The King’s Man

(The Zero Enigma VII)

Christopher G. Nuttall

Book One: The Zero Blessing
Book Two: The Zero Curse
Book Three: The Zero Equation
Book Four: The Family Shame
Book Five: The Alchemist’s Apprentice
Book Six: The Family Pride
Book Seven: The King’s Man

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Cover Blurb

The City of Shallot is on the verge of revolution.  The Great Houses are mustering their forces, readying themselves for a shift in the balance of power.  The poor have found a new leader and are - finally - demanding their rights.  Shadowy figures and old ghosts are prowling the streets.  It is only a matter of time before the unease and unrest explodes into violence, as the wealthy and powerful seek to secure themselves in a changing world.  And dark forces are laying plans to take advantage of the chaos ...

A newly-graduated student, the son of a proudly independent merchant, Adam Mortimer is recruited into the Kingsmen and charged with helping to track down the anarchists and terrorists before they trigger an explosion.  But, as he delves into the mystery, he finds himself caught between the scars of his childhood and his hopes for the future, loyalties tested as he finds himself caught between old friends and new.

And, as infernal devices begin to terrorise the city, Adam must risk everything to save the people he loves ...

Author’s Note

I’ve done my best, as always, to make this story as stand-alone as possible.  However, a number of characters made their debut appearances in earlier books.  Adam, Saline and Louise first appeared in The Family Pride, while Rebecca and Jill starred in The Alchemist’s Apprentice.

CGN
Historian’s Note:

The Thousand-Year Empire dominated the twin continents of Maxima and Minima through two advantages, an unmatched command of magic and the development of Objects of Power, magical weapons and tools that made them seemingly invincible.  But the Empire fell and the secret of making Objects of Power was lost.

Hundreds of years later, a young girl - Caitlyn Aguirre - was born to a powerful magical family.  Caitlyn - Cat - should have been powerful herself, like her two sisters, but she seemed to have no spark of magic at all.  She lacked even a sense for magic.  In desperation, her parents sent her to Jude’s Academy for the Magically Gifted in the hopes that exposure to magical training would bring forth the magic they were sure lay buried within her.  There, she met Isabella and Akin Rubén, children of her family’s greatest enemy.  Isabella became her rival, while she formed a tentative friendship with Akin.

Cat developed no magic, but she discovered something else.  Uniquely, as far as anyone could tell, she had no magic at all.  She eventually discovered that a complete lack of magic was necessary for forging Objects of Power.  Far from being useless, her talent made her extremely valuable and utterly irreplaceable.  As far as anyone could tell, Cat was the only true ‘Zero’ known to exist.  This led to her - and her friends, Akin and Rose - being kidnapped, then targeted by Crown Prince Henry and Stregheria Aguirre, Cat’s Great Aunt, when they launched a coup against the Great Houses and the King himself.  Their subversions - which turned Isabella against her family - nearly led to complete disaster ... and perhaps would have done just that, if Cat and Akin hadn’t become friends.

In the aftermath, Cat proposed that she and Akin should be betrothed, creating a marriage bond between their families and making it impossible, at least for the next few years, for the two houses to come to blows.  This was - reluctantly - accepted, with the proviso that either Cat or Akin could reject the agreement if they wished, when they came of age.  Cat left Jude’s to found her own school, where other Zeros - when they were found - would be taught.

Meanwhile, the Great Houses had to deal with the repercussions of the attempted coup and the sudden shift in the balance of power.  Isabella Rubén, condemned as a traitor, was exiled to Kirkhaven Hall, where she discovered a secret her family had sought to bury ... and a new secret, one of her own.  Others took advantage of the chaos to stake a claim to power themselves, plots that were only foiled through sheer luck and outside intervention.  The city remained unstable ...

Six years passed, slowly.  Akin Rubén went back to school for his final year, to discover - thanks to his father - that he had to compete in the Challenge, a contest to find the ‘Wizard Regnant.’  Reluctantly, Akin complied, forming a team consisting of his cousin Francis and a handful of misfits, including merchant’s daughter Louise Herdsman and Saline Califon, a distant relative who was under a spell cast by her wicked uncle.  Despite Francis’s betrayal - the result of a shadowy figure from the family’s past - Akin managed to realise the true nature of the Challenge and forge a last-minute alliance with Alana Aguirre, Cat’s sister, that allowed them to share the victory.

This did not please everyone, most notably common-born student Adam Mortimer.

That was five short months ago.  Now, Adam is on the verge of finishing his education ...

Prologue

If there was one lesson my father - and my experience at Jude’s - had hammered into me, time and time again, it was this.

Never, never, trust an aristo.

It wasn’t that all aristos were bad.  I’d met some who were good, who were decent and kind and generous ... as long as it didn’t impinge upon their interests in any substantial way.  And I’d met some who seemed to take delight in looking down on the commoners and making us beg, for everything from food and funding - and patronage - to simple survival.  They’d been taught to put their interests of their class ahead of everything else, even simple human decency.  They were just too different.  They could never be trusted.

Father had sworn he would never call upon an aristocrat and he’d kept his oath.  He’d worked his way up from the docks through sheer talent and a gritty willingness to do whatever it took to build up a merchant trader business by himself.  He could have had everything on a platter, if he’d become an aristo’s client.   They would have given him everything he could handle, at the cost of losing his independence.  Once they had him in their clutches, they would never have let him go.  The price was too high.  And Father had proved it could be done without them.  He’d made me swear the same oath when I went to Jude’s.

I’d kept it, as best as I could.  It came with a price.  I could be friendly to anyone and everyone, but I could never truly be one of them.  I wasn’t an aristo, of course, and I was unwilling to submit to them.  They knew I wasn’t useless, but they also knew I would never be their client.  I studied as hard as I could, determined to make a name for myself that relied on no one else.  I was going to be the greatest sorcerer in the world.  It was why I’d entered the Challenge.

And then, everything changed.

I’d chosen not to form a team.  There just weren’t many students, like myself, who didn’t have ties to the aristos.  Even trying to put together a group would have exposed me to humiliation.  I was good too, good enough to think I could do it on my own.  I thought, as I heard the rumours echoing through the school, that I’d have some advantages if I was alone.  I wouldn’t have to fear my allies putting a knife - hopefully just metaphorically - in my back.  One never knew with aristos.

The Challenge itself seemed absurdly simple. Capture the Flag, writ large.  I suppose that should have tipped me off.  Nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems.  I woke up in the middle of a forest, miles from anywhere.  No worries.  I was good at being sneaky.  I’d spent my nights at school sneaking around, stealing food from the kitchens or feuding with other students.  I stayed low, keeping my head down as I inched through the forest towards the castle.  I didn’t want to encounter the other teams, not when I couldn’t afford to take a single hit.  If I was frozen, stunned, or trapped in a useless form ... I would lose.  No one was going to liberate me before time ran out.  It would just make life harder for themselves.  

I watched and waited as two other teams reached the castle, only to start snapping spells at each other instead of splitting up or trying to collaborate.  They took each other out, more or less.  There were only a couple of students left free by the time I spelled them both and walked into the castle.  The wards felt stronger than I’d expected, strong enough to confuse my senses.  The building’s interior kept shifting.  I was impressed, as well as worried.  I knew it would be very easy to get turned around and pointed in the wrong direction.  I was sneaking down the corridor when I saw someone moving ahead of me.  I hexed him ...

... And promptly got hexed in the back.

My body froze, my muscles locking stiff.  I wanted to shout, to roar in fury, but it was too late.  I’d been tricked and ... I’d lost.  Francis Rubén walked past me, sniggering like a depraved loon.  He’d been separated from his team, but ... it had worked out for him.  He’d taken me out of the game.  He dropped his trousers and mooned me, then walked on into the shadows.  I stood there, helplessly.  There was nothing I could do but wait for the game to end.

I’d been beaten before.  It happened, no matter how hard I tried.  There’s always someone better or luckier or ... simply in a position to take advantage of my mistakes.  I didn’t take losing personally.  If I was beaten according to the rules, I didn’t mind.  It happened.  But Francis ... I felt tricked, belittled, and humiliated by how he’d rubbed my nose in it.  And it didn’t help that others snickered at me too as they passed.  I was frozen, but I could hear them.  They pointed and laughed, the commoner who’d tried to do the Challenge alone.  Alana was particularly cruel.  She’d never liked me, ever since I’d asked her to walk out with me.  She didn’t pay attention to anyone unless he - or she - could trace their bloodline all the way back to the Thousand Year Empire.

It felt like hours before I was freed.  The Challenge was over.  Akin Rubén - one of the few decent aristos - had won.  Alana had come second, sort of.  Francis was dead.  I never heard the full details, which led me to suspect he’d done something embarrassing.  I would have liked to think that he’d hexed someone else in the back, but I doubted it. Aristos didn’t get thrown out for cheating commoners.  That was how most of their ancestors had risen to power in the first place.

But the whole affair left me unsure of what to do with my life.  I was a good magician - I knew that - but what would I do after I graduated?  What could I do?  There were few careers open to me that didn’t involve asking for patronage, pledging myself to an aristo and following my patron’s orders slavishly.  The system had little room for the truly independent.  Father had worked hard, but he’d run up hard against the limits.  He couldn’t grow his business any further without their help and it was the one thing he refused to do.

The weeks and months that followed were frustrating, to say the least.  Everyone knew I’d been humiliated.  They learnt not to snigger so loudly after I claimed Scholar’s Rights and hexed two particularly annoying students until their own mothers couldn’t have recognised them, but I knew they were still laughing.  Of course they were!  I was a safe target.  They wouldn’t get embroiled in a family feud by laughing at me.  Whatever I did to them, it wouldn’t last.  I forced myself to work hard, putting my all into the exams.  And then ...

I waited, bored.  I had to do something to liven things up.  

Ironically, my decision to commit a string of pranks was what opened the door to a whole new world ...

Chapter One

It was going to be the greatest prank ever.

I smiled as I carefully picked my way into the Charms classroom.  Jude’s had a tradition of pranksters, students who pushed the limits as far as they would go without crossing the line into bullying.  I’d gleefully embraced the tradition over the last few months, devising newer and better spells to make everyone - even the victim - laugh.  But I hadn’t come up with anything new.  My pranks were little more than modified or improved versions of older pranks.  They’d be saying I was a copycat.  And that was intolerable.

This time, I told myself, it would be different.  I was really going to do something new.  I was going to upset the aristos, shock them ... my smile grew wider as I slipped into the empty classroom and made my way to the storeroom beyond.  I’d borrow a handful of supplies, use them in the prank and - afterwards - take whatever punishment came my way.  Magister Hugh Von Rupert wouldn’t be too annoyed, I thought.  The old geezer barely knew what year it was, let alone the names and faces of his students.  He had a first-class mind for magic - I’ll give him that much - but little else.  I honestly didn’t understand why students like Caitlyn Aguirre had paid so much attention to him.

The wards on the storeroom parted after a few moments of careful effort.  I nodded to myself as I gingerly opened the door - I wouldn’t put it past the charms tutors to rig a surprise on the far side for any thieving students - and peered inside.  The small collection of tools, supplies and textbooks seemed to shimmer in welcome.  I stayed where I was, casting a handful of detection spells.  Getting caught after the fact was one thing, but getting caught in the act would make me a laughingstock.  Being laughed at was worse than detention, or writing lines, or volunteering at the local soup kitchen.  If there were any more charms inside the compartment, I might be in some trouble.

But there were none.  

I frowned, torn between the urge to get on with it and the sense I should back away now.  The storeroom wouldn’t have been left completely undefended.  I could hardly be the first student who’d thought of raiding the charms classroom for supplies.  The potions cabinets were heavily defended - most students tried to raid them - but really ... the storeroom should have been warded better than this.  

Yet ... there was nothing.  

I narrowed my eyes, then inched inside.  I’d come too far to back out now.  I’d know, even if no one else did.  I would know I’d been a coward, rather than taking what I wanted and withdrawing before lunch was over and the tutors had returned.  I reached for the nearest box of tools ...

... And sensed, more than heard, someone behind me.

I tensed, bracing myself as I turned slowly.  If Magister Von Rupert had caught me ... I might be able to talk my way out of serious - and humiliating - trouble.  Boys will be boys and all that guff.  My heart sank as I saw Magister Grayson, hands crossed over his chest and a grim expression on his face.  Magister Von Rupert was easy-going, but his partner was vindictive, vicious, vile and a number of other things that also started with V.  No one ragged on Magister Von Rupert - much - for fear of Magister Grayson.  I was doomed, unless ... I groaned.  Tradition decreed that any student who managed to get past the tutors and escape was allowed to go free, but I knew I wasn’t going to get past him.  Magister Grayson was the toughest tutor in school.  A student who tried to give him the traditional black eye would be lucky if he only spent the next few weeks in the hospital wing.

“Adam Mortimer,” Magister Grayson said.  I tried to look for a hint of mercy in his dark eyes, for an awareness that we were nearing graduation, but saw none.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

A hundred answers ran through my mind, all discarded before they were fully formed.  I couldn’t lie, not to him.  I couldn’t escape either.  There was nothing for it, but to take my punishment like a man.  I wondered, as I forced myself to relax, what it would be.  Tutors weren’t allowed to hit or hex students, unless the students hit or hexed them first, but they had wide latitude for punishment.  I was an upperclassman.  Maybe he’d humiliate me by assigning me lines, as if I were a lowly lowerclassman.  Or maybe he’d tell me to spend the next few days helping the kitchen staff.

“I was borrowing supplies for a prank, sir,” I said.  I didn’t bother to pretend I was sorry, not about anything other than getting caught.  He wouldn’t believe me if I’d tried.  “I ... how did you know I was here?”

“That’s none of your business.”  Magister Grayson glowered at me.  I wondered, suddenly, if he’d swapped shifts with his partner.  I’d thought Von Rupert was on duty today.  I would never have dared raid the storeroom if I’d known it was Magister Grayson.  “You’re meant to be graduating, are you not?”

