"What are we even doing?" demanded Charity as they legged it through the trees.

  Now that he knew to look for it, Dalliance could see the marks of habitation. The underbrush was missing, and the trees, though irregularly spaced, were all about the same age.

  This was a lumber town. That explained the distance they’d had to walk to get to it. It explained where everyone was, why they were out so late, why they might be seasonal workers—though not why those workers were armed. Then again, he had never thought about the logistics of felling trees where monsters lurked. Perhaps all lumberjacks were heavily armed.

  Effluvia thrust the bag of weapons at him. "I’ve got our stuff!" she hissed, but there was no time to arm themselves. There was only time to run.

  The forest erupted behind them with the sounds of pursuit. The villagers—a grim mix of cultists and hard-muscled lumberjacks—were closing the distance. They weren't monsters, but they didn’t need to be. All they had to be was faster than Charity, and she was already falling behind.

  Effluvia was a fleeting shadow in the lead, of course. Circe, surprisingly swift, glanced back over her shoulder. "Charity, run!"

  The image of them all trying to run in a line might have been funny, Dalliance thought grimly, if not for the titan crashing through the trees behind them. The man was immense, his face a mask of newly branded symbols. Fallen limbs shattered against his shins as his legs pumped like implacable machinery. He slammed a shoulder into a pine tree and the entire tree shuddered.

  "We're dead," Earnest gasped, stating the obvious.

  Dalliance’s response was a curse, not a word. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." He broke stride, pivoting back to grab Charity’s upper arm in a two-handed grip. "No way to say this nicely," he panted, hauling her forward. "Your father should have made you run!"

  Earnest appeared at her other elbow, and suddenly they were a three-person engine, dragging her between them. Her speed, forced or not, increased dramatically.

  "Didn't have to say it out loud," Earnest grunted.

  From between them, Charity just puffed an angry, exhausted breath. She’d gotten the message.

  They ran, rapidly flagging stamina burning in their legs and aching in their sides, the very air burning in their throats.

  “Left,” panted Earnest, seemingly from nowhere.

  “What?” gasped Dalliance. But his friend steered them left, and left they went.

  “Why?”

  Earnest gasped, "Weal!" ,pointing.

  "What?" Dalliance snapped, his lungs burning.

  What the hell? Fine. They all went left, scrambling past the blackened scar of a lightning-split tree and vaulting over its fallen trunk.

  "Why are we going left?" Charity cried, her voice a desperate pant. The pair of them pulled her forward faster than her own feet could find purchase, dragging her sandalled feet over the top of the fallen timber.

  "Weal! Not woe!" Earnest exulted, his voice cracking with exertion and glee. "The lightning-struck tree, Dalliance! It's an omen! A good one!"

  "It's a tree," Dalliance shot back, his patience frayed. He’d been impressed by the card reading, yes, but this was no time for superstition. Their flight took them over a small stone bridge.

  Effie's head jerked up. "Wait. We didn't cross a bridge on our way in."

  They kept running. The sounds of pursuit had faded, but the silence was more menacing than the noise. "They haven't stopped," Dalliance said, the words a grim certainty. "A man with enough Grit can outwalk anything. Da used to track an elk for days, just walk it to death to prove he could."

  "We'll never lose them that way," Earnest agreed, a strange calm in his voice. "And that's fine."

  It took Dalliance another thirty desperate strides to see what his friend had already seen. Through a break in the trees, a line of perfect, gray geometry cut through the chaos of the forest: the Imperial Highway. Everyone knew that the highways were the fastest path between any two points on the shard, even if most people, Dalliance included, had no idea how that magic actually worked.

  "Left to get home," Effie breathed, her voice filled with a relief so profound it was almost a prayer.

  As they found their pace on the impossibly smooth cobblestones, another message chimed in Dalliance's mind, quiet and final.

  [An escape from a superior force through cunning and coordinated retreat. One (1) experience point awarded.]

  With six from the guard? Wit rank-up.

  The number resonated in the quiet of his soul. It wasn't just a number. It was a key. A threshold. An entire rank of Wit. He had spent months, years, scrambling to earn points, fighting his father, risking everything for this. And he had gotten it, not through quiet study, but through terror, violence, and flight. A low, breathless laugh escaped him, half-sob, half-exultation. He was one giant step closer to being a [Wizard]. The cost of it—a dead guard, a traumatized group of friends, a town of fanatics who now wanted them dead—seemed, for a single, terrible moment, entirely reasonable.

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  The walk from the Imperial Highway back to the class was a blur of adrenaline and exhaustion. Effie would handle the authorities. It was better for the rest not to be involved.

  The lie—experience farming—was ready on his tongue, an easy pick due to their having used it before. Mister Best had welcomed them into class—late—and let them to their seats without comment, though there was a degree of side-eye given the bag of weapons.

  "Today, we have been discussing the practical application of law," Mister Best began, a dry, academic tone in his voice. "Specifically, the role of the city's Constables and their relationship to civilian rights, and the foundation of the so-called ‘inalienable’ rights.”

