The second year at Scholomance brought it with a change to the schedule: firstday mornings were no longer Mandate class but Teratology.

In a way Song was glad. Not that the first lesson of the year would be two hours of Professor Yun Kang, but that the matter of Teratology would not be left to hang above her head like a sword. Near a year had passed since the man tried to get her killed and Captain Wen retaliated by taking a smithing hammer to his leg, but the matter had never truly been brought to a close.

While recovering from the injury, Professor Kang had been replaced by another teacher. Then before that state of affairs could end the Thirteenth had sailed off to Asphodel, and by the time they returned the rest of the year had left for their own tests. The small number of students left behind had been consolidated into a single class that was taught by Professor Cence, the same old woman who had replaced Kang earlier in the year.

When the other brigades returned there had been little left but to prepare for the end-of-year examinations, with no formal classes left on the slate. Only guided study and private consultations, the former of which was not supervised by Kang and the latter of which she had somehow not found it necessary to sign up for.

This would be the first time Song was in a room with Yun Kang since he had tried to get her killed, and if Teratology was to be a trial then she would rather know now than worry about it for two more days. Gods knew she already had enough to worry about.

The four of them – Maryam was still consigned to the chapterhouse until tomorrow - stayed closely together on the way down to the classroom, ignoring Scholomance's traps. Keeping an eye on the smoky curls of the god shadowing them along the ceiling, Song followed the metal spikes hammered in the floor and walked past a well-lit hall through which they could all hear crying children begging for help.

The brigade ahead of them faltered a moment, then forcefully pressed on and away from the echoes. Song sympathized: even after a year, she could not say she had grown indifferent to the sound. The Thirteenth pulled together as they kept walking, as if closing ranks.

"I hate it when the spirit uses children," Angharad quietly admitted. "Even knowing there is not truly a child at the end of the hall, it…"

She trailed off, struggling to voice something Song suspected they all felt. If one day they were able to be entirely unconcerned at the sound of imperiled children, she did not think it would be something to be proud of.

"The children are the worst," Izel soberly agreed.

He stood slightly bent, as always, but today his gaze was not twitchy. He must be too tired for that, Song thought, given the hours he had started keeping at the Umuthi workshop.

"The discomfort is of a visceral kind," Song said. "It is difficult to think around it."

Angharad nodded, fingers tight around her saber. One of them, however, was not so discomforted.

"It's only pulled out children and the treasure vault, today," Tristan said, tone aloof. "Old tricks that haven't worked in months."

She held back her grimace. Tristan put on a good face of having gone cold, but on Asphodel Song had seen him spiral into that icy place that panic opened the door to and this was not that. When he had thought his head on the line he had been… methodical. Measured. But no matter how calm he kept his voice right now, Song had found nothing measured about that glint in his eyes. It reminded her of the way Haoran had been when they were younger, how he was itching to find an insult so he might have a reason to lash out.

That Tristan had not turned it on them spoke well of him and poorly of her brother.

"There are new students on the grounds," Song said. "It may not see a need to bring out its best today, with all the low-hanging fruit."

The first years had gone in an hour earlier so that they might enter Scholomance for the first time among a more measured portion of chaos. Yet despite the many warnings the underclassmen would receive Song had no doubt that Scholomance must already have wet its teeth today. The god in the walls had sharpened its wiles against the second years, grown cleverer for it.

"The old lady knows us," Tristan disagreed, shaking his head. "She knows this won't get her a bite, it's a token effort."

He glanced at the ceiling, though Song knew he could not see the truth she did – the god curling like smoke, almost capering at his words.

"Something has Scholomance distracted," Tristan said. "A shame you won't begin delving today."

There was an edge to the last sentence, but Song let the sleeping dog lie. He was not wrong to feel betrayed. As for the delay in the beginning of exploration, she happened to agree with him but fifthday afternoon was the earliest the Garrison agreed to provide men and garrison soldiers would be direly needed. A meeting of the signed up students would happen earlier, on terceday, but it could not be denied that the exploration was pulling together slower than the hunt.

The hunting crews would meet this very afternoon. After class most of her cabal would head out for the assembly at the Old Playhouse while Song herself took up a rare invitation to the Akelarre chapterhouse. Captain Yue had agreed to sign the auxiliary contract, for a price. Song shook off her apprehension about that, for there were closer evils to fear.

Down the last flight of stairs they went, reaching the dimly hit hall that led into the crypt where Teratology was taught. The classroom was half full, the Thirteenth far from the first students to arrive - on purpose – but the cool, faintly humid room never felt homely even when all the desks were occupied. It was from the lighting, the old oil lamps whose light glinted off jars full of creatures and the beady eyes of stuffed lemures.

