Pale Lights - Book 2: Chapter 23

Professor Sasan was in fine form for the lecture, which lasted four hours with a small break for students to use the latrines.

The question he had posed last class about the name of the period preceding the beginnings of the First Empire – the Nix, Song learned – turned into a spirited discussion about the limitations of historical knowledge and the questions they begged. The origin of hollows, for example. It was known that there had been hollows by the time of the First Empire, but the Antediluvians who built it were believed to have come from the Old World above. Had there been hollows before they came?

Were hollows, in a sense, the natural inhabitants of Vesper?

That proposition earned offended anger and gadfly delight in equal measure, with the professor serving more as an arbiter of discussion – demanding sources, commenting on their credibility – than as the one leading it. After the break the teaching was more traditional, focusing on the founding and nature of the First Empire. Though its spoken languages were long forgotten and the written works only barely deciphered, Song was surprised to learn there were yet traces of the former. Several of the hollow cants in the Trebian Sea were believed to be descended from Antediluvian tongues.

It was the sort of class Song would have greatly enjoyed, were she of a mind to enjoy anything at all.

Three days. It had been three days since she swung her tantrum around like a sledgehammer to methodically destroy everything she had attempted to accomplish since setting foot on Tolomontera. She had been floundering ever since.

Angharad returned once to the cottage only to fetch her belongings, careful to come when everyone else was certain to be absent. Maryam stopped staying at the Meadow after the second night, but she came back only to sleep and left before breakfast. Tristan, meanwhile, was no longer showing up to class and the only reason Song knew him to be alive was because he had left a note mentioning he was ‘tracking something down’ and food regularly disappeared.

He’d not bothered to write a second or a third note, only tracing an additional X at the bottom of the same paper with each passing day to reiterate he still drew breath.

Three days, and though opportunities had been thin on the ground Song had seen some of them pass by before her. She could have attempted to force a conversation with Maryam in those twenty seconds every morning she saw the other girl before she left the cottage, or requested that Angharad have tea with her politely enough the noblewoman would have found it difficult to refuse. Gods, she could even have headed to the Chimerical to try and corner Tristan while he worked there.

She had not. None of it.

“- three hundred words on why we still call the First Empire an empire even though it was, according to every primary source, an oligarchy,” Professor Sasan said. “I’ll be collecting at the beginning of class.”

A pause.

“It should go without saying, but the hallway full of emerald-encrusted gold sculptures that opened to the side of this lecture hall is a trap,” he added. “If any of you are foolish enough to be tricked by Scholomance putting in such lackluster effort, I will be marking down the rest of your cabal for the assignment instead of giving pity points.”

There was some laughter and after pushing up his spectacles with a smile the professor dismissed the class. Song steeled herself, turned to her left, but before she could so much as open her mouth Angharad was on her feet and walking away. She waded into the fray of departing students.

So much for that.

The Pereduri would not be leaving wandering the hallways alone, at least. Song glanced back at the cabal sitting behind them, finding that Ferranda was avoiding her gaze again. Though amicable the two of them were no more than acquaintances, so they both knew that the other captain would absolutely rope in Angharad if she could. She was certainly making the effort.

Yet how could Song be angry with that courting, when Angharad needed the help and all these troubles were of Song’s making in the first place? Besides, there were other amends that the Tianxi needed to make. She turned to Maryam, who was still putting away her books and papers.

“Do you have a moment?” she quietly asked.

Blue eyes flicked up to her.

“No,” Maryam said. “Captain Yue expects me at the Abbey within half an hour, I’ll be pressed as is.”

“Later tonight, then,” she said.

The Izvorica shrugged.

“You know where I sleep,” she replied, promising nothing.

The bag was hoisted over her shoulder, and with a nod she walked away. Song kept her face calm. It was only overweening pride that made it feel like a dismissal. And perhaps if she had been quicker to approach Maryam, there would not be such… distance between them. She forced herself to keep her mind on putting away her things, and succeeded enough that she did not hear the other’s approach.

