“He’s insane,” said Earnest. “Seriously, you could tell someone.”

  The fields they were walking through had already been harvested: stalks of corn littered the ground and crunched under their feet. Hundreds of feet from anyone, with the rustle-and-crunch of the ground, it was safe to talk. Dalliance did this with Topaz all the time.

  “He’s too smart,” Dalliance repeated. This was not the first or last time they’d have this same conversation. “He—”

  “—You could run away. I know you could.”

  “Of course I could. That’s not the point. He’s got Whimsy.”

  Not a selling point for his friend, but he was kind enough not to say so.

  A missed ear of corn caught his eye. He snatched it up. He tore off silk and husk, then snapped it into democratic halves. Earnest accepted the smaller one with feigned reluctance, but fell to happily.

  “There’s also,” he said, mouth full, “things like ‘what would I eat’?”

  Earnest nodded reluctantly.

  “I guess.”

  The bundled shapes of industrial plows, covered against the dew, loomed before them.

  ‘Bolts can pop off,’ Earnest had suggested. ‘Shear right off.’

  The big, soil-turning discs were held on by a single bolt at the end of the shaft. Seemed plausible.

  But that wouldn’t ruin the blade and require his uncle and his files.

  So instead, they were burying a watermelon-sized rock in the field under a thin film of dirt. The plow would break when Dalliance was at school. It was perfect.

  Dalliance watched the sun brighten to full morning with a heavy heart. He hadn’t enjoyed the sabotage. Da would be out there right now. It was too late to fix things, even if he wanted to.

  Piss.

  It'd been one of the best ways forward, yes, but his Da would be in a foul temper, as he always was when he’d done something foolish he couldn’t blame on someone else.

  And there was no telling how long it would take for Impetuous to make his way there.

  His uncle liked to brag that the tinker's life took him hither and thither without warning. To Dalliance's mind, that just meant the man couldn't be trusted to show up when required. He'd probably be finishing a route that went somewhere far—out to the edge of The Overlook, maybe. Get a runner from Da, have to turn around. Spend maybe weeks camping on the trail.

  They'd rob him.

  The plan had sounded so much more foolproof when it was being whispered between two pre-teen voices in the dark of a barn than it did now, examined in the bright sunshine coming through the classroom window.

  Mrs. Best, having handed out wax tablets and demonstrated the angles of a triangle, now walked up and down the aisles. She caught his eye. He was staring out the window.

  "Bored, Mister Rather?" she asked.

  "Just worried about my Da," he said without thinking.

  Earnest's eyes widened. He shot Dalliance an incredulous look.

  Mrs. Best, for her part, looked intrigued. "Why would you need to worry about your father?" she asked.

  "It's just . . . the planting isn't going well," Dalliance elaborated, digging the hole deeper. "I predict he's not going to be very happy today."

  "Your father is a corn farmer, is he not?" Sterling asked from his desk.

  They probably made him memorize everybody's contribution, Dalliance supposed. It was hard to manage and tax what you didn't know was there.

  He nodded.

  "It's been a good year for corn," Sterling stated, a hint of challenge in his voice. "If it's seed corn he needs, I could have my father send a sack down."

  A nice gesture.

  "It's appreciated," Dalliance said shortly, hoping to close the topic. He was surprised to find he meant it. The older boy, though usually defensive, had been oddly thoughtful since the hunt. Dalliance had seen him opening doors for the girls, passing things across the table instead of making people reach.

  Could it be humility, he wondered. Maybe not. But getting the tar scared out of him seemed to have done Sterling some good.

  “Sorry to hear that, Dalliance,” said Charity from her desk, which had mysteriously become the one to his left. Clear blue eyes studied him for a moment, then widened. “You’re done already.”

  Crap.

  He’d just . . . thoughtlessly completed the interlocking triangles angular problem up on the board while thinking about how badly his Da would kill him if he found out where the stone had come from. It had been hard to get into position, too, and left a deep hole where they excavated it that they’d tried to fill with a mouldering hay bale.

  It wasn’t perfect.

  And now he’d let himself stand out in class—again. Key to the strategy he’d come up with, with Topaz’s help, had been ‘stay unremarkable’.

