It was raining, hard and cruel droplets hammering down like a goldsmith beating out a cup. Lightning flickered and thunder rattled the windowpanes.

  When he came out to meet her, he was surprised to see that Charity was wearing a proper skirt, something nearly a gown; its ebon velvet folds a somber mourner’s hue. But then, he supposed, with her being who she was, anything less than fine mourner's apparel might have seemed irreverent to her.

  Unable to walk, he had settled into a corner of a cafe for reading, but reading didn't fill the void that pacing the fences had on his father’s farm. For one thing, it didn't make him any more tired; it just made the restless energy slowly grow, like water approaching the edge of a pot as it boils.

  "I'm sorry for your loss."

  Dalliance didn’t know what to say or how to say it. He’d been dreading this conversation, especially after seeing how she’d reacted last time, in the aftermath of his spiking Sterling’s drink. As his [Prediction] ran, he realized there weren’t very many paths to where he wanted to go: to where they could still be friends.

  I killed my father. He saw that the honest truth would not go over very well.

  He was using the trick, figuring out what to say by committing to it in his mind, unless it turned out badly. He flicked through the various options as he tried them mentally, though as always he couldn’t foresee what he’d say for situations where he said something he was unwilling to say. That cut out a lot.

  I cheated in a duel, and he died.

  He was more or less willing to admit that he did that on purpose. She knew secrets anyway and, besides, couldn't tell anyone. But he wanted her to still like him, which felt by the minute like a taller order.

  "My dad was using his connections to put me on the front lines," he said after a time, out loud. That part seemed to come out right; that part seemed to get across to her the gravitas of the situation. "I didn’t know what to do." That part was true enough. "So I decided to try giving him bigger problems than me." Perhaps I’m stretching a little, but mostly accurate. "And he died. He didn’t seem like he could die."

  He really had to tell her at some point about the [Whisper], but he couldn't think of how to say it right now.

  “Your dad is— your dad was a Topper. They’re crazy. ‘Glory today, death tomorrow’, all those morbid songs Earnest sings. I’m sorry he did that to you.”

  She was clearly still processing, so he went back to his coffee while he let her.

  “Effie’s a terrible influence,” Charity complained, watching him. “Coffee stunts your growth.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But Dalliance,” she said, “Even with what your dad did, even if your life was at risk."

  He waited for her to get around to her point.

  "And your response to that was to go and risk the lives of two people? At least? What if Cadence had hurt your mother?”

  “He already knew. I'm sure he already knew," Dalliance said. "That’s why I put it on the billboard, to force his hand anyway.”

  "But what if his wounded honor had required him to do something different?" she said. "Something you didn’t expect? It could have been your mom, or Parsimony, or both. He could have—”

  “He didn’t do anything to Ma already, so he wasn’t going to.”

  “Easy to say when it’s not your life on the line. Wait.”

  She held up a hand, interrupting herself.

  Dalliance’s blood was rising, but he listened.

  “Your mother was part of the problem, but just an enabler. Risking her life is wrong. But you didn’t think you were doing that. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t want to risk anyone’s life, you know.” It wasn’t like it had been his idea of a fun Dowsday night, nip down to Talbotton and start a family feud.

  “I . . . believe you. But. Parsimony . . . He almost died, you know."

  She would know that much already. “Yes.”

  "So?" she said.

  I did save Parsimony.

  He couldn’t say it.

  He deserved it, he almost got us killed for no good reason.

  He couldn’t say it.

  Parsimony was the only one who could . . . who I could get to fight Da. Because I could get Da to fight him. I didn’t have a lot of options.

  "I didn’t see any other options.”

  “Why didn’t you go to someone? My father?”

  Huh. Dalliance hadn’t even thought of that. Would it have worked?

  Maybe.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  She shook her head, black curls spilling out of her black lace hair covering.

  “I didn’t even think of it.”

  The tread of the proprietor interrupted the tense moment between them. “Anything for the pretty young lady?”

  She allowed that a cinnamon roll might be nice. Dalliance was out of coffee.

  He took a perverse pleasure in ordering more.

  Once they were alone again, for however long that would last, Charity leaned forward, hissing a whispered “Let me get this straight: your skill shows you all these alternatives, and you're still not thinking through all your alternatives before acting? That's . . . you have to be more than your skill. You have to think long term, strategy! You're better than this! You're so smart!”

  “I’m not.” He tried to keep the anger out of his voice. “I just wanted to go to class.”

  “You keep reacting, Dalliance! You reach for the sharpest tool near-to-hand and stab first, think later! You did that at graduation, and you did it here, but this time someone died. You can’t just react, you have to have rules!”

  She wasn’t wrong. Sharpest thing near-to-hand. Stab.