“Yes, sir.”  I felt a flicker of fear.  Could Magister Grayson tamper with my exam results?  I didn’t think so - the exams were administered by independent proctors, sworn to neutrality - but it was impossible to be sure.  Magister Grayson was good.  “I’m due to leave for good in two weeks.”

“How lucky for us,” Magister Grayson said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  “I suppose giving you a year’s detention is a bit out of the question.”

“Yes, sir.”  I tried not to smirk.  Whatever punishment he gave me, it wouldn’t linger past graduation day.  “I’ll be gone soon.”

“Quite.”  Magister Grayson smiled, coldly.  I felt another frisson of fear.  “Go to the detention hall.  Supervise the detentions until dinnertime.  And if I catch you in here again, you’ll regret it.”

I tried not to wince.  Supervising detentions was boring.  An hour supervising the detention hall was almost as bad as having detention itself.  Worse, perhaps, because the supervisor had to keep an eye on the detainees.  He wasn’t allowed to read or do his own work or do anything.  I’d done a few shifts, an hour at a time, and I’d hated it.  I had never been quite sure who was actually being punished.  The lowerclassmen in detention, or the poor upperclassman who was meant to be watching them.

“Yes, sir,” I managed.  There were worse punishments, weren’t there?  “Thank you, sir.”

Magister Grayson pointed at the door.  “Go.”

I walked past him, gritting my teeth as I strolled into the corridor.  There was no point in not doing as I was told.  Magister Grayson would report the punishment to higher authority and if I didn’t attend the classroom ... I snorted, rudely.  That would get me in real trouble.  It might not affect my exam results, but it would certainly affect whatever reference Jude’s gave me after I graduated.  Getting caught trying to break into the storeroom was one thing; disobeying orders and welshing out of punishment was quite another.

And Father would not be pleased, I reminded myself.  I didn’t want to work for my father, after I graduated, but I might not have a choice.  And ... my actions would reflect badly on him.  Everyone would be saying he raised a coward who couldn’t look himself in the eye.

I dawdled as much as I could as I walked through empty corridors and into the detention hall, trying to convince myself the hall would be empty.  The exams were almost all over, save for a handful of exams intended for specific career paths.  I hadn’t taken any of them, if only because I wasn’t sure what my career path was.  Everything I wanted to do would have required pledging myself to someone ... I put the thought aside as I peered into the hall and winced.  The Head Girl - Alana Aguirre - sat at the head desk, bored.  A handful of younger students sat at other desks, doing their work.  They looked too scared to talk out of turn.  I didn’t blame them.  I’d been like them too.

“Adam?”  Alana glanced up at me.  “You have detention?”

I tried not to stare.  Alana was beautiful, with dark skin, darker eyes and hair so perfect I knew she used magic to keep it in line.  I’d found her attractive from the moment I’d started noticing girls as more than oddly-shaped boys.  She looked as though she wouldn’t harm a fly.  But I knew she not only could harm a fly, she was perfectly capable of turning someone into a fly too.  Rumour had it she’d been really terrible to her sister, the Zero.  I believed it.  I’d asked her out once, and she’d laughed in my face.  

And it doesn’t help that people keep asking if we’re related.  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the thought.  They really can’t believe my talent came from the commoner ranks.

“Yeah.”  I had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes widen before I explained.  “I’ve been ordered to take over from you.  Lucky you.”

Alana smiled.  It lit up her face.  “What did you do?  Throw a tomato at the Castellan?”

“Something like that,” I said, vaguely.  I wasn’t going to admit what I’d actually been caught doing.  Magister Grayson might not be very specific when he reported me to higher authority.  Alana had access to the punishment books.  If I was lucky, they wouldn’t tell her very much. “The Magister was not best pleased.”

“Hah.”  Alana stood, brushing down her skirt.  I tried not to stare at her shirt as she donned her uniform jacket.  “Akin’s due to take over in an hour or so.  Should I tell him not to bother?”

“I’m here until dinnertime,” I told her.  The more I thought about it, the more annoyed I grew.  “Tell him to do whatever he wants.”

Alana nodded stiffly, then turned and headed to the door.  I resisted the urge to watch her as I took the seat and checked the detention roster, casting my eyes over the list of names.  I knew some of them from tutoring, but - as an upperclassman - I was obliged to pretend I didn’t.  It was lucky my sister wasn’t in the crowd.  I’d have had to be extra hard on her, just to make it clear I wasn’t favouring her.  I settled back into my seat, raising my eyes to study the detainees.  They made a show of not looking back at me, save one.  Penny Rubén.

I held her eyes until she looked down, her cheeks burning with humiliation.  Penny was a fifth-year student who’d been caught bullying - openly bullying - one of her first-year charges.  Akin, her cousin, had caught her.  He’d surprised and outraged many of his peers by ensuring Penny had the book thrown at her, rather than dealing with it himself or burying the truth to protect the family name.  I wasn’t sure quite what had happened - and not all of the rumours reflected well on Akin - but he’d certainly ensured the problem could not be quietly forgotten.  Penny might spend two more years at school, yet ... she’d always be treated as a lowerclassman.  One of her former peers had probably given her lines.  She couldn’t have been more humiliated if she’d been forced to clean cauldrons like a skivvy.

Serves you right, I thought.  Upperclassmen were not supposed to pick on lowerclassmen, certainly not first-years who were meant to be under their supervision.  But Penny was an aristo.  Her father, who’d left his family under mysterious circumstances, had probably raised her to suck up to her superiors while sneering at everyone below her.  It isn’t as if your punishment will follow you when you graduate.

I scowled.  I’d been assured that wasn’t true.  Penny’s reputation would follow her, wherever she went.  But it wasn’t a formal punishment.  She’d probably find a way to parlay her birth into an advantageous match, or convince her family to give her lots of money in exchange for taking herself out of Shallot.  Her family wouldn’t punish her unless she really stepped over the line.  Akin’s sister had been sent into exile for high treason.  Anything less would probably be quietly ignored.

Someone coughed.  I glared at him, then turned my attention back to the list.  A boy who’d been disobedient in Defensive Magic.  I was surprised he’d been sent to the hall instead of being put to work by the tutors.  A pair of girls who’d been given detention for talking too loudly in the library.  Personally, I thought they weren’t being punished enough.  I’d always hated chattering brats when I’d been trying to study.  And seven others, girls and boys, who’d been ordered to write some variant of ‘I will do as my tutors tell me without talking back.’  I had to smile at one of the notes - a first-year boy who’d charmed a piece of chalk to write lines on the blackboard for him - and made a mental note to suggest to my sister that she kept an eye on him.  Someone with that sort of talent might be worth watching.

He’s probably got a patron already, I thought, sourly.  Aristo students were expected to start recruiting clients young.  It just wasn’t fair.  I could have had anything I wanted, as long as I pledged myself to someone barely older.  If they couldn’t give it to me themselves, their parents certainly could.  And even if he doesn’t, that will change before too long.

I leaned back in my chair, wishing for something - anything - to happen.  The rules were clear.  I wasn’t allowed to read, I wasn’t allowed to write ... I wasn’t even allowed to engage my charges in conversation, unless one of them did something I could object to.  I waited, half-praying for Penny to step out of line so I could stomp on her, but she did nothing.  I guessed she knew just how bad things would be for her, over the next two years.  She deserved no less.  It wasn’t justice - personally, I would have expelled her - but it would have to do.

The door opened.  I glanced up, just in time to see a brown-haired firstie girl inching into the room.  She looked ashamed, as if she was already regretting whatever she’d done.  It was probably her first detention.  I concealed my amusement as she sneaked forward, as if she could avoid being noticed as long as she stayed quiet.  She was already too late to escape notice.  Hell, she was ensuring she was noticed by trying not to be noticed.  I wondered, idly, how long it would take her to learn that there was nothing more conspicuous than someone trying to hide.

Probably a commoner, I decided, as she stopped in front of the desk.  She looked so tense that I was tempted to shout BOO.  An aristo would be a little more confident even if she was walking to her doom.

I dismissed the temptation - I wasn’t Penny, damn it - and took the slip she offered me.  It was clear and concise.  The poor girl - her name was Gayle - had been given lines for a poorly-written essay.  I guessed she’d been having problems with her handwriting, rather than whatever she’d actually written.  I’d had problems too, when I’d been a lowerclassman.  Father had made sure I knew how to read and write, but I’d never been a particularly good writer.  My tutors had made hundreds of sarcastic remarks as I’d struggled to learn the ropes.

“Take a seat,” I ordered, as I passed her a pencil and paper.  “Write your lines, then you can go.”

It wasn’t the nicest thing I’d ever done, but the last thing she needed - when she had six more years of schooling to get through - was me going easy on her.  The other students might be pretending to ignore us, but I knew they were listening.  They’d talk if I went easy on her, if they thought I let her off ... her classmates would hear, eventually, and take it out on her.  It wouldn’t be her fault.  It wouldn’t be as through she’d begged me to let her go or something along those lines.  But they’d take it out on her anyway.  There was nothing I could do about it.

I watched her sit down, then forced myself to think of something - anything - else.  I had only two weeks before I needed to start job-hunting in earnest.  I knew my father.  He’d put me to work in the shop, or kick me out if I refused.  And the longer I took to get a proper job, the harder it would be.  I glowered at my hands, magic prickling just under my skin.  It just wasn’t fair.

Life isn’t fair, I reminded myself.  All you can do is play the cards you’re dealt and hope for the best.

The door opened, again.

I blinked in surprise as Akin stepped in.  Alana should have told him he wasn’t needed ... right?  I didn’t think she’d take the risk of letting the Head Boy embarrass himself, not when their families were in alliance.  Her parents would be furious if she caused a rift between the two families.  And her sister Cat, perhaps the most important aristo amongst her generation, would be angry too.  She and Akin were betrothed.  They seemed to get on better than most betrothed couples.

“Akin,” I said.  “I’m stuck here until ...”

Akin cut me off.  “The Castellan sent me to take your place,” he said.  “You’ve been summoned to his office.”

I blinked.  “Why ...?”

“I have no idea.”  Akin smiled, humourlessly.  “But you’d better get there quickly.”

“Will do.”  I stood, wondering if I should be relieved or worried.  “Have fun.”

Chapter Two

I tried to look confident, as I strode through the corridors and up the stairs, despite the fear gnawing my soul.  It was uncommon for students, even upperclassmen, to be summoned to the Castellan’s office unless they were in real trouble.  I couldn’t think of anything I’d done, or anything I might reasonably be suspected of doing, that might have earned me a summons from the school’s master, but ... I couldn’t think of any other reason why I might be summoned either.  Even Akin and Alana weren’t important enough to be offered a social invite.  Caitlyn Aguirre was perhaps the only student of my generation to merit one and she’d left Jude’s five years ago, after the House War.

Maybe he just wants to yell at me for breaking into the storeroom, I thought, although that didn’t seem likely.  Tradition insisted that a person could only be punished once, no matter what he’d done.  Magister Grayson had foreclosed that possibility when he’d sent me to supervise detention.  Or maybe something else has happened.

Ice gripped my heart as I knocked on the half-open door and stepped into the antechamber.  The Castellan’s secretary, a woman with an glower that could curdle milk, scowled at me, then pointed to the inner door.  I set my face in a carefully-neutral expression, then walked into the Castellan’s chamber.  He sat behind his desk, glaring at a sheet of official-looking paperwork.  Another man sat in a chair front of the desk, turning to look at me.  I tensed, despite myself.  My instincts recognised a threat when they saw one.  He had the air of a man who knew himself so well there was no room for doubt or scruple.  His face was handsome, but oddly bland.  It was the kind of face that looked as if it would go unnoticed in a crowd.

I met the Castellan’s eyes.  “You called me, sir?”

“Yes.”  The Castellan sounded irked.  “Sir Gareth?”

I blinked as the stranger stood.  He was taller than I’d thought, wearing a dark suit that marked him as a king’s messenger.  I hesitated, suddenly unsure of the proper protocol.  Was I meant to bow or go to one knee ...?  The thought burned.  I hated bending the knee to anyone.  Magic seemed to grow stronger as Sir Gareth studied me.  He was a powerful magician.  His spells seemed to be spreading out, touching the entire office.

“We’ll have the room now,” he said.  His voice was aristocratic, but oddly accented.  I had the feeling he was from the capital, rather than Shallot or one of the border cities.  I’d never been outside my hometown.  “I’ll speak to you later.”

The Castellan nodded and stood.  I stared in disbelief, unable to wrap my head around someone ordering the Castellan out of his own office.  The Castellan might not be the supreme ruler of the school - that was the three lords above him - but he ran the building.  It was hard to believe that someone - anyone - would show him so much disrespect.  Sir Gareth had to be very important.  And if he was a king’s messenger ...

My thoughts ran in circles.  Did Sir Gareth work for the king?  Or was he representing another aristocrat?  Or ... what did he want with me?  Was I in trouble?  Or ... I couldn’t think of any explanation that made sense.  I wasn’t Caitlyn Aguirre, or someone else with a unique talent, someone who might have drawn the attention of the king himself.  I was just another common-born magician, with neither money nor connections.  There was no reason anyone should be interested in me.

“Take a seat.”  Sir Gareth lowered his voice as he indicated a chair.  “We have a lot to cover.”

I sat, trying hard to focus.  What was going on?  Sir Gareth snapped his fingers, summoning two decanters and a jug of water from the sideboard.  I watched, numbly, as invisible forces manipulated the three items, filling the decanters with water and returning the jug to the side.  I took the glass I was offered and eyed it, unsure if I dared to sip.  It was both an impressive display of power and a warning.  Sir Gareth was clearly someone to take seriously.

Sir Gareth sat back.  “Why did you take the Challenge alone?”

I felt my cheeks heat.  “I thought it would give me a chance to make a name for myself,” I said, truthfully.  “If I won, if I became Wizard Regnant, I thought I could get an apprenticeship without any pesky strings attached.”

“Indeed?”  Sir Gareth didn’t smile.  “And that was what you wanted?”

“In part.”  I didn’t want to tell him the rest, but I had the feeling I should.  “I wanted - I needed - to make a name for myself.  I didn’t - I don’t - want to be just another client.”