Song mentally picked them out seats under the rainbow-scaled winged snaked that hung from the ceiling, counting on a tall pair from the Sixty-Seventh to hide her, but it proved unneeded. Professor Kang hardly threw a glance in their direction as they entered, the tall man moving about his desk on the stone dais. There was something atop the desk, but as it was covered by a thick green sheet there was no telling what beyond that it was large.

Absent-mindedly trading a nod with Alejandra – her friend sat on the left end of the room – and ignoring Tupoc's existence, Song studied the man who had tried to serve her up to a pack of murderous Jigong students. Yun Kang remained tall but he had gained some weight around the waist, no longer quite qualifying as slender. His appearance was carefully tended to, his hair in an elaborate topknot while his thin mustache and goatee were meticulously trimmed.

If the last year had left a mark on him it was how he now moved around using cane of smooth, dark wood and was careful to keep the weight off the knee. Whatever price it was Lady Knit had asked of him after he was crippled, he had not been willing to pay it. Twice those beetle-black eyes passed over Song as he gauged the fullness of the classroom, but both times they kept moving with barely a hitch. It had her stomach clenching. He might ignore her for now, but how long until the hammer fell?

When the last brigade trickled in, Professor Kang turned to order the last student in to close the door and limped to the front of the dais. He had not, Song thought, looked directly at her even once. It was as if she were made of air. Kang cleared his throat, his well-known temper ensuring immediate silence.

"While I had planned for us to begin your second year with an exploration of the Fangshi Gayao, the earliest known bestiary, we will be doing something different," the professor announced.

Leaning back, he ripped off the sheet and revealed an ugly child-sized mass of grayish scaled flesh that had some students letting out jeers and others making disgusted faces. Song frowned instead. The flesh looked like muscle, so why did it bear scales?

"This is a dantesvara lung," Yun Kang told them, then waited a beat. "It has six of them."

That certainly got the class's attention, Song included. It was a rare soul who had not been in Misery Square that night. Professor Kang dug into the subject with great enthusiasm, and while of course Song took notes she could not keep a knot from forming in her stomach.

This was, she slowly began to understand, the Professor Kang that everyone else got to see. The teacher skilled enough to be recommended to teach teratology at Scholomance. He pulled out no fewer than three diagrams – one of which looked so freshly made it had to be his own work, and exquisitely made – to give them an in-depth study of the lemure known as the Lord of Teeth.

"Those of you who fought it at Misery Square will have found that blades and muskets had little effect," Kang said. "That is because the outer layer of scales, the epidermis, is only part of what can be called its armor."

The leftmost diagram showed a dantesvara leg as if it were cut in two and seen from the side, Kang pointing to a thin layer marked as 'scales'. Past it was a thicker gray layer, and only after that were the inner workings of the leg like muscles and tendons drawn.

"Dantesvara sport a thick, unusually dense layer of dermis as protection under their scales," he said. "This flesh does bleed, as you have seen, but only to a minor extent as no major veins or arteries run through it. To kill a Lord of Teeth without breaching past it is very difficult."

This was why, Kang explained, before the advent of field cannons during the Century of Accord it had been general opinion in the Someshwar that dantesvara were best slain by armies: it took a truly massive amount of dermis wounds for the lemure to bleed out.

"There was some success facing them down with war elephants," Kang noted, "but good luck with that. The port fees would be ruinous."

A startled, hesitant spurt of laughter from the class. A rare thing in Teratology. Song's lips thinned even as her steel tip pen scratched paper, marking down the dermis thickness. Why could he not have been like this the whole time? Why could he not just have ignored her from the start? It was not as if she had demanded he kiss the hem of her robes and call her little sister, she would have begged for indifference.

She ground her teeth, not angry at Kang or at herself but at everything and nothing all at once. The unfairness of nothing ever being as simple as you wanted it to be. Hand on the chisel. There were more important matters at hand: while Song would be part of the exploration crews, three of her cabal would be facing the beast they were currently being taught about. She owed them her full attention.

A dantesvara's main weaknesses in the biological sense were not difficult to remember. Because of the sheer size of its stomach, the lemure's lungs were displaced closer to its back so a deep enough back wound there would likely puncture a lung - and thus damage the complex system of lungs and sphincters that allowed the Lord of Teeth to remain under water for as many as ten hours at a time. Shoot it in the back hard enough and it could no longer submerge, else it risked choking on the water or even blowing up another lung from the pressure.

