“If you’re going to be back in my room again, I want you in better clothes.”

  My boot nudged Kaspar’s under the desk. “Why? You’ll have them spend more time on your floor than on me.”

  “Don’t you want nicer things to wear? Shirts that don’t look like you’ve stolen them?”

  “You told me I look just fine in the one I stole from you.”

  A voice from afar: “I can hear you both.” Windsong’s. Heat flooded my cheeks and I clamped my mouth shut. “If you’d care to bring your idle wittering to a succinct diminuendo, perhaps you’d find it easier to concentrate on the text before you. Consider: name one of the three core tenets of fourth-wave diviny. Rudd?”

  Kaspar beamed. “Knowledge is equally a blessing and a burden.”

  “Correct. Oakley, another?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Something about not being able to change the course of the river of life, but using what we learn to help us navigate it better?”

  “Close enough.”

  Another voice. One that made my fists clench by the first word alone. “Of course the Muncher knows about rivers! That’s where they all go down to wash once a month!” I knew Windsong would at most tell Stack to quieten down, quieten down, but Kaspar was at my side. It felt uneasy, him having to defend me, but at least I had him. “How come you sit right close to him all the time, posh boy?” came Stack’s voice again and I grimaced. “Being his bodyguard? Doesn’t the awful stink make you wanna pass out down there?”

  When Kaspar punched back, it brought a weird relief. “I suppose I don’t notice it so much since I spend most nights with your mother.”

  Windsong clapped once, loud. “Enough! Gentlemen, enough! On with your work. Stack! Third core tenet of fourth-wave diviny. As soon as you care to.”

  “That, uh, diviners can know some of the future, but can’t presume to know it all, so they should not try to control it, just learn from it.”

  “More or less.”

  “Yeah,” he added, sending a sharkish grin in my direction. “They just wait for the Foresters to fuck it up by starting another war.”

  She turned on her heel like she was about to give him a reprimand, but by now I knew better. She said something under her breath, something I had no chance of hearing from here, but he straightened up at his desk and put his pen to his book.

  I leaned a little closer to Kaspar. “Is it gonna be like this the whole three damn years?” I asked quietly. Couldn’t help my words from shaking.

  “I could not possibly say,” he said, “but I can certainly make it nicer for you. Tomorrow, for the clothes? Make yourself feel more like you ought to.”

  “Busy tomorrow. I’ll be thawing out gripweed out in the roots.”

  “I’ve ascertained most establishments here are shut on Ressday, but we could still try?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got, uh, other things to do.”

  He turned a page in his textbook and as soon as his hand was off it, the page turned itself back over again. “Perhaps this evening? It wouldn’t grant us as much time but…”

  It meant I’d be even busier, but I could handle it. “Works for me!”

  *

  After conjury, we turned left. Kaspar’d managed to light his candle and he’d been glowing the entire rest of the lesson. Second in the class after one of the girls who hung around near Stack – Juniper, I think her name was. I was trying to remember when something warm sparked in my hand.

  Kaspar’s. My heart thumped. “If you’re so inclined?” he asked eagerly and I nodded hard. “Great.” He led me by the hand through the halls and corridors and down that weird little spiral staircase in one of the turrets that I was pretty sure changed between clockwise and anticlockwise when no one was looking, then out into the fresh crisp air of a fine Oldmoon afternoon. A carpet of snow laid before us and I broke contact just for the briefest moment to pull my robe tighter, and it felt like I was wearing something a dozen times thicker. Hand back into hand and we promenaded under the gatehouse gate where the Hill Road got steep, then he ushered me aside to the door of some nestled cabin. “Wait, were you intending to walk the whole way down?”

  I blinked dumbly. Wasn’t aware we had a choice. “Yes? What were you going to do, sit and slide down it?”

  He chuckled. “Probably! It looks a sheet of ice and I’ve no idea how everyone’s acting as if that were normal. Ordinarily I’d only ascend on the funicular, but I fancy it safer while there’s snow about.”

  “Ascend on the what?”