“I’ve reviewed your grades,” Sir Gareth said.  “And your exam results.  You’d hardly be just another client.”

“I would be.”  I eyed him, sourly, as a thought stuck me.  “Are you encouraging me to talk?”

“Yes.”  Sir Gareth didn’t sound remotely sorry.  “I wanted truthful answers.”

I glared.  “You didn’t trust me?”

“In this line of work, most people will bend over backwards to tell me what they think I want to hear,” Sir Gareth said, unemotionally.  “The truth is often far more important.”

“I won’t lie to you,” I snapped.  It crossed my mind that I shouldn’t be talking to him like that, but I was too angry to care.  “What do you want with me?”

“I’ve reviewed your grades,” Sir Gareth repeated.  “You have top marks in everything practical, from Advanced Charms to Forging.  Your marks in more abstract studies are poorer - clearly, you don’t take that much interest in history or current affairs.  And a couple of your sports masters have remarked that you’re not a team player.  What would you say to that?”

I bet Francis wrote one of those assessments, I thought, nastily.  Francis had never liked me.  I’d been a good enough player to stay on the field, but not good enough to write my own ticket.  And what he meant was that I didn’t spend enough time kissing his unmentionables.

“I argued that positions within a team should be allocated by skill, not family connections,” I said, coldly.  Francis hadn’t liked that argument.  The little bastard had genuinely believed he’d won his post though skill, rather than the family name.  He’d been good, but not that good.  “And my arguments didn’t please the aristos.”

“I’d wager not,” Sir Gareth agreed.  I thought I saw a flicker of amusement cross his face.  “You have excellent marks as a duellist.  Why didn’t you join the league?”

“I couldn’t afford the dues,” I said, reluctantly.  “It was impossible on my allowance.”

“An unfortunate problem,” Sir Gareth said.  “But not an insurmountable one.  You could look for a sponsor.”

“Which would mean giving up my independence,” I pointed out.  “Whoever sponsored me would certainly want something in return.”

“Quite.”  Sir Gareth nodded, curtly.  “And where do you see yourself in five years?”

I frowned.  The sudden shift in subject seemed designed to confuse me.  “I don’t know,” I admitted.  “It isn’t as if I have many prospects.”

“Really?”  Sir Gareth lifted his eyebrows.  “Is that true?”

“Yes,” I said.  “The only real prospect is going to work for my dad.”

I stared at my hands, unwilling to admit how little I wanted that.  Father wasn’t a bad person - perish the thought - but I wanted to be more than just a merchant tradesman and shopkeeper in Water Shallot.  And yet, where could I go?  What sort of job could I do without surrendering to the aristos and becoming just another client?  I couldn’t imagine anything, save perhaps signing on to a clipper ship and sailing to distant Hangchow.  But even the clipper ships belonged to the Great Houses.  I wouldn’t have a hope of commanding my own ship, unless I sold myself to the aristos.

Sir Gareth leaned forward.  I had the sense the real discussion was about to begin.  “Every year, my office looks for students such as yourself.  Skilled magicians, with brains and power ... and independence.  People who know Shallot, or the other cities, without being part of the local power structure.  I dare say that’s true of you?”

“I dare say,” I echoed.  “Father has a tiny power base, too small to matter.”

“Quite,” Sir Gareth said.  “I have a job offer for you.  The training is hard; some would say brutal.  You might wash out within the first few weeks or die, if things go wrong.  The pay is good, but don’t count on having much time to spend it.  You’ll have respect, and support, as long as you uphold the law.  And you’ll be challenged every day until you retire.”

I cocked my head.  “What sort of job is it?”

“A King’s Man,” Sir Gareth said.  “We’re always looking for new recruits.  And we think you have the right stuff.”

I forced myself to say nothing.  My thoughts were a churning mess.  I’d heard all sorts of stories about the King’s Men, from damsels in distress being rescued to angry dragons being slain before they could lay waste to entire towns and cities.  The King’s Men had done everything, if the stories were to be believed.  They’d stopped invasions, put down rebellions, protected commoners, defeated crime lords and aristocrats and generally upheld the law.  The stories made them sound like supermen.  And they wanted me?  I was tempted.  By the Ancients, I was tempted.

And yet, the king was just another aristocrat.  Wasn’t he?  I didn’t want to pledge myself to any aristocrat.  But ... I stared down at my hands, unsure of myself.  I wanted the chance to take on a newer and better challenge, whatever the price.  What choice did I have?  I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a glorified shopboy.  Father might not even leave the shop to me.  My older sister was first in line and she was determined to turn our small business into a massive enterprise.  I had the feeling I’d be spending the rest of my life serving her, when Father finally joined his ancestors.  

I swallowed, hard.  “What ... what’s it like?”

Sir Gareth smiled.  “Like I said, the training is hard.  And it never stops, even when you graduate.  You’ll spend the rest of your life on the cutting edge of magical and military research, learning spells and techniques you will hopefully never have to use.  Your word will be enough to save or damn the accused, to settle disputes and comfort the afflicted.  One day, you may find yourself brokering a truce and ending a House War; another, you may find yourself tracking down a murderer or chasing a fugitive across the border. Or you might lead troops into battle, holding the line for reinforcements to arrive.  Or ... you might be on the far side of the border, doing whatever you can to slow an enemy army.  The only thing you can be sure of, young man, is that each month will be different.”

“And you want me to pledge myself to the king,” I said.  It was hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice.  “I don’t want to surrender everything ...”

“You don’t have to,” Sir Gareth said.  “The king understands the importance of listening to his advisors.  And his loyal servants.”

I frowned.  “I don’t know,” I said.  It was almost - if not quite - a lie.  “What ... I ... someone came to you, didn’t they, and made the same offer.  What do you wish you’d known before you started?”

Sir Gareth nodded.  I had the feeling he was pleased.  “It can be a lonely life,” he admitted, slowly.  “You’re obliged to cut all formal ties of obligation.  You can stay in touch with your family - many of us do - but you can’t use your position to help them.  Should you get married, your wife will have the same issue.  She will not be allowed to manipulate you or your position for any reason whatsoever.  And ... you may find yourself spending months, if not years, away from her.

“And you’ll make enemies.  There are hundreds of lords and ladies, with power both magical and mundane, who hate us.  A couple of us have met with suspicious accidents during the course of an investigation.  We never managed to prove who killed them, or even if their deaths weren’t accidents, but ... we know.  You might wind up dead, your ashes scattered in a graveyard no one outside the order knows exists.

“And ... there will be times when there will be no satisfactory end to an investigation.  You’ll find the suspect has enough power and influence to escape judgement.  Or that the entire issue is hushed up, with agreements made for compensation behind the scenes.  Or ... that you’ll be ordered to do something off the record, to ensure there is punishment even if it is never formally acknowledged.  If you’re wedded to a happy ending, all the time, you may find this job a little frustrating.”

I let out a breath.  “And warlocks?”

“Yes.”  Sir Gareth nodded, curtly.  “You’ll certainly encounter warlocks.”

He smiled, thinly.  “I understand you don’t like the aristocracy, young man.  I don’t blame you.  Consider this your chance to keep an eye on it.  Who knows?  Maybe you’ll find a way to teach them a lesson.”

I frowned.  “How many people did you talk to before you spoke to me?”

“Enough.”  Sir Gareth shrugged.  “We do a background check before revealing our hand.  It saves time.  If a candidate is deemed unsuitable ... well, they never know they had our attention in the first place.”

“I see,” I said.  “What did they say about me?”

“I can’t answer that question,” Sir Gareth said.  “Suffice it to say they said nothing to make us rethink our interest.”

He smiled, rather humourlessly.  “Are you interested?  Or should I give up?”

“I’m interested,” I said.  Father might not be pleased ... I told myself I’d have to discuss it with him.  Technically, I was old enough to make such decisions for myself, but I didn’t want to blindside the old man.  I certainly didn’t want to be disowned.  “When do I need to give you a definite answer?”

Sir Gareth smiled.  “Intake Day is one week from today,” he said, as he dug into his briefcase and removed a large envelope.  The runes sketched on the parchment promised an unpleasant surprise for anyone who tried to open the missive without permission.  “You’ll find all the details here.  If you’re interested, after you read the papers and consult with your family and friends, just turn up for training as ordered.  If you change your mind ... don’t bother.  We’ll log you as another reject and proceed to the next set of candidates.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Tell the school you’re moving out early,” Sir Gareth added.  “Don’t count on coming back within the next couple of months, unless you wash out.  If that happens”- he shrugged - “you might as well try to apply yourself elsewhere.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, reluctantly.  “I’ll be there.”

“Consult with your family first,” Sir Gareth urged.  “You’re doing far more than just getting a job.  It’s a calling.  And things will never be the same again.”

“I see, I think,” I said.  

“I’d be surprised if you did,” Sir Gareth said, coolly.  He placed the envelope on the Castellan’s desk.  “It took me years to truly understand what I’d joined, and how it would consume my life.”

I stared at him.  “Is it worth it?”

“I’ve saved lives.  And cities.”  Sir Gareth sounded pensive, his eyes looking into a past only he could see.  “So yes, it’s worth it.  But it does come with a price.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Hah.”  Sir Gareth smiled, rather coldly.  “If you can tell me that again, a year from now, I’ll buy you a drink.”

I kept my thoughts to myself.  I knew I’d have to talk it over with Father, but ... I already knew I was going to be reporting for training on Intake Day.  My fingers itched to reach for the envelope, open it and read the papers, to plan my journey to ... to wherever I would be trained.  I felt torn between my hatred of surrendering even some of my independence and hope - new hope - of doing something about the aristos.  Catching some of them with egg on their face would make everything worthwhile.

Sir Gareth stood.  “I have a final test for you,” he said.  “A warning, as well as a test.  Are you interested?”

I blinked.  “I don’t ...”

He jabbed a finger at me.  I sensed the surge of magic, a second too late.  I’d had defences in place, but they melted like snow in the face of the sun.  My body warped and twisted - I felt a surge of pain, the unmistakable sense of being transfigured - my eyesight twisting and bending as the world grew larger.  The magic boiled around me.  I tried to cast a counterspell, but it refused to work.  I looked down at myself and gulped.  I’d been turned into a frog!  I’d been turned into a frog, as easily as a firstie who knew no magic before he came to school.  And all my defences had proven worthless.

That’s what he’s trying to teach me, I thought, numbly.  I hadn’t been so easily defeated since I’d been a little boy, playing in the gutter with the other snipes.  There are magics beyond the fields I know.

“Free yourself, before the Castellan reclaims his office,” Sir Gareth ordered, coolly.  “And if you’re still interested, report to the hall on Intake Day.”

He turned and strode out of the room, leaving me behind.

Chapter Three

I forced myself to calm down and focus, even though panic yammered at the back of my mind.  I was not a little kid, unused to magic.  I’d been transfigured hundreds of times over the past decade.  I shouldn’t be panicking, not when I was in a form that could move and wave its hands to cast the counterspell.  I’d plenty of experience of breaking spells from the inside, freeing myself and going on to strike back at my tormentor.  I shouldn’t have any trouble breaking free this time.

But this spell was different.  It roared around me in a manner I’d never sensed.  The sheer power was terrifying, as if it was forcing me into another shape through naked will alone.  I tried to focus, to pick out the spellform and dismantle it from the inside, but it refused to hold still long enough to let me analyze it.  I’d seen all kinds of spells designed to make life difficult for anyone who wanted to take them apart, yet ... this was different.  It shifted so often that I found it hard to believe it had just turned me into a frog.  It could have done something else ...

I held still, a giant weight pressing me down.  My back felt uncomfortable, as if I’d been forced to the floor in a wrestling match.  I knew from bitter experience that if I felt that bad, if someone had me trapped so completely, I’d lost.  I’d have no choice but to tap out in surrender.  And yet, there was no one to surrender to.  I inched forward, feeling the pressure move with me.  The spell wasn’t going to let me go that easily.  

The spell can’t be unbreakable, I told myself.  I looked around, trying to spot anything that might help.  The Castellan might have a spellbreaker in his office.  If he did, I couldn’t see it - or anything else.  There has to be a way out.

I gritted my teeth, trying to push the spell away.  It was a raging torrent of energy, pushing me down  ... it barely budged, even when I threw everything I had into the effort.  I couldn’t even begin to untangle it.  And yet ... a thought stuck me and I forced myself into new effort.  I pushed the spellflow back as hard as I could, while inching forward until I fell off the edge of the chair.  My concentration snapped the moment I hit the floor, but it didn’t matter.  I was outside the spell’s influence.  My body returned to normal seconds later.  I stumbled to my feet, sweat trickling down my back.  That had been too close.  The Castellan would certainly have told Sir Gareth if I’d failed.

The envelope called to me.  I picked it up, stuck it under my arm and headed for the door.  The secretary nodded coldly as I wobbled out of the office, feeling like someone had cast an instability jinx.  I hadn’t felt so bad since I’d gone out to a party, drank a lot more than I should and wound up nursing a hangover through my first classes of the day.  I shuddered as I made my way through the empty corridors.  No one had said anything about going back to the Detention Hall.  I was sure that meant Akin was going to handle the duty until the bell rang for dinner.

I put the thought aside as I reached the upperclassman dorms and unpicked the hex on the lock.  The sixth years had been trying to sneak into our section of the dorms now that their exams were over, picking out the rooms they wanted when the next term rolled around.  I’d heard that some of them were competing to become Head Boy and Girl, although I had a feeling they were wasting their time.  The decision wouldn’t be made at Jude’s.  Akin was a decent person, for an aristo, but neither he nor Alana had really deserved the honour.  There were others - better students, kinder students - who should have been offered the job.

I heard footsteps behind me and blinked as Louise Herdsman hurried up to the dorms.  We should have been friends - we came from similar backgrounds, with similar stories - but we’d never really gotten along.  Louise had spent her first few years at Jude’s acting like a know-it-all who didn’t, trying to boss everyone around when she wasn’t questioning why things weren’t organised to suit her.  I understood her frustration, but … she could be very wearying at times.  Her blonde hair hung down to her shoulders, a reminder that she was now a legal adult.  She was pretty, yet ... there was something cold and hard about her.  I tried to ignore the part of me that suggested I should ask her out.