  So far, not so good.

  “As you may recall, he said he’d increased his Wit, as well,” commented Mister Best, feet up on the dunce stool as was his habit, a Capitol Press paper spread out on his lap. “Every rank may be thought of as half again the benefit of the previous ranks in totality. For those of you who have already finished your geometry, perhaps a series of multiplications may be instructive.”

  The class groaned.

  “Failing that, would anyone like to give the class an update on their progress toward arming themselves?”

  To Dalliance’s shock, Charity raised her hand. “I cut down a sapling yesterday and borrowed the use of the lathe in the square for a half an hour,” she said modestly. “I haven’t saved up for a spearhead yet, but I’m making progress.”

  “Very well done,” he congratulated her. Prudence raised a hand, and was called upon.

  “My throwing axe is mostly useless, but my brother has a brazier he’s trading to the smith for something bigger, on a long haft. I don’t know what you call that.”

  “Typically, such things are known as war-axes,” suggested Mister Best, “though we shall have to inspect yours to know for sure. I suggest getting a spike on the backside, for versatility. Or a hook.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and curtseyed.

  Curtseyed. Everyone was trying to be so . . . proper and serious.

  Earnest burped.

  Nevermind.

  “Anyone else?”

  Dalliance raised his hand again. Earnest sighed heavily. “I was thinking—I know how to sling hunt. Does that scale?”

  “In a word? No. But thank you for this opportunity to elucidate upon the why.”

  Mister Best took a moment drawing what looked like a cylinder with a sphere upon the inner surface, connected by a cone to a stick figure’s hand.

  “This is the sling. He’s whirling it around, and the stored potential from the whirling makes it hit harder, yes? So, we whirl it faster, and it tears through the sling bag, and hits Charity while she’s out looking at the green grocer’s for watercress. That’s why it won’t scale, in a nutshell. However—does it need to scale? To one with the right timing, such things become much less important.”

  His gaze at Dalliance was piercing, like he was reading writing on the backside of his skull.

  Dalliance took a seat, mind whirling like Mister Best’s sling, and completely missed the rest of the class.

  Weeks passed waiting for his uncle, just as he’d worried they might, every day following the same frustrating rhythm: each morning he’d look for his uncle’s cart, and each morning he’d fall in line with Miss Thicket Wimple’s cart, disappointed. Inquiries after his uncle’s health, dared from desperation, came to nothing. The arming assignment became a source of constant, low-grade worry, something he tried to put out of his mind with chores. With no Hunts scheduled, Cadence saw fit to increase his workload, leaving little time for anything else. The stalks stood stubborn and splintered long after they should’ve been turned under, but with the corn gathered away the stress of harvest faded, to be replaced by the stress of preparing preserves, pressing linens, and making ready for the holiday.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  What little time he had, he dedicated to the sling. Officially, it was practice for Mister Best's assignment, and in fact, he’d begun to consider the sling his backup plan.

  The issue with a sling, the main one, is that you can’t see where it’s going to hit. It’s all to do with knowing your equipment, getting the exact instant of release to complete a revolution, and leave the sling pouch with full velocity.

  But while [Prediction] was active? There was no question as to when to release.

  No matter how well he aimed, though, a piece of gravel still hit as hard as a piece of gravel does.

  Which, providing a pheasant for the table, had done a lot to restore him to Whimsy’s good graces, if nothing else.

  And if a sling wasn’t the weapon of a mighty warrior of Grit and thews, at least Da had to admit that he was ‘putting in the work, and would most likely benefit for it.’

  Topaz said he was silly, throwing rocks at things, but said it with a smile.

  And then, on a day where the country-sized shards of rock suspended in the sky above bore the familiar symbol of a sun with hands, a week before Rememberance, his uncle’s cart moseyed through the farm’s gates behind him on his way back from class.

  Finally.

  He needed a weapon for the second hunt. A real one.

  Earnest’s plan was simple. Simple and stupid. ‘Just grab whatever sticks out,’ he’d chirped. As if a tinker wouldn’t notice a missing spear.

  Besides, what if he grabbed a sword?

