Morning was marked by the busy tread of feet outside his door as others readied themselves for their classes. He was already late.

  Heading to the closet with a sigh, he put his nicer clothes back on their hangers. Again, he donned the lightweight, day-to-day clothing of a farmer's boy. It wouldn’t do, after all, to ruin one’s best outfit.

  He wondered when the funeral would be. He wondered if Industry would bother to track him down to give him that talk he wanted so much. As for his mother, Dalliance suspected that she would remain in Talbotton simply due to the presence of Parsimony there in his comfy position as [Court Wizard] for Sir Worth—a big fish, comfortable in dominating a small pond.

  "I don’t know what I’m supposed to want to do," he said to himself. He'd been talking to his reflection more and more, not a habit he'd had before having a mirror.

  He wanted to enjoy a day at school, learn about magic, and not worry about family things, and Talbotton, and Parsimony. And Whimsy. He wanted to get to worry about those later.

  He was supposed to stop by and talk to Detective Rainy.

  The walk from Penetence Hall to King's College was a damp one this time, the rain fallen on the upper tiers rushing through flumes and gurgling in ditches, throwing up droplets as it cornered or ran against bundled leaves and debris. Oilclothed, hurrying men en route to work, other students from the hall, and watchmen changing shift: all bustled shoulder to shoulder up rows of stone-cut steps, boots flicking more of the wet from the streets to the sides of Dalliance's pants as he trod alongside them.

  He hated being short.

  The courtyard was no less filled with bodies, students hurrying this way and that with papers and stacks of books, wrestling umbrellas, or, the few who knew how, warding off the rain with magic. Envious stares, that earned.

  One day, Dalliance would know how to do that too.

  Detective Rainy looked up from where she stood by the board, writing glyphs upon glyphs in long, neat rows labeled "Homework" as he entered the divinations classroom, breathless and a bit muddy.

  "We move quickly here," she said briskly. "You’ve got a lot of catching up to do already."

  She snatched up a small pile of papers from the desk, shuffling through it. Two pages went to Dalliance, who looked askance at fifty problems' worth of unintelligible glyphwork.

  "Did he win?" The interjection was offhand, but she looked at him as she said it as though secretly interested in the answer.

  "No," Dalliance said, trying for a tone that would end the conversational thread. "He's dead."

  "I see." Her face went blank. "Do you know when the funeral is?" she asked.

  "No," he admitted.

  "My sympathies," she told him, mercifully not prying. "Notify me when you know the funerary particulars, and we shall see what make-up work needs to be prepared."

  He nodded. The priests of Firth would find him, he thought. Maybe. He thought they might not even bother, for a disinherited child and a bastard.

  "Was this all you wanted to see me about?" he asked.

  "Makeup work, and to send you off to get more makeup work, that's all," she confirmed. "You have also missed the introductory lesson for your Practicals." He didn’t know for sure what she meant, and said as much.

  "The contests. Instructor Tempest presides over the contests, but I administer the oath of conduct," she elaborated, "as the college attempts to minimize danger to life and limb. So, in brief: If you cause danger to life and limb unnecessarily, you’ll be held legally responsible. If you tamper with the failsafes meant to be keeping everyone alive, you will be held responsible. And we will catch you," she added. "These are not duels. You do not bring outside squabbles into the ring. If you have a personality conflict, you do not hurt someone because of it. If you cannot behave yourself, you’ll be held legally responsible."

  Dalliance nodded.

  She held up a hand. "Do you understand?"

  He said yes, he did.

  "Then speak it back to me."

  She appeared to be satisfied with his recitation. At any rate, her next instruction was to go to the Lakeside Tower, where the teachers' offices and the Practicals were, and seek out Mrs. Tempest for remedial classwork.

  He was advised to hurry, since he might already be late for his second instance of that same class, having overslept.

  King's College sprawled over a roughly rectangular estate, the main building having four towers and an enormous courtyard leading to four wings. Dalliance thought it was a reasonable mistake, therefore, to think the Lakeside Tower would be the tower out of the four facing the lake.

  He was mistaken. Across the Avenue from King's College and along Collegiate Boulevard, he walked until he reached Lakeside Circuit, and thence entered a small, ornamental tree-choked lot, which upon first glance seemed to be a little public garden. It was only from within the lot that he could see the tower. He had to admit, it was a neat trick.

  A single, conical tower rose some twenty-odd feet into the air, the windows on every story betraying a more prosaic nature than military. The broad door groaned reluctantly when he lifted the hasp. The floors underfoot were of fine tile and continued up the stairway, which encircled only the very outermost part of the large inner room, in which secretaries at desks were arranged in a circle, busy at their writing.

