The adults were still sparring amongst themselves.

  "Surely you have read the transcripts in which they say he transported young Circe Mallow?"

  "Pish posh. Rubes are easily impressed by even the simplest of spells. No: the simplest explanation is the correct one. You had no reason to bring alchemicals. You brought alchemicals. The fire was started.”

  His diatribe washed off Mister Best’s dignity without visible effect.

  "What’s going to happen?" Dalliance wondered aloud. He looked first—he was getting better at it, checking—but there was something that would be disastrous to say immediately anyway, and this was not quite the time. If he could just get the man to double down, though.

  "Dalliance, hush," said Mister Best.

  "This, as I said, is why we don’t have twelve-year-olds give testimony. And in answer to your question, as I find your teacher guilty of intentionally flaunting Imperial decree concerning the hunt, as shown with his purchase of alchemicals with malice aforethought, but that this is nevertheless a minor violation, rather than keeping a child out of the hunt entirely, his head will not be taken. He will merely face fines and censure—”

  "That’s not fair," Dalliance said. He knew they wouldn’t like it. But Parsimony would have to start his train of thought all over again. "Also, I’m nearly thirteen."

  It was true; he’d be thirteen before the semester started.

  "Young man, if you speak out of turn again—"

  "Sorry," Dalliance said. Dalliance was not sorry. He’d also spoken out of turn again. Parsimony had to visibly recollect himself.

  “Dalliance, that was poorly done,” said Mister Best. Dalliance couldn’t tell if his teacher was acting out the part of a displeased teacher while remaining a co-conspirator, or if he’d ever been.

  Parsimony turned back. "Before we were interrupted, I had been commenting that your malfeasance in interfering with the games caused loss of experience to three of your charges."

  He laid out the evidence before them. "You attempted a lackluster defense based upon a technical reading of the rules of engagement for Imperial Scouts, which is not applicable to the situation with a child who knows perhaps [Gust] at best. Whatever the other children may say about how impressed they are by his abilities, the commons do not judge mages."

  Dalliance considered the future. If he put his hand into the zone, Mister Best would pull him back. If he jumped into the zone, Mister Best would pull him back. But there was a way to get there that Mister Best couldn’t countermand.

  Dalliance put his right hand in his pocket and began to make the symbols for the spell [Locomotion]. At the last moments, as Parsimony was droning about penalties attendant to poor teachers, Dalliance turned his head entirely to the right and spat out the command words for the spell.

  Mister Best's head turned to track him, and his hand snaked out to clap over Dalliance's mouth, but it was too late. The spell took him, whisking him up into the air, and then down gently in the center of the Zone of Truth. The winds, coordinated to lift him and carry him, spawned little whirls and eddies, scattering pages throughout the tent, causing the canvas itself to snap and puff as in a violent wind. Parsimony's own stole billowed up and over his head.

  "I can cast [Locomotion]," Dalliance said. The Zone of Truth lit up a bright white with his words. “Mister Best knew that I had taken a wind spell as a skill.” The white pulse of truth.

  Parsimony looked like every word was being dragged out of him. "I see," he said. "So I am shown to be mistaken. Mister Best, my charge is withdrawn."

  Dalliance turned to go.

  "No, Dalliance," said Mister Best. "The Zone is not a toy for use by volunteers from one side or the other. Its use must always be equitable. You have entered, and as such, you are to stay. Parsimony, your witness."

  Parsimony, looking bemused by the lecture, weighed in himself. "Did you think it was abnormal that someone would walk up to the Zone and not enter it? Did you think your teacher had revealed himself to be a liar by refusing to step in, or myself a liar for refusing to step in, young man? The rule is that the opposing party may request for you to step into the Zone, upon penalty of your requiring one of their own to do likewise for cross-examination."

  He leaned forward. "Where did you get that spell?”

  This was it. This was the moment that Dalliance had been dreading. This was the last, best bet Dalliance had been able to think of. He’d tell him the truth, and he could choke on it.

  But as the thought passed through his head, he remembered: Smother vainglory.

  As if that were the missing ingredient, the answer to his earlier prayer, it all became clear. His desire to hurt Parsimony Pleasant was vainglory. It was about him. The part of him that wanted to help Mister Best did not need to harm Pleasant.

  The unpleasant futures cleared up, converging upon a single, best, solution.

  He made the sign of the Crone, in thanks, and opened his eyes.

  “What’s that?” asked Pleasant.

  “The lad made the sign of the Crone," the priest said. “Likely subvocalized a prayer to the Crone.”

  “This isn’t the time for games, young man. Answer the question.”

  "I got the spell from my kinfolk," Dalliance said. White, the zone’s lights. He’d thought of a way out that didn’t have to hurt anybody.

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  There was silence. Mister Best looked as startled as anyone.

  Parsimony went still. "The Rathers are not noted mages," he said.

  "I could name more than one among my kin," Dalliance said. "Notable with magic. You might even recognize a name or two."

  Parsimony met Dalliance's eyes. Dalliance did not let his fall. The silence stretched.

  "No more questions," said Parsimony. "The Crown is satisfied with the conduct of the Honorable Mister Best and his protégé, Dalliance Rather."

  He stepped back to the lectern, rather abruptly spun on his heel, and swept out of the tent.