  There was only one sword in town, and it belonged to Sterling Worth. Being the only other kid to suddenly own a sword, particularly just after one went missing, would put him on the fast track to the chopping block. Tongues would wag. Then hands would be chopped. His hands.

  No. A simple grab-and-run was out.

  The Wall, then? Scavenging fallen weapons from the Wall was legal, but only because it was suicide. They wouldn’t even let two twelve-year-olds near it. Another dead end.

  That left the original, complicated plan. Rob his uncle. Earnest still insisted that they not just steal, but swap. Leave a decoy, take the real thing, and hope Impetuous was too busy on his route to notice the difference until he was a hundred miles away. They’d have to brutalize the maker’s mark, refinish the wood, and hide it until the hunt itself. It was a terrible plan, full of risks.

  It was also the only one they had.

  Dalliance approached the cart, his eyes scanning for his uncle, or goods out for display—but of course there were none. The man himself was taller than Da, with sun-kissed skin and crow’s feet that came from smiling. A satin hat, an indulgence Cadence would never allow, sat jauntily on his head.

  Impetuous was a confusing man; he had the family's violent temper, but unlike the others, he actually looked at you when you spoke, a flicker of genuine interest in his eyes.

  The man was oddly likable.

  His uncle considered himself an expert on food. Since he traveled so much, he never visited without bringing some interesting new spice, or a sauce in a glass jar, or a strange kind of jerky. This time, he had weird wrinkly little orange things. He asked Charity if he should add them to the stew, and she—always the gracious hostess—told him, "Yes, that would be great! The more the merrier!"

  As it turned out, he hadn't actually tried them before either.

  Da, with his ridiculously high Grit, just laughed his ass off. The rest of them—the entire family, including the uncle—made a frantic beeline for the outhouses. The only one spared was Whimsy. She'd been feeling temperamental and had refused to even try the new food. As she went to stand up, smug in her victory, Da asked her if she thought it was okay to just leave a full plate on the table.

  Dalliance, newly returned, almost cried laughing, but made an excuse and went straight to his own outhouse. When finally able to leave it, he returned to his room to find a surprise guest.

  "Dalliance, you have to let me use your outhouse," Whimsy demanded, her voice tight with urgency. "Please. This is an emergency."

  "What's wrong with yours?" he asked.

  "Uncle's in it!"

  Figured.

  "Look," he started to say, "I don't think you want to—"

  "You don't know what I want!" she snapped, and ran off toward the welcoming support of the still-warm outhouse bench.

  He could have warned her what she was walking into. But he forgot, hotfooting it out to the wagon instead. He wouldn’t have long.

  It was cooler outside, especially compared to the fire in his belly.

  Dalliance steeled himself. Liking his uncle didn't change the facts. The rule for the next hunt was clear: upgrade from a bow and arrow, or fail. A single failure could mean losing one of the three slots at the King's Collegiate, and with it, any chance of becoming a [Mage].

  It was his uncle's profits for a season versus his entire future.

  The choice wasn't a choice at all.

  But, as shaking hands untied and retied leather thongs and unpacked and repacked oilcloth sacks, it became clear: this was all in vain.

  The tinker’s inventory, all told, was scanty:

  Several dozen piton-knives, whose teardrop cross-section, eyehook ends, and slight curve made for serviceable climbing or tent-canvas support, or in the utter extremity, a makeshift survival tool and weapon—his uncle's specialty. The man was very proud of them.

  A handful of spearheads, less spear shafts or mounting nails, but extremely sharp and coated in beeswax for the journey.

  Two books—on herbs both tame and otherwise of the heavenly isles, and Todd the Troll Learns Organic Chemistry—both well-layered in preservative wool, oilcloth, and twine.

  And pots and pans, candles and ointments, and blacksmith puzzles.

  He heard someone approaching and grabbed one of the latter. His uncle was always bragging about the puzzles.

  The man climbed into the cart, seemingly undisturbed by the presence of his nephew, and sat backwards in the front. Dalliance’d had just enough time to sit down and really look at the puzzle in front of him.

  “Solve that one and I’ll show you the one I really like,” his uncle said good-humoredly.

  With shaking hands, Dalliance did just that. Three horseshoes, joined with two links of chain each, each link looped with a steel ring, the three rings joined to a central star.

