Nights at Thornfield were full of sweat, chores, lectures, and hazing. Izak felt as if he went from mooo moo searg for a ce to take a breath.

  Mandatory rest hours in the barracks were aory. The rest was needed—no one could keep up such rigorous training without recovery time, and no one could draw indefinitely on blood magic to keep going. Some gambling and games of ce were avaible most days until the bedtime curfew. Then it felt as if the sunlight hours dragged their heels endlessly.

  The lonely slogs to nightfall nearly drove Izak mad. He y awake thinking he would give up the all over just to hold a woman in his arms again. It had been almost two weeks since he’d left behind all that sweet flesh in the public house, but it felt like he’d abstained for a lifetime.

  Izak wasn’t the only one suffering from insomnia. While the little runt snored in the bunk over Izak’s, across the room, Twenty-six tossed and turned like a pig on a spit.

  The pirate’s eyes opehe moment Izak climbed out of bed.

  Izak put his fio his mouth.

  “Don’t wake the loud one,” he whispered, gesturing to Nine’s bunk.

  Twenty-six spotted the fact that Izak was headed away from the chamber pot and toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the vilge. Sandy Hells, or whatever it was called.”

  The pirate scowled—the only facial expression he knew how to make, so far as Izak had observed—and sat up. “You are not allowed to leave Thornfield grounds.”

  “Light burn Thornfield,” Izak hissed. “I’m Teikru-blessed. If I don’t get to a woman soon, I may die. Or perhaps I’ll murder someohe point is, I o get out of this ugly herd of bulls and enjoy some beautiful feminine flowers.”

  “Third- and fourth-years patrol the gatehouse.”

  “If I have a lookout, I make it past them. Help me, and I’ll stand you all the women and drinks you could possibly want.” He would promise the kingdom, his right arm, and all the gold between Thornfield and Siu Rial if he had to.

  Twenty-six dropped bato his bunk and turned his face to the wall.

  “More for me,” Izak muttered, heading for the door.

  “I’ll go!” Nine chirped.

  Izak ged. “Go back to sleep.”

  “No, I want to go with you. To the whores.”

  Some long-fotten sce balked at the thought of corrupting a child as young as Nine. In truth, he shouldn’t care. There were whores youhan there, and boys youhan Nine visiting them.

  Still, he couldn’t shut out his palsied scruples entirely.

  “You wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if you had one. Get ba bed.”

  “Yes, I would! Ba Siu al, I had twenty women a day and that many drinks besides!” Twenty was the highest number Nine had learned so far and, as such, featured in most of his exaggerations.

  “Shut up before you get me caught.”

  “No, I’m your lookout!”

  “You’re not leaving this room until dusk.” Izak couldn’t believe he was caught up in an argument when he could be smoke stepping his way closer to the vilge. He could barely think past the cm in his groin and in his skull. “It’s the rule.”

  Nine puffed up with fury. “If you break ’em, I too!”

  “Fet it!” Izak caught hold of the energy in the boy’s blood and locked it in pine wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

  The runt flew into a helpless rage, cursing Izak and his aors all the way back to Khi.

  Izak ignored him and slipped out the door.

  ***

  Twenty-six listeo the door ease shut behind Four and y gring at the stonework. Behind him, ormed and cursed.

  Half a man couldn’t feel desire—he couldn’t feel anything but rage and grief and hate—but even if he had wanted a woman, it would have been his wife he longed for, not some filthy blood drinker who sold her favors to every dirter with a spare .

  Twenty-six pressed his forehead to the cool stone, weathering a wave of ndsiess.

  He was growing used to the solid ground’s deathly otion, at least enough that the overwhelming nausea had faded. It only swelled now and again. Daylight was worse than night, as he was not moving while the nd around him also did not move, and he had nothing to distract him from the siess. He couldn’t sleep through it. A lifetime sailing in the sun with only occasional ht raids had attuned his body to sleep when darkness and anchors dropped.

  On days when he did mao doze, nightmares—daymares?—paihe insides of his eyelids with blood and fire and corpse-white attackers leaping out of unnatural, billowing bck smoke. In other dreams, he held Mehet or returo the Raeship and embraced his father and mother and was hailed as a man fully proven.

  The tter dreams were much harder to recover from.

  Most days, he y awake pting the s he was being traio take on and w how he would kill a king he was eo. From what he had learned in the areries lectures, he would not have a choice he was grafted; the pulsion would not allow him to kill the king, nor would it allow him to let someone else do the job. He would die to protect the monster.

