“NO—” began Whimsy. Dalliance clapped a hand over her mouth and darted backward, but as her back his his chest, the memory of Da’s hand on his own mouth led him to release her immediately.

  She landed in an indignant heap on the trampled grass. “That was our mom!” she hissed, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and accusation.

  “I know,” Dalliance said. The two words felt heavy and useless.

  And then, because he was hurt and she was hurt and the truth was a raw, undeniable thing between them, he said the stupidest possible thing. The thing she had asked him about, over and over through the years, and had never once believed.

  "I told you so."

  Her face, which had been pale with shock, flushed with a hot, familiar anger. "You're a liar!" she snapped, scrambling to her feet. It was the same argument they had had a dozen times. He would tell her what Topaz had whispered to him about the meaning of his name, about the secret looks and the cruel jests, and she would refuse to believe it, retreating into a world where their family was just difficult, not broken.

  She glared at him, her trust in him shattered by a truth she wasn't ready to see. "I'm not going with you."

  It hardly mattered. As they stumbled away from the shadowy lane behind the outhouses, they ran headlong into the solemn pageantry of the festival. Priests in saffron robes moved through the crowd, their acolytes overseeing the distribution of trenchers and mead. They were strangers, mostly, their formal city accents a stark contrast to the rougher tones of the village—a necessary import, as the local temple didn't have the staff for an event of this scale.

  Whimsy, her face a thundercloud of conflicting emotions—anger at him, fear of the Mason who was still circulating among the elders—refused to follow him. Her contrarian streak was a force of nature; if he wanted her to go left, she would go right out of pure principle. She vanished back into the relative anonymity of the cooking tents, leaving him alone.

  He emerged from the shade of the tents into the full, boisterous energy of the festival. The solemn rites of the morning had given way to the rites of the afternoon. With the serving of the sacrificial beef, the real drinking had begun.

  The men had returned to the split-log benches, their postures looser, their voices louder. The simple wooden trenchers, which had held stew hours before, were now heaped with thick, glistening slices of roasted beef. Mead, or something like it, flowed freely, the lay priests moving between the benches to keep every cup topped off. Dalliance knew the liturgy. This was the part of the Remembrance feast dedicated to the God of Merriment, one of the strongest of the old pantheon, who was said to have lost the most in the crossing to this new, somber world. The gods might be dead, but their memory was a fine excuse for a drink.

  It was a ritual with its own strict geography. The choice cuts of meat were for the patriarchs, an offering to the memory of Pater, the god of hearth and home. And so, the benches had become a male-only domain, a temporary kingdom of patriarchs and bachelors. Everyone else—the wives, the daughters, the young children—kept to the festival's periphery, a separate and distinctly quieter society.

  Dalliance understood the shift. He'd seen it a dozen times. The men of the village were tradesmen, farmers, and craftsmen. They had one way of being in front of their wives, a code of propriety and restraint. They had another way of being with their work buddies, a rougher, freer code, but work needed doing. With the wives absent, with the priests themselves pouring the mead, the two codes collapsed. This was their raw, unfiltered selves, and it was a completely different vibe.

  He watched his own father, Cadence, holding court, his face flushed with drink. The iron control was still there, but the edges were frayed. The beast was closer to the surface. It was this part of the ritual, Dalliance knew, that always led to the problem.

  Dalliance’s stomach growled. He just wanted a piece of that beef. He made his way to the benches, but his father’s eyes found him instantly.

  “There he is!” Cadence boomed, his voice carrying over the din. He clapped a heavy hand on Dalliance’s shoulder. “My boy. Had the good sense to finally put his points where they belong.” He leaned in, his voice a conspiratorial, public whisper. “You haven't been playing me for a fool, have you, boy?”

  Dalliance froze. He could feel the faint, magical thrum of his father’s bartering skill, the subtle probe for lies. He kept his own intentions blank, a placid wall of nothing.

  Cadence squinted, then let out a bark of a laugh. “Good. My boy’s hardening up.” He turned to his brother, Impetuous, who was already well into his cups. “And I didn't stop there! You remember after the hunt, when they were scavenging for weapons? Well, my boy's going in with a club, the way dear old Da did. Nothing but Grit to the end.”

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  He paused, his smile faltering as he saw the look on his brother’s face. The skill was still active. “Wait. What’s that look for? You’re looking a little ill.”

  “It’s the mead,” Impetuous mumbled.

