Friday's back again! Last chapter for this week, I'll see you peeps oher side of the weekend with the one!

  Peace!e

  (Oh, P.S. if you just want to binge a whole bunch of episodes at once, chapters on my Patreon are already to the halfoint of Book 2: Madness of Princes for all tier levels.)

  Twenty-six repaired the broken shelf bed, anch it more securely than it had been before. Because it was better and novel, Lathe moved bato that bunk.

  Unfortunately, that still left them with the required bed to fill and an annoyed Coffee Isnd master looking to prove a point.

  The cold stuck around until the new crop arrived at Thornfield. Rain battered the prospective Thorns, and Grandmaster had to shout over the wind, but no allowance was made for the poor weather. The wele speeches and baths took p the bailey, leaving the new arrivals to sprint into the hall and receive their new dry clothing while shivering untrolbly.

  As newly promoted third-years, Izak and Twenty-six weren’t expected to serve the traditional first meal and could watch the new arrivals’ harsh awakening. Lathe was supposed to be is, w off more lecture disruptions, but she’d slipped out to get a peek at their potential roommates.

  “Whie of ’em you figure is ours?” Lathe muttered, eyeing the white-faced, red-cheeked first-years warming themselves by the hearth. The unfamiliar gazes roved the hall, searg for a seat and naively looking forward to the food.

  “We won’t know until Malice shows him to our room,” Izak said.

  “We will know if Malice looks our way after handing out a set of clothing.” Twenty-six retending to be i on his food, sneaking ghrough the long fringe of sandy hair hanging in his eyes.

  Lathe was sched dowweewo of them. She pulled on Izak’s shoulder and ed her o see better.

  “Stop being so obvious, Lathe,” Izak muttered. “If Malice sees you staring, he’ll assign us someo of spite—”

  The words were barely out of Izak’s mouth when the Coffee Isnd master handed off a set of clothing and boots to a new arrival, the an eloquent gheir way.

  Izak made as if he were idly perusing the dining hall for someowenty-six’s head was already lowered over his food; he simply dropped his eyes unseen.

  Lathe ducked below the level of the table. “We got trouble, us.”

  “We wouldn’t have if you had just looked somewhere else,” Izak muttered.

  “How’s about you shut up your mouth and listen for once? How’s about that?” Lathe growled. She hooked a dirty thumb toward the new arrival. “I khat kid a long time ago! He’s a close-rat, him.”

  “You are certain?” Twenty-six asked.

  “’Course I am! We all called him Scabs, us. He’s bad medie on two legs.”

  Izak cursed. The sy young man hadn’t ed up mu the bath, uhat dirt was ingrained in his skin. He’d just finished dressing and was busy pulling his hornfield-issue boots onto the wro. Malice stopped him.

  Twenty-six shoved his hair out of his face. “Lathe, you said ohat all close-rats are loyal to the death. Would he keep your secret?”

  The runt’s expression darkened. “Once, Scabs give me and Pretty up to some rich folk for a piece of bread. And we wasn’t the o ones he do to, her. If’n he es in our room, I’ll cut his throat, reach down inside, and pull out his guts.”

  “If he isn’t assigo our room, we’ll have bigger trouble,” Izak said. “He could reize you and tell his roommates. It would be all over the school in a matter of hours.”

  “’t tell nobody without a tongue,” Lathe said, fingering the hilt of owin sword.

  “If Scabs sold you out for a piece of bread, I think we’ve got a goument for bribery,” Izak said.

  “Bribery is not a perma solution,” Twenty-six began, before suddenly falling silent.

  Izak shifted in his seat to find one of the Saints standing behind them.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be is?” the gold-eyed ons master asked Lathe.

  She scowled. “Ain’t you gotta be back for longer’n a couple days afore you tell me what to do?”

  “Go.”

  Cursing under her breath, Lathe slunk off.

  “And make sure you’re in the bailey today for extra sword lessons,” he called after her as he headed for the masters’ table.

  Izak turo the pirate. “I don’t suppose your pirate god allows murder for the sake of keeping someone quiet?”

  ***

  With the looming prospect of a new lodger, Izak and Twenty-six held off practig for the day. The prince paced. The pirate preteo read a book he’d taken from the Archives.

  Lathe returned from the kits and uhed her twin swords with hands stained purple from beet juice. Rather than leave for her sword lessons, she lingered just ihe door, perking up at every sound outside.

  “You ot cut his head off when he walks in the door,” Twenty-six said. “One of the masters will be apanying him.”

  Lathe scowled. “Like to shove this sword up his backside and shake him around.”

  “Again, not something you do without being sced and subsequently found out,” Izak muttered.

  “Might could get away with it if I say I tripped.”

  Izak reached for her twin bdes. “Give me those.”

  “No, I got sword lessons!”

  “Then go!”

  “I’m going, me. Just soon as—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Izak shoved Lathe away from the portal, then ope.

