Then, one evening, in the middle of a pa.s.sage on Ifchrist the Barbarous, Hal looked up, and said, aItas going to get very cold soon.a aThatas not part of the story,a I replied, too tired to be perplexed by this interjection.

aI only thought,a Hal said, struggling visibly, athat perhapsa"if you wanted to go for a walka"you might do better to start now, before the rains come.a aI wasnat aware Iad expressed an interest in walks,a I said. Though I tried to keep the measured, humorless judgment from my voice, I saw him flinch and knew I hadnat succeeded. Such self-loathing is cruel to others, though itas cruelest to the self. aWhat I mean to say is,a I amended, aitas already the rainy season.a aWell, there are good spots of sunshine,a Hal went on bravely. aNoon is often very nice for walking by the Locque Nevers.a aIs it,a I said. aWell. I see.a aAnd I thought you might enjoy the fresh air,a Hal finished. aItas dreadful in herea"stuffy, dust everywhere. I donat know how you stand it.a aIf itas that unpleasant,a I replied, ayou neednat spend hours here every day.a He colored at that, cheeks and ears pink and the freckles on his nose suffused with the blush, and I knew Iad been cruel to him again. I cast about for an apology, but before I could find something suitable he was speaking again. aI justa"I just thought,a he said, athat you might like it. There arenat so many mosquitoes. It isnat so bad, not on the bank of the Nevers in any case, and on the weekends some of the boys from upriver have paper-boat races.a I felt numb all over, with no more feeling than a boat folded out of paper and submitted to the whims and fancies of children. I rolled over in my bed and faced the wall, trying to gather my composure. aWhen do you suggest?a I said, at length.

Halas voice was warm. aOh,a he said, as if head expected me to put up much more of a fight. aWella"Tomorrow after lunchtime, I think.a I nodded slowly to the wall, then realized he couldnat see it. aAll right, then.a aI think,a he insisted, aI think that itall do you good.a I didnat need to turn in order to know that he was smiling. As though all my cruelty had washed away to reveal clearer skies, like these so-called spots of sunshine he claimed existed.

I hoped he was not going to try anything like a picnic to trick me into eating.

It was a rare day in the country that I rose in time for lunch at all. Already my clothes were beginning to hang where they had once fit in perfectly cut linesa"what happened, I knew, when you had to be cajoled into eating your requisite one meal a day by a young man barely out of adolescence. It was for the best, really. Dressing as Iad dressed in the city left me with a querulous helplessness, serving only to magnify my alien presence in the house. My tall boots were made to sound smartly against cobblestones, paved streets, or the marble floors of the Basquiat, not to slog through cow pastures.

After a moment of hopeful silence, Hal went back to his reading, voice surer with the written word than he was in conversation. It was evident even to me, mired as I was in my own private misery, that the young man held a natural proclivity for learning. It was rare to find in country lads at that agea"or any age, really, I thought disparagingly, as most seemed more inclined to riding, and hunting, and thwacking at one another with large sticks, if my brother and his friends had been anything to go by. If Hal had been born in the city, he might have found a considerable peer group at the aVersity, in time.

If Hal had been born in the city, Iad have had no one to read to me at all.

In a state less self-absorbed than my own, I might have taken more recognition, more of an interest in his obvious hunger for knowledge. Members of the Basquiat often took on a.s.sistants from the aVersity in order to pa.s.s along their learning. It was often easier than apprenticing another magician, whose Talent might be so ant.i.thetical to your own that you ended up like Shrike the Bellows, buried in an avalanche by his own Talent of blasting sound in conjunction with his young apprenticeas capacity for exploding rock.

At my very best, all I could offer him were my romans, some of which were quite illegala"these being volumes written in the old Ramanthe, and several anthologies of Ke-Han verse that Iad picked up during my service toward the wara"stacked in an undignified heap at the foot of my bed like corpses for the burning. Volstov was decidedly liberal when it came to what romans traveled beyond the pale, but since the call for the burning of all Ramanthine novels, one had to be careful to keep oneas library under lock and key.

