Pale Lights - Book 2: Chapter 16

The legwork took around an hour and a half.

Some of it was hitting pavement and casing the place without looking suspicious, but the real sweat came when Tristan had to consider how it would all go wrong. Half the time spent rustling up a scheme, Abuela had taught him, should be considering how to get out when it turned on you. Unfortunately, he was no longer fooling around with halfwit coterie thugs: unlike the rare Guardia patrols out in the Murk the local garrison wasn’t likely to keep walking if they stumbled onto a crime looking like too much trouble to handle.

Not that a plan needed enemy action to go sour: ambition was as much your enemy as the other side. The trick, he had come to believe, was to keep it as simple as you could. Keep a straight line of intent, then account for everything you knew about and leave a little loose rope for what you didn’t. Too many moving parts made for a wreck, not a clock, and fortune was just as fickle as Fortuna. It was better to home in on a single weakness and slide that knife in as deep as you could, then exploit the advantage for all it was worth.

In this case, the weakness was that Tristan knew where Captain Wen Duan lived.

It had been necessary for the man to tell Song so she might pass on the Thirteenth’s choices of electives, and caution had seen the thief learn it himself. Tristan had since made sure it was a house and not some office, then taken the lay of the land. The single-story house was just past Templeward Street, near its end, and in a street that was mostly empty buildings. Nobody lived on either side of Wen. The figured that their patron had come late to Tolomontera to get one of the nice houses in what he’d heard garrison men called the ‘Triangle’: the nice part of Port Allazei delineated by Regnant, Templeward and Hostel.

First complication? Wen appeared to live with Sergeant Mandisa. Not only did the tall sergeant reek of danger, she was hard to get a grip on. Tristan knew some of what made Wen Duan angry and happy, could pull those strings if he put in the work, but Sergeant Mandisa? He’d not been able to get a read on her, on what made her step or hold. He could make guesswork, but guesswork made for a mighty fragile lifeline. Better to make her irrelevant to how it all fell out if he could.

Then cut the time by half and be twice as careful. Just in case.

After that came supplies. Buying would have left a trail, in the seller’s memory if not in their ledgers, so Tristan stole instead. It was as simple as waiting for another watchman to be headed into the right shop on Regnant Street, then cut ahead to buy an apple from the greenmonger and snatch a jar on the way out. Casually, almost slowly. The kind of movement that would not make the monger look away from their other client until he was long gone.

He picked the alley, the house and the place to stash the goods. Penned the note on the paper, blew it dry. Someone looking for him would try the back, he figured, because they would expect him to be sneaky about it. It was not a sure thing, never was, but he liked his odds. They’d want him, want what his head on a pike meant. Yeah, they’d be headed out back.

After that, most of what was left was bribes.

To open he found an urchin. Port Allazei was remarkably short on those for a port town, but there were always a few if you knew where to look. A slip of a girl, Lierganen and fair-haired, was skulking around the part of Templeward where there were teahouses – and so occasionally freshly baked goods insufficiently watched. The moment he approached she scowled.

“I’m not going to school,” she firmly told him. “I don’t care what Mom says, they’re teaching us triangle stuff.”

Her voice strongly conveyed this was a fate worse than death.

“I agree with her,” Fortuna mused, leaning against his shoulder. “They feel more arrogant than squares and they don’t even have as many sides.”

Tristan forced himself not to engage, instead looking down at the kid.

“What’s your name?”

“What’s it to you?” she challenged.

“I’ll call you nina,” he threatened.

A pause.

“Arabella,” the girl grudgingly conceded.

“Arabella,” he said. “I’ll give you a copper if you wait for me at the bottom of Templeward for…”

He fished out his watch, estimated the back and forth.

“Twenty minutes,” he said. “Then I’ll be back and I’ll give you another copper for either passing someone a paper or forgetting all about this.”

Arabella considered him, low cunning alight in her brown eyes.

“I’ll do it for your watch,” she said.

“Two coppers now,” Tristan said, “a third if you have to pass the paper.”

“Deal,” she hastily said.

The thief rubbed the bridge of his nose. No, that just wouldn’t do.

“That’s not how you do it,” Tristain said, finding his voice had taken the Sacromonte cant. “You tried too high then settled right away. What you do is go just a little higher – five or six coppers instead of two – and let yourself be bargained down to four. If you only shuttle between copper and gold, you’ll never make silver.”

Arabella squinted at him.

“Six coppers,” she tried.

“I like her spirit,” Fortuna noted. “You should pay her.”

He snorted, at both attempts.

“I’ve already paid you with a valuable lesson,” Tristan said. “Our terms stand.”

“For another copper I’ll throw horse shit at someone’s door,” Arabella earnestly offered.

He scratched his chin.

“I might trade for that later,” the thief admitted. “But not today. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They spat on their palms and the little girl solemnly shook his hand. Their parting of ways was pleasantly brisk, leaving him to arrange a bribe that would not be half as well deserved as strode towards the docks. It was not far, and he knew the way. The detainment house was not a prison, despite Maryam’s insistence to the contrary. Tristan had seen prisons, and the chairs weren’t anywhere as nice.

