"’So what if a veteran wants to teach you to watch your back?’," Effluvia quoted, nearly spitting the words with fury. "'A retreat is a target for parting shots.' That's a 'valuable lesson, better learned now’." She made a disgusted noise.

  "I'm sorry," Dalliance said helplessly.

  He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in this situation—apologizing to Effluvia for her father's failure to condemn his stoning. Something felt backwards about it when looked at in those terms. But she was upset, and it seemed like the right thing to say.

  "You didn’t have it so hard," Sterling said dryly. The boy had been forced to charge bearing a shield and had apparently broken most of his ribs before successfully tagging the two remaining elders.

  Charity, meanwhile, had the singular honor of having taken out Cadence Rather. She bragged about it most indecorously, her voice seemingly spiteful, for which Dalliance mysteriously failed to find any fault in his heart.

  "So your dad like . . . let you hit him?" Earnest growled.

  "If he did," Charity said kindly, cutting in before Sterling could respond, "it was probably only because he knew no one else on the field was capable of finishing the job. And his son wouldn’t be able to get up there twice."

  Sterling nodded. Which surprised Dalliance; he had completely expected the victor—who had at this point seemingly attained an additional six inches of height on him—to bluster about how he didn’t require that sort of assistance.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he smiled, a warm smile.

  "I believe you have the concept surrounded," he said amiably to Charity, "and phrased more politely than I might have done. I am still the lesser son of a greater sire."

  The humility bothered Dalliance for some reason.

  "I hit someone!" Earnest bragged. It had been Mister Big Cheese. Dalliance knew because Earnest had told him several times. The man was too big to miss, and didn't bother dodging. Earnest was still happy about it.

  Dalliance's shoulder still hurt. Circe’s healing was thorough, but once again, her attention had been divided due to the thrashing received by Sterling. No one had even used a weapon or raised a hand against him—rocks, and only rocks—but then, he had crossed the last twenty feet without a shield.

  Dalliance looked from the one to the other, observing the newfound friendliness. With some effort, he removed the scowl from his face. Who was he to say who should and should not be friends?

  Unbiased, he tried to say, but couldn’t even take himself seriously.

  "Father said," Sterling explained, his voice taking on the cadence of a recited lesson, "that he could’ve saved me a drubbing. But doing so is tantamount to pretending the next goblin I face will be as merciful. 'If I cannot withstand my father’s mercy and grow stronger from that, I certainly cannot withstand the beastkin’s malice'." He said the phrase as though it were a mantra he had often heard.

  Charity was visibly unimpressed.

  "Have you ever seen a baby?" Charity asked.

  Sterling nodded in confusion.

  The wagon wheels of Miss Wimple's cart creaked in front of them, nearly drowning out the acid in her voice. "Have you ever seen a baby cry and thought, 'You know, if I just give him a drubbing, when he grows up and gets beaten by his brothers, he'll be used to it'?"

  Sterling rolled his eyes. "But the baby wouldn't get stronger from that," he said, as if this explained everything. "Through my drubbing, I gained one rank of Agility."

  "So did I," said Dalliance. He only belatedly realized he'd agreed with Sterling in practice, if not in principle, when Charity shot him side-eye. "I mean, I understand. Just saying."

  "So what?" Effie questioned. And then seemed to process what he’d said. "Agility? But you were nearly out of mana as it was."

  "Yes," he said irritably. "But it’s no good seeing someone throwing a rock at you if you can’t move fast enough to get out of the way. I’m sick of it."

  What he didn’t say—but she heard anyway—passed across her face in a flash of comprehension. Sucks to predict things and be unable to act on it.

  Circe wore a hood now. Dalliance saw her as her parents' coach came up, or rather, by the look of it as they all piled out and her father began to set up a tent, unloaded. They were here to stay. There would be healers on hand.

  Why didn’t they do this before? he wondered.

  Seeing Dalliance staring, Effluvia wandered closer. "My father, along with Charity's father and Sir Worth, prevailed upon the Auditor regarding the unusual difficulty of the hunt and received dispensation."

  "Is anyone else staying?" Dalliance asked.

  "No," she said regretfully. "They did what they could."

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  "They did a hell of a lot," said Earnest. "No one’s complaining."

  It was like watching a kicked ant-hill, seeing all the people milling around the abandoned steadholder's estate. A community come together.

  With hideous purpose.

  "It’s hardly a wonder," said Earnest. "Even knobby types want their kids to make it through safe." He sounded like Servility, whose imitation of a low-class accent was horrible, despite having grown up among them. The boy's mother had been quite strict about his own diction, and it showed.

  "Knobby types?" questioned Effie.

  Earnest rolled his eyes at her amused face.

  Dalliance was glad they could be casual, even cheerful. He wasn't feeling it, himself.

  When they'd heard 'Homestead,' Dalliance had thought of something like his parents' house. The reality was rather grander. A large home shaped like a mitered corner piece from Industry's carpenter shop, two storeys tall, surrounded on all sides by what had once been impressive gardens, with hedges dividing them visually and mulch over the beds.