  It was ten silent minutes later that the star came free in his palm, and he presented it to his uncle with a flourish.

  “Yeah, that’s how it’s done,” he acknowledged. “So. We should probably talk man-to-man, about how you were going through my cart and all.”

  Dalliance didn’t look at his eyes as he nodded, but his uncle just rolled up on one hip and dug around behind the stacks on his side, eventually coming up with a sliding-bar smith’s puzzle which he passed on as promised.

  “Seems to me, Dalliance, that my brother has plans for you, like he did me. Settle down on the farm, become his mini-me, work till you drop, but you, like me, decided he could sod off and went and picked something else. Me, [Farrier]—figured I like horses as much as they like me, and I’d have to be on the road all the time. Don’t mention that I told you this.”

  “I won’t,” Dalliance promised, still uncertain what was going to happen next.

  “So. You went [Pupil], wagered it all on the pitch-and-toss. And he’s set on you losing, which means no hunter’s tool for you. And then his plow breaks—”

  Dalliance’s face blanched.

  “I thought it, so he might have considered it, but you were at school at the time, weren’t ya. So I says to myself, I’m thinking he’s desperate, and people like that do all sorts of nonsense.”

  Dalliance risked a glance at his uncle, but the man just gestured for him to get to solving the puzzle.

  It was nested U shapes, each locking another and locked by another until nothing could possibly move. Unlike the first, this one would have only one correct first move, and everything would flow naturally from there. He identified the key pin and removed it, but the puzzle remained stuck.

  “So you’re desperate, and wanted dear old uncle here sooo bad. And here I am, come to the rescue.”

  He withdrew something from his trousers and threw it at Dalliance, who caught it awkwardly. “Ah, never take your eye off the opponent,” suggested his uncle.

  It was a sheathed knife, two feet long.

  “Should count as an upgrade for your teacher’s sake, and I’ve paid my protection money and can pass unmolested, yeah? Merchants know when to do that sort of thing. Appease predators.”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry—”

  “—don’t mention it to Cadence, and we’ll call it squaresies. Finish your puzzle, I gotta see my brother’s face when I tell him you beat it and he still can’t.”

  It took another ten minutes, but Dalliance did just that.

  So that took care of him—He wondered how Earnest would take the news.

  Earnest’s face went pale, he was so mad.

  The bitterness in Earnest’s voice was a sharp, unfamiliar thing. "I took actual, real risks for you," he said. "You won't do the same for me, though?"

  Dalliance shook his head, feeling cornered. "You’re not listening. He doesn't even have anything good! I'm not lying about this. Two books, some knives, some trinkets . . . spearheads. I could help you sharpen your spear."

  "Bullshit," Earnest snapped. "I need something else." He sat down heavily on a square bale of hay. "That was underhanded of you," he complained, his voice low and defeated. "What am I supposed to do now? I waited three weeks for this."

  Dalliance searched for a solution, any solution. "What if we got you a net?"

  "What if we got you a net?" Earnest parroted, his voice dripping with mockery. "I'd look stupid, I wouldn't be able to hit anything with it, and I'd still fail."

  "What were you hoping to find?" Dalliance asked quietly.

  "I don't know. Poison would have been best," Earnest growled. "But I'd have taken most things. Spear and something is better than just a spear."

  "What about spear and buckler?"

  Earnest nodded, a flicker of his old self returning. "And you're about to say I should make a buckler out of wood. Get it past Mister Best as a 'craft project.' Say, 'Treat me like a real warrior! Look, I can whittle!'" He spat the words out, the sarcasm thick.

  "No," Dalliance said.

  "I'm not doing it," Earnest concluded, misreading him completely. "Maybe your uncle is off-limits then. That just means I have to go to the city. With or without you."

  "How would you even get into an armory?"

  "I don't know," Earnest said, the sarcasm returning with full force. "I was thinking with the help of a friend. But I can't bank on that, can I?"

  Dalliance should have said no. He should have pointed out the insanity of it, the risk, the sheer impossibility.

  But he didn't.

  This is nothing like Todd the Troll, but I did binge the whole thing. With commentary!