  A single question sufficed to gain direction to class, and Dalliance mounted the stairs towards his Practicals.

  Dalliance walked in to a class already in progress.

  "Suppose with me for a moment that you are accused of some crime, yourself and your best friend. You are both visited in the night by the Watch. They drag you out of your bed, and they throw you into a cell. Your best friend is now your cellmate."

  An older woman with grey streaks in her auburn hair, presided at the blackboard, a ruler brandished like a conquerer's saber.

  "A guard enters. 'Confess,' he orders you. 'I'll be back in an hour. The first to confess need only pay a fine. It's going to be hard for you if you don't confess and your mate does, though. For wasting my time, I'll give you his beating in addition to yours'. Your name?"

  That last was addressed directly to him. "Dalliance. Rather."

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  "Dalliance, I'm pleased you could join us. Please, take a seat. And . . . you'll want your readings. Have a seat, won't take but a moment."

  Dalliance claimed one of the only unclaimed desks: near the front. Effluvia gave him a quick, apologetic smile from her spot near the back, where all the seats were taken.

  A short search of her desk produced a packet of cheaply printed pages which she plunked unceremoniously down on his desk before turning back to the class.

  "So now the question is: what do you do? And what does your cellmate do? It's a conundrum."

  She seemed to relish the word.

  "Now. You happen to know that he hasn't got any evidence on you. If no one confesses, you walk, probably after getting your beating. No fine."

  "Your conundrum: if you both trust the other guy to have your back, and you have his, then neither one of you stays in jail. But if either one of you confesses, someone's going to go to jail, and you're out money, too. If you think about it, the outcome is worse for both of you if you both confess, but the outcome is so much worse for one of you if the other one confesses and you don't, so, if you don't have that degree of mutual trust, you might be tempted to avoid the extra beating, even if it's going to cost you money you don't otherwise need to pay."

  Dalliance wondered if the readings would make that more intelligible.

  "Not everyone believes this is a true conundrum. They think that there is one best strategy: trust, or, for others, self-interest. This is a matter of perspective."

  "Self-interest only works once, in the short term, but it won’t work a second time in a row, and it isn't generalizable. Think of it this way: you're playing cards. You palm a card as the cards are cut. It's a queen, and you slip it under the table. So now you know there aren't actually four queens in the deck, and you can bet with that in mind. Let's say everyone does that. Well, now you can't play poker."

  She paused and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm hoping none of you actually bet on poker. I didn't mean to recommend that as a course of action."

  "Ahem. The conundrum. As I was saying, it is a conundrum because you can’t know what your opponent is thinking, and so you don’t know what to select based on their selection. You see?"

  "The issue is information asymmetry. If you both knew what the other wanted to choose, you could act accordingly."

  "There are two ways to handle information asymmetry. Three:"

  "Allow it, but have it be asymmetric to your advantage. That’s known as 'winning', most of the time."

  "Introduce further uncertainty to devalue any asymmetric advantage they may already have. That’s making them know less about you."

  "Or, learn more about them. You can do that via deduction, and you can learn more about them by getting them to commit to something. Once you begin casting a [Fireball], I can be relatively sure you’re going to throw one, because you spent the mana already. Same principle."

  "So imagine . . . ."

  "Laken has two spells. I know, I taught them to him yesterday. A note: nobody here will be asking you for your entire spell lists, but you must expect us to make notes on anything you demonstrate."

  Dalliance wasn't the only one who nodded at that.

  "Why don't we tell people?"

  A raven-headed young man in the front row, clearly in his mid-twenties. Dalliance wondered what his story was.

  "I'm glad you asked, Master Gallant. Because of the principle of symmetry of play. As I was saying, Laken has two spells. I know this, because I taught them to him. I have many spells he does not know. He may, in fact, have spells I do not know about as well, but it's less likely—I can predict that he will have few, if any, based on his age and the norms of our society."

  "Now. I'm going to fight him."

  Laken's eyes widened.

  "Calm down, child," she said dismissively. "Hypothetically."

  "As it stands, we are in a position of asymmetry, where I hold the advantage. I know where he is, he knows where I am—that's symmetrical. I know two of his spells, he knows two of mine—the ones I taught him, clearly—so those also balance. And we are left with the presumably vast array of amazing spells I, in my sterling career, have managed to amass, and he is left with probably nothing, perhaps a cantrip. I have a small amount of uncertainty about his moveset. He has a large amount about mine."

  "Now, class: you're coaching him. I know how to fight already. What should he do in this situation?"

  "What are his spells?" Dalliance asked.

  "Very good. [Breath of Fog] and [Shadow]."

  "He should put fog between you," Dalliance said, "so you don't know where he is and he doesn't know where you are."