As Hal read, I drifted in and out of a conscious state, turning the words over in my head to discern another meaning if I could. It was an old game, made for common rooms and peers. One of the things they taught you in the Basquiat was that nothing had only one use, one meaning, one state of being.

Magicians understood this, and thus were better able to change the realities around them. Of course, the true and greater source of our power was the closely guarded Well. But, as youths, the ideologies of our professors had ignited some whimsical spark within us, and many a night was spent reading pa.s.sages and trying to understand not what was, but what could be.

In the war, such thinking saved my life, as not even allies can say what they meana"or mean what they saya"in every instance.

Of course, such duality couldnat be mistaken for malicious intent. As a soldier, one had to understand that there was a great deal that couldnat come guaranteed, and that a manas word was more like his intent. I had experienced such a dichotomy firsthand when the troops Iad been traveling with had been stranded in the mountains for nearly a month before there was any need for us. Of course our captain hadnat intended it that way, and certainly the Esar would never intentionally doom any of his men to potential death and frostbite in the Cobalts, but that was what had happened nonetheless. There were men who were not as forgiving as I.

Silence settled over the room like an additional layer of dust, and I could hear Hal getting up to leave with quiet, uncertain movements. Halfway there already, I decided to feign sleep so as not to prolong this visit any more than was strictly necessary. He was only with me as per request, after all, and I was not so old that I couldnat remember what it was like to have no time to call my own.

The door closed behind him with a soft but nevertheless grating creak. Everything in the country made noise, but it was never the right sort of noise. In the city everything was boisterous, vibrant, chasing you at the heels so that you had to step lively every second to survive.

In the country, everything sighed like a dying man.

I thought about what Hal had said, about the coming cold, and how I would possibly weather out the season trapped inside this house like a prisoner with a family Iad made a point of never visiting. Surely, I would sink as if to the bottom of a lake, slow and certain.

When I dreamed, it was of another cold, another time. The war crept often enough into my dreams; there was nothing I could do about it.

It had been a foul season in the mountains, frigid and unwelcoming when last the war had been at its peak, the Ke-Han magicians performing whatever barbaric rituals they needed to harness the wind. Blue was considered the color of our enemy, but it was also the color of the mountains, dark and deep as purest steel. The Cobalts bordered Volstov to the east and were our first defense against any attack.

It had been nearly a three-week wait, our fingers as blue as the Ke-Hanas coats, before we saw any action. Such things happeneda"wead heard of thema"but the years had given me a patience and understanding that I didnat have in the dream. I hadnat had it there in the mountains either. In the end wead come across an enemy battalion simply by chance of remaining in one place for long enough that the Ke-Han had run into us.

The battle started very quickly. At that time, the fighting in the mountains was often a swift and violent business, ending when one side brought the rocky hills down onto the other. We were lucky enough to have come out victorious in that particular battle, leaving enough enemy magicians alive so that we could question them about their operations. The cold often aided such things, as the snow clotted the blood, so that we had a long time to question them. One of my fellows lost a hand in those hills.

I have hated the cold ever since.

THOM.

Iad changed my shirt twice in the morning. I was not so foolish as to think it would make a difference one way or the other with men trained to sniff out fear the way most of us were trained to speak, but it made me feel a little calmer, and so I allowed myself the indulgence.

I was no longer quite so uneasy about my current project. As with anythinga"applying for the scholarship, taking the nationas exams, et ceteraa"I found most of the worrying was spent in preparation for the event. When the event itself came, however, I was merely afflicted with the same fatalistic numbness that Iad heard afflicted soldiers during the war.

What would come would come, and Iad deal with it to the best of my abilities, using the knowledge Iad gained. Laid out like that, it didnat seem so overwhelming.

Besides, I thought it rather unlikely that anyone would be taking it upon himself to slap my a.s.s and call me Nellie. So it seemed I already had at least one advantage over the Arlemagne diplomatas wife.

