When Dalliance woke up, it was to the agony of a body on fire. Invisible creeping wracks, twitches, and spasms contorted his back, making the muscles around his ribs stiff and jutted out, arcing his spine and contorting it along weird, sideways vectors. Within the first few seconds, he had somehow lost his sheet, leaving him thrashing on the bare mattress.

  It wasn’t that the pain on his skin was that intense; it was that the pain was bone-deep. Every little flicker of fire, illusory though it might be, pierced right through his entire body. It seared all of his sinews, down through the skin, through the muscle, clenching his abs and pulling his arms to him spasmodically.

  The fit passed after what felt like an eternity, leaving him panting, covered in eye-stinging sweat, his cheeks tracked with tears. He stared at the unfamiliar ceiling.

  Huh, he thought. I’m alive.

  By the time the first attendant came in to tend his wounds, he had relived the convulsions three times. By the second one, he was already screaming. It was a very long night. He was, he thought, probably asleep for most of it, but this was a scant comfort.

  After the convulsions came the aches, leaving him deeply uncomfortable but not too sore to move. It took all of his energy, all of his being, just to pay attention to how badly it hurt. He was used up. There wasn’t room for anything else.

  And still, somehow, they fed him. His guts seized at the mere prospect of digestion, but he didn’t vomit. Healers with glowing hands would come and touch him, easing the pain little by little.

  Thus, in a feverish haze, time passed for Dalliance Rather.

  Dalliance woke up to the unfamiliar scent of lemons and the touch of a heavy, embroidered weave. He was in a massive bed that didn't feel like straw, the ceiling above his head a vault of stone and mortar. Great arcs rose to create a gallery in the center of the room, in which his four-poster bed was centered. He could barely move. He was alive, but only just. His legs were mangled, his body a roadmap of deep, vicious wounds. He knew he was in no condition to move, let alone sneak out to find his sister. His plan to rendezvous with Whimsy was a catastrophic failure.

  "Where am I?" he croaked. At least his voice was still there.

  He turned his head with effort. Seated on a wooden bench were Charity and a taller man with eyes her exact shade of blue.

  "You're in the Temple's House of Healing," Charity said, her voice bright with relief. "Dalliance, you’re awake!"

  Her father smiled, and it reached the corners of his eyes.

  "My daughter," said the man, "seemed quite concerned about your well-being. I thought I would take the opportunity to meet you."

  "Daddy," she complained.

  "I prefer to get the discomfort out of the way at the beginning," said Mr. Troubles (because that was the only person this could possibly be).

  She sulked.

  "My daughter tells me she swore an oath with you. In the old days, circles bound by such oaths were called cabals. As those in cabals generally advance faster and achieve more rarefied classes, I am not upset at the notion. However, I am confident you understand why I need to know what sort of person my daughter has chosen to associate with so intimately."

  "Is this really the ti—" Dalliance started.

  "I’m not finished," said Mr. Troubles. "You’re clearly not some rake," he said. The non sequitur made Dalliance blink in confusion. "You’re a good man with a good heart. You fought valiantly and protected your friend. I am sorry to see you’ve come to such pain thereby."

  Dalliance colored a little bit. Mr. Troubles probably thought he was blushing from embarrassment at being called out for doing something good. He was writhing at the knowing that, in that last second when he chose to push Sterling out of the ant pit, the only thing in his mind had been the fact that Sterling’s father was watching.

  "You will partake of the hospitality of House Troubles," Potency Troubles declared, "and we will take each other's measure. Once you’re well. Do you ride?"

  Dalliance admitted that he did, or had at least not fallen off anything recently.

  "Splendid. We should take a turn about the countryside. Bag a quail or two, and you can tell me all about your adventures so I can cross-check them with the version my daughter has already given me."

  Charity looked uneasy, and Dalliance felt precisely the same.

  "Now that you’ve put the fear of the gods into him," Charity said after a moment, "could I have a word with him myself?"