“Captain Song, a word.”

Her hand discreetly inched towards the grip of her sword even as she turned and fixed a friendly smile on her face. Ramona of the Forty-Ninth Brigade, it must be said, looked like she could handle herself in a fight. Short hair, a knife scar across the nose and scrapper’s build that was all sinews instead of bulging. The smile the blonde was sporting looked off on her face, like a hound putting on a hat so it might sit at the dinner table.

“Ramona,” Song greeted her with a nod, then raised an eyebrow. “Or perhapsCaptain Ramona, now?”

The smile grew slightly more honest and significantly sharper.

“For two days now,” Captain Ramona confirmed. “I would have sought you out earlier, but my house needed to be put in order.”

“Congratulations,” Song replied, largely meaning it.

Tengfei Pan had seemed the driving influence behind the Forty-Ninth’s pursuit of the bounty on Tristan’s head, so she had been holding out hope a change of leadership might make them reconsider. It was only hope, however, so Song hooked her thumb in her belt – coincidentally not far from her sword. A glance behind Ramona told her the rest of the brigade was lingering close. Her look was noticed.

“A conversation between us is overdue,” Captain Ramona said, “but I am not unaware there has been bad blood between our brigades.”

Deftly she unsheathed the thick blade at her hip and set it down on the table, a worn pistol joining it a heartbeat later.

“This is not a trap,” the blonde said. “I offer to walk with you unarmed, letting you choose the destination, and instructed my cabalists to hold back for five minutes before leaving the lecture hall.”

Song’s eyes narrowed. Huang Pan, the round Tianxi with the contract that discerned whether an object or individual was situated in one of the cardinal directions, still had all his daily uses left. But it would be difficult to follow us using that alone, Song decided. There was a reason they had used it to ambush Tristan and not chase him. It was, in the end, not all that precise a tool.

“Let us talk, then,” Song nodded. “Come.”

She put a spring to her step, noting that the Malani girl from the Forty-Ninth went to pick up the abandoned weapons as the two of them headed into the halls. Neither so much as glanced into the trap hall to their left, instead stepping past a triad of chattering Izcalli and making enough room no one was close enough to easily overhear. Song slowed her steps then, but only slightly. She would not make it easy for the Forty-Ninth to catch up.

“This will serve,” she told Ramona as they continued their walk.

They were still heading for the front gates, but they had time enough for a short talk before reaching them and the spikes in the ground provided some modicum of safety.

“Truce,” Captain Ramona bluntly offered. “Our patron wants all of your heads on a pike, but we’re not here to indulge whatever pissing match she has going on with your own brigade’s patron.”

“It was not them that began this conflict,” Song said.

“No, it was us trying to cash in on that bounty,” the other woman acknowledged. “And because we tried, Fara can’t taste salt anymore.”

Song blinked, trying to hide her confusion. Not well enough.

“That’s how Lady Knit works,” Ramona explained. “She takes something from you, to knit you back together like you were.”

No wonder the Malani girl looked like she was not sure whether she wanted to slit Tristan’s throat or flinch away from him. She had lost much but must fear losing even more in avenging herself of it.

“Interesting,” Song simply said.

Best to let Ramona keep talking. The best terms were had when you let the other side negotiate with itself.

“A truce is what I offer, for a start,” Ramona repeated. “It occurs to me we’ve been going at this all wrong.”

The Tianxi only inclined her head in agreement, the other woman’s lips tightening in irritation at how little she was being given before she smoothed it away.

“Word is the Thirteenth’s been having a rough patch,” she said.

“Rumors are fickle things,” Song replied.

“They are,” Ramona said. “But it’s public record what bounties people take from the board in the Galleries, and I asked my patron about what these trials are like.”

She shrugged.