“Adam,” Louise said.  “I heard you were in trouble.”

“Foul lies,” I said, wondering what she’d heard.  Alana had probably told everyone I’d been given detention.  “I am never in trouble.”

Louise gave me a look that suggested I was something particularly unpleasant she’d scraped off her shoe.  Given that she was about as aristocratic as myself, it was very impressive.  I would have been cowed if I hadn’t known her as a little girl.  

“What are you doing this evening?”  Louise sounded indifferent.  I had the feeling it was an act.  “Are you going to be free?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.  “I have to go back home.”

“Ah.”  Louise backed off.  “I’ll see you later.”

I watched her go, trying not to let my gaze linger on her behind.  Louise ... she hadn’t been trying to ask me out, had she?  I didn’t think so.  She’d never shown any interest in anyone, as far as I knew.  I frowned, then opened my door and stepped into my bedroom.  I’d never minded the dorms, where there had been little privacy, but I had to admit the private bedrooms were much better.  It was just a shame that I’d be going back to the family home - and a complete lack of privacy - if becoming a King’s Man didn’t work out.  I was too old to share a room with my sisters or father, wasn’t I?

If we had room to spread out, we would, I thought, as I poured myself a mug of juice and sat on the bed.  There was barely enough room to swing a cat, but the chamber was still better than anything I’d had as a youngster.  Back home, there’s no way we can make the chambers bigger without magic or money we don’t have.

I sipped my drink as I opened the envelope and read through the set of leaflets.  They weren’t as informative as I’d hoped, although they did manage to answer a couple of questions I hadn’t thought to ask.  The Intake Day was going to be held at Haddon Hall, an estate thirty miles north of Shallot.  I picked up a map and studied it, trying to understand how I was meant to get there.  There was a stagecoach passing through Haddon itself, but the estate was a mile or two south of the town.  I might have to get off at the town and walk to the estate.  Or go to Haddon the day before and rent a room for the night.  It wasn’t as if it would be hard.

Just expensive, I mused, tartly.  They could have offered to pay my travel expenses.

I frowned as I worked my way through the rest of the papers, then stood and started to pack up.  I didn’t have much, thankfully, but I couldn’t afford to leave anything behind.  I had to report for training in a week and ... I didn’t want to lose anything.  I glanced back at the list of items I was supposed to bring and frowned.  A handful of clothes and nothing else.  No spellcasters, no spellbreakers, no toys and games ... not even any books!  I wondered, sourly, if we were going to be kept so busy there would be no time for fun.  Probably.  I didn’t know much about the King’s Men, beyond the fact they’d tried and failed to stop the House War, but I had the feeling we were going to be worked hard.  Very hard.

The room looked oddly bare when I’d finished.  I stood, feeling a twinge of disquiet.  I’d lived in the room for nine months and ... I hadn’t really made any impression at all.  The walls were as barren as they’d been when I moved in.  I sighed, remembering how the aristos had decorated their rooms.  Even Akin had hung a huge painting of himself and Caitlyn in pride of place.  I wondered, as I headed for the door, what Alana made of it.  As a reminder her sister was marrying before her, it could hardly be bettered.

I heard the dinner bell ring as I made my way up to the library, ignoring the handful of lowerclassmen running to the dining hall as if the food was going to run out.  They probably expected to be tossed out, a few short seconds after they entered.  Upperclassmen lorded it over lowerclassmen.  It was the way of things and, now that the exams were over, the upperclassmen were free to be jerks.  If they wanted to be.  I’d never felt the urge, myself.

Probably because I spent too much time fetching and carrying when I was a lowerclassman myself, I thought coldly.  The librarian was shutting his office, but he had no qualms about leaving an upperclassman in the library.  I don’t want to be a jerk too.

I smiled, then turned my attention to the careers section.  There was no shortage of information on apprenticeships, from potions and alchemy to healing and financial wizardry, but almost nothing on the Kingsmen.  I read through what little there was, frowning in dismay.  The Kingsmen were definitely more than just a career, but there were almost no specifics.  There were certainly no testimonials from people who’d joined, served their time and retired.  I put the papers aside with a sigh.  It was clear I wasn’t going to find anything here, not when I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.

The door opened behind me.  I glanced back, just in case.  I’d learnt, back in first year, to be wary of anyone behind me.  Saline Califon entered the library, shot me a bright smile and headed down the stacks towards the section on law.  I smiled again, then returned my attention to the files.  Saline was an odd duck and no mistake.  She’d started well, with an academic career everyone envied, then gone sharply downhill.  And yet ... she’d started doing better - much better - after the Challenge.  I didn’t understand it.  She was an aristocrat, with all the power and connections she could possibly want.  Why would she slack off in the middle of her schooling?  I supposed I might have cared more about it if she’d been common-born.  I’d tutored younger kids.  I could have tutored her too.

I put my thought aside as I found the archived newspapers and started to work my way through them.  There were hundreds of stories about the Kingsmen, but it was impossible to sort fact from fiction.  The Kingsmen were wondrous supermen, who could go anywhere and do anything; the Kingsmen were buffoons, useless fools who couldn’t even find a trio of missing children.  They could do anything, but did nothing; they threw their weight around, but it was all for a good cause.  My head throbbed by the time I finished reading the stories from the last couple of years.  There seemed to be nothing solid in the papers, nothing more than rumours and innuendo.  The Kingsmen themselves didn’t give interviews.

Which probably isn’t a bad thing, I thought, as I returned the stacks to the shelves.  The media would probably tinker with whatever they said to make it more newsworthy.

I snorted at the thought, then stood and looked around the library.  Saline had her head in a book, her pretty face frowning.  She looked up and met my eyes, challengingly.  I looked back, silently kicking myself for getting into a pointless contest.  I didn’t want to back down, but I didn’t want to make her back down either.  The second dinner bell rang, making me jump.  I looked away, smiling as I headed back down the stairs.  I’d been saved by the bell.

And now I have to go see Father, I thought, as I returned to my room and picked up my bag and the envelope.  And see what he has to say.

I hurried down the stairs and strode out of the main doors, heading to the gates that led to the city.  It wasn’t uncommon for older students to leave the grounds for a few hours, now that the exams were over, but I still felt oddly exposed as I passed through the gates.  Something had been lost when I’d become an upperclassman.  The challenge of scrambling over the back wall, with the prospect of being caught and marched to the office by the groundskeeper, was gone.  Skullion had given me a black - well, blacker - eye once.  I didn’t mind.  I should probably have given up instead of trying to fight, but I’d never been the sort of person to simply give up.

A figure hurried away from me, heading for the bridges that led to Water Shallot.  I blinked in surprise as I recognised Louise.  Where was she going?  Her family had a shop on the far side of the river, but ... she was heading for the wrong bridge.  I opened my mouth to hail her, then told myself - firmly - that it was none of my business.  Louise was a qualified sorceress in all but name.  She could take care of herself.  Any footpad or predator who tried to grab hold of her would find himself sitting on a lily pad, snapping at flies.  And yet ... it was odd for a young woman of her age to head to Water Shallot alone.  Didn’t she care about her reputation?

People will talk, I thought, as I crossed the road to head to a different bridge.  I didn’t want her to think I was following her.  And her parents will be furious.

I felt a twinge of sympathy for Louise, mingled with a grim awareness that it could be a great deal worse.  People would talk.  It was all they ever did.  And she would find herself painted as everything from a scarlet woman to an outright whore.  She wouldn’t have to do the crime to serve the time.  It would suddenly be very hard for her to get married, if she wanted to get married.  Or if anyone wanted to marry her.  She did have a very disagreeable personality.

And she’d probably say the same about me, I told myself.  And people have been saying that about my father and sisters too.

I put the thought aside as I walked along the riverside, staring down into the murky waters.  A pair of barges were navigating through Shallot, carrying valuable goods from the docks to the warehouses on the far side of the city.  The goods would be on their way to the capital - or somewhere else further up the river - before too long.  I’d had a summer job working on the barges, for a couple of years.  It had been fun, but I wouldn’t have wanted to make a career out of it.  The dockworkers guild was harsh to anyone who refused to bend the knee.  I smiled as I turned onto the bridge and crossed into Water Shallot.  The city didn’t look any different, not here.  The aristos didn’t know what they were talking about.

Idiots, I thought.  They talk about slumming, and yet they never see the real slums.

It would have been funny, if it hadn’t been so tragic.  I’d heard dozens of aristo brats drop hints of roguish dealings in Water Shallot, just to impress girls.  They made it sound as if they were travelling to the Desolation, or the jungles of Minima.  And they never went to the deep dark places, particularly after nightfall.  There were limits to their bravery.  I wish I could say I’d been surprised.

Water Shallot wasn’t that different to the lower-class regions of South Shallot.  The riverside streets were being gentrified, forcing out everyone who couldn’t afford to live there any longer.  I wondered where the former residents had gone, now that the newcomers had taken their homes and shops.  A handful of guardsmen were on patrol, eyes nervously swinging from side to side as they made their way down the street.  I was sure they’d run when trouble really broke out.  The City Guard was kept deliberately weak by Magus Court.  The Great Houses didn’t want to create a rival, or a check on their power.  Father and I knew, at base, that the only people who’d defend our home and business were ourselves.  We couldn’t rely on the City Guard.

The streets grew a little more decayed as I walked east, passing through growing crowds of fishermen and dockyard workers who’d finished for the night and now intended to drink themselves into a stupor.  I shuddered, knowing how easy it would have been for Father to fall into the same trap.  Some of my friends, back when I’d been a child, hadn’t been so lucky.  Their fathers, treated badly at work, had taken it out on their wives and families when they’d gotten home.  I’d seen the bruises.

It could have been worse, I told myself.  I could have joined them too.

Chapter Four

My father’s shop - and warehouse, as he put it - started life as a fairly small corner shop, one of a dozen under a giant tenement block.  He bought it, then took a loan and purchased the two shops next to it and converted them into a single, much larger, shop.  His empire had kept expanding until he’d laid claim to most of the block, with an option to buy what little he didn’t already hold.  I had the feeling he’d never gain complete control of the block, but it didn’t matter.  He held enough territory to veto anything he didn’t like.  

I stopped in front of the window, inspecting the display of goods intended to entice customers.  Father sold everything, from clothes made by part-time seamstresses to meat and fish from the local farms and fishmongers.  He’d told me, once, that he intended to make it easy for everyone to shop, for them to come to a single place to do it.  I hadn’t been convinced - his neighbours would have pushed back hard if they’d thought he was underselling them with the intention of driving them out - but it seemed to be working. The old man always had a lot of satisfied customers.  Who knew?  Maybe, by the time he died, he’d have taken his empire right to the limits.

Father doesn’t believe in limits, I reminded myself, as I pushed open the door.  A handful of anti-theft spells buzzed around me, then faded into the background.  And neither do I.

“Adam!”  I glanced up and smiled as I saw my sister, sitting behind the counter.  “Welcome home!”

“Toni!”  I grinned at her as she motioned me to the backroom door.  “It’s good to be back.”

I felt my smile grow wider as Toni directed the shopgirl to take the counter and led me into the backroom so she could put the kettle on.  My older sister looked strikingly like Alana Aguirre, although there was a faint scar on her face that Alana would have had removed the moment the raw magic faded.  I’d watched hundreds of boys pay court to her, only to be thwarted by her demeanour and father’s tongue-in-cheek demands for massive dowries.  Alana could hardly have done it better.  I grinned, then sat on the overstuffed armchair.  It might have passed through a dozen hands before it came to our shop, but it was more comfortable than the fancy armchairs I’d seen at Jude’s.

“You’d better have done well on your exams,” Toni said, as she poured hot water into the teapot.  “Father will be cross if you don’t have good marks.”

“I have it on good authority that I’ve done very well,” I said.  “How is the shop?”

“Good enough.”  Toni passed me a mug of tea, keeping one for herself.  “The new assistant is shaping up well, certainly better than the last one.  Poor girl was trying to steal food to feed her family.  Dad was a boozer and mother ...” she shrugged.  “I had to let her go.  We just couldn’t afford the losses.”

My eyes narrowed.  “Are we making a profit?”

Toni frowned.  “Barely.  Father keeps finding new things to sell, which is great when they actually sell.”

“I know.”  I sipped my tea thoughtfully.  There was nothing we could do for the former shopgirl.  “Some things simply don’t take off.”

“And others do,” a new voice said.  “Welcome home, Adam.”

I put the mug aside and stood to receive a hug from my father.  He was shorter than me, with dark chocolate skin and curly black hair he’d never bothered to straighten.  I wouldn’t have either, if it hadn’t been the fashion.  Alana and her sisters - and my younger sister - had it worse.  Their hair was meant to be long and straight, not short and curly.  I had the feeling they spent hours each day just smoothing it down.

“Father,” I said, stiffly.  “It’s good to see you again.”

My father nodded.  “What?  No tea for me?”

“You weren’t around,” Toni said.  “There’s tea in the teapot, if you like.”

“No wonder no one’s prepared to pay a massive dowry for you,” Father grumbled.  His smile took the sting out of his words.  “Let me know when you want me to reduce it.”

I looked from one to the other, realising - for the first time - that Father had set the dowry so high to make it easy for Toni to say no.  It would be easy for her to blame the failure of any courtship on her father, who held the purse strings and had veto rights as long as she worked for him.  She couldn’t be blamed if her father refused to let her go, could she?  I wondered, grimly, if anyone would come along she’d actually want.  Water Shallot wasn’t a good place to meet men.  Or women, for that matter.  I could easily see her deciding she’d prefer to stay single.

Mother died in childbirth, I recalled.  And she was one of the lucky ones.

Father poured himself a mug of tea and sat down.  “It’s great to see you again, Adam,” he said.  “But why did you come home so soon?”

“Did you get kicked out?”  Toni smirked.  “Or were you simply bored of loitering around the school?”