There also tended to be significantly more torture.

Getting in was as simple as knocking and presenting his brigade plaque. Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that the man he was looking for was still there. Sergeant Itzcuin Hotl had spent the latter half of his detainment with him when he was sent here after his little jaunt through the Witching House and seemed happy to see him again – as he should, given how much Tristan had made sure to lose at cards. The thief was quickly ushered into an empty room.

Of course, the thief suspected those card games were not the only reason for the enthusiasm. It might even be said he had bet on it.

“I need a favor,” Tristan said with a winning smile.

Sergeant Hotl raised an eyebrow, so the thief replied in a straightforward manner by reaching into his coat and putting down twelve copper radizes on the table, spreading them smoothly in a line. The eyebrow rose even higher.

“You have my attention,” the sergeant said.

“In an unfortunate misunderstanding, my visit here will be misconstrued as my being under arrest and a message sent to Captain Wen that he should come fetch me,” Tristan said.

The Izcalli sergeant chewed on that for a moment.

“Full silver,” he finally replied. “If he complains, it could leave a mark on my record.”

The thief was likely being sold a line, but he was in no position to argue. And, in truth, did not even have much time to bargain. The coppers were swept back into his hand and tucked away in a pouch, replaced by a single silver arbol that the sergeant immediately snatched.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Abrascal,” Sergeant Hotl grinned. “I’ll send a runner as soon as you’re out.”

Tristan bowed his thanks and took his leave. Instead of rushing back, however, he ducked into an alley across the street and kept to the shadows. Eyes on the only door in or out of the detainment house, he waited. A blackcloak walked out, quick on his feet.

He did not head in the direction of Captain Wen’s house. The second blackcloak, who left a minute after, did.

“Why are you smiling?” Fortuna asked, leaning in.

“Because I had him pegged right,” Tristan said. “And Arabella is going to be making that last copper after all.”

—

Down the circling stairs they went, holding a candle in their hand.

Each of the Abbey cells had a number painted on the door, matching the cabal of the student it was to belong to. Maryam forced herself, even through her rising fear, to keep an eye on those ahead of her. Most of the first twelve brigades of Scholomance had a signifier among them. She kept an eye on the numbers she remembered from elsewhere: the Third had one, a Someshwari boy looking half-asleep, and that scowling girl from Tupoc’s cabal slammed the door of her own cell. The Ninth, those fuckers, also had one – though the hood kept Maryam from learning anything about them save that they were tall.

Soon Maryam was pulling open her own door, setting down the chamberstick in a small alcove carved into the wall before closing it behind her.

Cell, she thought, was a good word for a room like this. The door might lock only from the inside but the barren walls seemed like a prisoner’s punishment. Bare stone all around, save for a mat of woven straw painted in fading green that presumably she was meant to sit on. There was nothing around her, and once her gaze stopped shying away Maryam beheld the Nothing that was before her. There was no fourth wall to the cell, only an absence revealing the pit of depthless dark.

Carefully she sent out her nav, the soul-effigy feeling out the cell, and she found that the aether here was almost forcefully placid. There were no currents at all, nothing swimming in the waters even though she was mere feet away from a hole in the world. There was nothing natural about this – someone, something was keeping the aether calm. She withdrew her nav, unwilling to risk sending it out too long in such a place.

The Izvorica sat on the mat, which was only mildly uncomfortable, and crossed her legs. How long before the professor came? Not long enough, she thought. He would start from the first cell and work his way down, so there were all too few before the knock came at her door.

Maryam should have spent the time feeling out the boons of the Abbey, how they might aid in her learning, but instead she bit her lip and sat there dreading the coming knock. It was almost a relief when it finally came, a gentle rap of the knuckles on the wrought iron door. She mumbled for the professor to enter, and after the tall scarecrow of a man shut the door she cleared her throat.

“I see no need to use the Kuru Maze,” Maryam said. “I have sufficient understanding of where I stand regarding the Measures.”

Professor Baltasar cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “for you it isn’t a choice.”

She grit her teeth. She had been ready to be questioned, but not outright refused.

“You have attracted Captain Yue’s interest,” the older man said. “This is but the first of a several measurements she will want you to undertake.”

Maryam’s jaw clenched.

“I did not enroll in Scholomance to become a test subject,” she bit out. “Who is Captain Yue, that I must indulge her curiosity?”

“She cannot force you, should you refuse,” Professor Baltasar acknowledged. “But as the senior Akelarre on the island, she canmake your life very unpleasant should she be so inclined.”

He paused.

“Unless you have a pressing reason not to, Maryam, I would use the Maze and take this one on the nose. Making a few early concessions will make her look tyrannical should she punish you when you elect to refuse her later on – she will want to avoid the perception.”

