Sorcery classes have been canceled until the magister's college sends a new instructor, preferably one with fewer homicidal tendencies. Well I can't promise that everyone prefers that but I sure as hell do. And so without any class to check in at between geography and literature, I went ahead and let myself off-campus.

  After saying bye to my friends after lunch I formed my portal and headed off-

  "Natalie! Wait!"

  I left the door open, and turned to look over my shoulder. Kimothy was flying my way on a bank of fog, with a movement that looked a lot like he was skiing across the sorcerously-strengthened smog. "Oh, hi Kimothy," I said. Antagonist. Love interest. The Sorcerer.

  "I figured you had this period off too, until the magisters send us a new professor to replace the one you killed," he said with entirely thoughtless nonchalance by the way. Ahem. "So if you're headed out, I'd like to tag along."

  "Well," I said, "I was just thinking of excuses to turn you down but now I'm realizing I should probably have you along for this anyway. Do you drink?"

  "I'm not in the habit of it," he said. He's not younger than me, but sorcerers can come into their magic at almost any age. I mean, obviously not at obnoxiously young ages like ten, that's just me, but he could be taking Freshman Sorcery if he's fifteen or nineteen and I'm just now realizing that I have no fucking clue how old he actually is. He's either a fifteen-year-old with very defined features or a twenty-five-year old with a charming amount of baby fat.

  "Good," I said. "Today's not the day to start. Step inside my parlor," and I led the way into the featureless white void. He followed and I shut the door, and let us out into the Final Form, the adventurer's tavern that I visited once before to make contact with Digger Jdim, the best vault-run manager in the business. Or at least the best one in Hearstcliff that was available at the time.

  Kimothy staggered as he stepped out, his foot catching on the curved edge of the portal. "Whoa. Is this an adventurer's tavern?"

  Clearly Kimothy had never been taught how to play it cool and not act like a tourist, he was gaping at every trophy and memento, broken blades and stuffed heads. A roomful of habitually-watchful hardcases stared at the student sorcerer who, in this moment, was behaving exactly like a teenaged tourist in the toughest tavern around.

  I cruised up to the bartop, and gave a nod to the tender there. "Afternoon," I said. "Juice please."

  He nodded to me. He had his sleeves rolled up like always, but with forearms like hamhocks it's possible that those sleeves could not roll down. Or he was just proud of his arms. He took a gleaming-clean glass and set it on the counter, and pulled a chilled jug of fruit juice from a hidden recess and poured it up for me. "You looking for Digger?" he asked. Should I be impressed that he remembered me?

  "Not today," I said. "Though, I should ask just to be sure he got the message."

  The bartender glanced over at Kimothy and started pouring a second glass of juice for him, unasked. "Yeah, he got the message. And then he cussed a blue streak in the air, threw the table over, kicked the wall, and got to work. He'll be ready for you in ten months."

  "Good," I said. "But that's my longer-term goals. I've got other irons that need fires. Are you the guy to talk to about accreditations for about six-to-ten new adventurers? I know we should be guild-confirmed before we make even a single venture."

  "You'd be wrong, you're supposed to be guild-certified before you start reconnaissance ahead of a venture," he said. "So you're already late."

  "Stand down," I chuckled, and leaned my elbows onto the bartop. "There's been no reconnaissance, and I haven't been within a hundred miles of the site."

  "How do you know there's a site with no surveying?" he countered.

  Kimothy looked at him with appraisal in his eyes. "Is this you being difficult, or is the adventurer's guild actually that backwards?"

  "It's all me," the bartender winked at him. I chuckled and drank my juice. "In any case, I'm not the person you need to reach, but I am the person who will reach out to that person on your behalf. I'll start the process. And, if I may slip the mask to be a little less of a ball-busting obstructionist, I would suspect that you need no reconnaissance for the same reason you did not need to examine our cranberry juice to know it was dangerous?"

  "Precisely," I said. "This will not be a standard mission with the standard procedures."

  The man took up his clean dishcloth and started polishing glasses again. It seemed like a tic. "I should say not. If you're looking for a half-dozen licenses and not asking for any registered members, you're planning on bringing several virgin, forgive the term, venturers into a distant delve with no recon. That is far, far from standard operation."

  Kimothy winced at the grapefruit juice. It's an acquired taste. "Sorry, what? Is that really what is being arranged here?"

  "Oh, absolutely," I said. "I'm not sure who we're putting on the team, but we're putting together a team."

  The other sorcerer looked a little trepidatious now. "Uh, and they're all students from the school?"

  "Not all," I said. But almost all? Yes.