Navigating the palace would take some getting used to, though. More than once I wished Iad taken Mariusas offer of company for my first day.

aYouare more nervous than I am,a Iad accused him, after ensuring my materials were all in order.

aNo, Iam not,a head said, tugging at his beard all the whilea"which meant that he was nervous and trying not to show it, and was failing miserably.

aMarius,a Iad said, familiarity and exhaustion both creeping up to make me rather more impertinent than usual. aLeave. Itas late, and I still cherish the idea that I may yet get some sleep.a aYes,a head said, but still had made no effort to get up, so that in the end Iad had to be quite firm with him, fairly ejecting him from the aVersity at an hour that most decent people were abed anyway, so that the pair of us might get some rest.

It was a left, then a right, or a right, then a left. I breathed deeply to calm myself, feeling nerves disappear in a quick rush of annoyance. It wouldnat do to begin my day by cursing the architect of the palace, but I quite felt like it by the time Iad pa.s.sed that same statue of the current Esar for the sixth time, bronzed and brave and quite twenty years younger than he was now.

aBastion,a I said heatedly, coming upon his courageous brow once more.

aOh,a said a voice from behind me. aAre you lost?a I turned and was surprised to see someone of about my own age. He had the dark hair and pale complexion of a n.o.bleman and was fiddling absently with a pair of gloves. He was also, I realized a moment later, wearing a coat with large bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and a high Cheongju collar, and I recognized the colors immediately. He was a member of the Dragon Corps.

I made to bow, before it occurred to me that teachers did not bow to their studentsa"that bowing might be considered a sign of weaknessa"and then I didnat know what to do, so I held out my hand.

He took it with a bemused smile, and shook it. He was most genteel.

aIam Balfour,a he added helpfully, after a spell.

The newest member, my brain provided from the notes Iad made and committed to memory. Also, it pointed out, Iad not introduced myself yet.

I cleared my throat loudly, to cover up for the rather obvious breach in etiquette Iad just made, and hoped this wouldnat make it back to the Chief Sergeant before Iad even had the chance to meet him. aThomas,a I said. aFrom the aVersity. I believe Iam supposed to be meeting your . . . the rest of the corps in the atrium, only I canat seem to . . . that is . . .a I looked to thaEsar, large and bronzed, as though this were all his fault. And in a way it wasa"his and the airman Rookas, and I blamed them both equally.

aOh,a said Balfour, with a rush of gladness that threw me off. aI thought I was late! Merritt stole my alarm clock, see, to fish the bells out of it. Come along, then. Itas this way.a He set off ahead of me, chattering still, so that I could only a.s.sume I was meant to keep up.

The atrium had walls of gla.s.s and a black-and-white-tiled floor that resembled a giant game board. I felt like an expendable and very small plebe piece in a round of Knights and Margraves, but it did me no good to indulge in thoughts like that.

It would be very warm in the atrium in the full flush of summer, I thought, but today was suitably overcast so as not to turn the room into a giant greenhouse. The sound of raucous laughter echoed from just around the corner.

I held my nerves in check as firmly as a horseas reins and stepped after Balfour to meet the Dragon Corps.

Right away, I could see being outnumbered fourteen to one would make this no simple task. Once Balfour joined them in the row of graceful, gold-backed chairs, I found myself alone on a dais. Fourteen pairs of eyes pinned me. My throat was very dry.

aWell if it isnat himself,a said one all the way on the end, whose coat was unb.u.t.toned and whose boots were tall but slouched. He had the lazy, self-satisfied grace of a cat, and I was certaina"though I shouldnat have been so quick to judgea"that this was Rook in all his infamy. The smug expression he wore, remorseless and amused, lit his cold blue eyes as if they were trapped behind stained gla.s.s. His mouth was unrepentant, almost cruel, his blond hair in knotted braids in the Ke-Han style, streaks of royal blue at his temple.

