Dalliance was the wind. Spend time with the wind. Get its attention, they had said.

  They didn’t know the half of it.

  Dalliance now knew he never could have cast the [Werewind] if he'd taken it just as a spell. But it wasn't just a spell; that was another thing he'd realized. Keeping track of where all the pieces of his body were while he was air . . . that was something the System could do. It was, apparently, also something a small ritual could do—small enough to be personal, but difficult enough that it wasn’t common. But he wouldn’t learn rituals for a while.

  [Werewind] shouldn't have been on his list of skills.

  Dalliance had felt better and better about it the more he tried to apply his homework from the Incantations class. Think about your spells. Think about all the things needed to do what the spell does. Think about the instructions required to get that idea across. Try to figure out what your spell's incantation is saying based on the minimum requirements of the spell's function.

  It was impossibly complicated. There was just no way.

  Coolest spell ever.

  The cathedral's towers loomed in the distance. He had told Earnest he'd take them somewhere they could talk, and he would. But if he took a roundabout way, would that hurt anyone? Dalliance liked being the wind and hadn't really liked very much about today. Earnest would live through it.

  The bells of Galton rang, hollow and brassy from the twin spires on the Hall of the Gods. Dalliance thought it was great fun, the highlight of his day so far, to sit on the outside of the bell tower, looking in. Earnest did not apparently agree, sitting on the ridged stone tiles, determinately ignoring the five hundred feet or so separating them from the ground.

  "And then Good Mother Higgs said he’d promised to leave the shop to his nephew," Earnest fumed, "and Father Lupine says, 'Oh, absolutely. I’ve got it right here,' and pulls out a document in his own hand, which says it right there in clear ink! And of course, the daughter's in tears, because what he actually said—and I was there while Father Lupine was in the next room chatting with the good mother—what he actually said was, 'I leave everything to you, my darling daughter,' and then he died. And I wrote it down while they were finalizing the draft of what they wished his last words had been in the next room, and the priest signed his copy, not mine. I’m so mad I could spit."

  Dalliance watched a dove land on the carven face of the bell tower. The winds were alive up this high. It was heady.

  "I have it, you know. The real will. The one I wrote down when he spoke it. Lupine threw it in with the rubbish, but it just landed on some leaves, so it’s not too dirty. And I’ve got it." He patted a fold in his acolyte robes. “Only I don’t know what to do.”

  “How much of your training is going to involve Father Lupine?" Dalliance asked,

  "I don’t know," he said miserably. "I’m a [Seer]. I don’t even know why I'm going to most of these."

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  "But I can’t take them to court because I’m an acolyte, and I would have to have my attendant priest sign off on it, and they're friends. And I can’t challenge him to a duel, or the guy who’s going to get it now, because I’m too young to challenge anyone to a duel."

  "You could speak the truth, knowing that he can’t do anything to you," Dalliance said.

  Earnest nodded. "Technically, I’m not even accusing him. I’m accusing a good mother."

  “Well, probably best that you not duel her. But . . . "Is this fight even winnable? You could just tell the truth in front of someone with authority. They can't do anything to you," Dalliance said. "What are they going to say? Complain that you caught them committing fraud?"

  Earnest scowled. "You're making light of this," he accused. "Have you even been listening? A man died today. This is his last wish. This was a priest of Firth scorning a dying man's last wishes. That's sacred to Firth! He's going against everything he stands for, all for the love of a pocketbook."

  In truth, Dalliance thought, that wasn't so surprising.

  "Okay," Dalliance said, throwing up his hands. "Your holy man doesn't follow his goddess's decree. Can he get in trouble for that?"

  "I don't know," Earnest said grumpily.

  "Then we're back to where we started," Dalliance said. "You have the good document, they have the bad one. Swap them, and the new one will have your name on it. The only question is, will that get you in trouble?"

  "And you're going to turn into the wind and swoop in to swap them out?" Earnest asked.

  "I don't see why not," Dalliance said. "But it'll have to be tomorrow night. I've got stuff to get ready before the Wall tomorrow."

  Earnest nodded. They both did.

  Tonight, said neither of them, would be spent worrying about their shift on the Wall.

  "This won’t win her case for her, but it’ll be enough cause to get someone into the Zone of Truth, and then it doesn’t matter."

  "It doesn’t go quite the way you’re thinking," Dalliance warned him.

  “Maybe with a few extra steps. I’m telling you," Earnest insisted, "They’re going to get the truth. And having the truth on record, I can point to it if it looks like I’m about to get in trouble. Father Lupine does not want me to bring his little negotiation to the ears of his superiors. Whether or not they knew about it, knowing about something and knowing about it in front of someone else are two different things."

  "What are you doing?" came an angry voice from inside the bell tower.

  Dalliance glanced over. The man through the window had the bell ringer's hook in one hand. "Get in here," the man ordered, opening the shutters, which were locked from the inside. Dalliance wondered how the man thought they’d gotten out.

  Dalliance held out his hand.

  "Subtle" Earnest sighed, and put his hand in Dalliance's.

  They vanished into the early summer air, whirling off in a vortex, dancing over the sun-heated stone tiles, falling beside flying buttresses, and alighting upon a manicured garden, sending up a little cloud of wood and dirt dust and the occasional leaf. There was a brief rushing sound, and then Dalliance let go of Earnest's hand.

  The two of them swayed on their feet for an instant before catching their breath.

  And so, Dalliance and Earnest had a plan.

  Dalliance had, since the master's remarks, been keeping his thaumic token topped off. The thaumic token could hold about fifty thaums. Yesterday, he had filled it to the brim and awoken refreshed to the realization that he now had on his person one hundred forty-three thaums, not just the ninety-three he could carry himself in his own soul. He needed another thaumic token, yesterday.

  A fully charged token, like the one he was walking with on the street, he had discovered, would by itself pay for a decent set of student's robes or a month's stay in a cheap inn. So, his newfound practice of squirreling away mana had, to his slight disappointment, not actually left him wealthy. But in the context of staying alive, he decided it was relative, and the extra reserve would be pivotal for his success in a night of righteous burglary.