“Nasty pieces of work one and all, she said,” the blonde said. “Seems to me like you got a little too eager to make up for your blunder and the Thirteenth took one in the gut for it. It got you up to third place, sure, but you’re on shaky grounds at home for it.”

Song’s jaw clenched. She would be tied for second, if not for the point she had lost on the first day. Captain Vivek of the First Brigade had lapped both her and Sebastian Camaron by clearing two lesser assignments in quick succession, a bold advance that had allegedly sent one of his cabalists into Lady Knit’s care for a night.

“As I said,” Song replied, “rumors are fickle things.”

“I’m not blind,” Captain Ramona bluntly replied. “Your pale girl looks like she’s ready to chew wood and the Malani swordmistress barely talks anymore. Abrascal’s gone with the wind.”

“Covenant work,” Song said, affecting a shrug.

It might even be true.

“Either way, he’s a bad look for you,” Ramona said. “And if the way your Thirteenth slapped us around taught me anything, it’s that a brigade will tighten up at the first gut punch but it can only take so many of those before that anger’s turned inwards.”

Song breathed in sharply, stung. That was truer than the other woman knew.

“Tengfei saw you as someone to bury for that, the source of all his troubles,” the blonde said. “That was short-sighted of him. See, Song, I think you and I are in the same boat.”

The Tianxi frowned.

“Is that so?”

Captain Ramona chuckled.

“My captaincy’s shaky,” she said. “I got the seat because Tengfei blundered, but if I can’t deliver success then the same votes that got him in charge in the first place will turn back. But yours is just as shaky, eh? Too many gut punches. You need a win, same as me.”

“So you offer a truce,” Song said.

It was hardly anything to boast about.

“That’s the loud part,” Ramona said. “The quiet is that we’ll write off the gold you stole and tell you where the Ninth stashed all the stuff they took from you.”

And there was the offered victory, presumably. Admittedly a tempting one. Retrieving their affairs might even go some way in mending bridges with Angharad, considering how incensed she had been at the thefts. Only one detail was yet missing.

“And what would your win be, Ramona?” she asked.

“I do what Tengfei couldn’t,” the blonde replied. “Abrascal’s dead weight for you now anyway, rope around your neck. Just give me a time and place and I’ll rid you of your trouble – and cut you in for a third of the bounty on top of it.”

For a second, Song blanked in utter surprise. Why would she – no, it only made sense. She had not hidden her dislike of the thief all that deeply, and now he was flouting her authority by abstaining from classes barely a week into the year. By appearance, Song had every reason to want to be rid of him. Why wouldn’t she trade the thief for victories that would make up for her debacles, a flush of gold and the knowledge that his enemies would hound the Thirteenth no more?

“A third,” Song slowly repeated, to keep from showing any of her thoughts,

Ramona grinned like someone whose bet had paid off. Song, for an idle moment, considered unslinging her pistol and shooting her in the stomach. How satisfying that would be.

“Don’t be greedy now,” Ramona chided. “Tell you what, to sweeten the deal I’ll even throw in introductions to a Savant who’s looking to jump ship. I noticed your lot don’t have a scholar to handle the classwork.”

“Maintaining numbers would be a concern, after losing a cabalist,” Song acknowledged.

She kept her tone even, giving away nothing. The other woman studied her, dark eyes narrowed.

“I can tell you’re not quite sold,” Captain Ramona said. “Fair enough. I’ll admit the risks are worse for you if it goes badly.”

She shrugged.

“But it’s a good offer and I think deep down you know it,” the Lierganen said. “I’ll let you sit on a while. You can come back to me once you’ve worked it all out to your satisfaction.”

Song chose not to finish the rest of the walk to the gates in Captain Ramona’s company.

—

The Academy class was worse than Saga had been, in some ways.

What Colonel Cao was teaching them was objectively important. Supply requests were one of the responsibilities of captains and every brigade would have to make them when they took their end of the year test, meaning this was practical knowledge she was being given. Even more so when the colonel took them time to lay out how to get around any obstructionist quartermasters one might chance to encounter or be able to draw on the strategic reserves of Watch fortresses when the ‘spare’ stocks were already spent.