I disliked him, and I was frightened of him yet oddly intrigued by him as well.

aCome to teach us all to talk and act like the n.o.blesse and keep our f.u.c.king private-like?a he went on, leaning forward and making a lewd Molly gesture between his legs. aaCause weave been waitina on you. And Iave heard itas considered rude, in some places, to leave esteemed guests waitina.a aRook,a said the eldesta"a heavyset man with an even heavier brow and a square jaw like a nutcrackerasa"in a voice that suffered no insubordination. aSit the f.u.c.k back and shut the f.u.c.k up. Your pardon,a the man went on, giving me a once-over.

aYou must be Chief Sergeant Adamo,a I said.

aYeah,a said Adamo. aThatas right.a aWell,a said Rook, whoad managed the art of sitting back but not, apparently, of shutting the f.u.c.k up, awhenas the sensitivity start?a The airman next to him giggleda"at least I thought it might be a gigglea"and I swallowed as hard as I could to prevent my own tongue from choking me.

This wasnat simply going to be difficult. This was going to be suicide.

Of the fourteen men lined up and sitting before me like princes, there was only one kind face to be seen, which the rest soon shamed out of its kindness. I didnat blame Balfour for falling in step with the others. Iad seen such behavior during my worst days at the aVersitya"but those young men had always fallen by the wayside quickly enough, as the aVersity was an inst.i.tution of learning, not a catchall house for fraternities and (to put it like a boy raised on the Mollyedge strip) f.u.c.k-ups.

Here, it seemed that such stupendously cruel hierarchical systems were encouraged rather than torn down before they could form.

aI thought we might first introduce ourselves,a I said, buying myself time. I had notesa"files, papers, years of behavioral researcha"behind me, and yet I didnat want to scrabble at odds and ends, nor seem as young as I felt. Not in front of these men. I thought of Mariusas remindera"that they could smell feara"and swallowed down my intimidation as best I could.

aYou thought we might?a asked Rook. aHow f.u.c.king old are you?a aRook,a said Adamo. Balfour made a high, disapproving noise.

aItas just he looks f.u.c.king twelve, is what Iam sayina,a Rook said.

aRook,a Adamo repeated.

aAnd I donat want to be taught f.u.c.king anything by a f.u.c.king twelve-year-old,a Rook finished, then shut his mouth easy as you please, as if he were a choirboy at weekas end and his parents were looking up at him from the pews.

I dug my fingernails into my right palm. Steady, Thom, I told myself. Steady. I thought of distant, soothing things: of the strength of my dead brother, of Ilsa on Hapenny Lane who always was kind to me, of Mariusas gentle laughter. In the face of what Iad lost and what Iad accomplished, a handful of self-important men were nothing I couldnat handle. aWeare going to start by introducing ourselves,a I said. aNow. Who wants to begin?a Silence was my only reply, and the sound of the wind against the gla.s.s walls. I saw Balfour look nervously about at his fellow airmen, as if he wanted to volunteer but knew he couldnat. And then at last, as if it were being drawn out of him by the screws, Adamo cleared his throat.

aThank you,a I said, and meant it with all my heart.

aTell us how itas done,a Adamo said, a little grudgingly, as if he knew as well as I did that I didnat have a clue what I was doing; that I was green as the gra.s.s, and that I was going to mess all of this up.

I licked my lower lip. aWeare going to say our names, which dragon we flya"well, thatas not for me to say, obviously, but for the rest of youa"and something the others have never known about you.a aSomething private?a said the giggler.

aHow private?a Balfour asked nervously.

aIt can be anything,a I said. aAnything at all.a aRight,a said Chief Sergeant Adamo. aWell, Iam Chief Sergeant Adamo. Proudmouthas my girl, and if another one of you little s.h.i.ts brings up aMarya Margrave again, itas dog rations for you for a month afterward.a Another silence followed. The giggler was gaping; Balfour had pulled off both his gloves and was worrying them in his fingers as if he sought to tear them to shreds. Rookas smile had turned outright nasty, twisted down at the corner.

aIam not sure that entirely const.i.tutes a private detail,a I said at length.

aDoesnat it?a Adamo asked, lifting one heavy brow at me.

aYouare not some f.u.c.king pillow-biter,a Rook said sullenly, crossing his arms over his chest.

aI donat believe thatas exactly what I said,a Adamo said, like any Margrave or professor Iad ever met for diction, but with an edge to it, and showing more teeth than was necessary. aHeas an acquaintance of mine.a aIam just saying,a Rook began, but before this came to blows, I knew I had to cut him off.

aThank you for volunteering to go second, Rook,a I said.