Its skull was strong and short of sustained cannon fire or Signs there was little chance of getting through it, but at the juncture between the neck and the head there was a soft spot that could be exploited if one could get through the shaggy mane. A spear piercing deep enough would paralyze its legs, which historically was how most dantesvara had been killed – some brave Someshwari warrior had driven a spear into the juncture, then the downed beast was pelted with javelins and arrows over a day until it bled out.

"Another weakness, in so far as it can be called that, is that Lords of Teeth have unusually robust stomachs even by lemure standards," Professor Kang said. "This informs their eating habits: they will eat almost anything that fits their diet, even if it smells off. Given their mass and their resistance to poison it would take a frankly absurd quantity to kill one, but with a sufficiently strong extract weakening a dantesvara might be possible."

From biology, the teacher then pivoted to another pillar of teratology: behavior.

"The most interesting detail about dantesvara is that, while they are rightfully classified as lemures and not lares, they can be said to collaborate with mankind," Yung Kang told them. "The location of no fewer than three dantesvara has been known for at least two centuries and they have not been hunted down. Indeed, the Watch has on occasion been paid not to interfere with them. Do any of you happen to know why?"

Several raised their hands, most of them Someshwari, and it was Bait who was called upon to answer. He coughed and poked at his glasses, then coughed again. He said something but it did not carry, so Kang told him to speak louder. Even that, Song thought, was unusually kind of him. He had not thrown in a barb as well. Had the man turned a new page? Part of her said not, that he had yet to so much as acknowledge her presence, but… It is not so rare a thing, to despise the Ren. A man could try to do better without putting that hatred down.

"Because they eat other lemures," Bait answered, now overcompensating by speaking too loudly. "They are territorial but not rovers, and they will go out of their way to kill even large lemures who pass through their hunting grounds."

"Exactly," Kang agreed. "Add to this that dantesvara are habitual hunters – they prefer to hunt near dawn and dusk – and you may understand why some Someshwari nobles prefer their presence. They keep the rivers clear from the worst of other lemures, and given the clear boundaries of their territory they are not difficult for merchants to avoid. Nobles without the means or willingness to fund a river navy find them a functional substitute."

He hummed.

"Let this serve as a reminder that the classification of lemure means a creature will always be hostile to mankind but that mankind is not necessarily its most common prey," Kang added. "There are breeds of lares that kill thousands across Vesper every year simply because mankind is their easiest source of feed, just as there are breeds of lemures who hardly kill anyone in that same span because we learned to avoid them. That classification is ultimately meant as scholarly shorthand, not holy writ."

He delved into the most common observed habits after that. How dantesvara liked to dwell in human ruins riverside, how they made mounds of mud to sleep on and they preferred freshwater to salt. How they would retreat if they felt themselves in danger of dying but would then return at odd hours to try and kill their enemy by surprise. How they went out of their way to kills lemures and men even if there was no need for it and would track down nearby nests or towns to stamp them out if repeatedly disturbed.

That, and apparently as several cults – both hollow and Someshwari – had learned the hard way that making sacrifices to them in no way endeared the cultists to Lords of Teeth.

"Your work for the week is simple," Professor Kang told them at the end. "You should have all been handed a copy of the Makeba's Natural Pharmacy along with the Gayao. Given the average mass and tolerances I gave you today, find what you would consider the best substance to incapacitate a Lord of Teeth with."

He dismissed them after that, though he allowed some students to come and touch the dried lung while he pointed out the different parts. Song did not even try, her affairs already put away in her bag as she fled towards the door. She cursed herself for the impulse afterwards, forced to wait as other students began to leave. Inside she glimpsed Tristan standing on the dais, leaning close to the lung as he spoke with the professor, and Angharad standing stiffly behind him.

It was humiliating, having good as run for the door and then just standing there while people actually began to leave, their eyes lingering on her as they-

"I remember the stares being the worst part."

Song mastered herself so she would not flinch, or have to admit she had been so lost in wallowing she had not heard Izel approach. The tinker leaned back against the wall besides her, arms crossed. He stood at his full height for once, meeting the stares of the students glancing their way.

"Pardon?"

"It was the staring that the worst part, after I affirmed who I am," Izel said. "Jingxiang, I believe your people call it."

Not… exactly, though Song caught his drift. Jingxiang could also apply to those who considered themselves neither men nor women, or those whose gender was not fixed. The meaning was tied to presentation more than specifics, making your body mirror the truth of your soul.

"Stares," she repeated. "Because of…"

She vaguely gestured at him. To be corregido would have implications in Izcalli, of aims at inheritance.

"There were expectations," Izel said, staring ahead. "Why had Doghead Coyac's daughter chosen to become a son, they wondered? What grand ambitions must he harbor?"

A bitter twist of the lips.

"Every sentence was sifted through for hidden meanings, every test followed closely. Nothing ever went unseen."