“Neither.”  I resisted the urge to make sarcastic remarks as I opened my bag and removed the envelope.  “I got a job offer.”

I felt my heart start to pound as I passed the demagicked envelope to my father.  If he said no ... I could take off on my own, and perhaps I would, but I could hardly come back after a very public break.  I wasn’t sure what I’d do, if he said no.  I didn’t want to give up the chance to do something great, but ... I knew he wouldn’t be keen on me doing anything for the king.  The king wasn’t a normal aristo ...

“I see.”  My father’s voice betrayed nothing of his feelings.  “Do you want to do this?”

“Yes, father.”  It was hard to speak definitely, but I had no choice.  “It might give me a chance to make a difference.”

“Might,” Father repeated.  He passed the papers to Toni.  “Knocking down a building would also make a difference, but not a particularly good one.”

I scowled.  Father was fond of dropping little sayings like that into the mix whenever we argued.  It was never easy to tell what he meant - what he actually meant, as opposed to what he said.  I’d never known anyone so good at giving mixed messages.  Even girls weren’t so good at confusing me.  I had the feeling he wasn’t inclined to support me, but ... how could I be sure?

“I might catch someone with their hand in the till or their pants around their ankles,” I said, pushing as hard as I could.  “And that person might be very important indeed.”

“Which would put you in danger,” Father pointed out, coldly.  “You don’t need to be a Kingsman to catch someone with their pants down.”

“Of course not,” Toni agreed.  “You can just go to the brothel.”

Father gave her a sharp look.  Properly brought up young women weren’t supposed to know the brothels existed, although pretty much all of them did.  I’d heard plenty of chatter about that too, in both Jude’s and Water Shallot.  Any young woman born and bred in the poorest part of the city had to know the brothels were an option, if she had to put food on the table or if there were debts she couldn’t repay.  I swallowed, hard.  The thought of Toni or Nora ending up in one of them was sickening.  

“Father,” I said.  “What else am I going to do with my life?”

Father waved a hand at the wall.  “You could work here.  For me.  For us.”

I shook my head.  “I don’t want to be a shopboy,” I said.  “And it would be a waste of my education.”

“You could go into tutoring,” Toni pointed out.  “If you’re as good as you say ...”

“I’d never get a magic licence,” I said.  There were some loopholes in the system, mainly covering parents teaching their children, but not ones I could exploit.  “The Great Houses have the system all sewn up.”

I met her eyes.  “And besides, can you imagine me trying to teach a little brat?  I’d go mad within the week.”

Toni smirked.  “A little brat like you, you mean?”

“Yeah.”  I conceded the point without rancour.  Tutoring lowerclassmen was easy.  Tutoring children promised to be hours of pure hell.  “I don’t understand how Father refrained from brutally strangling me.”

“You got too big, too fast,” Father said.  He sipped his tea.  “There are other options.”

“Not many.”  I met his eyes, evenly.  “I don’t want to be a shopboy.  I’m not going to inherit the business, even if I wanted it.  Toni will do that ...”

“Thanks a bunch,” Toni muttered.

“... And Nora and I will have to find something else to do with our time,” I continued.  “I have the grades to seek an apprenticeship, but that would mean pledging myself to an older sorcerer and his family.  There aren’t many other options for me, are there? The careers I might want, the careers that might allow me to build a life for myself, come with strings attached.”

“Strings that will be used to hang you, if you refuse to toe the line,” Father said, evenly.  “You’ll be so tied up you won’t be able to move.”

“Yes.  I know.”  I shook my head.  “At least this way, I might have a chance to accomplish something for myself.”

“Not for yourself,” Father said.  “For the king.”

He scowled.  “And the king was pretty useless during the House War, wasn’t he?”

I shrugged.  I’d never heard a clear explanation of just what had happened during the House War, even though I’d fought beside the others to retake and defend the school.  Stregheria Aguirre had been plotting a coup, some said; Crown Prince Henry had been her dupe, her pawn.  Or, perhaps, her partner.  It seemed unlikely - the Crown Prince would inherit everything when his father died - but I’d heard stranger stories.  I didn’t really care.  It was more important to look to the future.

Father let out a long breath.  “That said, the Kingsmen have done some good.  It was one of them who took Biddy Murphy away from her wretched husband.  Saved her life.”

I nodded.  I should have remembered that.

“And you’re sure of this,” Father said.  He took back the papers and thumbed through them.  “You’ve made up your mind.”

“Yes, Father.”  I breathed a sigh of relief.  “I do intend to try.”

“Best you can do,” Father grunted.  “You’ll be taking yourself out of the line of inheritance” - he held up a sheet of paper - “but you didn’t stand to inherit much anyway.  I think I can still leave you my trousers, if nothing else.  The girls aren’t going to want them.”

Toni rolled her eyes at me.  I snorted.  Young ladies weren’t supposed to wear trousers.  Maybe that would change, one day, but I doubted it.  Toni wasn’t going to be blazing a trail.  It would have to be someone with real clout, someone like Alana ... I snorted, again.  No one was going to see her in trousers anytime soon.

“And perhaps a little money,” Father added.  “And guest-right.”

“I don’t want anything,” I said, carefully.  “Father ...”

“That’s what I said, when I was your age,” Father said.  “And do you know how close I came to utter disaster before you two and your sister were born?”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Toni said.  “You’ve told me often enough.”

I blinked.  “You never told me.”

“No.”  Father shook his head.  “There were things I didn’t want to discuss, not until you were an adult.  Call me a coward if you like.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I said, truthfully.  Calling someone a coward, in Water Shallot, was a guaranteed fight.  Father had a mean right hook and years of experience at fighting dirty.  I’d once seen him pick up a would-be mugger and throw him into a brick wall with tremendous force.  “But shouldn’t we be discussing them now?”

“This evening, if you stay.”  Father took one last look at the documents, then passed them back to me.  “I don’t think you should be doing this, Adam, but you’re enough like me - when I was your age - that I know you won’t listen if I forbid it.  So go and be careful, and make sure you get everything in writing.”

“And write to us,” Toni said.  “I’ll be sure to write to you.”

“And send you pointed little reminders if you fail to write back,” Father said.  “She picked up that habit from your grandma.”

I nodded, remembering how my paternal grandmother had used to write sarcastic notes when we didn’t answer her letters quickly enough.  The old lady had had quite a sharp turn of tongue.  I hadn’t met anyone quite so sarcastic until I’d gone to school, where I’d discovered that making mistakes could draw an equally sharp comment - and detention - from my tutors.  And, somehow, my grandmother had been far more fearsome.

“Thank you, Father,” I said.  “I just couldn’t spend the rest of my life here.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” Father said, curtly.  “Do you?”

“I do,” I said.  “But ...”

“Hah.”  Father shrugged.  “What else do you have to tell me?”

“Nothing much,” I said.  “What about yourself?”

“There’s lots of chatter about Prince Jacob of North Cairnbulg coming to town,” Toni said.  “Miss Higgins was insisting the prince is going to visit Water Shallot.”

“I doubt it,” I said.  I’d heard rumours about Prince Jacob, but nothing felt really solid.  It was very easy to get nasty rumours in Polite Society.  For one thing, Polite Society wasn’t really polite.  “Unless they want to get him killed.”

“You never know,” Father said.  “There’s also stories about a challenge to the merchant guild’s representative on Magus Court.  Someone else might be putting their hat in the ring.”

I frowned.  “You, Father?”

“I don’t have the backing,” Father said.  “It could be just a pointless challenge, something designed to get concessions from the guild rather than deliberately trying to unseat their representative, but it’s hard to be sure.  The guild normally has things sewn up well before voting rolls around.  Everyone knows which way to cast their votes and all’s well on the night.  But this time, there are odd rumblings from the working men’s clubs.  They might have a new leader.”

“They might?”  I shook my head.  “I thought they were impossible to lead.”

“So did I.”  Father looked down at his dark hands.  “The working men’s clubs have numbers, but they’ve never been a coherent political force.  They’ve had too many problems remaining stable for that.  If that’s changed, they could swing the voting balance through weight of numbers alone.”

“Which would be hard luck for the merchant’s guild,” I mused.  “They can’t beat up dissenters if the weight of the working men is on the other side.”

“It might be hard luck for us too,” Father said.  “If they start demanding higher wages, we might be in some trouble.  We don’t hire many people ourselves, but our suppliers certainly do.  If they have to raise wages, they’ll have to raise their prices too.  And we’ll have to pass it on to our customers.”

“Who are already unhappy at rising costs,” Toni commented.  “If we were the only ones raising charges, Father, we’d lose all our customers.  Believe me, it would be pretty bad.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Father said.  He scowled.  “Perhaps it’s for the best, Adam.  You’ll be away from the city by the time something blows.”

“If it does,” Toni said.  She smiled.  “I’ll be sorry not to have you working for free, but ...”

“Go boil your head,” I said, with more maturity than I thought the jibe deserved.  “I’d be plotting to remove you within the week.”

“You would, too,” Toni said.  She snorted as she stood.  “Do you want something to eat, before you go back to school?”

My stomach rumbled.  “If you don’t mind,” I said.  I hadn’t told them I was coming.  I could hardly expect them to be ready for me, not with a three-course meal.  I didn’t want them to think they had to provide.  “But don’t worry about it.  I have food waiting for me at school.”

“I should hope so, given the fees,” Father grumbled.  “You make me proud, alright?”

“Yes, Father.”  I stood and shook his hand.  “Thank you.  For everything.”

“My son joining the king,” Father said.  “Alack the day!”

Toni put a frying pan on the fire, produced a packet of bacon and eggs and started to cook with practiced ease.  “You’d better drop in and see Nora before you take off,” she said, as the bacon started to sizzle.  “She’ll miss you when she gets home for summer.”

“I’ll have to keep it on the down low,” I said.  I took the bread and started to slice and butter it.  “She won’t thank me for visiting her in public.  Upperclassmen are supposed to ignore lowerclassmen.”

“Really.”  Toni shot me a sharp look as she started to fry the eggs.  “I guess that explains a lot about your school, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose,” I agreed.  “I’ll find a way to approach her without being noticed.  It won’t be easy, but I can do it.”

“You should just ignore tradition,” Toni said.  “What would you do if she was in trouble?  Or if there was an urgent message from home?”

“That would be different,” I said.  Toni hadn’t gone to Jude’s.  She didn’t know the rules.  “But if I speak to her without a good reason, I’ll just make life harder for her.”

“Bah,” Toni said.  She ladled bacon and eggs onto a plate, then thrust it at me.  The smell was heavenly.  “Eat up.  Then you can go.”

I nodded.  I knew she was upset.  And there was nothing I could do to make her feel better.

.
Chapter Five

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, the day I took the stagecoach to Haddon and walked my way down to Haddon Hall, but what I saw was nothing like it.  The estate was further from the town than I’d realised, surrounded by a high brick wall that was topped with spikes and nasty-looking curses to deter intruders.  I kept walking, clutching the paperwork in my hand until I came across a solid-looking pair of wrought-iron gates.  The guard greeted me, inspected the paperwork and then pointed me up the driveway to the mansion itself.  It looked as if someone had been trying to make an elegant-looking fortress and dismally failed.

Magic crackled all around as I walked up the steps and into the entrance hall, unable to escape the feeling I was strikingly out of place.  I was sure they knew I was coming - the wards wouldn’t have let me enter if I wasn’t invited - but there was no one inside the hall.  The walls were lined with statues and portraits, including a large painting of the king and his grandson.  There was no sign of the king’s son, not after his role in the attempted coup.  I wondered, morbidly, what that meant for the poor grandson.  Was he still in line to inherit the throne?

A tall man stepped out of the shadows.  “Adam Mortimer?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.  I was fairly confident he already knew.  “I’m sorry I’m late ...”

“You’re not too late,” the man grunted.  He opened a door that hadn’t been there a moment ago.  “Step right in, pour yourself a glass, take a seat and wait.”

I nodded and stepped through the door into what looked like a comfortable sitting room.  A large drinks trolley dominated the rear wall, crammed with bottles labelled with everything from dockside rotgut to the finest wine.  I reached for a bottle, then hesitated.  It might be a test.  I poured myself a glass of water instead and sat down, grateful I’d thought of it before swilling wine like water.  Getting drunk on the first day would be embarrassing, even if it didn’t get me kicked out.

The armchair was surprisingly comfortable.  I nearly drifted off as I waited.  A handful of others - five in all - joined me over the next few hours, all clearly as nervous as myself.  They had a lean and hungry look - I guessed I must have it, too - that spoke of a desire for new challenges.  Magic flickered as they took drinks and sat down.  We didn’t speak.  We were too nervous to say anything.

I studied them, carefully.  There was a tall girl with light chocolate skin and long brown-black hair that fell to her hips.  She was striking, holding herself in a manner that suggested utter self-confidence.  There were two pale-faced boys, both as muscular as myself.  Another girl, with a sour expression that suggested she thought we were all below her.  And an odd-looking boy who might have been foreign.  I wasn’t sure.  Shallot had inhabitants from all over the known world, including half-caste children descended from Hangchowese sailors, but I’d never seen anyone like him.  I wondered, suddenly, where the other five came from.  I’d never seen any of them.  They couldn’t have come out of Jude’s, or I would have known them.

Particularly the girl, I thought.  I couldn’t have missed her.

We straightened up as a tall man wearing a long black robe stepped into the room.  “Stand up,” he ordered with authority.  We were on our feet before we knew it.  “Let me have a look at you.”

He studied me for a long moment, his eyes seeming to gaze into my soul before he turned his attention to the others.  I tried to stare back at him, but it was hard.  I’d never met anyone quite so sure of himself, even among the aristos.  There was no doubt in his eyes that we’d do whatever he told us, whatever it was.  I felt a sudden desire to prove myself to him, as if the newcomer’s approval meant more - all of a sudden - than anyone else’s.  I wanted him to be proud of me.  And yet, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  This was a man who’d been there and done that, and come home to tell the tale.

