“These are the base ingredients for most of the poisons in the world. As soon as Momma K teaches you how to read, you’ll read and memorize most of what’s in these books. The poisoner’s art is an art. You will master it.

“Yes, sir.”

“In a couple of years, when your Talent quickens, I’ll teach you to use magic.”

“Magic?” Azoth was feeling more exhausted by the second.

“You think I accepted you because of your looks? Magic is essential to what we do. No Talent, no wetboy.”

Azoth started to totter, but before he could collapse, Master Blint grabbed him by the back of his ragged tunic and guided him to the next room. There was only one pallet and Blint didn’t set him on it, but guided him instead to a spot by a small fireplace.

“First kills are hard,” Blint said. He seemed to be speaking from far away. “Some time this week, you’ll probably cry. Do it when I’m gone.”

“I won’t cry,” Azoth vowed.

“Sure. Now sleep.”

“Life is empty. When we take a life, we aren’t taking anything of value. Wetboys are killers. That’s all we do. That’s all we are. There are no poets in the bitter business,” Blint said.

He must have left while Azoth slept, because Azoth now held a sword small enough for an eleven-year-old in his fist, feeling awkward.

“Now attack me,” Blint said.

“What?”

The side of Blint’s sword smashed into Azoth’s head.

“I order. You obey. No hesitations. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Azoth climbed to his feet and picked up the sword. He rubbed his head.

“Attack,” Blint said.

Azoth did, wildly. Blint deflected his blows or stepped to one side so that Azoth fell over from the force of his own swings. All the while, Blint spoke.

“You aren’t making art, you’re making corpses. Dead is dead.” He parried quickly and Azoth’s blade went skittering across the floor. “Grab that.” Blint walked after Azoth and engaged him again. “Don’t play with your kills. Don’t go for the one-thrust beautiful finish. Cut someone twenty times and let them collapse from blood loss—then finish them. Don’t make it beautiful. You aren’t making art, you’re making corpses.”

And so the lessons continued, physical action with a continuously running monologue, each lesson summarized, demonstrated, and summarized again.

In the study: “Never taste death. Every vial, every jar in here is death. If you’re working with death, you’ll get powders, pastes, and salves on your hands. Never lick the death on your fingers. Never touch death to your eyes. You’ll wash your hands with this liquor and then this water, always into this basin which is used for nothing else and will only be emptied where I show you. Never taste death.”

On the street: “Embrace the shadows…. Breathe the silence…. Be ordinary, be invisible…. Mark the man…. Know every out….”

When he made mistakes, Blint didn’t yell. If Azoth didn’t block correctly, he was merely drawing his wage when the wood practice sword crashed into his shin. If he couldn’t recite the lessons of the day and expand on any that Blint asked about, he got cuffed for every one he forgot.

It was all even-handed. It was all fair, but Azoth never relaxed. If he failed too much, just as dispassionately as Master Blint cuffed Azoth, he might kill him. All it would take would be for Blint to not pull one blow short. Azoth wouldn’t even know he’d failed until he found himself dying.

More than once he wanted to quit. But there was no quitting. More than once, he wanted to kill Blint. But trying would mean death. More than once, he wanted to cry. But he’d vowed he wouldn’t—and he didn’t.

“Momma K, who’s Vonda?” Azoth asked. After his reading lessons, she took a cup of ootai before they started on politics, history, and court etiquette. After he trained with Blint all morning, he studied with her through the afternoon. He was exhausted and sore all the time, but he slept through the whole of every night and woke warm, not shivering. The gnawing voice and debilitating weakness of hunger was only a memory.

He never complained. If he did, they might make him go back.

Momma K didn’t answer immediately. “That is a very delicate question.”

“Does that mean you won’t tell me?”

“It means I don’t want to. But I will because you may need to know, and the man who should tell you won’t.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she continued, her voice was flat. “Vonda was Durzo’s lover. Durzo had a treasure and Khalidor’s Godking wanted it. You remember what I taught you about Khalidor?”

Azoth nodded.

Momma K opened her eyes and lifted her eyebrows.

He grimaced, then recited. “Khalidor is our northern neighbor. They’ve always said Cenaria and most of Midcyru is theirs, but they can’t take it because Logan’s dad is at Screaming Winds.”

“The pass at Screaming Winds is highly defensible,” Momma K suggested. “And the prize?” When Azoth looked at her blankly, she said, “Khalidor could go around the mountains the long way, but they don’t because …”

“Because we’re not really worth it, and the Sa’kagé runs everything.”

“Cenaria is corrupt, the treasury is empty, the Ceurans raid us from the south—and the Lae’knaught holds our eastern lands, and they hate Khalidorans even more than they hate most mages. So yes, we’re not worth taking.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“You were right, but not for all the right reasons,” she said. She sipped her ootai again, and Azoth thought she’d forgotten his original question, or that she hoped he had. Then she said, “To get Durzo’s treasure, the Godking kidnapped Vonda and proposed a trade: the treasure for Vonda’s life. Durzo decided that his treasure was more important, so he let her die. But something happened, and Durzo lost his treasure too. So Vonda died for no reason whatsoever.”

“You’re mad at him,” Azoth said.

Momma K’s voice had no inflection whatever, and her eyes were dead. “It was a great treasure, Azoth. If I were Durzo, I might’ve done the same, except for one thing….” She looked away. “Vonda was my little sister.”

13

Solon caught the edge of the halberd with his long sword and heaved it aside, then stepped in and kicked one of Logan’s men in the stomach. A few years ago, that kick would have reached his helmet. He supposed he should be thankful that he could beat the Gyre’s guards at all, but that was what came of having as his best friends a prophet and a second-echelon blade master. Feir would have words about how fat I’ve let myself get. And slow.

“My lord,” Wendel North said, approaching the fighting men.

Logan stepped away from a match he was losing and Solon followed him. The steward gave Solon a flat stare, but didn’t protest his presence. “Milord, your mother has just returned.”

“Oh? Where was she, Wendel, uh, I mean, Master North?” Logan asked. With the men, he did better, but acting the lord to a man who had probably been in charge of spanking him a few weeks ago was beyond Logan right now. Solon didn’t allow himself to grin, though. Let Lady Gyre undermine Logan’s authority. He would have no part of that.

“She spoke with the queen.”

“Why?”

“She put forth a petition for guardianship.”

“What?” Solon asked.

“She is asking the crown to appoint her to be duchess until the duke returns, or until my lord reaches the age of majority—which in this country, Master Tofusin, is twenty-one.”

“But we have my father’s letters appointing me,” Logan said. “The king can’t interfere with a house’s appointments unless they’re guilty of treason.”

Wendel North pushed his glasses up his nose nervously. “That’s not altogether true, milord.”

Solon looked back at the guards, who were beginning to quit sparring and drift closer. “Back to it, dogs!” They jumped to obey.

“The king may appoint a guardian to an underage lord if the previous lord of that house hasn’t left the necessary provisions,” Wendel said. “It comes down to this: your father left two copies of the letter appointing you lord in his absence. He gave one to your mother, and the other to me. As soon as I heard where Lady Catrinna went, I checked my copy, which I kept under lock and key. It’s gone. Forgive me, Lord Gyre,” The steward flushed. “I swear I had no part in this. I thought I had the only key.”