He scoffed.

"And then came disappointment when I did not prove to be some manner of prodigy," he said. "Since I did not begin crushing skulls and putting on a general's airs, it became only right to mock me. I had chosen to step out of my place without proving to be exceptional."

Song would have laughed if there was any humor to his face, because Izel was exceptional. He'd been judged fit for Umuthi recommendation to Scholomance on the back of what appeared to be entirely private studies, which was ridiculous. If he had been trained to be a candleman or machinist it would have been one thing, but he hadn't. Izel had been meant for a warrior society and still been skilled enough that his evaluators deemed him fit for the Deuteronomicon track.

Izel blew out a long breath.

"It was a long and dark year, before they lost interest, and I was young. It stayed with me for years after."

Her teeth clenched. He was wrong there: it stayed with you always, even if time spread dirt over it. Closing the lid on a coffin did not close the lid on grief as well. Izel crossed his arms.

"But they did," he said. "Lose interest, I mean. The staring stopped."

He met her eyes, face soft.

"I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like, living a life where it doesn't."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Song's throat caught and she looked way. For a long time, she said nothing. Yet she did not feel the need to fill the silence, for it was not unpleasant.

"Like a curse," she finally replied.

Sometimes loud and sometimes quiet, heavy-handed and soft as a feather. Something that stayed with you always, slithering under your skin, even when it did nothing but exist. Like a burden, a duty and a noose all at once.

There was no better word for it than curse.

Neither of them said anything else until Tristan and Angharad caught up. The journey back to town felt too short, afterwards, because at the end of it Song knew they would go one way and she the other.

It left her feeling naked in a way that had nothing to do with clothes.

--

The chapterhouse's walls rose above the roofs of the nearby houses like a stocky giant, its thick gray stones like those of old fortress walls. Which was no coincidence, as once upon a time the guildhouses of the Akelarre had been exactly that. Back when the Watch was first raised, the founding charter of the order had established the chapterhouses as 'sanctuaries'.

In other words, none could enter the grounds save at the invitation of the Navigators themselves and no laws - be they that of kings or the Watch itself - allowed lawmen to seize someone granted refuge there. Time had eroded those rights, the guild's influence waning as other parts of the Watch rose to prominence, but the bones of them yet remained.

The head of a chapterhouse could still bar anyone from its grounds as they wished, it was illegal to make an arrest within the walls and should the chapterhouse refuse inspection of its facilities on grounds of 'preserving the secrets of the Guild' only a mandate from the Conclave or a formal Krypteia investigation could overturn that refusal.

Song had been taught this in Mandate and again in the Academy lessons, but it was Uncle Zhuge who first laid out that piece of history for her. During one of their afternoon teas that were as much a lesson as a discussion, formal tea ceremony paired with conversation on current affairs and the underpinnings of the Watch in her uncle's lovely little solar on the Rookery.

It shamed Song sometimes, the private knowledge that she missed those Rookery afternoons more than she did the family estate. Affection and loyalty were not the same horse, and they did not always get to journey down the same road. Maryam Khaimov, Song thought as she began walking up the chapterhouse stairs, would understand that heartless pull better than most.

Up the narrow stairs Song went, until she reached the gate that had been carved halfway up the height of the stout bastion walls. Past the gates waited an anteroom of obsidian tiles, each subtly shaded differently in a display that must have cost a fortune to arrange. Not that the Navigators couldn't afford it – their guild was the richest covenant of the Watch. The door at the other end of the room was wide open, not that Song was fool enough to try walking through it.

Sitting on the same bench halfway in were two Navigators in those black tunics they could wear instead of a regular's uniform, leaning over a chessboard. Chaturanga, Song decided from the marks on the board. Someshwari chess, the purported ancestor of all other such games. It was only when one of the signifiers moved a chariot that she noticed the lead ring on his finger, the mark of a journeyman of the Akelarre. His opponent bore the same and Song almost shook her head at the sight: it was shocking how many high-ranking Akelarre there were in Port Allazei. There were well-established free companies in Tianxia who did not count two journeymen among their ranks, while here they were used as gate guards. What next, a Master of the Guild sweeping the floors?

She came to stand besides the pair, which ignored her, and cleared her throat to get a tepid look from the man of the pair.

"Name?" he asked.

"Warrant Officer Song Ren," she replied.

"Oh, Lady Lead herself," the other signifier enthused. "You've got one of the catchier sobriquets in your year, you know."

"That's not even in the same league as Fikile Ironhound," the man scoffed. "That name goes hard, Alia."

Fikile, as in the Skiritai from the First Brigade? Song had never heard him called that before.