  "By all means," her father said, gesturing for her to go ahead.

  "Without you," she said, again, pointedly.

  He harrumphed in a good-natured sort of way. "Children these days." But he did as she requested. "I will take a walk around the solar and return," he said.

  The instant he was out of earshot, she rounded on him. "He can tell when you’re lying," she said. "Don’t lie."

  It wasn't that he hadn't gotten that impression; the man was like a hawk, with eyes that missed nothing. "It’s going to be fun," he tried.

  Charity sat on the very edge of his bed and fussed with her skirts, not looking at him. She began again, in a rather lower voice: "I keep telling him," she said, "we have to be teammates because we’re fighting together, but we’re competing. We can’t be friends, Dalliance, or whatever this is, because if I get the scholarship and you don’t, it will ruin your life. But Daddy says I’m acting like it’s a zero-sum game, but to look to my actions . . . ."

  "We could both win." Everyone else just has to lose.

  "You can’t be sure of that," she told him fiercely, blue eyes boring into his from across the bed. "You can’t have a friendship based on ‘what if we both win the lottery.’ That’s stupid. I’m trying to take your shot at the academy from you.”

  “No. You’re trying to get one too. It’s not the same thing.”

  “There are eight of us, and three slots. It’s the same thing.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “No. There’s a clear path forward that sees us both in the academy.”

  “What?”

  "Maybe you’re missing something," he said. She looked uncertain. "Trust me. There is a way to be sure that we both win. I’ll work on it. But I’m tired. Where’s the ‘oh you poor dear’-ing?”

  “‘Trust me’,” she said mockingly, but held her peace and sat back, putting her head against the wall. "I am sorry about that, though. Just jumping into it like that. Daddy is so embarrassing," she sighed.

  "Embarrassing is a good problem to have," he told her. The thought prompted a cascade of memories of his own father: how the man showboated at the Hunt, how he treated him, how he treated Whimsy.

  "Whimsy!" he gasped, almost falling out of bed as the thought hit him. "Oh no, I have to go."

  "You can’t even move. What do you need?" she asked, concerned.

  "No, I have to . . . go!”

  Nothing he did made his legs move an inch. How embarrassing.

  “How can I help?” she asked after a moment of watching his struggles, wide-eyed.

  He sagged in frustration. “My sister—she’s taking sanctuary at the Temple. I was supposed to meet her."

  "Sanctuary?" Charity's expression stilled after an instant of processing. "I am so sorry," she said. They fell into silence again, the weight of the word filling the sterile room. Charity studied him, her head tilted.

  "You're different," she said after a little while. "Talking to you . . . it feels different. Like talking to a grown-up, almost."

  "Almost," he agreed, a faint smile touching his lips.

  "What's your Wit?" she asked, the question blunt, a direct violation of the unspoken rule never to ask for specifics. But the old rules didn't seem to apply anymore, not here.

  He hesitated for a second, then let out a short, humorless laugh. "Well, you can't tell my father," he joked. "But . . . it's nine."

  The word landed in the quiet room like a dropped stone.

  "Nine," she said flatly. The number would be almost unthinkable to an F-Tier student. "Do you . . . do you have more than two points in anything else?"

  He met her gaze, and for the first time on the topic, he didn't bother with a lie or a deflection. "No," he said. "Not really."

  She just shook her head slowly, a long, low whistle escaping her lips.

  “You could do it,” she said slowly.

  “Do what?”

  “Be a wizard, obviously. Ten points to go, you said. And . . . ” she narrowed her eyes, her mind clearly running the same brutal calculations he did every waking moment. “Twelve points ends the game early for you, doesn’t it?”

  He was stunned. She hadn't just understood his goal; she had instantly calculated the total cost of his remaining stats and the razor-thin margin for error.

  “Three, actually,” he corrected her. She couldn’t have known he had anything in the bank, but he'd eventually killed enough ants for a single experience point, and then there'd been the Queen. “It’s going to be tricky.”