“I am Sir Muldoon,” the man informed us.  “For your information, princelings, I am your training supervisor.  My job is to get you ready to serve, first as a squire and then as a Kingsman.  You’ll find me a harsh master” - he grinned, challengingly - “but if any of you want to leave, just say so.  There’s no shame in admitting you can’t handle it.”

Except the shame of knowing we quit, I thought.  I would sooner die than quit.  I don’t want to go home a failure.

“This estate serves as our first training centre,” Sir Muldoon continued.  “You’ll spend the next three months, give or take a few days, learning how to handle yourselves in all kinds of situations, from basic brawling to high society dinners.  If you complete your exams, you’ll be handled over to a qualified Kingsman and serve as his assistants until he believes you’re ready to be raised to Kingsman status yourselves.  If that happens, we’ll welcome you into the brotherhood and - from that moment on - you will be one of us till you die.  If you fail, on the other hand, you will be returned home.  There are no second chances.”

I swallowed, hard.

“If you want to leave, say so,” Sir Muldoon repeated.  “If you want to stay, you have to work for it.”

He gave us all a sardonic smile.  “There are rules to living and training here.  If I - or one of the others - gives you an order, we expect you to obey.  Immediately.  If you disobey the order, you’d better have a damn good reason.  If you fail to convince us that you had a good reason, you’re out.  If you put someone else in danger, without good reason, you’re out.  I’m going to be drilling these rules into your head time and time again over the next week, just so you know what not to do.  After that ... if you break the rules, you’re out.”

I tried to keep my face under tight control.  It wasn’t easy.  Jude’s had never been so blunt, never warned me so sharply that I could lose everything in a moment.  I’d never even been threatened with expulsion, even after pulling a whole string of pranks.  But here ... I tried not to show my dismay.  The slightest mistake could get me kicked out on my ass.  I wondered if I’d have the nerve to go home and show my face after I failed so badly.  Father wouldn’t be impressed.  My sisters would laugh.  I promised myself, silently, that I wouldn’t fail.  

Sir Muldoon waved at the chairs.  “You can sit down now,” he added.  “We’ll work on proper respect later.”

I hesitated, then sat.  My fingers itched to take the glass of water, but I didn’t dare.  It would just have drawn Sir Muldoon’s attention.  He was studying us, thoughtfully.  I was sure he was trying to determine which of us was going to fail first.  I hoped he wasn’t thinking about me.  I really didn’t want to fail.

“The Kingsmen are the eyes, ears and hands of His Majesty,” Sir Muldoon said, when we were all seated.  “In the Crown Lands, our authority is absolute.  We answer only to the king himself.  Outside the Crown Lands, in semi-independent cities like Shallot, our authority is bounded by treaties that were signed hundreds of years ago.  We still have authority, but it’s limited.  Bear that in mind at all times.  There’s a great deal of flexibility built into the treaties, but also some pretty hard limits.  The Great Houses see us as a check on their power, and they don’t like it.”

Of course not, I thought, sourly.

Sir Muldoon gave us a sardonic smile.  “You’ll learn more about our history and traditions over the next few weeks,” he informed us.  “All you need to know, right now, is that you are princelings.  Recruits, in other words.  Whatever you accomplished back home, you are - right now - at the very bottom of the ladder.  Should you climb up a step or two, you will become squires and find yourself apprenticed to a master.  And then you will become a Kingsman or find yourself shuffled sideways, into the auxiliaries.  Don’t take that too badly, if it happens.  The auxiliaries do a lot of useful work.”

His smile tightened.  “And don’t look down on them either,” he added.  “Like I said, they do a lot of useful work.”

“But they’re not Kingsmen,” someone muttered.

Sir Muldoon looked at him, coldly.  “No, they’re not,” he agreed.  “But without them, we couldn’t do our jobs.  So ... be polite.”

He smiled.  “Now, in a few minutes, I’m going to show you to the barracks.  You’re going to be living there, until you either become squires or get kicked out.  I’ll give you an hour to get settled in before we start training in earnest and” - his smile grew colder - “don’t expect me to be so generous next time.  You’ll learn to dress within five minutes, when the bell rings, or you’ll be doing your training in the nude.  You won’t enjoy that.”

Of course not, I thought.

“Talk amongst yourselves, if you wish,” Sir Muldoon concluded, sternly.  “But don’t pry too much.  Wherever you came from, whatever you were back home, you’re all princelings now.”

He stood.  “Follow me.”

The six of us followed him down a long corridor, past a dozen doors that were firmly locked and warded closed, and into the barracks.  I’d thought my first-year dorm was bad, but this ... there were twelve bunks, each one barely large enough for a child.  Six of them had been made, with mattresses and thin sheets to cover us at night; the remaining six were nothing more than frameworks, as if they were intended to serve as a climbing frame.  It struck me, a moment too late, that all six of us - boys as well as girls - were going to be sharing the same room.  I blushed, furiously.  I was glad, very glad, it didn’t show on my face.

“There are showers in the next room,” Sir Muldoon said, as he opened a door.  “When the morning bell rings, go straight down the corridor and into the dining hall.  Do not open any of the locked doors.  That’s more than you can handle, at this stage.  Don’t worry.  They’ll be unlocked soon enough.”

I felt a shiver as Sir Muldoon went on and on, detailing rules I could barely remember.  I’d always had a good memory, but this ...?  I didn’t know how to cope.  I felt intimidated as hell, and it was only the first day!  I picked one of the bunks, dropped my knapsack on the mattress and opened it up, feeling hopelessly out of place.  How was anyone meant to cope?  I’d thought my days of sharing bedrooms were over.  Clearly, I’d been wrong.

Sir Muldoon gave us a final set of instructions, then withdrew.  I watched him go, then turned my attention to my knapsack.  It felt as if I hadn’t brought anything like enough, even though I’d gathered everything on the list.  The Kingsmen had promised to provide everything else I needed.  I let out a breath, feeling overwhelmed as I sat on the bunk.  How was I meant to cope?  All of a sudden, quitting didn’t seem such a bad idea after all.

“Hey.”  I looked up.  One of the boys was waving at me.  “I’m Chance.  Who are you?”

“Adam,” I said.  I frowned.  “Did your parents really call you Chance?”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Chance informed me.  “I say they did.  They say they didn’t.  And now I’m eighteen, what I say goes.”

One of the girls leaned forward.  “And they just let you put Chance on the application form?”

“Let’s just say they didn’t mind, as long as I lived up to my promise,” Chance said.  “Who’re you?”

“Jean,” the girl said.  “Who else do we have?”

“Archie,” one of the other boys said.  “And the strong silent dude beside me is Hector.”

“He talks enough for both of us,” Hector said.

“And I’m Caroline,” the pretty girl said.  Her accent reminded me of Shallot, although I still didn’t recognise her.  She didn’t look that much older than me.  She couldn’t have been in the year above me without me knowing.  Maybe she simply hadn’t been to Jude’s.  There were other schools, even though Jude's liked to pretend they didn’t exist.  “I guess we’re all overachievers.”

“Pretty much,” Archie said.  “I nearly overachieved my way to getting expelled.”

I blinked.  “What did you do?”

“I proved my teachers wrong,” Archie said.  “It wasn’t a harmless little prank like murder, I’ll have you know.  They wanted to expel me for it.”

“Sounds about right,” I said.  Teachers didn’t like being upstaged by students, particularly when their students made them look like idiots.  “Are we all in this together?”

“Maybe we’re competing,” Chance said.  “How many slots are there for squires?”

“Probably more than they have recruits ... princelings.”  Caroline smiled at our questioning looks.  “Think about it.  Wouldn’t they recruit more than six candidates if they could?  This room alone is designed to take twelve people.  There might be others too.  But they only have six princelings in our class.”

“As far as we know,” Archie pointed out.  “We might still be in competition.”

“But we don’t know we are,” I disagreed.  If it was anything like the Challenge, the rules might not be what we thought.  “And even if we are, how do we win?  Or lose?”

“Good point,” Caroline agreed.  “We’ll have to ask.”

Chance blinked.  “Ask?”

“They didn’t tell us we couldn’t ask questions,” Caroline reminded him.  “And I think we should know if we’re actually supposed to wage war on each other, instead of just trying to pass our exams.”

I sighed, then shook my head and stepped into the bathroom.  There was no privacy, not even basic concealment wards.  I wondered if we were meant to sort out bathroom rotas for ourselves, then decided it probably didn’t matter.  The odds were good we were going to be too busy - and too tired - to notice that we were sharing facilities with the opposite sex.  I splashed water on my face, then headed back out.  The bell rang a second later.  We exchanged glances, then hurried to the dining hall.  The chamber was immense, but there was only one table.  I wondered, morbidly, where Sir Muldoon and the other instructors ate.

“Take all you can, but eat all you take,” Sir Muldoon said.  I jumped.  I hadn’t seen him standing by the door.  “And then we’ll be burning it off in a forced march around the lake.”

“Yes, sir,” I managed.  

Sir Muldoon nodded as we took plates and sat down.  “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, sir,” Jean said.  “Are we really meant to share the barracks with the boys?”

“Yes.”  Sir Muldoon didn’t smile.  “And you know what?  You’re going to be working too hard to care.”

I thought as much, I reminded myself, as I crammed scrambled eggs and bacon into my stomach.  The food tasted slightly odd, as if it had been spiked with something.  I knew there were potions for building muscle mass and endurance, but I’d always been discouraged from using them.  They tended to be dangerous, if misused.  I trusted Sir Muldoon and the Kingsmen knew what they were doing.  They probably want to get us ready as quickly as possible.

Sir Muldoon jumped to his feet as soon as we were finished.  “Put the plates in the racks, then follow me,” he said.  “We’re going on a forced march.”

“Sounds like fun,” Archie said.

“You’ll see,” Sir Muldoon said.  I didn’t like the look of his smile.  “You’ll see.”

I shared a worried glance with Caroline as we jogged out of the hall and onto the estate.  It was bigger than I’d realised, bigger than anything I’d seen in the city.  Shallot was a big city, but even the richest aristo couldn’t afford a giant estate in the centre of town.  Here ... land was relatively cheap.  An aristo - or the king - could purchase hundreds of square miles for the cost of a small estate back home.

And probably purchase the people who live on it too, I thought, sourly.  The estate appeared to be empty, but I wasn’t so sure.  The aristos can purchase people like cattle.

“Pick up the pace,” Sir Muldoon shouted.  He was old enough to be my father, but he seemed to be having no trouble leading the pack.  “Don’t slip too far behind!”

I gritted my teeth as my muscles started to ache.  I’d played football and dodgeball back home, but they didn’t seem to have given me anything like enough endurance.  I saw sweat on Caroline’s back as she ran past, shirt clinging to her skin.  I was too tired to care as I forced myself on, wondering how an old man could stay ahead of us.  Sir Muldoon was laughing.  I didn’t understand.  He seemed to be having the time of his life, urging us to run faster even as we stumbled over rocky outgrowths and patches of turf that threatened to send us sprawling to the ground.  No matter how fast I ran, it wasn’t fast enough to suit him..

I’d thought I’d known pain before.  I was wrong. 

Chapter Six

I won’t bore you with too many details of my training.

The days simply blurred together as we were pushed to the limit - and beyond.  Every day, we spent the mornings exercising - we ran, we fought, we played games that helped to develop our muscles and magic - and the afternoon learning more about the law, the cutting edge of magical development and everything else our instructors thought we needed before sending us out for yet more exercise.  I couldn’t tell you what we did on any specific day.  Our bodies ached as we sweated the weaknesses away, while our heads pounded as we stuffed them full of facts which we then had to use to solve puzzles.  We were too tired to notice, every day, that we were sharing a barracks with two pretty girls ... and, I assume, the girls felt the same way too.  We bonded over shared adversity as our instructors upped the pace.  There was no time for anything else.  I barely even had a moment to scratch out a note for my family.

There was some competition, although less than I’d expected.  Sir Muldoon gave a handful of tiny rewards for those of us who completed our tests first, none of which would have meant anything if we hadn’t been pushed right to the limit.  He paired us up, searching for partnerships that could solve mysteries or survive brief but savage attacks from the shadows.  I found myself working with Caroline, learning to rely on her even as she learnt to rely on me.  It wasn’t easy - I’d always preferred to work alone - but there was no choice.  A number of the puzzles they gave us couldn’t be solved without teamwork.

“There’s a dead body in this room,” Sir Muldoon said, one afternoon.  “I want you to figure out how he was killed.”

I shivered as he opened the door.  I’d seen enough tableaus by now to find them chilling, even if they were just very realistic fakes.  The next one might not be fake, I’d been warned.  They were all based on real cases ... I wished, as my eyes swept the room, that I’d spent more time studying true crime stories.  The newspapers had made them all sensational as hell, with more action and adventure and drama than Sir Muldoon seemed to think existed in real life, but it might have given me a hint.  But there was nothing.  A single body sat in a chair, slumped over.  A smashed glass of blood-red wine lay on the floor.  I glanced at Caroline as the door closed behind us.  Sir Muldoon wouldn’t open it again until we solved the problem.

“You know, this could be anyone,” Caroline said.  “Right?”

I nodded, studying the body without touching it.  The murder victim - it was terrifyingly realistic - wore a simple black suit, suggesting he was upper middle class.  His hair was black shading to grey, cut short enough to suggest he wasn’t particularly vain.  He probably wasn’t an aristo or someone with dreams of reaching such heights, not when he wasn’t aping their style.  A lone Device of Power hung around his neck, scattering my spells.  I examined it carefully, trying to determine what it did.  It seemed to be designed to cancel smaller spells, making it impossible to hex or jinx the wearer as long as it stayed in contact with his skin.

“Interesting,” Caroline said.  “I imagine he was wearing it for protection.”

“Probably,” I agreed.  I slipped my gloves on and carefully removed the Device of Power.  It was neatly designed, very professional.  I didn’t know anyone who could do a better job.  “It didn’t work though, did it?”

“No.”  Caroline cast a pair of detection spells.  “It looks as if he was poisoned.”

“If he was paranoid enough to wear this” - I put the Device of Power on the table - “surely he would have thought to check anything he drank for poison?”

