As cio’s tracted year of following court had yet to pse, he sent his secretary to Bzing Prairie in his stead to meet with his holdings’ city and vilge elders about mustering protective forces. He had a suspi that if oo survey the marauders, one would find about half of them were deserters from the king’s army and anood portion were horse nomads who’d escaped from House Agata’s holdings.

  He had given his representative the power to offer a lord’s pardon to any fugitive who agreed to serve House Mattius and enforce the w across his ties, escaped nomads included. To avoid bestowing anift of fighting men on the , the new scripts would be answerable to the city gaolers rather than sweariy to cio directly.

  That left cio in Siu Rial to plete his reply to the Het.

  The missive had taiwo letters, one written in the formal and rarely used Old Khinesian. The other, cio firmed through painstaking transtion, y written i’s nguage.

  It was an ingenious cession to his ignorance of their tohere were no books or records of their nguage in the kingdom and no one who knew how to speak it, but they had sent him a primer to bee literate in it.

  It may also have been a test of siy. We’ve learned your tongue; will you Children of Night back your peace-seeking cims by learning ours?

  The lord applied himself to the task with the same single-minded dedication he gave to every endeavor. In two weeks, he knew as much of the Het’s nguage and script as the missive allowed. In a month, he had a pleted reply in Khinesian and was nearly firansting it into Het.

  The Het official—which the Children of Day had transted as “khalif” in the Old Khinesian—had assured cio that a messenger would find him as long as he had the missive in his possession. What it didn’t say was how the messenger would know when cio’s reply was ready.

  Perhaps the Het had some unknown sg method. Whatever it was, the day cio sealed the return message, a stranger arrived.

  Ever sihe attack, the House Mattius servants had been jumping at shadows. The ck of evide who might have sent the assassin had only made them more wary.

  The servants were so armed by the ued visitor seeking a one-on-one audiehat Jarik had to be ordered twice to show him in. The old steward wa in en to stand guard, but cio assured him that he could take care of himself.

  When Jarik finally brought the hooded and cloaked visitor into the study, cio sed-guessed his decision to meet with the stranger alone.

  cio was no small man. Before his ming injury, he’d stood a head above most of his fellow lords. Even now, he could look the t King Hazerial in the eyes without raising his head.

  The messenger was a good six ialler than him. Lean and athletic, with golden-brown skin and long e-red hair such as cio had never seen before. He showed no ill effects from travel; he looked and well rested. There was no mud or dirt on his hem. Maybe he had followed Saint Daven back from the Kingdom of Day, found a pce to hole up, and waited for the reply to be finished.

  His garments were pin, but in a way that seemed tailored to the task and to the man. Whatever his sary for carrying missives into eerritory, it was clearly more than the former Thorn had been paid.

  “Salutations,” cio said i, bowing.

  The messenger gave an aowledging dip of the head, graceful as a monarch.

  “Greetings,” the messenger replied in ated Khinesian. The word was clear, with a slight roll of the r. ade a note of the sound for his own attempts at speaki. “Your unication is cluded?”

  “It is ready.” cio’s walking stick tapped the stone floor as he limped to the writing desk arieved the missive. Something about the messenger’s loomi quiet presence made the stillness heavier, more somber, and eabsp;clibsp;almost irreverent by trast.

  When the man reached out to take the missive, his sleeve fell back, revealing silverwork twined around his hand in a fingerless glove of preetal ing.

  If this was how their lowly messengers dressed, it was no wo took them so long to believe Saint Daven’s story. The former Thorn must have looked a beggar o their own couriers.

  Of course, if cio had been sending a man to pick up a message from a two-thousand-year enemy, he might also have made sure that man had all the glory of the with which to strike wonder and awe into their foe.

  “From this day,” the Het said, “all unications are carried by Het-born. Do not send Khi-born.”

  “That’s acceptable,” cio said. He had agreed to as mu the missive, but he could appreciate wanting firmation. “However, I do not always live here.”

  A slight twinge of fusion crossed the messenger’s face. cio racked his brain for Het words that might get his point across, but found none.

  “This isn’t my only residence,” he tried. “Our court moves throughout the year, and I move from pce to pce with it.”

  Finally, reition. “The prior unicatioain this. You will be located.”

  So there was more to the Het’s tricks than shadowing messengers and keeping watch over the house where the missive es jourhe part or seal must have been somehow bespelled.

  “sider it done,” cio said. Seeing fusion once more, he switched to his rudimentary Het. “It is agreed to.”

  The messenger nodded and turo leave.

  “Before you go, would you care for some coffee or a meal?” None of these words had e up in the missive, so cio couldn’t ask in the man’s own tongue.

  But the man didn’t seem ied in finding out what had been said. He gnced back, then strode down the dark hall and around the er. A moment ter came the closing thud of the door to the courtyard.

  There were no windows or archer loops iudy, and cio couldn’t get to the front of the residence fast enough to see how the man made his way through the busy Siu Rial streets. Would he use some sort of blood magic to hide himself? Would he leave it to the cloak and hood to disguise his native ins?