Yet while Song’s reed pen scratched against paper, her mind kept drifting. It was thoroughly frustrating to catch herself losing focus again and again, until the frustration itself became the distraction. Worse, her eyes kept drifting to the slate hung up on the wall and the names it displayed.

VIVEK LAHIRI – 5

SEBASTIAN CAMARON – 4

SONG REN – 3

All of this, she could not help but think, for third place. There were dozens beneath her and even more that’d never made it onto the board, but what did that matter? It was not them she had believed herself to be triumphing over. It was a relief when class ended after a mere two hours, Colonel Cao releasing them with a warning that at week’s end the first evaluation would begin. She did not elaborate on the nature of it in the slightest, which drew out interested whispers.

Song would have fled the Galleries, but she was intercepted on her way out and when the likes of Captain Nenetl Chapul made an invitation she was in no position to refuse.

It was not a long walk down to the salons. The captain of the Third Brigade had not approached her before, as was only to be expected of a woman leading one of the largest alliances in their year. Song had been careful about not approaching her instead, for making such ties would make her a pawn in the grudge match between Captain Nenetl and Sebastian Camaron. That was reason enough to be wary when the round-cheeked Aztlan invited her for a spot of tea in the nicest salon.

Her contract, Song mused as she sat down across the table, was intriguingly complex.

The easiest way to describe it would be that Nenetl held absolute awareness of herself. The Aztlan girl ‘knew’ everything about her body and mind in that unqualified way that only gods could provide. Nenetl would know she caught a cold the moment the sickness settled in her, know terror was being pushed into her mind even as it affected her thoughts or when exercise was doing more good than harm to her body.

That contract would even make her a fine shot: she would know everything wrong about her stance.

The price was a sort of controlled mania, emerging compulsions to do a single action seventy-seven times in a row that would get harder to fight off the longer she had them. Her contract was in Antigua, so odds were good seventy-seven was a number sacred to her god. Ritual prayer ensured by contract, more or less, which Song had noticed to be a favored price of older gods whose influence waned. The younger, reckless ones instead glutted on concepts they liked like children eating all the sweet rice balls on the plate.

Nenetl poured for the both of them, the fragrant scent of Shouxing red leaves wafting up to Song’s nose. She breathed it in with a sigh, not bothering to hide her pleasure. They took the first sip together, as was proper, but the Tianxi noted that Nenetl’s hand waited no time in reaching for the startlingly large plate of spice cookies she had ordered along with the tea. The two of them made small talk for a few minutes, discussing the oddness in having rain scheduled every seventhday and how the cabal-based half of Warfare class promised to be interesting.

It was Captain Nenetl who eventually cut to the chase.

“I have come across information,” she said, “that might be of interest to you.”

“Might?”

“The uncertainty is only in the degree, in truth,” Nenetl said. “I learned where the Ninth keeps your belongings.”

Song kept her face smooth. That made twice someone was trying to sell her the information. Ferranda was convinced the hatred between Nenetl and Sebastian Camaron was genuine, so it should not be a trick in that sense. That did not mean it was not a trick in another.

“And if I were to ask how you obtained that information?”

Nenetl cocked her head to the side.

“You’ve already had an offer,” she deduced. “Likely the same source for the leak. The Savant in the Ninth Brigade gets chatty when plied with fine liquor.”

One of the many reasons Song disliked drunks.

“I am not uninterested,” the Tianxi said. “That is contingent, of course, on the price.”

“Nothing onerous,” the other woman said. “The location is also used by the Ninth as a stash for some contraband. Nothing that would get them more than a slap on the wrist, but goods very much disallowed on the island.”

She paused, breaking off a piece of spice cookie and scarfing it down with great relish.

“All I ask is that, when you retrieve your property, you set the place aflame,” Nenetl said. “It is not situated anywhere a fire might spread, so there would be no issue in that regard.”