  "Students?" the bartender cut in. "You both look pretty fresh, but-"

  "Academy," I answered before the question was fully formed. "We're all of-age."

  "A mage's school, or the Academy?" he said. "I'd like to know if I'm sending mage-trainees or just entitled peerage out to face cold camps and booby traps."

  Kimothy looked like he was tempted to blurt in with a helpful lie, but I was having too much fun with the truth. "Oh, it's the Academy for sure," I said. "But it's all right, only a couple of my prospects are blue-blooded."

  The bartender snorted. "Take my advice, never take anyone above the station of a baron out on a treasure hunt."

  My smile was huge and radiant. "I'm an earl by courtesy," I said, setting my elbow on the counter and setting my chin on my fist, a very 'ain't-I-cute' kind of pose.

  He knew what a title by courtesy means and he cussed under his breath as he set down his rag and glass. "My lady," he said bowing slightly from the waist. "Wait, so-"

  "So, after we make arrangements for a guild monitor and credentials, we're likely to need a meeting point and a depot for our supplies," I said. "I don't suppose you've got a meeting room to be rented and an unfurnished storage space for lease?"

  He looked at me oddly, finally a little uneasy. "Yyyess, we do have something exactly like that," he said. "And I wonder what else you need that is readily available."

  "Shopping comes later," I said indifferently. "We're planning still."

  And I proceeded to make arrangement while Kimothy, watching me from the side, looked more and more fascinated.

  [ Quest Checkpoint Complete. Advancement: The Sorcerer ]

  I had suspected that his quest-line was going to be more hands-on than some of them. We don't explore The Sorcerer's options by taking classes and polite conversations, after all. We gotta do some magic.

  "The other day was very nice," Trazom said, walking me to the music hall. "People showed me things, and asked me about things, that had nothing at all to do with music. You asked me about my preferences in scents, and for as many times as I've been asked to discern a pitch or a key or a tempo, I can't recall anyone being interested in what I was smelling. I did appreciate getting back to music afterwards... but I may have done myself some injustices by staying so very focused for such a long time. Some diversity is required."

  "I agree," I said. "And I thought you handled yourself very well. That walking tour of the local shops was not what I would have called a picnic, but it was the most genuine and unaffected a smile as I've ever seen on your face. You've been a performer for a long time and your face normally shows what you think people expect from you. This time you really looked happy."

  This smile now was a little wistful or bittersweet. "Ah, if there's that much of a difference then perhaps I really am overdue for some vacation," he said. "I hope we can do it again soon."

  "We will have to negotiate when 'soon' shall be," I said with regret. We strolled the campus, headed for the building. This time he did not hold my arm, but let me walk unassisted. A minor lapse of protocol but after spending all of Sixthday running about with both our hands free, it had felt natural to return to that configuration. "I have some plans this weekend that would be difficult to negotiate. And I'm not sure what Larianne has planned for us next weekend, if nothing else comes up."

  "I do look forward to more day trips of that sort," he said. "But also, perhaps, at a smaller scale. Discussing something else. Not this- we're just talking about what we talk about, which is barely a step removed from talking about the fact that we normally talk about music, which is a step removed from just discussing music. But... things. Subjects."

  I shrugged. "For as many society events as you attend, I bet that hardly anyone discusses House politics with you. I may envy that because nearly everyone else has to discuss it to a tiresome extremity at all of these events."

  He chuckled. "Your tiresome inevitability is my fresh novelty. No, I am barely aware that the Houses even have politics, let alone what they may be. I know the Houses by their tours, sponsorships, donations, event schedules, special requests, fanmail, and such... but it is always someone speaking to Enefiat Trazom the musician. I never really speak to anyone about the matters that other people speak of."

  "Would you like to learn more about politics then?" I asked. "Or the subjects of the season? Fashions and weather and trade, taxes and shops and small talk?"

  "Goodness," he said, with a small smile to his face. He wasn't seeing me, he looked out onto a wide vista of possibility, small talk. "People talk about shops? What do they say?"

  "Which ones are good or bad, which ones you've had a good experience at or bad. The hours, the selection, whether the cashier gave you the correct change or if someone's husband was looking at her inappropriately. Which shops are hard to find but worth it, which ones are overrated. Whether a store has gone downhill since they changed management or if they have those lights that bother your eyes. The best times to stop by to find the shelves stocked with best selection or which days they get new inventory in. That one time that you saw the very last box of whatever-you-wanted and you grabbed for it, but someone else tried at the same time... you know. Shops."

  "Amazing," he said, with a breaking smile. "And people really do?"

  "Most of the people you see every day have a conversation like that at least a couple times a month," I said. "Some multiple times per day. People always ask each other where they have been shopping."

