It was early, on the schoolhouse porch, where Earnest had found a still-troubled Dalliance staring out at the fields upon his arrival.

  "Raised like he could do no wrong," Earnest said darkly, shuffling his deck of cards without looking up. "It's their own damn fault. Spoiled him rotten and expected the world to hand him a prize."

  Dalliance nodded absently. He remembered Topaz'd had a few words on the subject: "Some parents think knocking down all the pins for their child and calling it a strike is what parenting is. To some, you're the ball . . . ."

  Earnest hefted his cards with a grim theatricality. "I told you this was coming."

  "And yet sometimes people can still disappoint you," Dalliance said heavily. “Even when you weren’t expecting much.”

  “This isn’t about Woebegone.”

  "I just . . . it feels like if I'm not getting kicked around for one thing, it's another," Dalliance said, his voice strained. "It feels like everything is conspiring to make everything worse."

  "Yeah?" Earnest asked, his tone sharp. "You got your sister out, Dalliance. That's not nothing."

  He continued, ticking off the points. "You got your magic."

  Dalliance looked at him strangely.

  "Okay, so you got some magic," Earnest conceded, before delivering the most important line. "You got us."

  It wasn't a done deal, not with the scholarship hanging over them, Dalliance thought. But . . . yeah, that was true.

  "And you've got other things that are good for you," Earnest added, not specifying.

  Dalliance knew he was referring to Topaz.

  "Not in the early spring," Dalliance complained under his breath. She'd wake up eventually, he knew. But still.

  Earnest made a sour face. "Speaking of secrets, we need to have another council meeting. Circe’s coming back; she’ll need some support, probably. Someone who isn’t Effie.”

  “She rejoining for the Hunt too?”

  “No.” He didn’t explain why, and Dalliance didn’t ask.

  "That’s one fewer contestant in the pile," his friend said. His serious look made it feel like a jab.

  "Why are you so mercenary?" Dalliance complained.

  He knew as he said it he was a hypocrite of the highest order. But some things weren’t said out loud.

  "Being practical and being mercenary are worlds apart," his friend said loftily.

  And you're not even in the running.

  Circe arrived to class the next morning in a coach bearing the Early coat of arms. This one, a sprig of pine dotted with leaf buds, carried by a cardinal. The red and green seemed quite cheerful colors for a noble's house and were emblazoned not only on the heraldry but also on the coach and even the coachmen in their livery. It occurred to Dalliance that he had never seen Effluvia wearing the colors of her house.

  Effluvia helped Circe down, her blushing friend demurring and claiming to be perfectly capable herself.

  Dalliance saw at once what Mister Best had meant.

  She didn’t smile. Her eyebrows didn’t move. Her jaw opened and closed, and her lips made the motions for words, but besides that, she was as stoic as a statue. Dalliance could see the jagged seam where the reattachment had occurred. A slight darkening of the flesh remained, but no longer was there a junction between ruddy and pale; now, at least, the whole thing had deepened to the correct color for living flesh.

  Circe stopped at his desk briefly on her way to her seat.

  "I am told you saved my life," she told him gravely.

  Or perhaps that was just her face now, Dalliance realized. He had no reliable markers to interpret what she meant.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  She will be even more mysterious, the thought joined, terrible.

  He was awful for thinking it.

  He cast around for something kind to say, and turned on his [Prediction] when he couldn’t think of anything. Sterling was waiting for his turn to talk. Perfect.

  "You were heroic," Dalliance said, stealing the other boy’s words. "You saved Sterling’s life, and Zenith's."

  For once, the boy in question didn’t look sour, but rather gratified. Perhaps he’s glad to see someone else understand how important it was that his life had been spared, Dalliance thought, ungraciously.

  Circe toyed with her skirts, swishing them this way and that, awkwardly. She’d always done so, but now it was just so much more obvious. Previously, her mannerisms had been of a piece with her broad, impish smile.

  That seemed really sad.

  “I didn’t really do mu—”

  "You look so much better!" Zenith said, walking up the corridor, beaming with delight and pulling her into a sideways embrace. “I missed you!”

  Circe's face didn’t twitch, but her shoulders hunched forward. She was spared the necessity of speaking by Mister Best's clearing of his throat.

  "Ahem. The final hunt has been announced," he said presently, once he had everyone’s attention.

  The classroom was silent and intent. They would have months to prepare this time. That was not typical. Something must be wrong.

  Dalliance had not been entirely surprised to discover what his friend was up to. Music had been a Verity tradition as long as Dalliance had known them.

  Green was the field where we gathered

  Gold was the grain standing tall

  Sweet was the song that we sang there

  Confident, come for the call.

  Bright were the days we spent training

  Cold were the nights by the fire

  Sad is the dirge for the fallen

  Solemn, saluting the pyre.

  Sharp are the blades we've been given

  Long is the road to the Wall

  Strong proved the vows that were honored

  Bravery's best, to the fall.

  Last of the summer's

  Foamy the brew, frothy on top

  Last of the summer's

  Best of the new, cream of the crop

  Last of the summer’s

  Beaded with dew, raise them up high

  Last of our summers

  Faithful, we few, fated to die.

  Earnest’s voice trailed off. The circle of cattle contentedly chewing the cud around him stood and wandered away as Dalliance approached, footfalls loud in the ringing silence, “Cheerful. You read our fortune yet?"

  "Weal and woe," said Earnest, not looking up. There was an empty beer bottle on the ground before him, glinting green in the light, part-buried in the dirt. It'd clearly been there for a while.

  "Not very helpful."

  “Same as last time. You know they call empties soldiers, sometimes? Dad does."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Drain them of spirit, throw them away."

  "That's a bit morbid." Dalliance offered his friend a hand, to stand up. Earnest took it with visible reluctance. "Some of us will return alive, then. Better than none," Dalliance continued, his voice more chipper than that of his friend, a reversal he didn’t much like. "Two months."

  "Yeah, two months to learn the bow, when I spent all year trying to learn the sword."

  Earnest was really out of sorts after the day's readings, it seemed. Dalliance didn't want to press, and besides, couldn’t argue the point. No one wanted to be within arm's reach of a ghoul. Sterling would be using a boar spear, probably, to supplement his enchanted weapon.

  "It’s slow," Dalliance offered. "We’ll just walk around it. Shoot it 'til it dies. That’s legion practice."

  "We’re not Legion," said Earnest. "Half of us can barely shoot. The three of you, of which two have better things to do half the time, leaving the rest of us standing around, holding sticks, looking ridiculous."

  "Four of us, after you practice," Dalliance tried to argue, to the eye-roll of his friend.

  But Earnest's prediction for his own continued lack of skill was borne out in practice, even as Dalliance began to approach a reasonable level of competence without the use of [Prediction], no matter how mercilessly Whimsy mocked him every time she visited.