Song’s brow raised, visibly unimpressed.

“That would be signing up to be the vanguard in your struggle,” she said.

“Interesting,” Nenetl Chapul said, eyes glinting. “You speak as if you are not at war with Sebastian already.”

“I am not,” she firmly replied.

“I would not be so certain, were I you,” Nenetl said. “In that undisclosed location, Captain Song, you will not find the belongings of Angharad Tredegar. Even as we speak they have been returned to her at the Rainsparrow Hostel.”

Song stilled. Surely the man could not be brazen enough to try to turn robbing a Pereduri peer into recruiting her? No, of course he would be. The payoff alone would make it worth the attempt. If he pulled it off the earlier mark on Captain Sebastian’s reputation would instead become a crowning glory. The man so silver-tongued he made his opponents into cabalists.

It took her a moment to catch on to Nenetl’s angle here, but catch it she did. If the Thirteenth burned that hiding place while Angharad was still – at least nominally – part of the brigade, it closed the door to the Ninth recruiting her. Bringing her in after one slight was turning a misunderstanding into a coup, but after two? That was being a whipping boy. The reputational costs would be too high.

It was a humbling thing, realizing that the only reason the captain of the Third was sitting across from her was to make entirely sure that her enemy would not get his hands on Angharad Tredegar.

“Thank you for the warning,” Song forced herself to reply.

Nenetl inclined her head.

“Think on it, by all means,” she said, rising to her feet. “But remember that time is not on your side.”

However self-interested the favor done to her had been, Song still counted it enough of one to pretend not to notice that the other woman pocketed the last cookies on the plate and she had sipped at her tea exactly once. She stayed there sitting until the tea was cool, eyes closed as she leaned back into the sinfully comfortable chair.

She needed advice.

It made her wince to think of who was left to ask it from.

—

Captain Wen was eating when she found him.

It was a sign of desperation to seek the man out, but what else was left to her? It would take weeks for Uncle Zhuge to answer a letter, assuming luck with ships, and there was simply no one else for Song to speak to. Ferranda was working at odds with her, however gentle the work, and the prospect of asking Colonel Cao advice – and thus needing to explain her blunders – made Song cringe down to the marrow of her bones.

Asking Sergeant Mandisa for directions saw her sent to a small shop close to the docks. There she found Wen Duan chatting with the owner, a middle-aged Izcalli woman with long black hair whose bangs were a straight line. She was giggling quite a bit, and Wen shot Song an irritated look when she entered the shop – though he did not stop nibbling at a bar of that strange almond confection called turron that Lierganen were so fond of.

“Song,” he greeted her. “What do you want?”

Her jaw stiffened.

“A conversation,” she said.

The bespectacled man squinted at her, then sighed and turned to the shopkeeper.

“Another one for the road, if you please,” he said.

“Only half a bar,” she lightly replied. “Else you will have no reason to return.”

“You would be mistaken,” Wen assured her, leaning in with a charming smile. “Terribly mistaken, I assure you.”

That earned him another bout of giggles and even as Song watched the Izcalli hand him a wrapped bar of turron in a way that brushed their fingers she considered that this might just be a new low in her life.

“Stop looking like someone just kicked your chicken,” Wen said when they exited onto the street, still nibbling at his treat. “It’s putting me off my turron.”

“I apologize,” she made herself say.

The corpulent man eyed her through his golden spectacles.

“You must truly be at the end of your rope,” he noted. “You didn’t even look like you were calling me yixin inside your head while you said that.”

Song straightened.

“I would not-”

“Come,” Wen casually interrupted. “We are taking a walk down the shoreline.”

There would be no dissuading the man, she knew, so she grit her teeth and followed. Song was familiar with the docks and a few streets near them, but she had not yet found the time to follow the curve of Port Allazei along the water. Though the docks were fortified and there was another such attempt at walls along the shore when headed east, those stones were crumbling and past a short span entirely absent.