Maryam almost cursed. Should she refuse anyway? No, that was pride talking. The fear of shame. Surely Professor Baltazar would not simply throw her out of the class when he saw her results. If anything, she grudgingly admitted to herself, she could use the help.

“Fine,” she forced out, anger still tight in her throat.

Professor Baltasar passed her the stone disk, which she inspected closely as he began to explain how it was to be used. The maze was little more than furrows in stone, but there was something about the pattern… it felt solid in her thoughts, even more so than the stone it was carved on.

“Put your thumbs on the side of the disk,” the professor instructed. “You must then grasp as much as the Gloam as you feel you can and pour it into the stone – it will spread out from the notch in the center, then begin spreading in all directions.

Maryam breathed out, began to sharpen her mind as she placed her hands as indicated.

“Instead of allowing it to spread you must contain the center then command a tendril to follow along the maze, always turning left. The further you get in the maze, the more difficult commanding the Gloam will become.”

In and out, letting distractions fall away.

“The measurable results of the Kuru Maze are limited to a Grasp of ten and a Command of fifteen,” Professor Baltasar continued. “It cannot easily withstand greater strength, making it of only marginal value for older signifiers.”

Maryam narrowed in her being, tempered it, then felt for the Gloam. The dark she carried in her.

“Begin.”

It was like breathing in with endless lungs.

Maryam drew on the Gloam, let it pass through her, only she need not wield her nav as a hand and trace a Sign to be filled. Instead she poured the cold nothingness into the stone disk, widening the channels within her until the torrent filled her very being – and almost scraped at the sides, pinching and aching. I am the riverbed, she recited. I dwell through passage, act through stillness. Roiling Gloam bubbled out of the notch at the heart of the maze, settled instead of volatile.

And it poured, poured, poured.

Maryam took hold of her nav, tried to guide it to the left, but it was like taking a bucket out of the tide and calling it a river. Like a sea of ink the Gloam spread heedlessly through every turn of the Kuru Maze, breaking through the symmetry meant to slow it. Only as it approached the edge did it slow, stopping but a finger’s breadth away from the end of the stone. She could not move it further.

“Release your grasp,” Professor Baltasar said, voice unreadable.

She did, inch by inch, and the Gloam receded. Maryam handed the professor the disc, unable to look him in the eye.

“Nine Grasp, one Command,” he said after a moment. “Perhaps two. It is difficult to assess.”

Professor Baltasar started speaking, then paused. A moment passed, then he cleared his throat.

“This is absurd,” he finally said. “That gap is too large, you should be long dead.”

“I am aware,” Maryam stiffly said.

Too large a gap between the Two Measures nearly always resulted in the signifier’s death. For her own affliction – strong Grasp and weak Command – the reason why was easy enough to understand. A Gloam-witch delving too deep into powers beyond her control was the cornerstone of many stories for a reason. In principle, however, a strong Command and weak Grasp should not be lethal. How could a surfeit of control be a danger to you?

In practice, however, the result was spurts of uncontrolled obscuration as the signifier tried to draw on power that did not exist. Captain Totec had told her that, according to the Akelarre Guild’s records, borderline cases leaning the way of Command died more than those leaning the way of Grasp because they tended to believe themselves in control even when they were not. That was only for borderline cases, however, the equivalent of perhaps a seven to a three.

Maryam’s nine to one was an effective death sentence.

Professor Baltasar continued staring at her, as if further and further scowling would brand answers onto her forehead for him to read. He sighed after a moment, stroking his beard.

“You struggle with everything but Autarchic Signs,” he said.

The statement had a lilt to it, the unspoken question of is-this-a-lie, but Maryam nodded. It was the truth, and the look of bafflement on his face was entirely warranted. Of all Signs, the Autarchic were the most fragile. They required great precision and a delicate touch.

“You should not be able to even breathe in one’s direction without shattering it,” Professor Baltasar said. “Even a simple memory Sign at your level of Command should cook the inside of your head like a boiled egg.”

It was a vivid enough image she winced.

“My teacher,” she said, “believes it derives from the way I obscured my brain before puberty.”

“That’s another death sentence,” Professor Baltasar noted. “Usually, anyway. I understand you undertook your first obscuration before you were taken in by the Guild?”

Maryam nodded. He looked sympathetic.

“Traditional practices can sometimes cripple one’s potential as a signifier,” he said. “There are reasons for our ways.”

My mother could have snapped Captain Totec like a twig, Maryam thought, and she went through the same ritual I did. No, if there was a flaw then it was in her.

“Are you going to send me away?” she asked, looking down at the floor.

A long silence, then a sigh.

“I would,” Professor Baltasar frankly said, “but I do not have that authority.”

She looked up at the thin man, daring to hope for help, but the earlier sympathy was gone.

“I am here, Maryam, to help guide what is meant to be the elite of Akelarre youth,” Baltasar said. “Barring great changes in circumstances, you are unlikely to ever be one of them.”