  She looked at him for a moment. “Thank you for trusting me,” she said. "I'll help. I can go . . . I’ll go look.”

  What else was there to say?

  “Tell her I’m sorry I made her wait?"

  She nodded. And she left.

  She wasn’t the first one to return. Potency Troubles walked through the door to find his daughter gone and Dalliance still on the bed. "Asks me for privacy," he said, "and then up and abandons you. What if you'd needed water? Fallen out of bed?"

  "I’m fine by myself," said Dalliance.

  "If only that were true," said the man. "I have a daughter your age. I know when someone’s putting on a brave face." He walked to a pitcher on the far table, filled a small wooden cup from it, and carried it over. "Here, drink. Everything’s worse when you’re thirsty. Your head starts hurting, the body aches, you're not as smart, you're not as strong."

  Dalliance took the water gratefully.

  "By the time you’re my age," said Potency, "you’ll know that every little bit helps in the fight to feel human throughout the day." He carried the pitcher over.

  "May I have more?" Dalliance asked.

  Potency just handed him the pitcher.

  "You know," he said, "I was quite surprised at first to hear of my daughter leading a group of students in school prayers. Truth be told, in this day and age, I do not often encounter the pious. But you—you pray the prayers, don’t you?"

  "I do, now. It’s hard to discount the weight," Dalliance said, his voice thready. “Once you’ve felt it.”

  "The word is eminence," said Potency Troubles. "It means active involvement within a sphere. What you’ve seen is the eminence of the divine."

  "It’s terrifying," Dalliance admitted.

  "It can be," her father said. "It can be that when you go from a life of blissful ignorance to one where you know a heavy truth, fear is just good sense. What if I understand this wrong? What if this is bad for me? What if this is good for me and I waste my opportunity? The what-ifs will eat your life, though I can tell you something you otherwise might take years to learn on your own: you will regret inaction more than you will regret a wrong choice. Though obviously there are shades and shades, as with everything."

  Dalliance nodded.

  He was finding he liked Lord Troubles. Better than his own Da, anyway.

  "I can’t find her!" Charity said, bursting back into the room.

  "Charity?" questioned Potency, rising.

  "Oh, um, it’s nothing. It’s my sister," said Dalliance. "She’s claimed Temple sanctuary, but I don’t know where she is."

  The lord didn't look particularly surprised. Dalliance wondered what that said about Cadence's reputation.

  "You’ll not find her," said Potency. "They’re not going to tell you she’s here. That would rather defeat the point."

  Dalliance hadn’t thought of that, and by the look on her face, neither had Charity.

  "What we shall do," her father continued, "is leave a message for them to see if she wants to contact us. I will see to it. And my compliments: this was a far worthier errand than most you could’ve put my daughter to." He considered Dalliance. "I don’t believe a sister younger than you could have made it here on her lonesome. Good on you, lad," he said, clapping Dalliance on the shoulder, which hurt horribly. And he left.

  "So, what were you talking about?" she asked.

  "Oh, you know," he said. "Your father wants a spring wedding. ‘Cause I’m so pious."

  "Your piety," she said, a hint of teasing in her voice, "would not have been the first thing that brought you to mind."

  "Hey," he protested, though it was true. He didn't do any of the little rituals in class, as Charity did. But then again, nearly nobody did, because what was the point? Most of the people who prayed in class wouldn't have ever seen any tangible results from it.

  "I’m sure your home shrine is well-tended," she said, her tone softening. "I'm sorry. One should never make assumptions. It's just . . . with all the lying."

  "I try not to lie. The best lies are truths." That was another Earnest-ism. And true: he tried not to lie.

  She hummed in response, noncommittal. “Spring is nice.”

  Her follow-up comical elbow hurt more than any revenge would have.

  There was no news by the time Potency swung by, taking his daughter with him. There was no news by the time they brought him dinner, and there was no news by the time he went to bed.

  That night, he dreamed of ants.