  Master Malitered, leading the infamous Scabs. The former close-rat wore an easy grin that didn’t touch his eyes, and he slouched as if he would rather have been skulking in an alley with a knife. He was small, but that dirt-lined face was too aware to be a child, too harsh. Scabs looked older than Lathe around the eyes, but he hadn’t had the be of two years of steady meals to add to his height like she had.

  “Seventeen, you will board with the third-years.” The Coffee Isnder indicated each of them in turn. “Twenty-six, Lathe, Four.”

  Scabs’s eyes slid over each of them, then jerked back to Lathe.

  “Brat?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ve misheard,” Lathe said in a handy imitation of Izak’s courtly drawl. One could hardly hear the muddy river in her voice when she said, “My name is Lathe.”

  Her mimicry was gettier every day. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ge her face. Taller, healthier, marginally er, she was still just the elfiured runt the recruiters had dragged in from the low streets. She stood like the runt. She stared left-eyed like the runt.

  “Oh,” Scabs said, that easy grin stretg. “Musta been river water in my ears. I never knowed no Lathe, me. Just a little close-rat.”

  Malice stepped in. “If there is any past betweewo of you, remember that it was fotten when you ehornfield.”

  “We ain’t got no past, us.” Scabs gri Lathe. “Hain’t we?”

  Lathe shook her head. “Not none.”

  Izak rolled his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to keep up the false at forever, but she could at least have itted to it until Malice left.

  “Good,” Malice said. “Because if there’s any trouble, you will ao me.”

  A heartbeat of stillness passed after the master left the room.

  Then Lathe turned into a blur. Scabs scuttled back against the door, while Izak and Twenty-six stopped the twin swords, eventually catg the runt’s arms and stretg her out between them like a Thorn about to be grafted.

  “Let go!” Lathe screamed, trying to shake them off. “I ain’t gonna kill him, me. I ain’t! I just wanna ask him something.”

  “Ever’body I knowed said that lyin’ Brat finally got got.” Scabs’s grin hadn’t dropped once while his life hung in the bance, and it didn’t waver now. “Guess they’s the fools now, ain’t they?”

  “Let me go!”

  “Drop the swords first,” Twenty-six said.

  Disgusted, Lathe dropped the matched bdes. Izak snatched them up and got them out of her immediate reach.

  Lathe fixed Scabs with that one-eyed stare. “Is Pretty all right? When’s the st time you seen her?”

  “I figured she got took when you did. Ain’t she here?” Scabs got his answer from the look on her face. “What, these sword boys don’t want two gals to pass around? You all used up?”

  This time, she disappeared before she attacked. Twenty-six had to find her by the scratches and bites appearing on Scabs’s dirty skin.

  Finally, the pirate pried her ainned her against the far wall.

  “He deserves to have his belly cut open and be dangled over the side of a ship until the sgers are finished with him,” Twenty-six growled, “but I am not attag him. you uand why?”

  “’Cuz you left your cutss on your bed like a fool and you ain’t got no ship!”

  Twenty-six gave her a shake. “Because if we kill him now, it will not look like an act.”

  “Who’s ’ about looks?”

  “We’re your brothers, Lathe,” Izak said. “If you want our help, take it. If you want to throw away your ce at the uphill pt you’re always talking about, then by all means, kill him now.”

  The runt reappeared. She spat Scabs’s blood back at him. “You’re a liar, and I hate ya.”

  “I ain’t no teller a’ tales, me,” Scabs said. “Unlike a little Brat I onowed.”

  “Both of you, shut up.” Izak helped the bloody young opportunist to his feet. “Scabs. Name your price.”

  Scabs’s eyebrows jumped up on his dirty forehead. “Price?”

  “The amount it will take to keep you from telling ahat Lathe is a girl.”

  Twenty-six gred daggers at Izak. “Do not offer him a bribe to stay quiet. Offer him steel if he talks.”

  “’Druther have the money, me.” Scabs picked at the ragged edge of oe mark, adding a tinge of red to the dirt beh his nails, while he sidered the price. “A silver.”

  Izak had to stop himself from ughing with relief. The little gutter brat didn’t knorince from a palfrey.

  Scabs took his pause for shock. “Shuttin’ up don’t e cheap, now. You want a secret, you gotta pay secret prices. If’n you ’t…” He shrugged. “I got a bad memory, me. Might be I fet to keep quiet without something shiny to help me ’member.”

  “Give us a day to e up with it.” Izak didn’t have any silver stashed away, but perhaps someone in the barracks could make ge fold piece.

  “Take as long’s ya need,” Scabs drawled, grinning through his busted lips. “Me, I’ll just be tryin’ to recall what I’m s’posed to keep my mouth shut about. Mayhaps I’ll talk to some folk ’twix then n’ nos not.”

  “Let go, I got sword lessons!” Lathe shook off Twenty-six and stormed toward the door, snatg her twin swords from Izak on the way.

  Scabs wisely gave her a wide berth.

  Ohreshold, Lathe stopped. She pointed a steel at his throat, sighting her good eye down the length of the bde.

  “You best be prayin’ to the orant that Four and Twenty-six don’t never fall asleep afore me.”

  The door smmed behind her.