She swallowed. No lie had been spoken that she might grapple with. It burned twice as much for it.

“You’re not going to help me,” she said.

“You will have of me what is owed as your teacher,” Professor Baltasar said, “but nothing more. I only have so many hours to spend, and to be blunt they are better spent elsewhere.”

Maryam fought the flinch, but it ripped through. The professor tucked away the Kuru Maze into his robes.

“So what am I to do?” she quietly asked. “What am I supposed to do?”

Hand on the handle, the professor hesitated for a moment. He turned to meet her eyes.

“I gave you a piece of advice, on the day we met, about not interesting Captain Yue too much,” Professor Baltasar said.

He grimaced.

“It might be best for you to ignore it, after all.”

He closed the door behind him, the sound of iron on stone like a tolling bell. Maryam sat there, numb and alone in the waning candlelight. And for a long time she stayed there, as light dimmed and flickered and her thoughts circled like vultures. Mother had once told her that decisions were made hard only by the muck of the mind, all the attachments of the world tainting the pure truth within you. They could be made simple again by flipping a coin and asking yourself this: what outcome can you not live with? The other side, however bitter, was always the path to undertake.

So within her mind Maryam flipped the coin, watched it spin, and asked herself the question.

It was not a pleasant path she saw laid ahead of her. It would be… difficult in more sense than one. Maryam was not unaware she had a temper. But she still rose to her feet and brushed off her gifted cloak. What few comforts she had stolen back from the world she would not surrender, so the answer was clear.

Maryam would seek out Captain Yue and strike a bargain.

—

Half the class were on their feet in the heartbeat that followed, rushing towards the boards like the bounties were on fire.

Song, instead, calmly rose and faced as much as the wall as she could. She blinked, once, and breathed out. The sheer number of details was… Hand on the chisel, the Tianxi reminded herself. All the bounties were in Antigua and they were divided into five smaller boards. The smallest and emptiest, which she discarded immediately, was bounties set by students. One board was dedicated to covenant bounties, another to those set by the professors, and the largest by far was ‘general’ bounties. The last bounty board, which seemed to have the same five sheets repeated by the dozen, displayed ‘trials’.

“Song?” Ferranda asked, standing by her.

A reliable ally, she decided, should be granted the occasional favor.

“Second board from the left, near the bottom,” Song told her. “There are Skiritai bounties with a decent payout that requires only three lemure corpses.”

And with Shalini in her cabal, Ferranda Villazur would find attracting lemures into trapped grounds trivially easy.

The Tianxi’s silver gaze never moved from the boards, having marked an interesting detail: the covenant bounties, trials and around half the general bounties appeared to have a promised reward in ‘score’ as well as coin. Never a number larger than six – that highest score belonging the ‘Trial of Night’ – but she was finding it difficult to put together a common thread tying together those rewards. She would have used the gaze-trick again but now there were so many students in the way there was hardly a point.

Song, instead, went to the rightmost board. The trials were only described in the broadest strokes, but given how many times the sheets had been hung cabals would likely be forced to take them at some point in the year. Why not get ahead of the curve? If the Thirteenth did well, it would be information worth trading.

The Tianxi set aside all consideration of the bottom three, which rewarded most richly but also appeared dangerous enough the Thirteenth was not ready for them. The first two, however, had potential. The Trial of Mirrors was described as a ‘test of intuition and trust’ while the Trial of Contest was a ‘test in overcoming personal weakness’. To fill the latter bounty the entire cabal must undertake the trial, and the reward was two silver a head and a score of four.

“Half the time left,” Colonel Cao informed them from the bar.

Tempted as she was to pick the Trial of Mirrors, as it smacked of illusions, Song suspected that relying too much on her eyes to carry the Thirteenth through a trial would be a mistake. She carefully pulled out the nail keeping a sheet of the Trial of Contest in place and put it back afterwards, sparing a look of disdain for the girl next to her who simply ripped her bounty off.

With her bounty claimed, Song decided had some time to spare and pushed through the squabbling crow to head to the part of the wall that wasn’tboards.

It was all maps and lists, one of the latter having earlier attracted her eye: a detailed disposition of the number of Scholomance students, overall and by covenant. There were, Song read, four hundred and three students. Some sort of deal must have been struck between the Academy and the Akelarre Guild, which had sixty recommended each, while the Skiritai took the crown of all cabals at an impressive seventy-five. The three societies of the College each had fifty-five students, doubtlessly arrange symmetry, and the Krypteia-

Smudged ink and ‘don’t worry about it’ written in insultingly sloppy Cathayan characters. It was an entirely pointless gesture, Song mused, considering that simple subtraction yielded that the Mask students numbered forty-three.

“Would you be surprised to hear one of the Academy bounties is about finding out who keeps doing that?”

Song turned towards the source of the voice, finding it a somewhat familiar face: the Malani beauty that had been speaking with Sebastian Camaron at the Old Playhouse. Now that Song could hear the voice, she noted her Antigua was accented in a different way than Angharad’s was. Not a Pereduri, then.