  "Nobody ever asks me where I've been shopping."

  "Well, for one thing you're Enefiat Trazom and most people realize they probably only have a few minutes to talk to you and they should make the most of those minutes. But for another, everyone already knows you don't go shopping. You've been wearing the same coat and shoes and breeches for years, and before that you wore the same thing in smaller sizes. Your look is signature, part of what makes you easily recognizable. Soon when men start dressing several years behind the fashions, they'll say that they are dressing in your style."

  He pondered. "Is my style several years behind what is fashionable?"

  "Nearly a dozen, but yes," I said. "As I said, it's an identifiable look."

  "I believe I might be more comfortable with a signature look if it was one I chose of my own volition and not simply because nobody ever talks to me about my clothes," he said stiffly. "I may not choose to be unfashionable if I had the option."

  I tried to give a reassuring tone. "I think most people assume that you're so busy concentrating on your performances that you have little time or attention for such fripperies."

  "But I'm not!" he protested. "I could do both! Music is easy, I don't need to sacrifice all the rest of my life just to be great! I've time and energy enough!"

  He whirled, grabbed my biceps. I did not push back and take him down, but I considered it. I washed my channels with steel essence, and felt myself rooted strong and solid, just in case. "Natalie. Lady Harigold. I implore you: teach me to discuss the matters of the day. Coach me to behave as more than a musical monkey. Break me out of out-of-fashion clothing and stilted conversations about the only thing that people think matters to me."

  [ Quest Checkpoint Complete: 10 XP. Advancement: The Famous ]

  Well, for ten experience points I'm not going to say no, am I?

  "Very well, Trazom. I shall tutor you in the political currents that shape our lives. And I'll try to find a suitable venue to find you some new wardrobe. No place that Elica, Larianne or Vancy would shop."

  "I rather like Lady Vancy's use of color."

  "Not with your complexion. I suppose that will need to be our next lesson," I chuckled, "but not today. We'll follow up tomorrow. For now," I gestured at the front doors. "We have class."

  "Maybe too much class," he grumbled, opening the doors for me.

  I tried to avoid Nathan without it looking like I was avoiding him. Sometimes I had been known to fly or teleport to or from Geography, and sometimes my lunch and dinner breaks would be spent busy with someone else, or taken up with my science classes or sorcery classes. But there were just too many places where he and I intersect, and it was study hall that finally caught up to me.

  There were only stragglers in the hall, moving back and forth and showing no interest at all in what the Harigold twins might have to say to one another. The well-appointed hallway was mute witness to our meeting.

  "Natalie," he said, and straightened up from the wall he was leaning against. "Is everything all right? I heard that you got hurt again at camogie practice, and after last week-"

  "No, I'm just fine," I said. I know my smile wasn't what it usually was. I could play that off. He didn't necessarily realize that I overheard him talking about how easily manipulated I am. He could think that I'm just covering up for the injuries I took in practice.

  He's gotten used to watching me cover up and pretend not to be hurt, after all. And he's gotten used to pretending to believe me.

  God, what a terrible state of affairs that is. I never really thought that through: I habitually pretend not to be hurt because I don't want people to worry. And Nathan is always the first one to pretend that I'm fooling him.

  "Well I am glad to hear you're well," he said, looking genuinely relieved. "But people were talking, you know how people talk, and I wanted to make sure. It's not the first time I've had to worry about you."

  Bam-bam, one-two, right on schedule. Exactly like he told Lachel: he would bring up the power of rumors, how they could hurt people, and tie that to our shared past and all the soft gentle feelings associated with that. Exactly by the playbook I overheard. But it still feels natural. That doesn't feel stilted. "I'm glad you're well, but people were talking- you know how people talk- and I wanted to make sure! It's not the first time I've had to worry about you-" that's a very normal thing to say, until you dissect it looking for exactly this manipulative message.

  And even while I am watching his face and searching it for some sign of deception of cynicism or scheming, I still can't see anything. His face is every bit as guileless, ingenuous and earnest as ever. Exactly.

  So either he has utterly perfected the art of showing me this honest face under every circumstance-

  - or I haven't seen his face when he wasn't trying to deceive and exploit me, not in years.

  Anger flooded me like I had a snowball in my stomach and ice in my veins, a shivered all over but I tried to school my face. "Yeah, I remember," I said to cover my reaction. "Sorry, sometimes that memory still catches me the wrong way..." I couldn't look at him, I stared at the corner of the wall. But he seemed to be buying it. Maybe he's put so many skill points into deceiving others that there's none left over for recognizing deception in others. "Tell you what, I'll stop by the healer after study hall, the chaperone at my free period is a healer. That should mend a couple bruises."