The Watch had not seen the need to rebuild the wall when seizing the city, perhaps judging that no one was inclined to try and take it from them.

Wen kept them moving at a brisk enough pace she was not able to place a word, so eventually she gave up and simply followed him. Her gaze wandered out onto the dark waters, the span of darkness broken up only by the impossibly large rings of the Orrery spinning onwards. It was almost calming the behold, that grand length of emptiness. She was not out of breath when her patron’s steps began to slow, but she felt warm under the coat. Perhaps for the best, given the coolness of the wind coming from the sea.

Captain Wen plopped himself down atop a stone bench facing the sea, unwrapping a new bar of turron. Song had not even noticed him polishing off the last.

“All right,” he said. “Talk.”

“There has been an argument,” Song said as she sat down to his right, then licked her lips. “I argued. With other members of the Thirteenth. It went poorly.”

“You went into the Lugar Vacio,” Wen snorted. “That was bound to scrape everyone’s nerves raw.”

“You know what it is?” she asked.

“I was briefed,” he vaguely replied. “Angharad and Maryam at each other’s throats?”

Song looked down. That had happened, but certainly not been the worst of it.

“You and Tristan, then,” Wen said. “I thought that pot would take a month or two to boil over, I’ll admit. What had you lunging for each other’s throat?”

Song tucked her hands into her sleeves so he would not see her fingers clench. How honest could she truly be with him? Only shallowly, she thought. The man was a Watch loyalist to the bone, he would see it as his duty to-

“Something illegal,” the fat man mused. “Or you would have told me by now.”

Her teeth clenched. It was like her thoughts were an open book.

“One of your escorts went missing during the trip, I heard,” Wen said, tone leading.

Song did not answer, or look anywhere near him. Eventually he sighed.

“If something had happened,” he said. “Would it have been deserved?”

She thought of the ruin of red she had made of the flesh. Of the brutal torment she had condemned the man to by feeding him to an evil god.

“Some if it,” she whispered. “But not all.”

“Something you regret and Tristan was involved,” Wen mused. “A recipe for disaster. The little shit really is misfortune on legs, isn’t he?”

That got a weak smile out of her. Song breathed out shallowly, then told him everything save the damning detail. How there had been a thin layer of peace but it had cracked, how she had clawed at Tristan one time too many and it had all come tumbling out. Maryam turning on her, on Angharad. Angharad turning on all of them. That her brigade had effectively deserted the cottage and how they now all avoided her.

Wen listened to it all, nodding and humming and nibbling at his turron. Song was panting when she’d finished, and her voice felt raw.

“It was only a matter of time,” Wen finally said.

“So it was inevitable?” Song asked, exhausted. “Nothing could be done.”

The man laughed.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “Plenty could be done. Just not by you, Song. You don’t have what it takes.”

She breathed in sharply, turning a glare on him.

“Pardon me?” she sharply asked.

“You were always going to fail, Song,” Captain Wen slowly said, as if addressing a child. “I saw that in you the moment you walked into the Old Fort. That loss had been lurking in your veins since you were a child, I’d wager.”

Her jaw clenched, her entire body with it.

“I have been thoroughly prepared for this, Captain Wen,” she said, carefully enunciating every word.

“You might be the single least qualified even inside your own brigade,” Wen mused.

“The least qualified?” Song hissed. “I have been training for this since I could walk. Do you have any idea what that was like? It was being allowed outside only to do spear drills in the courtyard, it was painting characters until my fingers bled and every meal being a formal ceremony.”

Her fingers clenched.

“I learned to speak Umoya before I learned my own mother’s maiden name, Wen,” she snarled. “I was made to pass as a boy so my brother’s sword teacher would condescend to bruise me. The closest I ever came to flying a kite was when I was made to shoot them at target practice.”

The large man, indifferent to her rising voice, bit into his turron and loudly chewed.