"It goes too hard, Rish," Alia seriously replied. "Can you imagine how much more insufferable you would have turned out if you got a sobriquet that grand at nineteen?"

Rish took offence to this and within moments they were loudly bickering, having forgotten she ever came in. Song opened her mouth, then closed it. She was honestly at a loss about what to say there. She endured another minute of squabbling whose only yield was learning their full names and ranks before scraping up the willpower to interrupt and ask if they intended to do anything beyond asking her name.

"No," Lieutenant Rishabh informed her. "Captain Yue didn't say to send you in, just to wait until- ah, there she is."

Riding in to Song's rescue like a scowling, disheveled door god was Maryam Khaimov herself. Her friend looked like she had just woken up, which was entirely possible, and openly groaned at the sight of the two signifiers on the bench.

"Well well well," Sergeant Alia said. "If it isn't… Knockout Khaimov."

"That's not going to stick," Maryam flatly told her.

"Merry Mary," Lieutenant Rishabh tried.

That one was actually pretty good, Song reluctantly thought.

"This is why you two always end up on gate duty," Maryam told them. "You know that, right?"

"Of course not," Sergeant Alia said. "Yue loves us so much she can't bear to let us go on patrol, that's why."

"I expect a proposal any day now," Lieutenant Rishabh agreed.

"After mine," Sergeant Alia said. "Let's be honest, you're clearly not top spouse material."

"Excuse me?"

Song watched the fresh eruption of bickering in horrified fascination until Maryam tugged her away and through the door. She followed her friend into the halls, clearing her throat once the sound of the squawking had faded.

"Are they truly like that around Captain Yue?" Song asked, instead of a dozen things that actually mattered.

Maryam wiggled her palm.

"More or less," she said. "But they're fresh off a rough tour in Old Liergan so no one picks too much at them for it. That's the real reason Captain Yue doesn't put them on patrol – they'll immediately go loud if they get spooked."

Captain Yue had not struck Song as someone afflicted with a surfeit of sympathy, so there was likely a good reason for her kindness.

"What happened?" Song asked.

Maryam eyed her amusedly.

"No gossip like a Stripe, huh?"

"It is a legitimate question," Song defended.

Maryam visibly swallowed a grin, which lifted her own mood. It was good to see her look so carefree. Song wished she did not end up recovering in the chapterhouse quite so often, but at least she seemed to like those who dwelled there. Maryam pitched her voice low and the grin went away.

"Word is a hollow warlord mustered an army to attack their outpost near the Meridian Road, and during the siege a Gloam storm hit. When it dispersed they were the only ones left standing from either side."

Song let out a low whistle. Despite the horror stories about Old Liergan she had been raised to, nowadays such disasters were supposedly a rarity. The Meridian Road went all the way from Sacromonte to the broken ruins of the once-grand city of Liergan, cutting across much of the old heartlands of the Second Empire, so only a fool would call an outpost near it safe.

Yet both the hollow kingdoms and the sitiadas along the Road's length tended to avoid attacking the walled outposts dotting it, as the trade route enriched them just as much as it did Sacromonte – whose infanzones had in olden days fielded entire armies of mercenaries off the riches of the Meridian trade. It must have been some rising warlord wanting to make a name, Song thought.

"But enough about them," Maryam dismissed as they kept walking. "How did it go with Kang?"

"As if I didn't exist," Song replied.

There was no one else in the hall – where were they even going, shouldn't be turning right by now? – so Song allowed herself the luxury of passing a hand through her hair.

"I did not expect a tearful apology out of Yun Kang, but…"

"He could at least pretend like he regrets trying to get you murdered," Maryam finished. "The prick."

Song half-smiled.

"Something like that," she agreed.

"He'll get what's coming to him in time," Maryam said, then hesitated. "And speaking of time, do you-"

Song reached inside her cloak, showing her friend the scroll sheath, and a knot loosened in Maryam's shoulders.

"Good," she said. "I mean, I didn't think you would forget it but…"

There were only two days left before the Orels were expelled so she'd wanted to see it with her own eyes. Song understood. It was the first time Maryam actually beheld the drafted auxiliary contract Colonel Cao had signed, though Song had sat with her to go over the text before it was first put to ink.

"All we need now Captain Yue's signature," Song reassuringly said.

Maryam nodded.

"I'm still surprised she agreed this easily," she then said. "She likes me, but Yue is mercenary to the bone. I expected a price."

There was, Song thought. It just wasn't asked of you.

"Once the contract is signed they will be allowed to settle in Allazei," she said, changing the subject. "Have you thought of where they might live?"

"It is for them to choose," Maryam said. "Though, Tristan mentioned a house he stashed supplies in a while back. That might suit all our purposes."