  "That would seem to maintain our symmetry."

  "No," Dalliance countered, "because if he moves, you no longer can target him, and spells, in general, need targets. He can bet against you using an area spell because we're in class. And so, you two are more matched."

  "Nearly! We are more evenly matched because he has removed, as you say, most of the arsenal about which he lacks information from play. And now we predict one another’s movements, and counter-predict, and bluff, and scheme our way to advantage."

  "The answer to your question, Master Gallant: because the more uncertain you are of my capabilities, the more cautious you will be regarding me. We live in a society under Code Duello. This is what is called a zero-sum game, where one is the winner, and the other is dead."

  Dalliance winced.

  "So sorry to hear about your father," she said, cringing. "I read the note about it, and then duels were on my mind, and that slipped out of my mouth."

  "It’s alright, Mrs. Tempest," Dalliance said.

  "Good. Um. Uncertainty makes me seem scarier, and you are less likely to challenge me, so I am safer. And that is why we don’t tell people our spells. Maisel?"

  "What does [Shadow] do?"

  "A wonderful question! Take the principles we just discussed into account: Do you tell her, Laken?"

  He shook his head slowly.

  "NO!" Mrs. Tempest declared, a triumphant grin spreading across her face. "And thus, you preserve your advantage. Keep your cards close to your chest." She leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, sing-song whisper. "Secret secrets are so fun . . . secrets help me hurt someone!"

  Dalliance flipped to the packet he’d been given. 'Toy games, and why we play'.

  In brief: nobody has ever solved a truly difficult problem without being able to confront its components. The various equilibria and dilemmas we shall be discussing in class are a microcosm of the chaotic mess that is our real world, an attempt to simplify one aspect of existence far enough that we can get it onto the board and work it. ‘Toy games’, such as the cellmate’s conundrum, allow us to form strategies and habits, best practices, which apply to the larger and more complicated parts of life.

  He looked at the rest of the inch-thick volume and suppressed a sigh. This was going to be such a valuable class for him. He hoped he found the motivation to enjoy it, and soon.

  "Now! It says ‘practicals’ on the door, doesn’t it? I couldn’t possibly let you out of here without living up to the name—that would be dishonest! And dishonesty is a horrible idea among those whose expected motives begin in alignment. It decreases trust, which makes me less likely to cooperate, and before you know it, we’re at odds."

  "Dalliance, as you were the last one here, I’d like you to kick us off: YOU will be challenging Master Laken."

  The dueling circle was deeply set into the ground and engraved with steel-filigreed runes and circuits. Static fluffed Dalliance’s hair as he stepped within the ring. Opposite him, Laken stood—skinny and nervous, but apparently a fellow practitioner of [Breath of Fog].

  "The ‘duel’ will be till the first yield. I must warn you, the resulting discipline will be severe if you continue fighting afterward, up to and including legal charges."

  Dalliance nodded: Detective Rainy had said as much.

  "With that out of the way: begin!"

  Dalliance cast [Prediction].

  He wasn’t very good at [Breath of Fog]. Fortunately, there were two of them who wanted fog on the field, so all he had to do was wait a few seconds. And then, Laken blew out a great puff of dense grey fog which quickly filled the half-sphere of the dueling area.

  Laken was going to try to grab his arm and twist it to make him yield. His plan had the advantage of simplicity.

  Dalliance focused on the shadowy future image of the boy, concentrating.

  [Gust]

  Dalliance rolled to the side.

  The breeze was slight. Like someone moving around. Dalliance hadn't been sure how to aim it to make Laken think he'd gone any direction in particular, but between whatever misdirection the wind had achieved and his roll, the boy would pass him, which was the goal. Unawares, sneaking through the mist, fingers outstretched, Laken was slightly off target.

  Dalliance squatted, crouching on his tiptoes, and waited silently.

  One more footstep.

  Dalliance grabbed the passing foot, which was off the ground, and yanked on it, pulling the other boy off balance. Dalliance rolled on top of him and sat on his shoulder blades.

  “I yield,” said Laken promptly. He didn't even sound bothered.

  The fog blew away suddenly, like someone had taken a breath in on a cigar, causing all the smoke to go away.

  “Excellent restraint, both of you,” she praised. “Did we learn anything?”

  “We're going to be doing a lot of wrestling?”

  "Ideally not, Master Laken. For those who couldn't see: Dalliance gained the advantage by relocating himself, as Master Laken was unable to see through the fog, while Master Laken attempted to close to grapple where Dalliance had been—and that ASYMMETRY in expectations was sufficient for the smaller boy to gain an advantage."

  Dalliance went back to his desk in good spirits. Something was going right for a change.