  Jarik came in just in time to hear cio curse under his breath.

  “My lord? Is everything well?”

  “Hm? Yes, everything’s fine.” cio’s lips twisted with the ghost of a smirk. He’d only just then realized that he should have asked to take down his hood to verify that he was who he said he was.

  It would have provided firmation, but also, he was genuinely curious whether the Het’s ears were pointed like the stories cimed.

  ***

  Izak leaned his elbows on the public house table. “How are we going to keep a new first-year from being assigo lodge with us?”

  It was a week before the enrollment of the new crop. Their third year at Thornfield was about to begin, and as far as they’d made it without discovery, Izak didn’t want to rely on an unknown personality to keep secret the fact that they had been harb a dirty, smelly little girl for the st two years.

  Under normal circumstances, he would have sprung this discussion on his friends sometime other than during their precious few hours at the pub. But after the spring grafting, they had begun third-year patrols, and the three of them were never assighe same watch. Horsemanship lessons had been crammed iween, another alteration to third-year life. Their daylight hours were as busy as their nights now, and they rarely had more than a few minutes in passing each day to spire.

  Only a fluke of scheduling had allowed the three of them to escape to the pub that day, which to Izak’s sternation happeo e along with a te-season cold snap. The pce acked with locals, and both Danasi and Casia were already occupied upstairs. There was nothing to do except drink and worry about the approag enrollment.

  “The repairs on the barracks in the southern wall are plete,” Twenty-six said, hooking his sandy hair behind his ear. “They will pce the new arrivals there.”

  Where Izak kept his hair cropped fashionably short with the assistance of Seventy-three, a barber’s son in their year, the pirate had yet to cut his hair o hung, straight and fio his shoulders when he didn’t have it tied back, and Izak had begun joking that if anyone were suspected of being a girl in hiding, it would be Twenty-six.

  “Not likely. I overheard Fright and Malice yesternight saying they’re moving the masters into the rebuilt rooms—” Izak used a drop of spilt ale to outline movement from one location to a new ohen hooked back around and tapped the starting drop. “—so they carry out renovations oower before it falls in or catches fire.”

  Lathe surfaced between gulps of ale. “We ain’t never fixed the bunk, us. ’t nobody new fit.”

  “I have my doubts that will work two years in a row,” Izak said. “Especially as we were ordered to repair it before this enrollment.” He gestured to the pirate. “Frankly, I’m surprised that you didn’t fix that bunk immediately, with your fondness for keeping things in good dition.”

  “I do not take orders from dirters.”

  The public house door banged open on an icy spring gust. Three familiar figures darkehe door, one of them sweaty and bright pink from the sun.

  Fifty-oy-eight, and the heavyset Thirty stood there a moment, looking around awkwardly.

  “Four?” The bastard of West Crag blinked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? What are you doing here?”

  “Who cares?” Thirty’s beady eyes roved across the on room. “We see enough of their ugly faces every day. Where are the whores?”

  As if summoned, Danasi appeared oairs, esc her test visitor down.

  “Praise the strong gods!” Thirty pushed between the bastard and the big rustid rushed to her side like a man dying of thirst spying a puddle in the desert. “My dear beauteous beauty, I’m here to engage your services immediately. This is urgent. I’m Teikru-blessed, you see—”

  “Hold on a light-burnt minute, fatso.” Izak jumped up and shoved his way to the staircase. “Danasi isn’t here to cater to every rooting boar who blunders in—”

  “Go plough yourself!” Thirty snapped. Gently, he took Danasi’s elbow ahe amused public house girl up the steps. “I’ve got mold than all these peasants bined, and I really am blessed by the god-goddess. You’ll be begging to pay me by the time this is over.”

  Izak followed as far as the first riser. “But I’m a loyal repeat er! And you’ve never had any pints, her you nor your sister!”

  “First e, first served,” Danasi said. “I’m sure Casia will be down soon to smooth your feathers, my ruffled cockerel.”

  “I’ll never spend another piece of gold in this pce!”

  Danasi smiled at him over her shoulder. It was ay threat, and they both k. He’d thrown the same tantrum when the winter rush kept him waiting.

  Cursing, Izak flipped over ay chair—much to the annoyance of the locals at that table—then strode back to his friends.

  “I ’t believe this.” He dropped into his chair. “‘Beauteous beauty?’ That windbag. And what was that nonsense about being Teikru-blessed?”

  “It is the same excuse you make for yourself,” Twenty-six said. He finished his drink and stood. “We should leave.”

  “I’m not moving a night-forsaken inch. I’ll never that gold-grabbing traitain. From now on, Casia gets every I have.”

  Fifty-one and the hulking rustic Eighty-eight pulled chairs over to their table. Their other first-year roommate had succumbed that wio a grippe that Thirty had unfortunately survived.

  “So, did you bribe the patrols, too?” Fifty-one asked, leaning his elbows oable.

  Izak was dumbfounded. With all he’d learned about currency over the past two years, he hadn’t once sidered bribery.