  “No, it’s something else.” Cadence’s gaze snapped back to Dalliance, his eyes suddenly cold and sharp. “What did he give you, boy?”

  He didn't wait for an answer. His hand shot out, not to strike, but to grab. Before Dalliance could even flinch, Impetuous was on his feet.

  “Leave him be, Cadence,” the uncle said, his voice a low growl. He grabbed his brother's wrist, pulling it away from Dalliance. The sudden movement, combined with the mead, sent Cadence stumbling backward over a bench. A trencher of saucy beef went flying, splattering across the front of Cadence’s clean, presentable festival clothes.

  For a moment, there was a stunned silence. Cadence looked down at the ruin of his shirt, then up at his brother, his face a mask of pure, humiliated rage. "You do not interfere with a man's family, brother."

  His uncle laughed bitterly. "Says the man who doesn’t even know where his wife is."

  For a moment, the boisterous noise of the festival seemed to hold its breath. Cadence’s face, which had been flushed with mead and pride, went rigid. His authority had been questioned in the most public and humiliating way possible.

  Ma had best show up. NOW! Dalliance thought, quickly glancing around.

  Grabbing one of the split-log benches, Cadence line-drove his brother deep into the stage, which broke with the crack of thunder and the clatter of falling boards. His brother, not looking much worse for wear except that he was bleeding slightly from his nose, stumbled out of the wreckage, brushing splinters from his shirt and laughing. "Now it’s a party."

  He engaged his [Prediction] for the first time this evening. Yes. In most of the immediate futures, Cadence was going to think about what his brother had said, seconds after the first adrenaline rush wore off. Judging by the look on his face, he would soon look around for his wife, not see her, and get mad all over again.

  Dalliance couldn't tell what would happen beyond that; he didn't have the angle, and he wasn't really sure what he was looking for. It did look like the tent he had just left—the one behind which his mother had been canoodling—would end up blowing away by the end of the ten-minute prediction window, but the "why" was unclear.

  This is more than you deserve, he muttered to himself, but he slipped away from the crowd.

  The first round thing his eye landed on was a meatball from a discarded trencher. With the aid of his [Prediction], it was very easy to lob it over the tent and onto his mom, or possibly the both of them.

  “I’d almost felt like the only Rather man in attendance!” roared Cadence, striding forward, eager as a bull, and the two brothers struck again. It was chests and upper arms colliding, their heads passing inches from one another. The impact sent a visible shockwave through the grass beneath their feet, the air cracking as it moved out of the way.

  This time, Cadence gave way just a half-step. Smiling, he lowered himself and drove upwards in a sudden toss that sent Impetuous spinning like an axe—arms tucked, legs together. But he didn't land on his feet. Instead, he hit the ground on his side, tearing a long furrow in the dark green grass, exposing the deep black sod and the pale, white roots beneath.

  Impetuous sprang lightly to his hands and knees, then to his feet. "I have missed you, brother," he said.

  Chastity came storming around the side of the tent seconds later, flustered and angry. Just enough time to straighten her hair, perhaps. She met eyes with Cadence, who appeared mollified by her sudden appearance.

  Cadence didn't look angry anymore; it was like he'd never been angry at all.

  Then Dalliance thought about it. Why had his father brawled in the streets? It wasn't dignified, but it made him seem larger than life, didn't it? And he had repeated their last name, again and again, just as the two clapped chests like thunder. If anything, Dalliance supposed, it made the Rather clan look strong. A boisterous, ridiculously, ludicrously powerful bunch of drunks, but strong.

  A nice reversal from the implicit cuckoldry.

  The walk home was quiet, the energy of the festival fading with the light. The air was cool and smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth. Impetuous, his earlier bravado gone, walked beside Dalliance, a heavy, comforting presence in the twilight. He clapped a hand on Dalliance's shoulder, his grin visible even in the dimness.

  "See, boy?" he rumbled. "A little bit of stupid makes for a memorable day." He winked. "If you don’t do stupid stuff, then you don’t have any regrets, and what fun would that be?"

  Dalliance looked at his uncle, at the easy, unapologetic joy in his eyes. He thought about getting away with hitting his mother with the meatball. His eyes crinkled, and the two shared a moment of reckless-spirited camaraderie. Perhaps this was just another part of being a Rather.

  His Da had smiled tightly at him after the scrum, ruffled his hair, and said, "Wear it well," on his way past.

  Perhaps they’d make it through one more Remembrance Day after all.