  “Were you not aware of this?” he asked incredulously and pushed through the door. A little room, someone dressed entirely in blue and handing tickets to a short queue of people all in the thickest of coats, waiting at a gate. A fire humming in the hearth. “It’s only one pointer for a journey,” he said and rummaged in his pocket. Pulled out two coins and swapped them for two tickets.

  As we joined the line, something arrived outside. New people filed through the gate, and then we stepped through into what I guessed was a funicular – a set of benches each in their own compartment but all united under one roof, and the whole thing skewed diagonally like it was about to slip down the hill. Kaspar led me onto the rear bench and we sat for all of maybe five seconds, and when the entire thing jolted and began sliding down into some gaping dark tunnel below, I was vaguely aware of clinging my entire body around him. I’d like to think I didn’t scream. At least he had the decency not to mention it.

  *

  He pried me off his body like a shirt after a sudden rainstorm. “What sort of arcany makes that happen?” I asked as soon as I could put words together again, safely on the cobbles of Baronbridge.

  “No arcany. It’s balanced with a counterweight. We had one up to the citadel around our castle.”

  “Our castle?”

  “The one we had in my city,” he said smoothly. “I say ‘we’; it wasn’t mine,” he followed with a self-effacing chuckle. “Like it’s ‘our’ magic college, but I certainly don’t have the title deeds.”

  “I just thought it cool there was a castle there too.”

  “A wall is the most efficient way of separating what you have from what they don’t have,” he said. “Anyway. We’re shopping.”

  The station led straight through to the largest town square I’d ever seen – I think the cities called them plazas – and it made sense cos this was far, far more than anything I knew. The noise hit me like a cudgel as an entire battalion of people paraded from market stall to kiosk, from handcart vendor to actual storefront, from smoking buffet cabin to steaming drinks shack. The noise and bustle made me cling back onto Kaspar. A vanguard of singers all in red sashes chorused a tune I didn’t recognise, and only then could I even see there was a fountain here where some street kids were fishing coins out of the waters. “Lot of people here!” I called up to his ear.

  “It’s not so bad. Where do you want to go?”

  “I can’t see anything! Take me somewhere!”

  He led me by the hand, parting the crowd like wading through deep water with me in his wake, and I held on tight. To not get separated, of course… We wove around something and over the tops of the heads, a statue posed majestically, then I was whisked on and diverted away and we fell out of the thickest part of the crowds to a shop that seemed to sell nothing but gloves. “Your hand’s freezing,” he said. “Would you like to get some?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  I had my scratchy pair still in my room, but I couldn’t say no. I settled on a pair that felt like I was wearing tiny twin clouds, and in the next shop a scarf that felt like a hug from a friend you hadn’t seen in a year. Then a set of five shirts which looked my size, crisper even than the snow in the streets, and every time I picked something, my mental tally added it up, but Kaspar paid it all without the slightest hesitation. And every time we forged our way back through the plaza, mesmeric aromas wafted over from the food stalls, and I couldn’t help my stomach rumbling. The fact that Kaspar’s head turned at the sound even over the bustle of the place sent a blush to my cheeks. “If we had more time,” he said loud, pushing through the throng, “I’d take you for fittings instead.”

  “Fittings of what?”

  “The clothes.” We encircled the fountain and passed the street kids helping haul one of their number who’d fallen in, shivering, and I wished I could help but I hadn’t even heard of any magic that could do that yet. “Where they measure you up properly so a tailor can fit things to you bespoke.”

  Kaspar pulled me along and my mind shifted from the street kid to when I was their age, a measuring stick pressed against me as it was every year, sizing me up for a battered hand-me-down chestplate to squirm into and a sword to practice manoeuvres with. A real sword? I’d asked in my blessed naivety the first time round. Is it sharp? And the beaming self-satisfied retort from Oldfield of Of course it’s sharp! How else will you learn? I’d glanced down at it, foisted into my hand. But what if one of us gets hurt? I’d asked. Then it’ll be a very memorable lesson for you, was the reply.

  And he was right. He was always right.

  “I don’t think I want to be measured,” I said as Kaspar brought me to a store for all kinds of pants and leggings. I did need more. The ones in the dorm had holes in all the wrong places, more than I could sew up. I found a couple pairs that looked about right, and he ushered me into the quiet back corner of the shop and my heart started beating fast until he brandished the curtain.