“Maybe he made a mistake,” Caroline said.  She tested the spilled wine.  “The wine seems perfectly fine.”

“Yeah.”  I could imagine some of the sots from Water Shallot licking the liquid from the floor.  The thought made my stomach churn.  “Maybe he just drank too much and his heart gave out.”

Caroline shot me an odd look.  “You don’t like drinking?”

“I’ve seen too many people drink themselves to death,” I told her.  I’d joined in a few drinking contests at school, but Father would have killed me if I’d made a habit of it.  “They end up in the gutter, begging for coin to buy a cheap bottle of rotgut.”

I scowled as I paced the room, looking for clues.  It was barren, save for the table, the chair and the dead body.  I wondered if that was a clue.  A drunkard would sell everything he had, just to get another bottle to make the pain go away for a while.  But ... the victim didn’t look like a drunkard.  He looked successful, within his sphere.  I studied the body thoughtfully, trying to determine how it had been done.  The Device of Power wouldn’t have been cheap.  A man so paranoid would hardly have failed to check for poison.  And that meant the murderer managed to sneak something through his defences.

Think like a murderer, I told myself.  How would you do it?

I tossed a handful of possible scenarios around as I studied the body.  It didn’t look to have been that strong, but magic made physical strength meaningless.  The man could have been held down and forced to drink poison, yet there were no signs of a struggle.  It looked as if he’d drunk the wine quite willingly.  A spell, designed to mimic the effects of poison?  I couldn’t see how the murderer had gotten it past the Device of Power.  They would have had to remove it, which would have led to a fight ...

It hit me in a moment of insight.  “I think I know what happened,” I said, as I picked up the Device of Power and placed it next to the spilled wine.  The liquid shimmered, ominously.  I sensed magic fading back into the ether.  “Someone cast a spell on the wine.”

Caroline frowned.  “What sort of spell?”

“It wasn’t wine.”  I cast a spell of my own, just to check.  “It was poison, but someone transfigured it into wine.  When it came within the Device’s field, it snapped back to poison and killed the victim.”

“And then snapped back to wine, when it fell out of the field,” Caroline finished.  “Brilliant, Adam.”

I smiled at her.  “Brilliant - and deadly.”

The door opened.  “Well done,” Sir Muldoon said, as he stepped into the room.  “You solved the case.”

Caroline straightened.  “How much of this is real?”

“It’s based on a real case, like I told you,” Sir Muldoon said, patiently.  “It took us longer to figure out how it had been done, the first time.  You cracked it faster than the original team.”

I allowed myself a moment of pleasure.  “Thank you, sir.”

Sir Muldoon nodded.  “You can get back to the others now,” he said.  “And don’t talk about your mystery with them.  They’ll have their own shot at the locked room murder before too long.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

The days went on and on.  I found myself growing stronger and sharper than ever before, my brain honed with puzzle after puzzle that - I was told - had real-life applications.  The teams were broken up, reformed and then broken up again, ensuring we all had a chance at taking the lead before we headed towards our exams.  I discovered that I was better at taking orders from people I respected, something I hadn’t realised at Jude’s.  But then, I’d never respected any of the sports masters at Jude’s.  Francis had been a prat even before he fell off a tower and hit the ground.

“Someone in this village is a spy,” Sir Muldoon informed us, one afternoon.  He’d shoved hundreds of briefing notes at us over lunch.  “Who is it?  And why?”

I felt my head start to hurt.  There was so much data in the briefing notes that I was suffering from information overload.  The village - a border town that kept changing hands so often the inhabitants probably paid taxes to both sides - was extensively detailed, from the headsman who was afraid of the sky falling on his head to an elderly gentleman who had a beautiful wife a scant couple of years older than myself.  I guessed he was very wealthy as well as very old.  Every last inhabitant was detailed, so completely that I couldn’t bear to look at the files.  Who was out of place?  They all looked to be precisely where they belonged.

“There’s a bard who can’t sing,” Archie commented.  “Maybe he’s the spy.”

Jean snorted.  “Just because he can’t sing?”

“Yeah.”  Archie laughed.  “They kept making fun of his singing, so he got sour and started to spy on the villages for money.  Or kicks.  Or ...”

I stroked my chin.  I wasn’t so sure.  People went sour easily - I’d seen it happen - but villagers, at least, didn’t turn to betrayal so quickly.  They were part of a bigger community.  I scanned the files, looking for the ones who stood out.  Someone who felt excluded completely might turn into a spy, but ... there was no one.  No girl who’d been isolated for daring to get pregnant out of wedlock, no boy who’d been badly injured and was nothing more than a burden ... nothing, as far as I could tell.  And yet, Sir Muldoon was convinced there was a spy.  I scowled.  Of course there was a spy.  I knew there was a spy.  They’d put it in the training material.

“It’s the teacher,” Caroline said.  “This ... woman with the unpronounceable name.”

Sir Muldoon lifted his eyebrows.  “And your proof?”

“No proof, not yet.”  Caroline smiled.  “You didn’t write spy into her dossier.  But she’s an outsider.  She might have entered the village ten years ago, but she’s still an outsider.  She has no family connections to the villagers and no real hope of getting them.  She’s the only person, as far as I can tell, who has no obligation to protect the villagers.”

“I always knew teachers were traitors,” Archie muttered.

“Really?”  Sir Muldoon gave him a reproving look.  “And what do you think we’re doing here?”

“Training, sir,” Archie said.  He gave a shit-eating grin.  “Trainers are not teachers.”

I rolled my eyes at Caroline as Sir Muldoon gave Archie push-ups.  Lots of push-ups.  I had a feeling he’d be making up new numbers soon.  We’d all done so many, over the past few weeks, that we’d developed muscles on our muscles.  Archie didn’t seem to mind.  He was used to his smart mouth getting him in trouble.  

“Good thinking,” Sir Muldoon informed the rest of us.  “The teacher is indeed the spy, planted there to keep an eye on the villagers.”

“It seems a little pointless, sir,” Hector said.  “Why would anyone bother?”

“The village sits in the middle of the border,” Sir Muldoon reminded him.  “An incident there could lead to outright war.  We have to tread lightly.”

“So does the other side, I assume,” Caroline put in.

“Yes,” Sir Muldoon said.  “But we have to assume they’ll push things as far as they’ll go.”

He ordered us to put the paperwork away, then join him for another run around the hall.  I was almost relieved.  The puzzles were fun, but I always had the feeling I was on the verge of failing.  I couldn’t understand how some people could be so bitter and twisted that they devised impossible plots, just to get their hands on their inheritance or take their revenge or ... something.  It made me glad I wasn’t in line to inherit much of anything.  If I’d wanted what little my family had, I’d have needed to murder my sister as well as my father ...

I shuddered.  There were people who’d done exactly that - and worse, far worse.  I couldn’t wrap my head around some of the truly ghastly crimes.  Perhaps that was why they’d gone unchallenged for so long.  No one could force themselves to believe they’d actually taken place.  Feeding someone love potion ... or compulsion potion ... or slamming a slave collar on their necks without permission ... it was sickening.  And some people had done even worse.  I felt sick just thinking about it.  I’d thought I was wise to the way of the world, but there had been limits to my imagination.  And things I didn’t want to imagine.

Two days later, we were invited into a previously-locked room and told to peer through a sheet of one-way glass.

“The hell?”  Caroline sounded shocked.  “What is she doing here?”

Archie nudged her.  “You know her?”

“No!”  Caroline elbowed him.  “But she’s clearly not in her right mind.”

I peered through the glass.  A young woman - a year or two older than me, I guessed - was sitting on a chair, her eyes curiously blurred.  She was wearing a tight white dress that left nothing to the imagination, her dark hair falling in ringlets around a strikingly pale face.  And ... she was smiling sloppily, as if she was deeply - madly - in love.  I felt my stomach churn.  The feelings weren’t real.  They couldn’t be.

“Watch,” Sir Muldoon ordered, curtly.

The girl looked up as another woman entered the room, wearing a healer’s gown.  She didn’t look interested, merely ... I wasn’t sure how she looked.  Her face was so slack that it was hard to tell what she was thinking or feeling ... if she was thinking or feeling.  The healer sat down next to her and touched her hand lightly.  The girl snatched her hand away, as if the healer’s touch had burned her.  I thought it seemed a bit of an extreme reaction.

“Tell me about Cooper,” the healer said.

The girl smiled in a manner I would have found arousing if it hadn’t been so disturbing.  “Cooper is the most wonderful boy,” she said.  Her dreamy tone chilled me to the bone.  “He’s the sexiest, the loveliest, the cutest, the dreamiest, the handsomest, the most charming ...”

Archie snickered.  “Did she swallow a dictionary at some point?”

“I can’t wait to give myself to him,” the girl continued.  “I will be his and he will be mine and I will do anything for him and he will do anything for me and ...”

Sir Muldoon tapped the glass.  It went black.

“Do any of you,” he asked, “think her condition is natural?”

“No, sir,” I said.  No one disagreed.

“No,” Sir Muldoon agreed.  “Cooper - who is currently serving his time on Skullbreaker Island - fed her an advanced love potion.  It has bonded with her, creating a permanent effect that we have not - so far - been able to remove or refocus on something a little less harmful.  If Cooper called for her, she’d go.”

“She sounds stupid,” Archie commented.

“She isn’t.”  Sir Muldoon nodded at the dark glass.  “She’s actually quite intelligent, as long as Cooper isn’t mentioned.  Bring him into the picture and she becomes ... well, what you see.  A love-sick girl who will do anything, no matter how degrading, for her lover.”

Jean made a retching noise.  “Why can’t you tell her that her feelings aren’t real?”

“We’ve tried, obviously.”  Sir Muldoon shook his head.  “She doesn’t believe it.  The feelings appear to be completely natural, from the inside.  She thinks we’re lying to her.  And no matter what the healers do, they can’t burn the potion out of her.  The obsession is so all-consuming that we’ve been unable to even get her fixated on something harmless.”

“Shit.”  Caroline sounded stunned.  “Can she live a normal life?”

“Not really.”  Sir Muldoon looked from face to face.  “This is why we’re necessary.  This is why we exist.  There will always be people who will use magic - dark magic - to get what they want.  Our job is to stop them.  When the next Cooper comes along, you’re going to be ready.”

I stuck up my hand.  “How do you tell the difference between someone under a love potion and someone who’s just madly in love?”

“There are signs,” Sir Muldoon said.  “The majority of love spells have an unpleasant effect on the victim’s ability to think.  They’ll start having problems adding two plus two without getting five.  Most people know to watch for friends and family members becoming grinning idiots.  Love potions can be far more insidious.  There are tests you can perform - which we will teach you how to perform - to check if someone is under the influence.  If they are, you hold them and wait for the potion to wear off.  If not, you have to let them go.  There’s no law against making a fool of yourself in public.”

“And if it won’t wear off?”  Caroline waved a hand at the glass.  “What do we do with cases like her?”

“Like I said, the vast majority of such victims can be refocused on something else, something harmless,” Sir Muldoon said, patiently.  “There are brute-force ways to reprogram the potion.  You’ll cover those later on, although you’ll hopefully never have to actually do it.  For those who can’t ... there are asylums.  They’re well-treated, if their family has the cash, but they can never be let free.  They cannot live a normal life.”

He scowled.  “That’s why we’re necessary,” he said, again.  He tapped the glass, lightening it.  The poor girl was telling the healer, in great detail, about what a wonderful person Cooper was and how he was waiting for her.  It made me sick.  “Do you understand, now?”

I nodded.  “Yes, sir.”

Chapter Seven

“We’re moving onto more important matters now,” Sir Muldoon said, after breakfast.  “I trust you’re ready to try something new?”

I nodded, blearily, as we lined up in front of him.  I’d lost track of time over the past few weeks.  I honestly wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d entered Haddon Hall and started my training.  My life before the Kingsmen was starting to seem like a dream.  Did I have a father?  Sisters?  I was no longer prepared to swear to anything.  My world seemed to have shrunk to the four corners of the estate.  I wasn’t even sure there was anything beyond the brick walls.

“This is something new,” Sir Muldoon said.  He held up a strange device.  “What do you think it is?”

I frowned.  The device was nothing more than a strip of silver metal.  It didn’t look anything like as exciting as the spellcasters we’d learnt to use, or the wardcrackers, or the skeleton keys or even the protected armour that was supposed to ward off anything that might threaten us with death.  The Kingsmen had all the best toys.  And yet, the device didn’t seem important.  I couldn’t understand what I saw.

“Let me have a volunteer,” Sir Muldoon said.  “Who wants to give it a try?”

We glanced at each other, silently coming to the conclusion that it was my turn to volunteer.  It probably was.  Sir Muldoon made sure we all got a chance to volunteer, even if we didn’t want to.  I didn’t mind it that much, not really.  It was always interesting, although it was almost always hair-raising as well.  I supposed being on the streets would be even more hair-raising.  Sir Muldoon had regaled us with countless tales of Kingsmen who’d died in the line of duty.

“I will, sir,” I said.

“Very good,” Sir Muldoon said, as I stepped forward.  “Hold out your hand.”

I did as I was told and watched, alarmed, as he folded the metal strip around my wrist.  The moment it snapped closed, I felt oddly heavy.  My magic crumbled into nothingness, as if it no longer existed.  The world felt dull and old and ... I stumbled back in shock, my free hand scrabbling at the strip.  It refused to come free.  I was deaf and blind and ... and on the verge of panic.  I bit my lip, hard.  My thoughts steadied, but the magic refused to come.  I wondered, numbly, if this was what Caitlyn Aguirre felt like all the time.

“The cuff is designed to make it impossible to use magic, as long as it’s wrapped around your wrist,” Sir Muldoon said, calmly.  “The unlocking spell is actually quite easy to cast, but - as long as you have the cuff on - quite beyond you.  There are more complicated designs that are harder to remove, magic or no magic, but we won’t be looking at those now.”

He took a step back.  “Once you put the cuffs on someone, you are placing them under arrest,” he continued.  “They have the same rights as every other prisoner.  They are in your custody until you turn them over to the City Guard or let them go.  You are, amongst other things, required to defend them against attack.  They won’t be defending themselves without magic.”