  The plants were all dead. The only splash of color on the grounds was the tabard of the guards, the tabard of House Worth. Its icon was the sparrow and the Galax, or Wandflower. This flower, Dalliance knew, was for some reason or other useful to wizards; hence the name. He had examined its stems, sniffed its flowers, and decided in his heart that whether or not it was useful, it was still a weed.

  Dalliance didn’t know much about sparrows and couldn’t have said why they were chosen, though his mother had said it was to do with the nests they built. He had always believed that to be wrens. Or swallows.

  In any case, the tabards, the guards, the deadly-looking little birds, the grim-faced stoics—four of them held a box formation around Woebegone Lackey, who had once again brought the stupid club. It would be useless against this foe, but then, Dalliance knew the Lackey boy had not been in class even once.

  He wouldn’t know all about the ghoul, its life-sense, and its hungry aura.

  He wouldn’t understand why the only one who had brought a melee weapon was Sterling, with his boar spear—a lengthy and fancy one at that. Dalliance had never heard of an extensible boar spear before, but he supposed the idea itself made some sort of sense. Hold something at the end of the proverbial ten-foot pole, and if it can still reach you, try fifteen feet.

  That everyone else had brought a ranged weapon was probably a testament to their restricted budgets. Else, Dalliance didn’t see why they wouldn’t have wanted such fine weapons. Certainly, he wouldn’t have pooh-poohed one himself.

  Especially in the hall. The creature had taken a step-holder's mansion. They would be fighting in hallways and rooms, potentially spilling out into the yard or onto the roof. Dalliance had tried to think as pessimistically as he was able for the situation.

  On the whole, however, there was a disadvantage to leaving one's spear extending all the way until it hit a wall. But, he thought, what if he could hold it in place? Shove the beast up against another wall, hold it, and the rest of us could shoot it with arrows.

  It would work, he had been assured. If only they could get all of those things to happen. Quite a big 'if'.

  As instructed, Dalliance had belted ten torches, and there would have been more except there wasn’t room for the large, generously sized torch heads, which contained briquettes instead of fabric wraps to last longer with less flame. It would be a slog, he had been assured. Or a slaughter.

  Everyone brought a canteen. His, apparently, was Missus Best's old one, made of goatskin on a long belt, flipped over one shoulder and under one armpit, a sloshing, comforting weight. There was a dried sausage in his pocket and a small wheel of cheese, unopened and still in its original wax. He might need it, he was told.

  Why would he need it?

  If he found his own accoutrements puzzling, Sterling's were haunting. The knight's son had live potted plants, small but real, on his belt next to his journal. Dalliance’s own, on his belt opposite the torches, felt unfamiliar and unpleasant.

  Whenever he was hungry, he was to note it down before eating. If thirsty, note it down before drinking. He had been advised not to sleep, but if in the last extremity he were to sleep, he was to note it down. He had been assured of the efficacy of this process for preventing him from coming to believe he had just eaten, until such time as he was to starve to death naturally.

  Asking why, if it were this hazardous, they were facing it at all, Dalliance was met with a sour expression from Mister Best for his unfair remarks. But he could see renewed caution on Zenith's face, and judged it worth it.

  To his annoyance, Sterling would not be leading. Amidst the boy's bluster during the preparation, Mister Best had calmly taken him to the side, explained the importance of a track record to maintain command, and bid Effluvia do her best in his stead.

  This had been just as popular as Dalliance would’ve expected with the knight's son, and rather more popular than he thought with Charity and Zenith, who both crowed wildly and took up a pattern of perpetual adoration for their new "patron saintess."

  Dalliance pretended to be unaware of Sterling grinding his teeth. For his part, Sterling never complained out loud, but hardly needed to.

  Earnest complained briefly that perhaps Dalliance might have proven his worth, and was told bluntly that should Dalliance be the only one capable of decisive action in the class, it would be a sorry class indeed.

  And with this, what Earnest had intended to imply settled the matter. Although Effluvia gave Earnest the cold shoulder for most of the month following—the lady did not forgive lightly—that was that.

  "And so that's it," Earnest concluded.

  No one gainsaid him. There was nothing else to do. All of the preparations had been completed. But standing outside at a safe distance, staring at the grim spectacle of an abandoned homestead run well overgrown, everyone once within presumably deceased, it was not surprising that no one volunteered to take the first step toward it.

  "What if we should pray?" asked Earnest. This was not the first time he'd asked.

  Charity gave him a well-deserved, sour look. "Cowardice is unfortunately not well-beloved of the gods," she quipped.

  They all watched as, lacking any option himself, Lackey was unceremoniously pushed through the doorway, which was closed firmly behind him.

  "I suppose not," Earnest said. Then, for anyone who wanted to know who popped up this time, and near the top of his voice, he proclaimed, "We will leave victorious! All that’s left is getting there!"

  No one looked comforted, but Effluvia patted him on the back for a good try.

  And the guardsmen stepped back from the door. One was weeping openly, his fellows treating the display with silence rather than contempt.

  The weeping guardsman walked unsteadily over to Sterling and embraced him as a son, then slapped him on the back, hard enough for dust to rise off his armor.

  Mastering himself, he rasped, "Get your lads in there and show me what a damn hero looks like."

  And in they went.