of her room for sign-ups, rising well before dawn. But how was she going to get back in? She couldn't exactly walk in with her hair down and her breasts bound, no more than she could walk in with her sword out. Not with her parents awake, which they would be by now. With luck, they wouldn't be worrying about where she was yet. They knew her habit of walking in the mornings at home.

She ran towards Jasson's rooms, across the palace- she'd seen him enter the line to sign up for the tourney, and that meant he wasn't in his rooms. Then she stopped. She had no way to get into his rooms. She looked around: she stood in the gardens, and the winter weather meant few people lingered. Alex stepped off the path and behind some bushes, hoping the cold would last until she could return. She didn't want anyone lingering long enough to notice her things. She put her sword, dagger, and shirt into her pack, pulled out the short dress she had thought to bring, closed the bag, and slid it under the largest of the bushes, cursing as she discovered the hard way that this bush had thorns. She looked at her arms- there were several lines where her skin was lighter than it should be from the scratches, but no blood. With luck, the scratches would fade before a maid noticed, or worse, her mother.