  Something about the familiar voice of his teacher had a soporific effect. Dalliance found his eyes growing heavy by lunchtime.

  Mister Best’s choice of topic didn’t help: he explained the purpose of the brutal, often violent methods the Constables used to wear down suspects and extract confessions. He discussed the legal standing of the Watch and its foundations in civil peacekeeping operations by the Legion, back when that was a separate organization.

  "Since the Constables are beholden only to the authorities above them, and not to the people on the ground," he wrapped up, "the expectation of justice originating from their operations is . . . optimistic."

  Dalliance was almost asleep. Mister Best walked up to his desk, amusement on his face. “Since I am unable to retain your attention otherwise, we will assign roles and explore this topic in more depth!” he announced.

  A collective groan went through the class. “Very well,” said their teacher, “A prediction: Charity, you have been attentive as usual. Tell me: a constable deals you a petty hurt. Perhaps he pays for his lunch from your tip jar. What do you do?”

  Charity looked much better rested than Dalliance felt, looked stunned at being called out, but rallied. “Tell their sergeant?”

  "Surely you don't think a simple complaint would have an effect?" he asked, eyes twinkling. "Let's find out."

  He began to assign roles with his usual decisive energy. "Charity, you are a citizen whose rights have been violated. Earnest, you are her legal counsel. And Sterling . . . " He paused, looking at the knight's son. "You will be the Constable’s superior. Sergeant Sterling, if you please."

  Charity, taking her role seriously, stood and delivered a heartfelt complaint against the theft, drawing from Gremantle theology—theft is a serious breach of agency, robbing the victim of the rightfully expected results of their labor, and so on. Dalliance began to wonder if next time Mister Best would be willing to pick anyone else to play the victim.

  Sterling listened to the entire, passionate speech with a look of profound indifference. When she was finished, he didn’t argue the point.

  He walked over to her, took the hastily written complaint from her hands, crumpled it up into a tight ball, and stuffed it into his pocket. He then turned to Mister Best, offered a crisp, mocking salute, and said, "Sergeant Sterling, at your service."

  A stunned, uncomfortable silence fell over the classroom.

  Mister Best grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. "With that kind of thinking," he said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, "he'll make Captain. Just you watch."

  Dalliance and Earnest parted ways with a grim, silent nod, the camaraderie of their flight already curdling into the solitary dread of facing what came next.

  The farm was too quiet. That was the first thing Dalliance noticed. The setting sun painted the fields in hues of orange and blood, casting long, skeletal shadows from the fence posts. The air was still, heavy.

  He pushed open the door to his shack, his body aching for the simple relief of his mattress.

  And froze.

  His father was sitting on his bed.

  Cadence didn't loom or rage. He just sat, perfectly still, his massive frame seeming to suck all the air and light from the cramped room. He wasn't looking at the door; his gaze was fixed on the far wall, as if contemplating the grain of the wood. The mattress, which Dalliance knew to be stuffed with firm straw, sagged deeply under his weight. He had been waiting.

  Dalliance’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. His carefully constructed lie dissolved on his tongue, useless ash. There was no room for lies here. There was only a terrible, patient certainty.

  Minutes stretched into an eternity. Dalliance didn't move from the doorway. His feet were rooted to the floorboards.

  Finally, Cadence spoke, his voice unnervingly calm, a low rumble that didn't disturb the dust motes dancing in the slanted light.

  "Dalliance."

  He said the name as if it were a simple fact, a piece on a game board he was about to move. He turned his head slowly, and his silver eyes, flat and cold as a winter sky, met Dalliance’s.

  "I told you what would happen."

  It wasn't a question. It wasn't an accusation. It was the statement of a debt coming due.

  Before Dalliance could even form a thought, his father was standing, moving with a fluid grace that was terrifying in a man his size. He closed the distance in two silent steps. He didn't raise a fist.

  His hand, broad and calloused as a slab of cured leather, lashed out. Dalliance was aware of his desk chair breaking beneath him, the rafters spinning above him in a dizzying, unfocused blur.

  Cadence was already turning away. Dalliance was an afterthought. His father walked to the open doorway, his broad back blocking the last of the evening light. He stood on the threshold, a terrifying silhouette against a dying world, and raised his voice. "Whimsy."

  The name echoed in the empty shack.

  Dalliance, tried to roll to his hands and knees, but couldn’t make his arms move right. He heard the light, quick footsteps of his sister. He heard her voice, cheerful and confident.

  "Da?"

  The door to his shack swung shut, plunging the room into near darkness. Dalliance was on the outside now, a spectator to his own damnation.

  He heard the creak of a shack door opening, then closing. He heard a single, muffled phrase from his father, the words indistinct. "Your brother chose this."

  Then, silence.

  Dalliance held his breath, straining his ears, his entire being focused on the space beyond that closed door. He listened for a sob, for a whimper, for the sound of breathing.

  He couldn't hear Whimsy.