“Rough,” he said, after swallowing. “Anyway, while I won’t say it was all useless it had pretty much nothing to do with what you’re trying to accomplish here at Scholomance.”

“I was raised to be a leader,” Song insisted.

“You were raised to do things a leader can do, maybe,” Wen allowed. “Those kites you shot, the servants’ kids made them?”

Hesitantly, she nodded.

“You ever run kites with them?” he asked.

Her jaw clenched as she saw where he was heading. Making her out like some sort of porcelain plate, only taken out for formal meals.

“My family are not fools, Wen,” she bit out. “I was taught to drill guards, to take reports from our servants and balance accounts.”

“You weren’t taught a damn thing,” Wen amiably replied. “All those people you mention answered to the name of Ren, not to you. Generously, I’ll allow you might have learned howto sound like someone others answer to. It’s not nothing, but let’s just say that the legs aren’t the most important part of the bird.”

“Authority-”

“Is earned,” the Tianxi flatly interrupted. “If you were an officer in the regulars, your rank would stand for years of service and training. They’d trust that until they learned to trust you. But here, in this school?”

He snorted.

“What have you done that any of the brats in the Thirteenth should take your advice on so much as scratching their ass, Song?” he asked. “You’re at the same starting line, and you’re captain mostly because you’re a Stripe and no one cared enough to take it from you. Some of them like you, but not a single one of them respects you.”

She grit her teeth, feeling as if she had been slapped. She would not cry, would not give him the pleasure.

“That’s not the end of the world,” Wen said, not unkindly. “That’s what the Stripe classes are for: to bleed out some of the failure in the veins of all you cocksure little shits. In most cabals you would have passed muster and learned the most important lessons over a year or two. The way most of your fellows will.”

He took another bite of turron, practically inhaled it.

“Only you didn’t put together most cabals, you made the Thirteenth,” he said. “You picked three of the most talented, deranged people on the year’s roster then tried to run them like they were your father’s estate guards.”

“Talented?” Song asked, almost plaintively.

“Tredegar shouldn’t need an explanation,” Wen said. “Tristan’s the latest student of the monster under the Krypteia’s bed, a thing that’s been around longer than the Republics have existed at a state.”

He paused.

“Maryam took some digging,” he conceded. “I thought the name on her recommendation might be a coincidence, but it turns out she’s been sent here by Totec the Feathered.”

She did not hide her ignorance.

“You won’t know that name because he’s not famous outside his guild,” Wen told her. “He’s the man the Navigators have spent the last thirty years sending to learn the rites of Gloam practitioners to see if they can be made into proper Signs. If he thinks Maryam has ‘great potential’, I’m not inclined to argue.”

“I had no idea,” she whispered.

“Because you don’t know any of these people,” he said. “’They’re a walking collection of wounds inside the head, which a girl who has never talked to anyone she did not need to either obey or order would have no real idea how to handle. You’re a fish on a mountaintop.”

He took another bite.

“Could be you’ll flop into a pond,” Wen said, chewing. “More likely you’ll choke to death.”

“I can’t let it end that way,” Song bit out. “There as to be some way I can fix this.”

Wen considered her for a long moment, chewing, and finally swallowed.

“Genuine authority flows from the font of trust,” he said, quoting someone. “Men can be bullied or bought, but they will never achieve what they would under someone they believe deserves to hold command over them.”

“And how do I get there?” she pressed.

He laughed.

“Am I the Stripe, or you?” Wen asked. “Figure it out, Song. Or dissolve your brigade and let them go under someone who will.”

He rose, after that, and walked away. Song knew better than to follow him. She stayed there on the bench, looking at the vast expanse of nothing while the wind brushed crumbs onto her coat. All day, she felt, she had been a spectator. Sitting there, watching others walk away from her. No, perhaps not even only today. It must be her hand on the chisel, not circumstance’s, else nothing would be fixed.

Song would begin with the cabalist she could reach.