He turned his eyes to me, colder than gla.s.s but more indifferent than ice, blue and sharp in his lean face. On the whole, he was simply a sharp-looking man, and admittedly almost painfully handsome, but it was a statueas beauty he possessed, a bit roughed up around the edgesa"for his nose was broken, and there was a scar along his left cheekbone like a half-moon, crescented, just under his eye. And, like some artistsa portrayals of beauty, there was too much spite and malice in him; one could hardly bear to look at him for long.

aYou already know my name,a he said. aDonat you?a He said it like a challenge; I knew I couldnat back down, though I felt cornered and trapped and on the verge of complete humiliation.

aFor the others, then,a I said patiently.

aThey know my name, too.a aYes,a said the giggler. aItas Rook.a aThe other part,a I insisted, refusing to be bested.

aI fly Havemercy,a Rook said. aSheas pretty famous. You might even have heard of her.a aAnd the last?a I prompted. It wouldnat do to let him get away with anything, no matter how minor.

aOh, that.a Rook bit his thumbnail, looking up at the ceiling, putting on an excellent show of being in deep thought. Finally, he said, aI sure like f.u.c.king women.a aThatas not exactly news,a Balfour said, somewhat darkly.

aYeah, well, itas true,a Rook went on, relishing every second of it. aI like to grab aem around the waist and shove their legs wide open and make aem beg for it, acause you knowa"a aMy nameas Balfour,a Balfour said very quickly. aI fly Anastasia. We met in the hallway. I . . . Iam very fond of certain philosophical treatises.a At that moment, I was more grateful to Balfour than to anyone else in my entire life. I couldnat show favoritism, but I knew my expression revealed the wealth of my grat.i.tude, for he responded with a halfway sort of grina"as if it were no trouble at all, and he was in fact glad for the excuse to get the better of his fellow airman.

aYou know, a lot of f.u.c.king pillow-biters like philosophy,a Rook said.

aOh, yes,a said the giggler, giggling again. aAnd dayou know where they like it?a Adamo gave him a look then like melting steel, and he cleared his throat. aBy which I mean to say, Iam Compagnon. I ride Spiridon, and I own the most thorough collection of indecent imprints in the entire city.a aItas true,a said a swarthy man with a hook nose and impossibly white teeth. He sighed fondly.

aAnd your name, please?a I asked.

He shrugged broad, graceful shoulders. aGhislain,a he said. aCompa.s.sus. My great-great-grandfather died for thaRamanthe.a I was surprised, though I knew I shouldnat have been. Many families had originated as Ramanthe supporters, as once there had been no one else to support. Ghislain had the dark eyes and the burnt-sugar coloring of someone from an old Ramanthine familya"one that had declined to interbreed with the Volstovic invaders from the west. It was a rare thing to see in a man of our generation, unless he was a part of the n.o.bility.

Not even Rook could think of a clever way to make what he had said into an insult, though, so I put my curiosity aside and took the opportunity to move along down the line.

There was a man with a chin sharp and pointed as an arrow seated next to Ghislain. He looked bored, his legs stretched out in front of him, and paused midway through a yawn when he realized I was looking at him.

aI think youare up.a Ghislain elbowed him harder than seemed necessary, and he straightened in the chair.

aIam Ace.a He had bright red hair and a sleep-thick voice, as though head only just woken up. aThoushaltas mine. When I was little my mam caught me tryina to take a swan dive off our terrace; ever since Iave wanted to be up in the air.a aThatas a load of horses.h.i.t,a said Rook. aWhat is that, a f.u.c.king poem? You sound like Raphael.a aYes, and I so love it when you insult me where I can hear you, Rook.a There were so many of them, screamed a panicky voice in my head. I quelled it quickly, gaze flicking over to a man with black, curly hair. Head leaned halfway out of his chair to shout down the line.

aYou must be Raphael,a I said bravely, attempting to regain the thread of what Iad started.