  The results, when they came, were not hugely surprising. Effluvia in first, Circe second, Charity third, Dalliance fourth, Sterling fifth. But Circe had been honest and had recused herself from the competition sometime hence.

  Dalliance accepted the little scroll with his scholarship information on it with trembling hands. For her part, Charity looked at it uncertainly, and after class bade Dalliance join her for dinner. "Come as you are," she told him, seeing him freeze up.

  Earnest made eyebrows at him as he left the schoolroom, Mister Best looking on placidly in tacit approval. And so Dalliance followed the cart of Miss Thicket Wimple for one final time, and, upon arriving, was ushered out to the garden, where the young miss of the house was waiting with her chaperone.

  The roses in her garden were dead. The hedges were dead. But the fish in the fishpond sparkled with scintillating scales, and the workers were partially done replacing the bare ground cover with patterned, triangular tiles. Dalliance had not asked what had happened, but she had volunteered anyway.

  “Technically,” she said, “this is holy ground here.”

  He had to think about that for a second, and then another second. So no gardens on holy ground?

  "Gardens use manure," she said softly, a ghost of a smile on her face. Then, more seriously, "Daddy says he doesn't need a pixie coming after him in his sleep."

  Dalliance imagined it. They shared a smile at the image.

  And there was silence, except for the scrape of Forthrightly shifting a tile into place with his boot-toe.

  “So. We did it.”

  “We did.”

  “We didn’t even die.”

  She smiled vaguely, not looking up, and toyed with the tray of fluorescent pink drinks on her tray. Jewelfruit, from one of the weirder demesnes, Dalliance thought. He’d never tried it.

  “I’m sorry I thought so badly of you, Dalliance,” Charity said at last.

  "I’m sorry," she said after a moment. This is not what Dalliance had expected to hear. "I let my pride get in the way. Vainglory."

  "I did too,” he admitted. “I remembered what you said about it at like the last second, but."

  She nodded a small nod.

  "Don’t let that go to your head,” he joked.

  A sharp shake. “I was talking to Forthrightly about me, Dalliance. I couldn’t possibly talk to Dad," she said, "about this. With his position, he’d be obliged to intervene in some way."

  To busy her hands, she handed him a glass of the red-sparkling nectar. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted, but melon-forward. One sip might be enough, he thought. She wasn't done, so he swirled the liquid and watched the light play through it instead of pushing.

  "He told me I had to think about whether the important part was the mission objective or the rules of engagement."

  "You’ve also talked to him about the Hunt, then," Dalliance guessed, at the familiar terminology. He glanced up.

  She colored a little bit and nodded. "He said you have a head on your shoulders," she said. "You got everyone home safe. The one time we left it to you, we all came home safe."

  Dalliance pursed his lips. That didn’t sound like an accurate read.

  "And that’s the important part," she continued. "Coming home safe. For me, now, the important part is to get that degree. Be a [Theologian]. Find out the truth. And maybe I can’t do it as cleanly as I was hoping. Maybe Earnest . . . maybe his cards were right. That it costs something."

  Dalliance didn’t have any comment on the topic. He’d been wondering about his own reading, of late.

  "Dalliance," she said, "I know what I have to do. It’s just that if my friends . . . aren’t the people I believed them to be, if you aren’t, and you’re not going to do things for good reasons. . . .”

  “Whimsy,” he said. It was mostly true. “It started out being for me, but then it was for Whimsy, and somewhere I realized I didn’t want to hurt you either.”

  “I see,” she said. Her face was maddeningly inscrutable.

  “Maybe I’m not proud of how I did things, at the end, but I didn’t see another way forward, and now we all get to go. . . .”

  Blue eyes considered him, weighing his honesty.

  "I owe you the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t giving you that. And I don’t see everything that you see."

  "I don’t see all that much more than you do," he admitted. "Sometimes maybe I’m going to make the wrong call. Maybe you shouldn’t trust me." It felt a little bit sick, like he was laying it on a little bit. But at the same time, it was true. And if it felt like a lot to him, it apparently did not to her, because she just nodded.

  "I’m going be there," she said. "We’ve got six years of college."

  "Six?" Dalliance questioned.

  "For me," she amended.

  Dalliance had been pretty sure Aeromancy would only take him four, but then again, who knew what would come next? But he wouldn’t go it alone.

  "It frightens me," she admitted. "I know you to be good, but also, look what you’ve done. What you’re capable of doing. You trapped a boy in a box with a bear. You poisoned your friends to get a scholarship, and to get me one too. What am I to you that made you do that for me?"

  He didn’t have an answer, and stared at the glass in his hand for long seconds.

  "Whimsy says you’d do anything for her and Earnest. It feels like I’ve been inducted into a little tribe of goblins. Strangely safe, but surrounded by savages."

  He didn’t know what to say to that either, except, "You’re gonna have time to figure it out. Six years.”

  “But you’ll try to do better?"

  Dalliance looked across the long valley between the Capitol Hill and Tolbotton’s reservoir, at the flitting shadows of airships, the occasional flashes of magefire. There would be time to figure it out.

  "I’ll do better next year," he said.

  END OF BOOK ONE

  Bonus material, with .

  Your faces pale beneath the wave

  Which slips pellucid ever o'er

  While bearing each t'ward ebon reach

  and final fate past Water Gate

  Perfuméd hands with gentle touch

  And clutching arms your burden bore

  With falling tears, for shortened years

  They bid be blest your final rest