  But she was wrong about one part: he wasn’t in a position to tell the world what his role in it would be. He could go where he was kicked, or get kicked again. For now.

  “‘Choice is a privilege of power’,” he quoted. Mister Best had mentioned it a time or two.

  “You could have run away. Or asked my dad. Or shown everybody your fingers!”

  No, he couldn’t. It was embarrassing, for one thing, but his Da had already told people the hilarious story of Dalliance and the thresher. She didn’t understand.

  “No.” he said flatly. “Maybe your dad. But I can’t be a deserter, and I didn’t think of your dad but what would he have even done?”

  She hesitated.

  “That’s why people have rules, is for situations where things look horrible! You don’t need rules for when everything’s fine. Like . . . 'Don't kill.' It’s not because the gods care, as such."

  “No?”

  This was a new one on Dalliance, and briefly distracted him from the growing anger in his belly. If anyone would know, she would.

  “Gremantle values resolution over the lives of the committed, in duels, so. No, I think it’s because it’s bad for us, the worshippers, to do these idiotic things we keep wanting to do. But you’re distracting me from my point.”

  "Which is what?”

  “I think we need to talk to ev—to the group about this."

  He ran a tired hand over his eyes.

  "You think we need to have a council meeting," he said.

  "I think we need to talk about this. I don’t think it was very good for you to do this, and I don’t think it would be very good for you to just get away with it without having consequences."

  "Who are you?" he asked. "My mom?"

  “When good people do bad things because they don’t have a choice they feel bad about it.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  He’d worried about that.

  “You’re not acting like it. That’s why I think we need to talk about this soon, if we can manage it.” Charity's face looked apologetic, but her words were firm. “I know you care about us, and I know you’re trying to—you care what’s right.”

  “Yeah?”

  The coffee was scalding. He sipped it anyway. “Your roll is getting cold.”

  "I’m sorry," she said. "I didn't think I would ever be mixed up in a murder; even if you had no choice. I need to process this."

  “You think I don’t?”

  And this isn’t . . . about you. If you put me on trial it should be about me.

  "I don’t know enough to say if you had to. I don’t know enough," she said, her tone rising and clearly frustrated, "to weigh in on duels, or your options. And my first reaction is to be really mad at you for hurting someone, and being careless with people's lives, and manipulating people. And I don’t know if you had a better option, and I want to ask Effie."

  She took a small bite, but her heart wasn’t in it. He noticed, idly, that he could have fit three of her bites in his one. A small note of warmth in a double-handful of ice.

  You’re both nobles, he wanted to say, what would she know. But he knew better. Charity had lived her life between the pages of books.

  "Fine. Ask her," Dalliance said, frustrated. "It’ll be our own personal inquest" The joke wasn’t funny, even to him.

  And she wasn’t laughing.

  "This," she said instead, "is exactly what I didn’t want when you guys told me we were going to be a council, when I was pushing back. This is what I didn’t want. This is why I was afraid. Individuals can police their own actions, but if one person in the group does something, it affects everyone in the group by reputation."

  "That doesn’t have to be true," he said.

  She looked at him blankly.

  "It’s true right now," he admitted. "But it doesn’t," he said stubbornly, "have to be true all the time."

  “The thing I’m afraid of, which is why I want to talk to Effie about it, is . . . .”

  “Rules. Limits."

  He thought about his practicals class. "If I don’t know what you’re going to do," he said softly, "then I can’t trust you. More limits means more trust."

  "Exactly," she breathed.

  “Like the oath.”

  But you don’t understand the pressures I was under. Am under.

  "And I’m not honoring the same limits you are, and it’s worrying you. But.”

  “But?” She’d started to look relieved, and now looked frustrated again.

  This happened just the one time. But he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t argue exceptionalism every time. And if he did, she’d tell him that he could argue guilt and responsibility every time. Which meant he had to get in the habit of assuming responsibility first. And she’d ask him if he’d do it again.

  Would he do it again, knowing how he felt the first time, after?

  He didn’t know.

  "If you want to talk about it with everyone, that’s fine," he muttered, "but you don’t get to do that after you beat me up about it. Pick one." He didn’t really feel good for saying it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked hurt. “I . . . I’m just sorry. I should go.”

  He was feeling guilty. She had called him out on it, he had known it was going to happen, and he deserved to feel guilty, so that made him angry. And that felt stupid.

  “Don’t. I’m done here anyway. I . . . will see you at the ‘inquest’.”

  Mean. That was mean. Her mouth tightened.

  He drank his whole coffee in a blistering series of messy gulps, and, cheeks flaming, left her, into the rain.

  When a dripping Dalliance strode through the doors of his Aeromancy class, he was already in a terrible mood.