“It seems more a statement of power on the part of the Masks than genuine sabotage,” Song replied.

“As if the Krypteia was not already feared enough,” the other woman chuckled, then shook her head. “But I forget myself – Captain Imani Langa, Eleventh Brigade.”

Captain Imani’s smile as she offered her hand to shake was perfectly disarming, Song thought. And so practiced it made her own teeth hurt.

“Captain Song Ren, Thirteenth Brigade,” she replied as she shook it.

“I must confess I was already aware of that,” Captain Imani said. “I became curious after meeting one of your cabalists.”

After failing to poach Angharad, she meant.

“And is your curiosity now sated?” Song idly asked.

“Not at all,” Captain Imani replied. “You seem an interesting woman, Miss Ren. It would please me for us to have dinner sometime – perhaps try this dining hall beneath our feet? My treat.”

It certainly wasn’t going to be Song’s: she was painfully aware of the state of her brigade’s finances. Before she could even consider an answer, the snap of a watch closing cut through the chatter and Colonel Cao called for them to return to their seats. Imani Langa smiled and inclined her head, which Song returned.

That courtesy did not extent to refraining from looking at the other captain’s contract while she walked away.

The Tianxi did not have long, so she scanned for the sentences that stood out most. It was, she found by the time she wrenched her gaze away and returned to her seat, a rather subtle contract. Imani Langa’s boon was to know when she was being beheld or listened to, and from what direction. It seemed a contract better fit for a spy or a diplomat than an officer, she thought, but then spies and diplomats would need commanders as well. Mere moments after Song sat in her previous seat – she was among the last to – the colonel swept the room with her gaze.

“Well, it appears no one here is such a colossal failure they were unable to choose a bounty in the given time,” she said. “Splendid.”

A pause, then a flick of the thumb snapped open her watch again.

“When in the service is the Watch it is uncommon for the assignment you receive to be as simple as it looks. Congratulations, you now have five minutes to trade bounties with someone else.”

Chaos erupted again, but Song simply cocked her head to the side. Ferranda, seated on the nearby couch, leaned in and cleared her throat as if to ask permission. The Tianxi inclined her bounty the infanzona’s way, giving her a look at the contents, and the infanzona did the same. Ferranda had taken her suggestion and claimed a Skiritai bounty – and grimaced at the sight of Song’s own claim. She did not seem enthused at the notion of taking a trial.

“Trade me anyway,” Song said.

The infanzona’s brow rose.

“Why?”

“The colonel never said we could not trade them back,” Song replied.

There a was a noise of surprise from the woman sitting next to Ferranda , who must have been eavesdropping on their conversation. The captain of the Thirty-First hummed, then nodded decisively. They traded bounties, waited a heartbeat then traded them back.

The other two girls on the couch where now whispering excitedly and shooting Song impressed looks – she straightened her back in pride. One was leaning over to another seat and talking in low voices, word already spreading. Song was distracted enough she almost missed the colonel’s approach. Almost. Song folded her hands onto her laps, meeting the older woman’s gaze, and got a snort.

“It took cleverness to catch that,” Colonel Cao said.

It was an effort not to smile.

“But a wise girl would have kept it quiet.”

Song stiffened. Suddenly the impressed whispers from the couch seemed like a condemnation, even as they spread to neighbors. Oh, she realized. It had been another test, and she had given away the answer.

“I expect at least half a dozen of you figured that out,” the colonel mildly said. “Only one was fool enough to spread it around, however.”

The older Tianxi looked around the room, finding Song’s blunder spreading like a spill of ink on white paper, and sighed.

“The broth is spoiled,” she said, shaking her head, then raised her voice. “Alonso, bring up the board!”

The man in livery behind the counter took a few steps to the left, then hiked up a large slate. It was propped up against the wall behind the counter, high enough anyone could see it.

“Trade on your own time,” Colonel Cao told the students. “We move on.”

Song almost flinched. Hand on the chisel. The colonel withdrew to the counter, but only to sit: the drink was long empty.

“The first two afternoons of the week will be spent on a class here in the Galleries, where I will attempt to hammer into your heads the basic knowledge necessary for operating out in Vesper in our name – logistics, administration and organization. Unlike what some of you might expect, I have no intention of delving into the backbiting ways so unfortunately prevalent within our order.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I came here to teach field officers, not second-rate schemers.”

Colonel Cao leaned back to wiggle her glass at the servant – Alonso, it seemed – and the man dutifully filled it up from the same bottle.

“Unless one of you proves to be remarkably terrible in all regards, those classes cannot affect your placement at Scholomance,” she continued. “They are not, by my reckoning, the crux of what a Stripe should study.”

The colonel took a sip from her drink.

“You’ve seen the bounties and the rewards on them,” she said. “There are two currencies on offer: coin and score.”

