Dalliance had never really been one for Temple services, but that didn’t mean he’d been excused. Once a quarter or so, Da had woken everyone up early. They had to put on their best outfits and climb aboard the wagon for the quarter-mile trip to the chapel so as to not be missed. It was part of showing your face, of being respected by your community.

  For the same reason, whenever a hero on the Wall distinguished themself—such as the Lance of Victory—one of Cadence's friends would make sure he was aware. So the family could once again arrive, dressed in their best, to stand in the jostling, elbowing, smelly humanity at the side of the street to watch as the hero or heroine of the hour passed by. Dalliance had once been close enough to see the Lance's namesake, a ceremonial flag fluttering on its tip, and to reach out and almost touch it.

  The Triumphs would proceed from the Citadel at the bottom to the Temple at the top, through the triumphal arches, each of which, covered with plaques, bore the names of previous victors and notes about what they had done that was so worthy. To Cadence Rather, these were sacred in a way that nothing else really was. Cadence Rather still remembered marching in his own.

  But for all that, Dalliance had never before really looked at the Temple itself. Watching the local priest perform the liturgy in the modest confines of the community chapel was a different beast from watching it here, as the assembled ranks of the six clergies joined forces to showcase divinity to the people of the capital.

  It was gaudy.

  The upper level of Galton was comparatively flat, exposed to the sun, green with terraced gardens and sculpted trees. Whereas the lower levels had their various undercuts, supported by columns and arches, and hugged the shape of the terraced mountainside into which they were built, emerging from one to the other was like coming out into blinding light. At first, it was like emerging into Elysium from someplace far more mortal.

  Despite the largess of the Imperial Lake, the flat ground was vast compared to the twisting city streets of the lower levels. Even the architecture was built to emphasize this, with great square rooms surrounded by pillars instead of walls, and open-centered rectangles instead of roofs, the better to enjoy the sunlight. Weather displayed there, a trade over the Imperial tier of Galton; though not always sunny, it was often sunny.

  On feast days it was crowded, teeming with people. The generous spaces, though never filled to capacity, were generously populated nevertheless. An orator for each of the six—the Gremantle, the Crone, Firth, Pater, Pax, and Dowser—stood beneath their respective banners, fluttering in the bright sunlight. He had never been here on a non-feast day before. It felt slightly over-large; there weren’t enough people to fill it, and it wasn’t so loud he couldn’t pick out the words, which meant listening to them.

  One priest droned about Pax, god of merriment and remembrance, and about the importance of merriment to life, the futility of adulthood in the face of inevitable death, the necessity of cheer and relaxation, and of allowing oneself to revisit, at times, the joy of one’s childhood. Dalliance wasn’t sure that he agreed. He wondered if the speaker would have had different ideas if he’d grown up a different sort of child.

  Another, expounding upon conflict: “That none may contest the outcome, let your deterrent be credible, your force decisive but measured, your aim always the restoration of safety and a return to order . . . ”

  Priests of Firth passed among the crowd, solicitously inquiring in quiet tones after the health of relatives and scribbling careful notes. Pater’s priest droned on about the glories attendant the woman who learns to bake: Dalliance’s mother had had words on that topic.

  He wasn’t even able to stand by Whimsy; all the novices stood together. But he stood within eyeshot, and so he was able to see when, halfway through the sermon, she began to cry. She stumbled over to him at its end, after the benediction.

  “Mom,” she gasped. “We got you and me out, but we left Mom there. She’s a victim, too.”

  She took his hand in hers. “We have to get her. We have to save her.”

  When Whimsy floated the idea of returning for their mother, Dalliance's first impulse was to say no, which he did. Repeatedly.

  “She’s just a girl who cares about her mother,” protested Charity, after which he said ‘no’ again and regretted bringing it up to the group.

  Earnest was on his side, not that it helped matters. “What happens if she goes back there?” Earnest pointed out. “She did choose who she married—”

  “—and she wouldn’t have if she’d known what a monster he was.” rejoined Charity hotly.

  “That’s probably true,” agreed Circe.

  Effluvia had her own ideas, lecturing them as to how he could have hidden his true nature during a courtship, and what her mother had told her to look for as signs for an unsuitable partner.

  “Encouraging,” Charity said, at last. She asked if the council wanted to help with the effort, to which everyone said no.

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  “Of course not. Have you ever seen Cadence Rather in person?”

  “That’s a very… optimistic… type of suggestion to make.”

  Things of that nature. The council would not move. But in the end, Whimsy didn’t drop it.