  “Never seen a fitting room before either?” he asked. I shook my head. “Honestly. How by all the seas does anyone in your town buy things that fit them?”

  “Usually by sporadic coincidence,” I said as he pulled the curtain shut. Once I was done, he paid, of course, and my stomach rumbled again. Way too loud. Six pairs of eyes turned on me – Clearlanders, all of them – and I shrank into my robe. I think I squeaked.

  Kaspar came back from the window. “If you’re hungry now, we could go to the restaurant across the corner. It looks somewhat respectable.”

  “That’s like a tavern?” I asked once the other shoppers were at least pretending to mind their own business. “I’d rather not. I don’t like all the drinking…”

  “I’m not sure many will be doing that. A restaurant is a different kind of establishment. The meals should be far nicer than what we’re served back up the hill. And… I’ve always wanted to take someone to one.”

  *

  So a restaurant was like a palace’s living quarters, but for serving food. No sooner had we been shown to a table than a woman dressed like a magpie brought an accordion of paper and asked us for drinks. “Sparkling water?” suggested Kaspar, looking at me, and I nodded. And then he introduced me to this thing called a menu.

  A menu, far as I could glean, gave you advance notice on what sort of things the chefs might make for you. We didn’t have menus where I came from. Traditionally in Dreadfall taverns, you took a glance at the myriad stains on the cook’s apron and decided which looked the most appetising.

  Kaspar was right: this restaurant was no tavern. A few dozen people sat mostly in couples at tables hidden under plush purple cloths, a candle flickering on each, and in the air was perfume and spices and not the stale alcohol and potentially urea I was used to. Soft voices floated around the room, washing gently against the papered walls. The taverns were rowdy and unkempt and spat out drunks like the drunks themselves spat out gristle from the ladle helpings of stew. This restaurant was… weirdly comfortable. “You know, where I come from, they might call this a date,” Kaspar said, laying both hands on the tablecloth, and before I could ask what a small fruit had anything to do with this, the magpie woman returned.

  I gave her my request of beef and onions, and Kaspar picked the lamb cutlet, but instead of potatoes, “Tell the chef they can do whatever they’d like most.”

  When she left, I leaned in. “What’s a date?”

  “You have… courting, correct?”

  “I’ve heard of it. I think most Foresters consider it unnecessary faff. You meet, you marry, you argue, and if you argue enough then you split up and marry someone else.”

  “Then what if we made this a date?” Kaspar asked. “It means I have feelings for you, and I want to demonstrate that by creating experiences with you.”

  I drew in a slow breath. “I appreciate it, and it really is very nice, all of this, but isn’t it costing you too much?”

  “No,” he said with an easy smile. “I have it, so I can choose what I spend it on. And right now, I want to spend it on whatever makes you happy.” He nudged the large hamper of clothes with his boot, that he’d tucked under the table when we arrived. “It means a lot to me.”

  *

  The chat turned to classes, and when our meals arrived, they did so with decorum. In Dreadfall, dishes arrived like an unwelcome neighbour. “You start from the outside,” Kaspar instructed as I gazed at the array of cutlery a waiter had laid in front of me. I dug in, and it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. Flavour burst in my mouth and it was all cooked so perfectly, so tenderly, yet not falling apart. I was about to wipe my mouth with my sleeve but I couldn’t in this robe, so I took one of the little paper squares from the stand and dabbed at my mouth. “Wait, was I meant to do that?”

  “That is exactly what they’re for,” he said simply. “You’ve got the knack for it. You ought to be living this kind of life.”

  There’s a smaller, secondary, secret dish whose existence Kaspar divulged to me, and apparently once you were full of your main meal, a subsidiary stomach opened up, designed to accommodate something sweet or savoury or hot or cold. My heart leapt in my throat when he’d given it a name. “It’s not that!” I insisted. “I was allowed to be excused because my skills were, uh, more useful in studies.”

  “Huh?” I’d never seen so confused an expression on someone with such firm brows. “The after-meal dish is called a dessert. What are you talking about? Is this another joke, Gan?” I settled on pretending I’d misheard him, and he asked if I wanted ice cream and I nodded. And he asked the waitress for two spoons.