Murmurs did not spread – she did not have the kind of presence that invited such a thing – but quite a few ears pricked. It felt like the whole crowd was leaning in.

“The former needs no explanation, but the latter is what will determine if you stay on for a second year,” Colonel Cao said.

The silence that followed was particularly still.

“Each Academy recommendation will be evaluated on a scale that goes up to one hundred,” the colonel said. “Every time your cabal completes a bounty with a score reward, your score on that scale rises accordingly. Each your cabal fails to accomplish such a bounty, your total will fall by the same.”

She raised a finger.

“And somewhere on that scale of one hundred is the line in the sand you must cross to be allowed to continue at Scholomance for a second year,” Colonel Cao said. “Is it fifty? Is it seventy? Only I know. The only assurance you have is that the line is the same for everyone.”

She shrugged.

“I will also grant and dock points to individuals as I see fit, depending on whether you can impress or appall me. Speaking of.”

The colonel set down her glass and cleared her throat.

“We have our first scorer of the year, Alonso,” Colonel Cao said.

Song’s stomach dropped.

“Song Ren, negative one,” the colonel instructed. “For having failed to properly make use of an opportunity – she neither fully outed her trick to the crowd nor hid it for her advantage, finding the worst of both worlds.”

She did not let herself sink into the armchair or even stare down at the floor. It would be a weakness, and weakness would not be forgiven at Scholomance. But Song could not quite force down the flush of humiliation, even as she felt unkind smirks bloom around her. Alonso wrote her name in chalk and added that shameful number past it.

“Well, the games have officially begun,” Colonel Cao said. “So let ask you what will be perhaps the most important question of your career.”

Song’s finger clenched. Perhaps if she answered correctly…

“Why purpose does the Academy serve?” Chunhua Cao asked.

—

“Here,” Tristan said, passing the note and the copper with it. “You remember the description?”

“You made me repeat it twice,” Arabella replied, rolling her eyes.

It should work, he thought. He’d implied he might want to use her services again so the girl was not too likely to simply take the copper and run. It would be throwing away future chances at coppers.

“Until next time, then,” the thief said, giving her a nod.

The little girl snorted, but she was smiling. It had been a lucrative day for her. Tristan walked away, pulling at the collar of his coat as Fortuna strolled alongside him. Now came the tricky part – he must get the timing just right for it to fall into the place the way he wanted it to. Tristan left Templeward Street for smaller alleys to its east running parallel, where there would be fewer eyes, and briskly made his way to the street behind Captain Wen’s house.

It was a dead-end alley, cramped and leading up to house’s high wall, but it had both things he needed: the goods he’d stashed and an easy climb into the house to the right of his patron’s. The back wall was old and poorly maintained, full of holes and loose masonry. Tucking the jug away, Tristan climbed up and shimmied in through the shutterless window. The inside of the house smelled like mildew and the roof was rotting, but as he’d earlier made sure most of the wooden floor was dry.

So when he emptied half a jug of oil on it and struck a match before tossing it, the whole thing went up in flames.

He corked the jug and hurried back out by the window, hid the oil behind a broken barrel and the matches with it. After that, while the fire began spreading and smoke poured out the windows, he looped around the backstreet and set himself in a side-alley to wait and watch as Sergeant Mandisa came out of front door in a hurry, half-dressed but fully armed, and went inside the burning house.

There was his opportunity.

The thief walked right through the open door and headed straight for the room he had clocked as Captain Wen’s, walking smoothly enough even in someone saw him they would not think twice of it.

Wen’s door had no lock on it, it was not nice enough a house to warrant such luxury, so he simply slipped inside and closed the door behind him before quietly asking Fortuna to stand guard on the other side. She shrugged, but her eyes were eager: it gave her an excuse to stare at the fire. She had always liked those.

Captain Wen’s room was fairly large but still felt cramped for the clutter – every shelf was filled to the brim, the bed unmade and there were piles of books on the floor. The writing desk in the corner seemed his best chance, but the papers piled on it weren’t what Tristan was looking for. There was a drawer, though. Locked.

It would have taken too long to look for the key, assuming it was even here, so the thief knelt and pulled out his tools. It was a pressure lock, cheap but simple, and in a matter of moments he had it popping open. Outside he could hear Sergeant Mandisa shouting, trying to organize a water chain for the fire, which meant time was running short. He put away the tools and opened the drawer. Papers, so many of them the drawer almost didn’t open.

Many were letters, Wen’s private correspondence, but at the bottom were a series of old contracts – most of them with Aztlan-sounding names – and four neat sheaths of paper. There were the dossiers, not only his own but that of the rest of the cabal. Five pages each. He pulled up his own. The first page was filling, his name and that of his parents, his physical appearance and what little the Watch knew of his origins.

That they even knew this much meant Abuela had passed them information, though he noted they marked his father as a cellist instead of a violinist.