  He stepped forward. "I don't think you will," he said softly. "Natalie.. do get the healer, all right? Don't walk around injured. You should not let yourself forget who you are without suffering to define you."

  I bit my lip hard. "That's what everyone does," I said. "Why would I be the exception? Why would I be the one person not defined by the bruises and scars?"

  "People are a medley," he said. "Good and bad, that's what gives the soul its shape. You'll still be yourself if you're not in pain, you know."

  I took a deep breath, and blew it out. Channeling steel now. "Right. I'll take care of that. But you need to take care of your mission. Where are you at with those shipping manifests?"

  He paused. "I haven't mentioned... You are not usually this specific. I think I understand what is implied by that. Anyway, the shipping manifests seem to be a dead end, so I've been-"

  "They're-" I facepalmed, the sound of the smack echoing down the hall. Calming breath. Try again. "They're not a dead end. Follow up on that. Tomorrow."

  I walked into the study hall, and tried to keep the disgust off my face. He's been pursuing his romance options except where it would advance the plotline. He's avoiding the Blight clues if they don't lead him back to the girls he likes best. This was almost more disappointing than finding out that he's been callously calculating the best ways to marionette me. I've spent fifteen years figuring out how to be the best colleague for him in this mission, and now he's pulling some avoiding-the-call bullshit when he knows that about a million citizens of Meadowtam are relying on him.

  Great. It's not just that I'm losing faith in him as a brother. He's also letting me down as a hero.

  I stormed up the riser stairs but only in a dignified and patient way. I sat down next to Quarl Biliams, which seemed to catch him off-guard. Usually either he comes to sit by me, or I walk in and sit somewhere else. But dammit, I really need to get away from my brother right now because I am actively fighting against a growing belief that my brother might be kind of an idiot.

  If your twin sister who can see the future tells you to be a hero and solve the dangerous mystery, do you investigate the clues or fuck off to flirt with a cute girl?!

  "Everything all right?" Quarl asked cautiously.

  "My brother is a fifteen-year-old boy," I snarled.

  He nodded slowly, clearly having trouble understanding why this is a source of aggrievement to me. "And you are his fifteen-year-old sister," he acknowledged carefully.

  "Don't rub it in," I sulked, sinking into my chair. I glared around the room. Nothing here that I can do anything about for another couple of days. "Quarl, you know what I need right now? Someone else's problems. I'm tired of my own right now. What've you got?"

  He looked quite taken aback by my very normal and reasonable request. "Ah, uh, well? There's- a small issue of debt collection."

  "I am intrigued by your problems, tell me more," I said, giving a rolling-wrist keep-it-coming gesture.

  He seemed baffled by my behavior, which is strange because I was acting so normal about this. "Yes, well, some associates of mine had been contracted for a very specific and singular mission which they did accomplish with verve and aplomb, and in fact they did such an exemplary job that someone might think they did nothing at all and that the subject of this assignment happened to reach the desired outcome by natural causes. Since my associates were contracted specifically to make it seem as if nothing had happened, this is in fact an optimal outcome, but the client they invoiced for the assignment has claimed they shirked duties and relied on luck. Now, this would normally be referred to a claims or debt collection department, but, ah, the outsourced contractors they might go to are actually frequent employers of this service. And, because of other matters that are not relevant this discussion, the contractors in question have been charging premium rates to the collection people. And they would rather not pay the, frankly retaliatory, rates, that the collections people are demanding. So, caught between an unreasonable client they have done good work for, and a collections department they have a bit of a feud with, these associates of mine are in need of someone who can bring an element of.. well, some very compelling arguments on their behalf."

  Or, in normal words, his friends killed someone for another guy, and that guy refuses to pay, and the legbreakers they would use to collect the debt are having a tiff, so it would be expensive. And they want someone who can intimidate the wayward client into paying the debt.

  "That sounds fun and easy," I said. "What's the catch?"

  "Well, it has been neither fun nor easy for anyone else," Quarl pointed out. "The client is rich, powerful, influential, and arrogant. And he owes a substantial amount. If we kill him to send a message to other clients, we will never get paid for the job, which was substantial. And if we don't, it encourages other clients to stiff us."

  "Hah, that does sound more tough. Well, I've got options that your people don't have. Who's the client?"

  "Ommanuol Tsilven," Quarl said. He used the tone of voice of someone who expected me to immediately say 'oh well in that case there's no deal, I'd have to be crazy to try that!', but instead I grinned like I'd just gotten offered a week of Christmases.

  "Oh, joys and delights," I snickered. "I'll try and have this resolved before the week is out. Do you have an address?"