Talbotton had grown along the river. Of course it had. Long before there was a proper castle, the keep and its tower stood above the water, its workshops and outbuildings clustered close so their workers could bolt for the manor at the first alarm. A bridge, competent but unremarkable, was thrown across the river, and on the far side, the quarry took shape.

  When Lady Talbot, a new-money harridan by every account, brought in her earth-movers to raise the dam for the reservoir, they naturally began their work near that quarry.

  Talbotton’s main street held nearly everything of interest: the green on the left, the reservoir on the right, the castle and chapel at the far end, and most of the farms folding away behind it. To reach the castle, one passed the fishpond and the nearby chapel; or, by turning left, one could walk the road past the warehouse and granary—both better kept than anything on Dalliance’s side of town. The road running along the opposite edge of the green held the ‘nice’ houses, though their niceness came from being owned by the new blood rather than the farmers who had made Talbotton what it was. These newcomers came to fill the demand for cures (the Mallows), or candles (Apiarist Goodall), or whiskey (Tavernkeep Brandish). Among other things.

  Trade clustered along the river now that it no longer ran quite so wild. Smiths hammered, bargemen poled their craft, and the banks were a crowded tangle of oxen, drivers, barns, and fenced yards. Fences upon fences.

  Then Mister Big Cheese arrived and turned a few hundred acres of what had once been left wild on the far side of the green into his own dairy kingdom. He had worked his way up from stable lad to rancher, then to owning enough dairymen to need watering-holes of his own. The town had gone from one pub to two; from a street and a half to three; from a handful of cottages to rows of shacks for dairymen. Still better than the one Dalliance had called home, though most things were.

  The chapel stood on its hill, a decent walk from the castle—no one needed it to be defensible anymore. It was all brick, a staggering amount of it, enough that any other building would have been thought insane to demand it. Up the deliberately winding brick path walked Dalliance. The devotees—meaning everyone—were expected to climb it all at once on feast days, weddings, and funerals. Everyone, it seemed, except for Cadence Rather and his children.

  Perhaps that was uncharitable. Even Cadence went faithfully to each of the Six Altars at least once a year, and he was hardly alone. It was only Dalliance, in his embarrassment, who felt as though mounting the temple path felt foreign, even frightening, to do alone—but he climbed it anyway, for that was where he’d been told to find Charity.

  He nearly bolted at the chapel door.

  He wasn’t even sure why he had come. Somewhere along the way, he had convinced himself that Charity was his friend, though the two of them had not spoken since he had done something he was certain she would never do. The guilt of it felt unreasonable—he owed her nothing, owed no one any explanation. Yet as the day had stretched ahead of him, yawning empty, the house he lived in now had seemed unwelcoming. He didn’t deserve it.

  Having finished sword practice with Morality, he might have taken a nap, or applied himself to his letters, or attempted [Introspection]. He might even have walked all the way to the Verity farm to see Earnest, save that it required passing his father’s land, and he could not bear that today. Besides, he had mana now that was his to squander.

  In his pocket lay the thaumic token Sterling’s father had given him: a little copper piece, once polished bright, now dulled by many fingers. A sliver of stone sat in its center, brown as river-rock. His friends insisted it was an opal and that mineral oils might restore its shine. He doubted it. He had no oil, and if it gleamed too prettily, someone might steal it. So the ugly thing stayed where it always stayed, feeding on the excess mana he gathered, draining a point whenever he came near to filling his reservoir.

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  There had been a reason he’d bought everyone lunch on Water Street. He could afford it, for once. His mana took so long to restore that he rarely dared spend it, but even today it bought him a Ploughman’s lunch. The spark had come hot off his soul into the token, then from the token to the shopkeeper, a kindly woman who had never seen him purchase anything before. She inquired after his health and his injury, and, hearing of his liberation—so to speak—told him she felt honored to be his first experience with store-bought food. He hadn’t had the heart to correct her. The lunch was good, but the knot in his stomach, the one made of shame, ached emptily just the same.

  He endured it until he couldn’t, and then he walked up the hill to Charity Troubles’s door and rang the little bell on its steel spring. A smiling maid told him her mistress was at the chapel, and that she was quite sure the Young Miss would be happy to see him.

  So Dalliance opened the chapel door and stepped inside.

  Six altars stood within the chapel, each for all the world like a storage crate if someone had laid a tabard over it. Every altar bore its offering bowl. Charity stood before the first, with Forthrightly—Dalliance’s favorite of her guards—and Mr. Idles, the village priest, onlooking. Dalliance felt no warmth toward the man, but he knew he would have to work with him if he hoped to secure any future legal claim to Whimsy. Be the bigger man, he reminded himself.

  He ignored the priest entirely.

  One did not interrupt offerings, so he stayed where he was. But when the heavy door clapped shut behind him, every head in the room turned anyway.

  Oops.

  “Dalliance,” Charity said, her voice warm, “It’s good to see you.” She held out a portion of her sacrifice. “Please.”

  Seeing no elegant way to refuse, he stepped toward the altar of Gremantle. He had no blood of an enemy to offer—nor did Charity. He accepted the incense stick, placing it in the bowl.

  “I would offer my clean conscience,” she murmured to him, “but I think I already know why you’re here. Will you take my hand?”

  He nodded.

  “Lord of Conflict,” she said, her voice clear, “I lay before you the strife between my friend and myself, and pledge to seek its swift resolution in good faith.” She touched brow, sternum, and shoulder: the sign of the Gremantle.

  She elbowed him lightly. He repeated her words, clumsy and slow, standing there like a fool until she seized his arm and drew him to the next altar.

  “We’ll talk about it afterward,” she whispered.

  She passed him an owl pellet from one of the small pouches at her belt. He placed it upon the altar of the Crone; she did likewise.

  “Maiden of Potential, Lady of Industry, Matron of Judgment,” she invoked. “Foster, guide, and measure our endeavors.” She traced the sign of the Crone and moved on.

  “Keeper of Hearths and Homes,” she said at the altar of Pater—this one closest to Mr. Idles, who was very obviously listening. “Bless my friend, who has none, that the day might come when he finds his own; and bless me likewise.” She didn’t give him a moment to dwell on it but whisked him onward to Pax, where she prayed for remembrance, and then to Dowser, where she prayed for wisdom.

  At the final altar, he placed a pellet. It vanished in a sharp flash of violet light.

  “He’s watching you,” Charity said brightly. Her own offering vanished in an answering flash of aquamarine.

  The god of death is watching me. Oh good.

  “What do the colors mean?” he asked.

  “No one knows.”

  She tugged him toward the side door, this time, and he allowed her to lead him to the gardens.