The second sheet was an assessment of his skills, which seemed to have been penned in part by his teacher and then amended with comments regarding his performance on the Dominion. He was amused to see that overall his sneaking skills and ability to read others were highly praised but that he was noted to ‘talk too much’ – Wen’s opinion, at a guess – and he was noted to be physically lacking in direct confrontation.

Fair enough.

The third sheet was about his contract, which he was relieved to see was largely speculation. Though it appeared that the Watch had correctly pegged that that the telekinesis he sometimes used as his cover was not his true ability, the most prominent guess was that he a contracted with a minor god of the Murk to be able to become extremely precise in short bursts – the examples used were his reported miraculous throw of the piece of rhadamantine quartz and how he had survive passing through the deadly mechanical room in the Old Fort.

Fortuna avoiding Abuela like the plague had allowed him to keep that particular secret under wraps, an unexpected boon.

The fourth sheet was, to his surprise, empty. The heading mentioned that the recommendation that got him in Scholomance was meant to be part of the page, but there was only a line slashed across and nothing else. Odd. But there was no time to waste, so he briskly moved on to the fifth. It was, promisingly, titled ‘Items of Interest’. And it was an inventory of sorts, though not of what one might have expected.

Grudge against House Cerdan as a result of his father’s involvement in the forbidden research workshop known as ‘Theogony’, aimed primarily at contract stacking and the creation of a stable Saint.

His fingers clenched. A stable Saint – was that what that thing held up in golden chains was meant to be? His mind still trembled to remember that silhouette, but what was that success or failure?

Suspected to have slain a Cerdan retainer on the Dominion of Lost Things, Cozme Aflor. Body was found with poison burns corresponding to inventive use of a dosage box. Suspected involvement in the death of a minor Cerdan cousin, Remund Cerdan.

So they’d found Cozme’s body after all. He had not gotten away as clean as he’d thought.

Two sniffers have confirmed the contact to feel unusually strong, but a second-order entity for patron has been definitively ruled out. Confirmation is needed about whether he was a Theogony subject.

His brow rose. He had no notion of what a second-order entity might be, so he could not answer to that, but he had only once come anywhere close the horrors of Theogony and no hand was laid on him then. The oddness about his closeness with Fortuna had already been remarked on, however, and seemingly it was leading the Watch to wrong conclusions. He skimmed through a few more items before his gaze landed on the last. The most recent addition.

An informal bounty has been placed on his head. Officer Nerei has lodged an official complaint against the Ivory Library, accusing them of attempted abduction of a member of the Watch for experimental purposes. No actionable proof has been given and the Library denies the charges.

And a slight note beneath.

By order of Lord Asher, there is to be no interference in this matter.

Tristan hummed. Asher. He’d heard that name before, mentioned in passing by Hage. A high-ranking member of the Krypteia, it seemed. At least now he had a name for his enemy: the Ivory Library. The name bore investigation. The thief put his dossier back, then hesitated.

“Fortuna,” he whispered.

She popped in her head through the door.

“How is it looking?”

“They’ve realized the fire won’t spread but they’re still fighting to put it out,” she said. “They say the garrison is on their way. I’d give it a minute or two.”

That wasn’t long, but enough for some digging through other people’s secrets. Who? Maryam would tell him what she wanted in her own time so her dossier was set aside, but he elected to take a quick peek at the fifth sheet of the other two. And oh, what interesting reading that made for.

Tredegar first, she was closest at hand.

Gwydion Tredegar – her father, he learned by flipping back to the first sheet – was twice reported to the Watch for deliberately malicious bargaining and twice cleared through investigation. Testimony by Osian Tredegar marked him as the potential high priest to a Green Book god.

Worth knowing about: ‘deliberately malicious bargaining’ was crime of striking a bargain with a god for the purpose of causing harm to men, which was illegal under the Iscariot Accords. It was entirely possible that Angharad Tredegar’s father had left a god to watch over her. Was that how she had survived Brun and Yaretzi on the Dominion? It would explain much.

The snippet he caught of Song’s sheet was even more interesting, though.

Gestalt resentment from the Republics is in the process of giving birth to a curse-god aimed at the Ren bloodline. Requires regular Gloam purges and there are reports of increasing miscarriages and sicknesses in the family. Watch health closely to ascertain development.

So Song was cursed and growing more so. But before he could spare a second thought to the matter, Fortuna popped back in.

“The garrison’s here,” she said. “And it sounds like Wen is too.”

Time to end this, then. He put away the files but there was a sudden snap and he flinched, realizing a heartbeat later it had been part of the burning house next door collapsing. He’d still dropped part of Maryam’s dossier, and his eye caught a fragment of a sentence –ing daughter of Izolda Cernik– before wrenching his gaze away. The thief put away the papers, closed the drawer and rose to his feet.

He didn’t sneak out of the house but walk right out the front door where everyone could see. Why should he hide, when the only voice that mattered was going to cover for him?