Song had her doubts that Tristan would be in a mood to tolerate anyone he did not trust near his supplies, but it was plain Maryam was desperately looking for any line she might throw the thief's way so she did not speak against it. After a beat, Maryam cleared her throat.

"How is he?"

Song did not pretend she was ignorant of who 'he' meant. There was no room for playfulness here.

"Like a caged tiger," she said. "He is pacing around, waiting for someone to come close enough to claw."

Maryam's lips thinned.

"It's not the present I fear for," Song admitted. "It is in two weeks, should too little progress have been made."

If he started resorting to harsh measures to get other brigades out of the way… The caliber of cabals that would be allowed to join the hunt was not something to be provoked lightly. They would not be afraid to swing back. Maryam slowly nodded. A short silence stretched out beneath them, their footsteps the only sound in the hall.

"He's still angry with me, isn't he?" she softly asked.

Song grimaced.

"I don't think it is anger," she delicately said. "More that he finds it difficult to understand."

It had been at once a relief and something of a slight, to find that Tristan did not seem to take it nearly as personally that Song had signed up for the exploration crews. But then the nature of her ties with the Mask were rather different than Maryam's.

"They'll be back in a Morcant slave hulk by month's end if I don't do this, Song," Maryam bit out. "You know that. He knows that, or he fucking should. It's not-"

She trailed off, then cursed angrily under her breath. Tristan, Song suspected, had felt it a deeper cut than most because he had no particular love for Sacromonte or those who lived in it. To him choosing to help a Sacromontan stranger over one of the Thirteenth would seem absurd, almost obscene. No doubt he'd talked himself into understanding the choice but there was a wide gap between knowing something and genuinely believing it.

"I don't know what to do," Maryam tiredly said. "It's going to get worse, isn't it? Every time they run into a problem that my being there would fix, it'll be another squirt of poison in the stew."

Yes, Song thought. It will.

"If they make the right allies, that need not be the case," she replied, which might even be true. "And having our own task does not mean we can't help them."

"Yeah," Maryam muttered, but it sounded half-hearted. "Yeah, it doesn't."

Song cleared her throat.

"Is the Meadow far?" she asked. "I had thought the chapterhouse smaller than this."

The Abbey was beneath the grounds, not an extension of them.

"I took us through the longest path there," Maryam admitted. "But we can cut through the kitchen, follow me."

They took a sharp turn to the right into what Song had thought a dead end but had a small door tucked away in the shadow. Through was a small but well-furnished kitchen, occupied only by a massive Someshwari man in an apron whose bald head contrasted starkly to a richly furnished graying beard. He turned and immediately narrowed his eyes at the sight of them.

"No, Khaimov," he said, pointing a ladle still stained with stew.

"Just going through, sir," Maryam innocently smiled.

"I have told you a hundred times that this a kitchen, not a throughway," the man said, raising a hand.

To Song's surprise, Gloam coalesced around his fingers. Gods, were even the cooks here signifiers?

"I will curse you if I have to," the man threatened. "A week of incontinence will do you some good."

"That'd be a real shame," Maryam idly said. "Because I just remembered an Izvoric recipe for cheese curd dumplings. From out in the western hills. Why, I'd bet even the Malani haven't brought it across the sea yet."

"Do you think you can just keep bribing me with exotic foreign recipes, girl?" the Someshwari asked, eyes narrowing.

"Yes," Maryam replied without missing a beat.

The man grumbled something into his beard, but he dismissed the gathered Gloam and brought down his ladle.

"This is the last time," the cook swore.

"Of course," Maryam grinned, not pretending even a little bit.

They were allowed through, though before they passed through the door the man called out that 'I best have a written recipe by supper, Khaimov!'.

"He's a soft touch," Maryam assured her. "Only grumbles because he feels he has to."

Song struggled to imagine ever behaving to a senior Stripe the way Maryam had to what she was beginning to suspect was an older Navigator. The Akelarre were tightly-knit, it was said, but Song had still expected formality. Then went down a small flight of stairs, into a hallway bordering an arched courtyard touched by grass. The Meadow at last. The two of them were halfway across the hallway when they froze, stopped by the sound of voices. Both of those speaking were familiar.

"-dead end," Captain Yue said. "I'll have no part of it, and neither will the Akelarre Guild."

"Then the guild will stand alone," Colonel Cao flatly replied. "Your Navigators will tire of hiding in their chapterhouse eventually, Yue. There's nothing to be gained by straddling the fence and the other half of the Guildhouse is already with us."

Song glanced at Maryam, who shook her head with wide eyes. This was new to her as well.