  Before he could reply, however, Twenty-six warned, “Do not answer.”

  “Shut up, pirate,” the bastard said. “No one asked you.”

  “You don’t dare tell our pirate scum to shut up!” Lathe leapt across the table.

  Fifty-one was usually a fair hand at grappling, but the attack took him—and everyone else at the table—pletely by surprise. Whey-six ay-eight finally wrestled Lathe off the bastard of West Crag, his nose was smashed ft and blood poured down his retly acquired wispy mustache.

  Twenty-six tossed the kig and g Lathe over his shoulder.

  “Leave him,” the pirate told her. He jerked his head at Izak. “We must go. Bribes do not buy loyalty, and six bodies sneaking in and out of the walls will be much easier to catch than three. They will be found out.”

  Eighty-eight scoffed. “With what Thirty paid ’em, there’s no way they’ll snit us.”

  The public house door whooshed open again, admitting a chilly bst of spring afternoon, but this time the man in the portal caught the heavy timbers before they could crash against the wall.

  Izak couldn’t see who it was around Twenty-six, but he heard Lathe’s gasp.

  Thewenty-six, and the runt disappeared, hidden by her lightning-fast application of blood magiot even a shadow of their presence remained.

  The man at the door was one of the gold-eyed ons masters, dirty, haggard, and hunched from a long time in the saddle.

  “Wele, master,” the publi said, wandering over to whichever of the Saints it was. “What we do for Thoroday?”

  Izak felt someone grab his arm and pull. The chair shifted beh his invisible weight. Twenty-six was trying to get him out of there.

  “A cup of…” The master fell silent as his gold eyes lit on Izak’s table.

  Izak’s heart stopped in his chest. They were caught.

  “Fifty-ohe master raised a dark brow. “Eighty-eight?”

  Holding in the sudden urge to cackle with relief, Izak slipped out of his seat and crept to the alley door. Behind him, repercussions ed to life for the rustid the bastard.

  The invisible trio waited for a pub patron to open the alley door, then slipped out behind the wobbling er a him draining his ale against the side of the building.

  Uhe trio rouhe er and sprinted for the edge of the vilge.

  Izak cursed. “They’re going to implicate us, and our bsted pirate won’t lie because of his stupid honor!”

  “I won’t lie,” Twenty-six agreed, keeping pace with him, “but if the masters find us asleep in our bunks whehers return, I may not have to. The lie will be told for us.”

  “I’ll lie for all of us, me!” Lathe snapped, her voiing from siderably farther ahead. “Get the rocks outta your boots and run!”

  ***

  The three of them were rousted out of an ostensibly sound sleep half an hour ter and asked whether they had been out that day.

  “I been out sier scullerin’, me,” Lathe said helpfully. “That’s a hard job. Plumb snored my head off the sed I id down. I did have me a nasty dream about midday wheres I was drowning in hot water, but it’s all right ’cuz I woke up afore I pissed the bed and used the chamber pot.”

  Izak held up a hand to stop the runt. “Master Malice doesn’t want to hear about your bdder, idiot, and unless I’m much mistaken, he wasn’t asking whether you had a sound sleep.” He turo the master. “You wao know if we were out of our beds after curfew, didn’t you, sir?”

  “I ain’t a idiot!”

  The ensuing fight and the subsequent knocked-over chamber pot proved to be enough distra to keep them from having to answer any other questions about the vilge. Before departing, however, Master Malioticed that they still hadn’t fixed the bunk he’d ordered them to repair.

  “If that’s not useable by the enrollme week, you’ll all be sleeping on the floor while udents sleep in your beds. Every bunk is going to be needed.”

  “Yes, sir.” They kept their curses to themselves until the Coffee Isnd master was well out of earshot.

  ***

  Fifty-oy-eight, and Thirty were sced in the bailey as the su down.

  The trio hadn’t prepared their stories ahead of time. None of their details matched, and when asked to repeat them, new insistencies kept appearing.

  Fifty-one ay-eight hadn’t wao implicate the prince, so they left Four out of their story altogether. On top of this, the bastard’s disgust for pirates colored his tale so much that it sounded like an iion to pihing oy-six. Thirty identified Four as the principal offender, but apparently, the Teikru-blessed mert’s son hadn’t seen a the prin his quest for whores; he only had vague guesses as to who might have apanied him.

  Izak spent the few days showing his two loyal subjects as much favor as he could without attrag suspi from the masters. He even healed their sce marks. Rather thament, Fifty-one ay-eight viewed the scars as war wounds taken for their prince.

  No ohought to ask the pirate what really happened.

  “We made it past a reef only to sail into a ship’s graveyard,” Twenty-six muttered. “Malice is going to pce a udent in our room.”

  “Might be I could fool him, the new boy,” Lathe said.

  Izak raised a dubious brow. “Until yrafted? That’s two years. You couldn’t even fool us for one full year.”

  “’Cuz I didn’t know er! Now I’m plenty learnt. I got all kinda tricks, me.”