  “The girl has staying power,” Earnest admitted, sparring with Dalliance at short blades before class, sheathes on. “When I was a kid and I moped like that, you know what I’d get? A thrashing. I guess her brother’s a soft touch.”

  “I’m not thrashing my sister,” Dalliance protested.

  “No, no, no,” Earnest agreed.

  “My brothers did that.” Dalliance continued bleakly, ignoring his friend’s horrified expression. “Whenever Mom had one of her ‘headaches’.”

  “I think we can all agree,” his friend suggested, “that we’re just as happy you don’t plan to emulate your father.”

  He smiled, thinly. Small praise.

  “That being the case,” Earnest said, “it’s easy. Just whatever is going on, ask ‘what wouldn’t Da do?’”

  And that was how Dalliance found himself riding two-on-a-borrowed-horse, approaching the Rather farm a week later.

  Cadence wasn’t home. Earnest had checked and double-checked. Re-entering the familiar grounds felt alien and dangerous, but it was all in his head.

  Whimsy had the day off. Most of the delay had been from her insisting to come along, and scheduling the outing. Otherwise, she said, she couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t have said something wrong, or just not have tried going at all. He had to admit that the notion had occurred to him as an option, though it hadn’t been the plan anymore by the time she had suggested it.

  He declined to take part in the ‘rescue speech’. Dalliance felt vaguely sure that his face said how he felt on the topic, and she’d reluctantly agreed when he’d suggested the scowl on it might sabotage the rescue effort.

  Watching Whimsy cross the distance between the horse and the front porch felt like negative progress, a step backward, a loss of ground.

  Whimsy was too young to remember the time when his mother still took part in their physical discipline. Chastity Rather had lost her taste for it, perhaps, or lost what affection remained between her and Cadence required to incentivize her to do it.

  Whimsy believed that her mother was the innocent guardian angel to the hidden devil that was their father. Dalliance knew better. If anything, her silent complicity meant there were two devils.

  Whimsy gathered her skirts around her: the novice robes of a Temple acolyte. All of her former clothing had been sold to ‘do her little bit toward the feeding of them all’. That was how she explained it.

  Effluvia said they were trying to strip her of her old identity to help her conform better to the group and its new norms.

  Charity said the Temple would never do something like that.

  His sister worried at her hair for a moment, steeled her spine, and went through the door.

  Dalliance held the horse’s head and brushed it, trying to cool his own nerves by soothing its agitated pacing as it lifted one front hoof and placed it down again and again. It could obviously smell that something wasn’t quite right with its riders’ emotions. “Good girl,” he said, and patted her nose.

  All of this good work was undone by Whimsy’s first scream.

  Dalliance’s legs felt fine now. He raced across the grassy verge, sprinted between the garden plots, jumped up onto the porch, and banged his way through the door, as much with his elbow as by turning the handle. He would feel that later.

  A glance took in everything. His one point in Agility was already paying dividends. Whimsy was nowhere to be seen. Ma was sitting on top of the travel trunk that had held Uncle Impetuous’s herbs and spices, among other contributions to that memorable family dinner—and she was wrestling an iron padlock onto it as the trunk repeatedly tried to open.

  [Locomotion], he cast. Nothing happened, but his Mana dipped. Twenty-five of thirty-three, spent in a second. He couldn’t do it again. Plan B.

  “Let her go!” he yelled, his voice breaking.

  “You had no right!” his mother howled back, her own voice barely under control, reedy and sick with anger. “No right to take my little baby girl!”

  “She doesn’t live here anymore!”

  “She belongs with her family!” His mother’s voice was rising to a scream.

  “Then maybe I’ll ask Parsimony,” shot back Dalliance.

  His mother’s gaze snapped up to him, eyes wide, her face going white. The lock clattered to the floor.

  Whimsy pried open the box four inches, despite her mother’s weight on top, also staring wide-eyed.

  “I’ll tell Dad,” began Dalliance.

  “No.”

  “He’s not my father anymore. I’ll tell Cadence. I’ll tell him your lover’s name.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Now his mom’s voice was a full-throated screech.

  “Get off the box,” he commanded. His voice was reedy with nerves and shaking with fury. He meant every word and hoped she died for it.

  She saw it in his face and got off the box.

  “I thought she loved me. I thought she needed me,” Whimsy said later.

  “She probably does,” said Dalliance. “Just maybe those words don’t mean the same thing to her as they do to us.”

  And the last flicker of hope in Whimsy’s eyes went out. She clung to the horse’s neck and didn’t look at him again until they entered the Temple grounds once more.