  In the weeks since his arrival, Twenty-six had studied the tides around Thornfield. Those were simple and predictable. The patrols were nothing more than senior students in rotation. A one-eyed lookout freatship would have made the dirter patrols seem like blind men.

  It would be so easy to break free, but he could not leave this prison. Whenever he sidered esg, the corruption embedded in his veins twisted and tracted, trapping him like steel bands.

  Take my Mark upon you.

  Rage swelled like the ndsiess in his gut.

  He had chosen this. Steel bands and darkness and the stink of blood and dirt everywhere. Cursed. Disgraced. Corrupted.

  Trapped.

  Behind him, the door to the room opened and thumped closed.

  Silence.

  Twenty-six twisted to look over his shoulder.

  Nine was gone.

  ***

  Luck ran in Izak’s favor. He made it out of the barracks without waking another soul a no te-day wanderers in the courtyard. The patrol at the gatehouse was made up of a pair of fourth-years Izak had observed to be particurly secure in their abilities—so secure that they frequently fell into xness—and a few easily led third-years. Today, the elder group had vihe youo pass their guard pying dice.

  They would fit in well at the pace.

  Izak stopped in the shade of the gatehouse and eyed the thornknife graveyard beyond. The strenuous nights of training and ch had required stant streams of blood magic to keep him moving, and a smoke step in broad daylight would normally have ed him out.

  But here again luck smiled on him. The coast’s fitful weather had turhe sun was hidden behind dark thunderheads. Out on the beach, the endless din of the crashing surf had risen to quite a otion.

  He ghe way of the dice pyers, absorbed in their game.

  Before he took a step and disied into smoke, however, he heard a shrill shout.

  “There Four is, over yon! He’s fixing to run, him!”

  ***

  Izak gred at the traitorous Nine. He wished he could throttle that snitch’s sy, dirty neck.

  All around the bailey, his glower was mirrored on the puffy, sleepy faces of his fellow Thornfield students and several of the masters. The whole school had been dragged out of bed to withat there would be no distin between prind oner ihese walls. At least not when it came to punishment.

  “Either I go with you, or you don’t go nowhere,” the little churl had hissed when the fn Master Malice had led Izak past. Even now, Nine beamed in triumph from his pce amongst the bigger students.

  Grandmaster Heartless stepped forward.

  “Four left the grounds of Thornfield without authorizatioempted to ewo more first-year students into flouting the same rule. As such, he will receive twenty shes.” The grandmaster’s pale blue eyes cut to a fa the crowd. “In addition, Twenty-six, who had full knowledge of Four’s pns, did nothing to stop him, nor did he alert the masters. His sent to this btant disregard for the rules has earned him ten shes.”

  “That’s a crock of rot!” Izak snapped. “He had nothing to do with this! I acted alone!”

  “It would not have been possible for you to act if he had stopped you.” Grandmaster gestured at Master Saint Galen to proceed.

  The gold-eyed whipmaster went to pull Twenty-six out of the crowd, but the pirate shook him off and stalked to a pce beside Izak under his own power.

  “This is a bald-faced miscarriage of justice,” Izak argued.

  “In the eyes of someone who is not ied in honor, perhaps,” Twenty-six said.

  “Shut up, this isn’t some legal sces lecture to be picked apart aed. Going to the vilge wasn’t your idea.” Izak rounded on the grandmaster. “I am fully and solely responsible.”

  Twenty-six didn’t bat an eye. “A man is responsible for the as of the invalids on his watch.”

  “I’m trying to—You’re calling me the invalid? I’m trying to keep you from being whipped unnecessarily, you ingrate savage!”

  “Which proves you are incapable of making wise decisions. Even your dirter Masters know that to diffuse the sequences is ultimately more harmful than allowing a man to suffer the full broadside for his as.”

  Seeing he was getting nowhere with his roommate, Izak turo Grandmaster Heartless.

  “Fine. If he insists on taking responsibility, thehe savage have his way. Give him all thirty shes.”

  The pirate’s scowl deepened. “Yes, and allow the invalid to tinue in his blissful foolishness.”

  “It’s te, and we elderly don’t resist the sun the way we once did.” The grandmaster squinted up at the pale gray light filtering through the cloudy sky. “Give them thirty shes apiece, Master Saint Galen, thehe students back to bed.”