"If you think Tavarin won't turn on you the moment he thinks it would be even slightly funny, you're an idiot," Captain Yue dismissed. "You are standing on sand, Cao. I don't care who made you assurances, this play leads nowhere."

"It leads to the Glass Repository," Colonel Cao corrected. "To a demonstration of where competence lies on this island. The failings of the Garrison in running Tolomontera are obvious, Yue. Direct rule by a local covenant committee is the way to get this house in order."

Song breathed in sharply. She meant to take rule of the island from Colonel Azocar?

"And I'm sure your eyeing a seat on that committee has nothing to do with how you salivate over the idea," Captain Yue mockingly replied.

"You could have one as well," Colonel Cao said. "All that abstaining now gains the Akelarre is that the table will seat six instead of seven. How long before there are whispers in the ranks about that, Yue?"

"How long before your little coup blows up in your face?" Captain Yue scorned. "Not long, I wager. All it takes is one setback and Azocar blaming you for overstepping, then it's all on your head."

"You think I did not prepare for casualties?" Colonel Cao snorted. "You are young for your rank."

Song grimaced, her face a mirror to Maryam's. That had been less than diplomatic.

"And you are arrogant for yours," Yue replied. "Did it never occur to you that the Conclave picked us for a reason, Cao? They sent talent here, but talent with blemishes. The kind it would solve a problem to see blamed for a disaster and buried."

A pause.

"Stings a little, doesn't it?" Yue softly said. "That all your connections, all the skeletons you've buried for our paymasters, they're a noose as much as a medal. Someone out there is hoping Scholomance eats the whole year, that we're all disgraced and your treasure trove of blackmail will disappear into a grave."

A longer, pregnant pause. That barb had drawn blood.

"All the more reason to make the best of our time on Tolomontera," Colonel Cao calmly said. "You could parlay a victory here into something real, Yue. Into a career that is more than being shuffled from one disaster to the next, taking all the blame and none of the praise for cauterizing the wounds."

And now Cao had drawn blood in turn. One did not need to be a Laurel to see this talk was not leading nowhere pleasant.

"You have my answer, Cao," Captain Yue said, voice gone taut. "Get out of my chapterhouse before I have you dragged out."

"Think on it," Colonel Cao said. "There is yet time to change your mind."

"I have thought about it," Captain Yue harshly replied. "And if you ever try to threaten me with dissension in the ranks again, Cao, I'll bar every Navigator that signed up for your exploration crews from use of the Abbey. See how far you make it then."

One last pause.

"Duly noted," Chunhua Cao said. "A good day to you."

"Unlikely," Yue flatly replied. "I had to meet you."

They both stood there, frozen, as they heard Colonel Cao stride across the grass. In a different direction, thank the Gods. Maryam's 'shortcut' had spared them being caught, or so Song thought.

"Come out, you little sneaks."

Like bashful children they stepped up to the edge of the grass and found Captain Yue waiting for them. The captain would have been considered something of a beauty before the burns half-hidden by her braid, Song thought. Her shoulders were too broad to be fashionable, at least in Tianxia, but she had delicate features and beautifully arched brows.

"How much of that did you girls hear?" Captain Yue asked.

Song paused for a moment, deciding on the degree of truth to be given, but Maryam beat her to the draw.

"Everything," she said. "The acoustics are surprisingly good from out here."

"Nosy children," Yue smiled, shaking her head. "Stay out of it – it is nothing to concern yourself over."

Song cleared her throat.

"With all due respect, ma'am," she said, "it sounds to me as if we involved ourselves already by signing up for the exploration crews."

The older Navigator waved it away.

"That dog's out of the kennel already," Captain Yue said. "But you girls are a decade too early to get involved in what you eavesdropped on. Leave those squabbles to your elders and keep your mind on surviving the year. That will get tricky enough already."

Song shared a look with Maryam, who quirked an eyebrow. They were in agreement, then.

"Surviving would involve finding the Repository," Maryam said. "Wouldn't that…"

Get the colonel what she seemingly wanted, Song silently finished. A clear achievement to contrast the blunder of Misery Square, drawing a line between covenant competence and the Garrison's own record in Allazei.

"I wouldn't count those chickens before they're hatched, if I were Chunhua Cao," Yue said. "That's how you end up with a basilisk."

Seeing neither of them were convinced, the Navigator sighed.

"It's not the first time the Academy pushes for what she's championing and there's a reason those motions died on the Conclave floor," Captain Yue said. "Either way, you are warrant officers still so fresh to the black your clothes smell of dye. This is in no way your problem, or something you are equipped to meddle in."

She caught their eyes with her own.