It took a moment for him to be noticed, because there was a loud argument happening. Captain Wen, surprisingly bereft of a snack, was mocking a tall and skinny woman while a dozen garrison men and Mandisa looked on. The stranger was Lierganen in looks, dark-haired and with a prominent nose. Unless Tristan had gravely misjudged the situation, this was Dionora Cazal – patron to the Forty-Ninth Cabal and an old enemy of Wen Duan’s. A blackcloak stood next to her, separate from the rest, and kept wincing every few moments while the patrolmen directed unfriendly looks his way. Oh, she brought a witness. That’s even better.

Dionora was the first one to notice him.

“There,” she triumphantly said. “I told you the little shit was around. He must be the one responsible for-”

“Tristan Abrascal is here,” Wen cut through, “because I sent for him as his patron. He had worrying rumors to share with me, which I asked him to investigate.”

The thief did not look at Sergeant Mandisa, it would have given away the game, but after a heartbeat passed and she said nothing his shoulders loosened. Good, betting on her following Wen had been the correct solution. Between that and Sergeant Hotl being unlikely to admit he’d been bribed, much less twice, the trail was swept clean. Wen grinned, the unholy glee behind his spectacles a rival for any devil’s.

“Report, soldier,” he ordered.

Tristan approached, face utterly serious, and saluted.

“Sir,” he said. “I kept watch from a neighboring house and saw it happen: Dionora Cazal and a man in a black cloak went into the back alley, bearing a jug of oil. A few minutes later they left and hid.”

“Liar,” the woman hissed.

Her accomplice was hiding his face in his hands. Wen’s grin widened, showing ever more teeth.

“As I was explaining, lieutenant, I received a warning that Dionora might be trying to set my home on fire as retaliation for old slights and my cabal so blatantly outperforming hers,” the fat Tianxi said. “It appears we have caught her red-handed.”

So Wen had sent them to check the alley where Tristan had predicted they would be waiting to catch him, then. Another piece falling into place just right. The officer Wen was addressing, a frowning Someshwari man with eyes almost as pale as Tupoc’s, clicked his tongue in disapproval.

“Testimony from the boy is not enough, Captain Wen,” he replied. “He is himself being accused of trying to rob you.”

“Tristan Abrascal is an honest and reliable young man, Lieutenant Pazal,” Wen lied without batting an eye. “He would never do such a thing.”

The thief cleared his throat, getting a glance from the lieutenant. He painted an earnest look on his face.

“I didn’t see them leave with the oil jug, sir,” he said. “They might have left it behind.”

“That could be considered a form of proof,” Lieutenant Pazal conceded. “You two, search the backstreet. Everyone else is to stay here.”

The Aztlan seemed disinclined to small talk, not that it would have mattered with Wen coming over to the thief, making as if to comfort him by swinging an arm around his shoulder and taking a few steps away. Tristan would have disliked the touch even if it were gentle, which it was not.

“So?” Captain Wen asked.

“I planted the jug in the alley,” the thief murmured.

The Tianxi released him, sparing a glance for the rival glaring hatefully their way.

“Good.”

There was a pause.

“How did you know?” Wen asked. “That she would have someone in the detainment house, I mean.”

Because you speak her name like you’ve shouted it, Tristan thought, and that kind of hate isn’t a vine that grows solely on one side of the fence. Dionora Cazal would have wanted to know the moment anyone from the Thirteenth got in trouble again and the sergeant was the obvious one to buy.

“No one as bad at cards as Sergeant Hotl is going to turn away a bribe,” he said instead, which got a snort out of the Tianxi.

“I don’t suppose,” Wen said, “that you’d tell me why it is you’ve schemed up all this?”

Tristan cocked an eyebrow.

“For the same reason you chose to take us to the Chimerical on your first day, of all places,” he said.

Wen smiled, saying nothing. It had been a boon on the older man’s part, that introduction, even though it had not appeared so at the time and was subtle still. They watched as the watchmen that Lieutenant Pazal had sent into the alley came out bearing a half-empty oil jug. Dionora began shouting angrily about this being a frame-up, which admittedly it was. Not that it would help her.

“You know, when we were but a few years older than you she learned that the smell of vanilla makes me nauseous,” Captain Wen distantly said, eyes on her. “She baked fresh vanilla buns every day for a month after that, and sat upwind of me every class.”

That was, Tristan would admit, impressively petty.

“Today,” the large Tianxi decided as his rival was put under arrest, “is a good day.”

It was, Tristan agreed. Because even if Wen ended up figuring out that the thief had gotten into his papers, that the entire sequence – baiting Dionora Cazal with a message that implied she might be able to catch him stealing from his own patron red-handed, then paying Arabella to wait along the street Wen would take so he could stop halfway through and instead claim that he’d known an arson plot was afoot and Tristan was watching for it – had been cover, it wouldn’t matter.

From that unabated grin on Wen Duan’s face, his patron would call the breach a fair bargain anyway.

It was another ten minutes before Tristan was allowed to leave, but when he began walking back to the Chimerical it was with a spring to his step.