"I just recalled," Cadence told him, "I left my jacket. I’ll be right back. Guard the wagon, son."

  He had, too. When had he managed that?

  There was no possible future in which his father did not go back for the jacket: he didn’t bother to look. His father vanished through the little wooden door leading to the Hall of Healing, the nondescript plaster walls obscuring Dalliance’s further view.

  He couldn't picture what might be happening, but he knew. Whimsy would have come out after they left. Charity and Whimsy might be bonding, the way girls did. And then, in would walk Cadence.

  No. He couldn’t let this happen.

  There weren’t very many people in the Temple courtyard, for it was already late in the day, but there were still some scattered presences. Dalliance hopped off the wagon, stiff and sore, and pointed to a passing freeman. "This wagon is the property of the Rathers," he said sternly. The man looked puzzled. "See that nothing happens to it."

  He gave it half-and-half odds that would work. It would certainly have worked better had his father been Vigilance Worth than Cadence Rather, but he still thought there was a good chance the wagon and all its contents would be right where he left it when he came back. He had more important things to look into.

  And he half-hopped, half-ran back inside, activating his [Prediction] as he did.

  "She’s pled sanctuary," Charity screamed, "You can’t do this!"

  The first thing he saw was Forthrightly’s corpse careening off the doorframe, limbs spinning limply, and impacting the Temple wall hard enough to dent his helmet.

  Emerging instants later were his father and sister, Cadence holding Whimsy by the wrist.

  Charity followed him into the hallway. Dalliance could have told her that was a bad idea.

  "Nobody’s going to tell me what to do with my daughter," Cadence snarled, and backhanded Charity across the face. She fell and did not move.

  Dalliance had seen enough. He didn't bother to see how the scenario would play out; the risk to Charity’s life was sufficient. He had hoped to be able to stay at home, eating the food, with the free roof over his head for a little longer, but now, as it came down to it, he discovered he was willing to make a break with his father.

  He turned back to the courtyard and shouted at the top of his lungs, tears springing to his eyes as he did, unbidden. "Guards! Guards! He’s violating the sanctuary of the Temple! He’s violating sanctuary!"

  And the guards came.

  The Temple Guard carried halberds, just as he knew his father had when serving on the Wall. Six of them, and as they tramped inside, Dalliance limped hard on their heels.

  "She’s claimed sanctuary," Dalliance said, his voice a chorus to Charity's as his prediction was realized. "You can’t—"

  His father's hand was drawn back. What if he hit her anyway?

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  Dalliance engaged [Deflection].

  Cadence’s eyes snapped to him from Charity. "That," Cadence said nastily, "is not a [Pupil]'s skill. You’ve been lying to me, son." He looked past the hedge of halberds as though they weren’t even there. "Is this really the path forward that you want to tread?"

  "It’s the only path I can," said Dalliance, and it was true.

  Cadence released Whimsy’s wrist, took a long step forward, and seized Dalliance by the shoulder, hard. Hard enough to lift him off the ground.

  "Are you going to claim sanctuary too?" he asked his son.

  "No."

  "Then we have no more business here. You’re dead to me," he told his daughter. "There will be no dowry, and you will have no part of my inheritance."

  Whimsy’s eyes welled up with tears. Dalliance could see the fresh marks of bruises on her arms. She looked so small without her ubiquitous petticoats—small, fragile, lonely, cowering against the wall away from her father within the sheltering arms of Charity Troubles.

  "Say goodbye to your friend," Cadence told Dalliance. "We need to hie ourselves home and have a chat."

  He was much less gentle this time, seating Dalliance in the cart.

  "You think you’re clever?" Cadence asked, his voice a low rumble. "That you’ve removed the lever I planted beneath your stubborn pride? In your ignorance, you’re hurting yourself more than me."

  Dalliance watched his knuckles ball up into fists as if it were someone else’s hands. They were vibrating with his anger. "I know what you're doing. I'm simply saying no."

  The cart passed under the Triumphs, broad, gilded arches, and began its way down the slope which would lead out of the city, back to Talbotton.

  "I suspected as much," Cadence admitted. "But my oath requires me to be sure. So then, despite knowing the potential you could have, you intend to throw it away to spite me?"

  "This was never about you," said Dalliance.

  "I. Am. Your. Father," Cadence said slowly, as if speaking to an idiot. "You are what you are because you have benefited from my largesse and teachings."

  "I didn’t learn what I needed from you," Dalliance told him.

  There was a stretch of silence.

  "I’m puzzled," Cadence said after a moment. "What do you imagine comes next? What do you imagine will follow? Will we go home and live as a happy family, forgetting that you snuck your sister off my land and into the arms of the Temple? Is that what you think is going to happen?"

  "Happy? No. But for reputation's sake, for the family name, you’ll want this to be quiet," Dalliance said.

  Cadence chuckled deeply. "You're banking on my vanity. That’s an educated ploy. One you did not learn from me. The Verity boy, perhaps? Yes, that could have worked. Perhaps, if I did not have further concerns. But you have more than just my pride riding on this, boy."

  "The Rather name, too," Dalliance said. "Which is why I will go home and play the dutiful son, and you will play the magnanimous father. And we won’t mention Whimsy.”

  “Is that what we will do?”

  “And then I’m going off to the Academy," said Dalliance, "and I will carry the family name to the Walls. And Uncle Solidarity and I will do our duty for the Empire and bring more honor to the Rather name. Which I know is what you want."

  "You don’t know what I want," Cadence said.

  There was silence after that. A chill wind and the shrill cries of a loon drove through the evening. The horse nickered nervously several times, but nothing impeded them. Even the monsters knew better than to interrupt Cadence Rather.