"If I catch the Thirteenth sniffing around this, I'll find something else to keep you busy," Captain Yue threatened. "I have a list."

Maryam stiffened, which was a strong endorsement for bending with the wind so Song hastily cleared her throat.

"Understood, ma'am."

"Good," Yue said. "Now bring out this contract you want me to sign, I don't have all day."

They left the Meadow for the hallway they'd come from, Yue guiding them to a small reading room with a view of the garden. Song unrolled the scroll on the table, already preparing to defend the terms.

Most of them were straightforward, imitation of similar contracts she had pulled out of the Galleries library. Formal status as Watch auxiliaries contracted to sail and maintain the yet-unnamed skimmer property of Warrant Officer Maryam Khaimov, offering fixed remuneration and combat pay. Their guarantor was the Thirteenth Brigade as a whole, not any single cabalist, and the contract duration was seven years.

All these were mostly standard, though the seven years would raise eyebrows. Three was much more common for unproven auxiliaries. The part that Song had her arguments laid out for was the breach penalty. On either side breach of the contract would demand a healthy sum in reparations, but there was a clause added that if the contract had to be ended by the Thirteenth because the Watch demanded it then reparations were multiplied tenfold and passed on to the order – reaching a staggering sum of twenty thousand ramas.

There would be no bribed officer twisting the arms of the Unluckies to get rid of the Izvoric, because for any officer to argue that the Watch should take up such a massive sum in debt would not only kill their career but probably prompt a Krypteia investigation. Captain Yue carefully read through the lines, taking her time, and snorted when she reached the penalty clauses. Song coughed into her fist.

"Given some of our experiences with-"

"You're making the contract into a bear trap," Yue dismissively said. "I don't care. I see our own arrangement isn't put in writing, though."

"Your what?" Maryam flatly asked.

"I did not think it necessary," Song stiffly said. "Is my word not sufficient?"

Yue smiled mirthlessly.

"I'm not a fool, girl," she said. "You just want to keep it off paper so my notes are the only record that someone went looking."

Song bit the inside of her cheek, discomforted with how cleanly she had been seen through. Maryam grabbed her arm, fingers curled like claws.

"What arrangement, Song?" Maryam demanded.

"Nothing to concern yourself about," Song said. "The captain merely-"

"I'm interested in the so-called Ren curse," Captain Yue cut through. "She'll be attending me regularly so I can measure the effects and put her through some experiments."

Song grit her teeth. Yue had declined to lay out all the tests she had in mind, but the few she had explained when they met sounded… unpleasant. Yet no worse than what Maryam had been put through when she sought to find Hooks, surely. It was not the tests themselves Song feared but what they might find. What if something uncovered made her unfit to serve in the Watch?

"I want to be there," Maryam flatly said.

Yue rolled her eyes.

"Of course you'll be there, someone needs to write the findings down," she said, then glanced Song's way. "Every firstday evening, Ren. I'll send you the precise time in advance."

Throat tight, Song nodded. Yue studied her for a moment, then reached for her pen. Her name went besides Chunhua Cao's as a witness and endorser, effectively ensuring it would be sanctioned by Colonel Azocar. Especially after what Song had heard earlier: if Azocar truly was fighting for continued stewardship of Tolomontera, he could not afford to lightly refuse the contract.

If he tossed it out on weak grounds he opened himself to accusations of sabotaging Colonel Cao for spurious reasons, while politically speaking it would be a misstep to antagonize the only local covenant leader apparently in favor of his continued command over the island. Yue finished it with a flourish and straightened.

"We're done here," Yue said. "Good tidings, Ren. Maryam, see her to the door."

The storm waited until they were well away from the Meadow, back in the hallways.

"You went behind my back," Maryam tightly said.

"I was attempting to arrange a time to negotiate," Song said, "but instead she rather bluntly named her price within a minute of conversation."

It had run against every unspoken convention of both Stripe and Tianxi, but Yue seemed to delight in wiping her shoes on those when she could.

"You could have told me," Maryam insisted.

"And what could you have done?" Song tiredly asked. "She is the senior Akelarre on the island, Maryam. Your personal tutor. You cannot afford to quarrel with her."

She sucked in a breath.

"I might learn something of use," Song added. "Something that helps me with the Book of the Lofty Mountain."

Maryam's face was hard to read, the warm light of lamps licking at her face as they crossed one after the other in silence.

"Gods," her friend finally said, voice faint as a whisper. "It's my choice, helping them. My decision."

Her fists clenched.

"So why is it that it seems everyone but me is paying the price for it?"

Song had no answer for that, and Maryam nothing to add. The words echoed between them all the way to door, and lingered long after.

That was often the way, with uncomfortable truths.