  When it came, he fed me like he’d practiced it as an art. He cut the scoops sharply with the edge of his far too tiny spoon and let me eat from it, and when I tried it in return, half of it went over the purple cloth and the other half down his chin. He laughed it off and dabbed himself with what he called a napkin, and all too soon the plate was empty and it was whisked away from the table.

  “Come here,” he said, and I craned my neck. He used a clean side to wipe something off the tip of my nose, but even when he was done he still had a wry smile.

  “What? Something still there?”

  “No, it’s… It’s this. It’s us.” He looked me up and down in that way that made me feel like an artwork. “My mere being here is incredible. All of this… These are such things of which I dreamed, back in Avernorria. Being far across the continent, being able to actually enjoy living without having to be something I didn’t want to be. The freedom to live how I want and do what I want. I fear it’s making me rather giddy. Either that or the sparkling water was spiked.” He chuckled, taking another sip from his glass. “Thank you for allowing me this,” he said and reached a hand across the table. I took it, and it felt like everything I’d ever wanted. “I think you might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Another menu arrived. This one had wines, spirits, teas, coffees, liqueurs, nibbles, other things I hadn’t heard of nor had a hope of pronouncing. “It’s been lovely, genuinely, but I should be getting back soon. I have work to do tomorrow and the semester won’t pay for itself.”

  I grimaced at the thought of another few days with no break and I guess Kaspar saw it. “Perhaps it won’t. But I could.”

  “No,” I said. “No, no… It’s way too much. You’re always paying for everything of mine. The semester fees are forty longsquares. That’s more than the house I grew up in was worth.”

  “You only have to say the word.”

  I peered in at him. “What sort of merchants do you come from?”

  And he looked like he was about to reply, but then he glanced around at the various couples, mostly a couple of glasses of wine deep but keeping their expressiveness to their own tables generally not too loud about it. “I can’t say here. Too public. Though do trust me, I would love to alleviate that burden from you. By all means go and do the work if you still wish to. I just hate seeing you pushing yourself too hard.”

  “...Maybe. I’ll sleep on it.” He said he wanted to and the earnestness in his face was so entrancing, but I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone doing all that for me. It was enough buying all the clothes and study equipment. And what if we – spirits forbid – fell out? Would I owe it back to him, or would I be left loaded by the crushing emotional toll of the world’s biggest freebee? I couldn’t help going back to all those I’d known my whole life, now so far away on an icy battlefield somewhere on the brutal fringes of the Marsh. Here I was, being fed and watered and housed and clothed and maybe I wouldn’t have to pay for any of it.

  It still felt like everything I’d ever wanted, but was it right to take it?

  *

  We rode the funicular again and I yawned the whole way up to the castle. “Been gettin’ sleepy way earlier lately,” I said. “Think it’s ‘cos of the nights drawing in. Deepfrost and all.”

  His eyes washed over me. “What about one last thing?” he asked softly, and his head tilted the slightest amount, gaze on settled my lips. My breath hitched and I knew what he wanted. Up on my tiptoes, I leant in, and we kissed, and it was… everything. The buzz flooded my entire body. Like magic. A whole nother kind of magic.

  I yawned again as we pulled away and Kaspar seemed concerned, as usual, but he didn’t want to bring me along while he picked out some study books, so with one last squeeze of the hand he let me head off and I tracked my way to my room.

  “Would someone paying for your, uh, your entire… semester, be too much?” I asked. Grove was at the desk, copying something down from a tome larger than my pillow. “Purely hypofetter… hyperthedic… hypo-thetic-ally?”

  “My grandma paid for my uncle’s house,” they said thoughtfully without turning.

  I scrunched my face and picked through the meaning. “So… you think I should go for it?”

  “If you want to, but be aware you’ll still feel you owe it back to him the whole time. It wouldn’t be a financial burden anymore, but an emotional one instead.”

  Grumbling under my breath, I slumped onto my bed and levered my boots off. “And what if I want to feel less burdened overall?”

  “Do less stuff that burdens you,” came the reply.

  As if it were that easy to let go of what simply had to be done.