He looked at me as though head forgotten I was in the room at all. I nodded encouragingly.

aOh,a he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs with a fluid motion. aIam sorry, I didnat realize wead reached my place in line yet.a I couldnat tell from his tone whether that was meant as a jibe at me or an honest apology. My money was on the former, but before I could decide, he was speaking again.

aI am Raphael,a he said with an ill.u.s.trative wave of his hand. aIave been blessed with flying Natalia, the beauty. Truth be told, I was getting very bored with the monotony of our days with hardly any battles to fight. Perhaps this will prove interesting.a aThank you, Raphael,a I said quickly, over a loud and disbelieving sound from Rook down at the far end. I was beginning, I felt, to get the hang of this. The key was to speak quickly, before Rook could get his comments in and set off the others. aNext,a I said, a little too sharply and a little too closely to the way one of my least favorite professors had, but I couldnat afford to wince.

Mercifully, there was only a short silence this time, as those whoad introduced themselves glared at the stragglers.

aIam Jeannot,a said another man with the dark hair and eyes of a Ramanthine, which meant that his family too must have been very old or very inbred. His nose was thin, like the blade of a knife. aIam on Al Atan, and Iave never seen the ocean at anything closer than a dragonas height.a aOh,a said Balfour, from whom I hadnat expected an outburst. He looked as though head just heard something very sad. aSorry,a he said, by way of realizing head interrupted. aOnly, I didnat know that.a aI told you he was a girl,a said Rook with savage triumph. aGot feminine parts between his legs, airmanas honor.a I bit my tongue and counted slowly to five. Balfour put his gloves back on and stared down at his hands.

aMerritt, I swear by the bastion, if you donat sit still I am going to lynch you in the showers.a At the opposite end of the line, a man entirely too freckly for his own good scowled in hurt dignity. His companion, the one whoad spoken, turned in his chair to face me.

aThis training, will it make Merritt less irritating?a aWell,a I began.

af.u.c.k off, Evariste.a The freckled one crossed his arms across his chest, then his legs at the ankle, like a sullen child whoad been scolded.

aAh,a I tried again. aItas not exactlya"why donat the pair of you tell us something about yourselves.a This was progress, I told myself. Real progress.

And if not, it would make for excellent research material once Iad picked the shattered fragments of my dignity up from off the black-and-white floor.

The one whoad complaineda"Evaristea"chewed at his lip. His hair stood at ends, like head often tugged at it in thought. aI fly Illarion. What about me, what about me . . . oh yes! Once I ate a pound of b.u.t.ter.a The gigglera"Compagnon; I drilled it into my memorya"started up again.

I had a feeling I didnat want to ask after the story that went with that anecdote. If anything, I could save it for a later exercise.

Merrittas cheeks were stained bright red with either anger or embarra.s.sment, I couldnat tell which, though it made me wonder how many of the airmen were happy being tied together in such an intimate way. Several of them seemed as though theyad function best as individuals and not smaller parts of a greater whole.

aIam Merritt,a he said gruffly. aIave got Vachir. My sister got married last month.a aAnd you didnat invite us to the wedding?a A man whoad turned his chair the wrong way around, seemingly for the sole purpose of leaning his arms across the back, turned his head to leer at Merritt. aMight have liked the opportunity of seeing your sister again.a Adamo cleared his throat from the center of the room, as though he was growing short of patience. I was grateful, even if his impatience was sure to be directed toward me in due time.

aOops,a said the man in the backward chair. His mouth would have looked distinctly feminine on anyone else, round and full as it was. He flashed a careless smile. aNiall. I fly Erdeni. Iave found the perfect place to nap in thaEsaras orchard, and Iam not telling a man of you where it is.a af.u.c.k, Magoughin told us that joke last week,a Rook pounded his fist against the chair. Then, he smiled like a cat having helped himself not only to the canary, but to the entire Esarian aviary of birds. aItas thaEsarinaas lap.a Someone laughed, broad-faced and friendly. He waved his one enormous shovel-pan hand in the air like a child at school eager for recognition.

aMagoughin?a I asked, even though I was fairly certain of the response.