I looked down at the metal strip.  “Can you take it off?”

“Of course.”  Sir Muldoon removed the strip and passed it to me.  “You’ll be wearing them again, later.  There are sections of the exams where magic is forbidden.”

I swallowed, hard.  I’d had magic all my life.  I’d never tried to live without it.  I only knew one person who didn’t have magic at all.  And ... I stared at the cuff, feeling an odd frisson of fear.  The cuff wasn’t as dangerous as the spellcasters, or so easy to misuse as the wardcrackers, but it could cripple me.  I felt as if I was holding a poisonous spider.  I wanted to toss it away, or slice it up for potion ingredients, or do something - anything - other than holding it in my hand.

“Today, we will be running a set of different exercises,” Sir Muldoon informed us.  He passed out five more cuffs, ensuring we each had one.  “One at a time, this time.  Adam?  Do you want to go first?”

No, I thought.

I didn’t bother to say it out loud.  Sir Muldoon had already made up his mind.  I was going to go first and that was that.  It probably wasn’t going to be bad, merely ... a learning experience.  Sir Muldoon passed me a spellcaster, which I checked automatically.  He’d handed out push-ups like candy every time we failed to check the spellcaster to see what it was designed to do.  This one was designed to kill.

“Your mission is simple,” Sir Muldoon said, once he’d dispatched the others to the backroom.  “The wards have detected someone sneaking into the estate.  Your job is to catch them, put the cuffs on them and get them back up here for interrogation.  Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”  I knew what was happening.  Someone - one of the Kingsmen or their auxiliaries - would be sneaking across the wall, trying to get to the hall before I caught him.  I’d be in real trouble if they made it to the hall.  Or if they saw something sensitive and got out before it was too late.  “I won’t let you down.”

“Use the compass to track them down,” Sir Muldoon told me.  He clapped my shoulder.  “Good luck, Adam.”

I felt my heart start to pound as I picked up a ward-attuned compass and headed outside.  The compass needle swung around, seemingly at random, before finally coming to a halt pointing west.  I scowled.  The western side of the estate was crammed with ancient trees, each one providing more than enough cover for someone to sneak up to the hall.  The intruder could get pretty close before they had to come into the open.  I started to walk down the path, keeping the spellcaster raised.  I’d have to be careful not to accidentally use the weapon on the intruder.  Sir Muldoon would be furious if I killed one of his comrades.

The compass kept twitching as I made my way through the abandoned hamlet - it had been enclosed generations ago, as far as we’d been able to tell - and down towards the trees.  It crossed my mind that the intruder might be waiting for me, ready to attack the moment I came into view ... I stayed low, wishing I could get a sense of just how far away the intruder actually was.  They had to be on the near side of the wall, but ... the forest was big enough to hide a small army of intruders.  I stared into the gloom, wondering if I dared go into the shadows.  Whatever advantages I’d have would fade once I was within the gloom.

Something moved by the edge of the forest.  I dropped down, staring as a figure emerged from the shadows.  A young girl, no older than myself.  She glanced from side to side, but didn’t seem to see me.  I stared, unable to believe my eyes.  She didn’t look like a Kingsman.  Caroline and Jean were both far more muscular than the intruder.  I was sure a graduated Kingsman would be even tougher.  Sir Muldoon was tough enough to kick me around the training field with one hand trapped behind his back.  He’d done it too.  For a moment, I was sure there’d been a mistake.  The girl couldn’t be dangerous ...

She could have powerful magic, I reminded myself, sharply.  Alana hadn’t looked that tough, but she could turn me into a frog with a snap of her fingers.  Or worse.  She might have enough magic to stop me in my tracks.

I crawled forward as the intruder started to sneak away from the forest, heading up towards the hall.  She had to be my target, unless we had a real intruder.  I braced myself, clutching the spellcaster in one hand, then stood and fired a single spell.  She jumped as a fireball rocketed over her head and slammed into a tree.  The trunk exploded, sending the remnants of the tree crashing to the ground.

“HANDS UP!”  I shouted as loud as I could.  “TURN AROUND!  KEEP YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

The girl looked terrified as she spun around, dropping something on the ground as she put her hands in the air.  I felt a pang of guilt, which I ruthlessly suppressed as I ran forward, cuff in hand.  She yelped as I grabbed her arm and wrapped the cuff around her wrist.  She was helpless now.  Without her magic, she was helpless.  I started to search her ...

... And she swung around and punched me in the chest.  Hard.

I doubled over, coughing and retching.  Sir Muldoon had taught me how to take a punch, but the girl had caught me completely by surprise.  She didn’t give me any time to recover, either.  She brought her foot up, kneeing me in the nose.  I felt bones break as I stumbled and hit the ground, in too much pain to put up a fight.  She grabbed my hands, yanked them behind my back and wrapped a cuff around them.  My magic faded, again.  I struggled, but the cuff was unbreakable.  I couldn’t get free.

“Well,” a very familiar voice said.  Sir Muldoon was standing right behind me.  “Did you learn anything useful from this experience?”

I coughed, trying to roll over so I could see him.  Had he followed me, cloaked behind an illusion spell?  Or had he worn one of the invisibility cloaks he’d taught us how to use?  Or ... I felt a wave of shame as the girl helped me to my feet.  I’d made a complete and total fool of myself.  The girl had kicked my ass as effortlessly as ... as Sir Muldoon himself.  Whoever she was, she was clearly someone to take seriously.

“Yes, sir,” I managed.  It hurt when I tried to breath.  “Don’t assume she’s helpless because she doesn’t have magic.”

“A useful lesson, to be sure.”  Sir Muldoon smiled.  “What did you do wrong?”

“I should have stunned her, rather than relying on the spellcaster to intimidate her,” I said.  I knew plenty of spells that could have stunned her, if only for a few seconds.  She was no common-born student, unable to counter a spell most aristos learnt from their parents.  It would still have kept her out of it long enough to keep her from battering me into submission.  “And I shouldn’t have gotten so close to her.  I just thought ...”

“That an absence of magic renders someone powerless,” Sir Muldoon finished.  He cast a stasis spell on my nose, then patted my shoulder.  “I trust we’ve cured you of that little mistake?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.  “What now?”

“You go back to the hall.”  Sir Muldoon removed the cuff and passed it back to the girl.  “Go straight to the Blue Room and work on the exercise there.  Do not speak to any of your comrades.  Let them have their chance to make the same mistake.”

Or see how many of them realise the danger and take more care, I thought.  My cheeks burned with humiliation.  I’d been bested before, but this was terrible.  In a sense, I’d bested myself.  Caroline will spot it, won’t she?

I put the thought aside as I turned and forced myself to walk back to the hall.  My chest hurt, despite the effort.  I had a feeling I was going to be covered in bruises by the time I got a shower.  It was all I could do to get into the hall, find the stairs and stumble my way up to the Blue Room.  Someone had already laid out an exercise and a small bottle of potion.  I was in so much pain that I had to force myself to check it was safe to drink before I took a swig.  Sir Muldoon had told us that people had tried to poison Kingsmen in the past, even though it was an automatic life sentence.  They’d been too desperate to care.

The exercise itself looked simple, but - the more I worked through it - the more I realised it was nothing of the sort.  I had to get a body of troops from Point One to Point Two within a short space of time, without losing any along the way.  I rubbed my eyes as I contemplated the map.  The shortest route was actually the most treacherous, the most likely to cause an entire string of delays.  They’d have to take the longest route if they wanted to reach their destination in any kind of fighting order.  I felt a flicker of pity for the soldiers, mingled with gratitude Sir Muldoon had forced us to study the land by marching us over it.  I wouldn’t make that mistake in a hurry.  Better to take the longer route and arrive without any trouble. 

Caroline joined me an hour or so later, looking faintly put out.  “That guy zapped me,” she said, as if she was personally offended.  “I had him and he zapped me.”

“I got beaten halfway to death,” I said.  The pain had faded to a dull ache, but it hadn’t vanished.  “At least you didn’t get clobbered.”

“I got cuffed with my own cuff,” Caroline said.  “I still don’t understand how he zapped me. I got the cuff on him.”

“He probably had a spellcaster concealed up his sleeve,” I guessed.  Did a cuff block a spellcaster from being triggered?  I didn’t know.  I could think of a couple of ways around it, if so.  It would be relatively simple to build one that didn’t need magic to trigger the spell.  “It could have been worse.”

“I wound up looking a bloody fool,” Caroline insisted.  Her gaze sharpened.  “I should have seen that coming.”

“So should I.”  I snorted.  My sister was certainly strong enough to break my nose.  I knew better than to think girls were weak and harmless.  “I guess we’re both fools.”

Archie staggered into the room, gasping.  “Drink, drink.”

“Three fools,” Caroline said, as she picked up a glass of water and waved it under his nose.  “I guess it’ll be six fools, soon enough.”

“Well,” Sir Muldoon said, an hour later.  “I guess Jean was the only one of you who thought to be careful.”

Jean looked smug.  I didn’t really blame her.  The rest of us had been battered or enchanted into submission.  We’d all thought we’d had the edge.  Jean had been the only one practical enough to stun her intruder and keep stunning him until she’d slapped the cuff on his wrist and dragged him back to the hall.  The rest of us ... I shook my head.  My nose was starting to hurt again.

“Five fools,” Caroline muttered.  “I guess we all could have done better.”

“You can spend the next hour practicing your healing spells,” Sir Muldoon said, coolly.  “Caroline, why don’t you fix Adam’s nose?”

“He looks so much better with a battered nose,” Archie put in.  “Doesn’t he?”

“I must say the black eye really suits you,” I told him.  “Do you want a matching pair?”

I leaned back as Caroline carefully pressed her fingertips against my nose and cast a healing spell.  My bones seemed to scrape against each other, sending shivers down my spine, before finally returning to normal.  I felt a surge of magic running through me, a flash of attraction I knew I must ignore as our magics blurred together.  Caroline licked her lips, then removed her hand and stepped back.  I did my best to dismiss her.  There was no point in getting into trouble.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Good work,” Sir Muldoon said.  “Jean, why don’t you fix Archie’s eye?”

I stood shakily and brushed myself down.  “I ... how many people know how to fight without magic?”

“You might be surprised.”  Sir Muldoon watched Jean, never taking his eyes off her as she cast the spell.  “The average longshoreman is far more likely to settle things with his fists than his spells.  The Great Houses are the only ones that discourage physical violence, and that’s only because they think that gives them the edge.”

“It does,” Caroline said.  “Doesn’t it?”

“Matter of opinion,” Sir Muldoon said.  “And don’t forget the Zero.  She has no magic.  But that didn’t stop her escaping an inescapable prison and finding her way back to Shallot.  By the time we found her and her friends, they were already well on their way home.”

“So I heard,” I muttered.  I’d heard the stories.  I just wasn’t sure how many of them I believed.  “She’s supposed to be tough.”

“She is,” Sir Muldoon confirmed.  “And she forges some really nice toys for us.  If you behave, I’ll even let you play with them.”

He smirked, rather coldly.  “You get a nice relaxing evening tonight,” he said.  “Isn’t that nice of me?”

We shared worried glances.  We didn’t get nice relaxing evenings, not here.  We worked until late at night, then stumbled into bed only to be woken - seconds later - by cockcrow.  If we were being allowed to relax ... whatever was coming tomorrow morning had to be really awful.  I gritted my teeth, reminding myself just how much I’d survived in the last few months.  I could do it.  Whatever it was, I could do it.

Archie took the silent cue to speak.  “Are you planning to hang us tomorrow morning?”

“Of course not,” Sir Muldoon said.  “You’re going on survivalist training.  All you have to do is get from Point A to Point B without being caught.”

“We’re dead,” Hector said.  “I’d sooner be hung.”

I scowled.  It was hard to escape the feeling he was right.

Chapter Eight

Cold air wafted across me, blowing raindrops into my face.

I stirred, certain that something was wrong even though I wasn’t sure what.  I was cold and uncomfortable and ... it dawned on me, blearily, that I was no longer in my bunk.  I wasn’t even in the hall!  My eyes snapped open, staring up into a gloomy overcast sky.  It looked as if it was about to rain.  I sat up, looking around in horror.  I was in the middle of a clearing, as naked as the day I was born.  It felt like I’d been thrown back into the Challenge.

“Ancients,” a voice breathed.  “What hit me?”

I turned before I could stop myself.  Caroline sat there, bare breasts bobbling.  She had no baby fat left after weeks of intensive training, nothing but solid muscle and flesh.  I stared, then forced myself to look away.  She had looked back at me, her eyes wide and staring.  I cringed, cursing the instructors under my breath.  It was bad enough getting naked in the barracks, where we were normally too tired to notice … or care.  Here ...

A cold gust of damp air blew against me.  I reached for my magic to cast a warming spell and cursed, again, as the magic flickered out.  Someone had wrapped a cuff around my wrist, taking my magic.  I didn’t have to look at Caroline to know she’d been cuffed too.  Our hands were free, but we had no magic.  I glanced around, remembering our orders.  We had to get somewhere, didn’t we?  A compass lay on the ground, positioned neatly on top of a nasty-looking knife - it looked more like a small sword - and a single flask of liquid.  I picked it up and checked the contents.  Water.

“Water,” I told her.  “We live in luxury.”

“No belts, no scabbards, no nothing.”  Caroline picked up the knife and held it with practiced ease.  “I guess someone forgot the rule about running with swords.”

“Looks that way,” I agreed.  I slowly turned, scanning the desolate landscape.  Where were we?  I was having flashbacks to the Challenge.  “You think they’ve taken us off the estate?”

“Looks that way,” Caroline echoed.  She picked up the compass and pointed north.  “Shall we go?”

“I guess.”  I wanted to take the lead, if only to keep my eyes off her.  She was very distracting.  I also knew she’d kill me if she caught me staring at her.  Literally.  “I’ll go first.  You keep the knife at the ready.”

I shivered as we walked, doing my best to ignore my nakedness.  Where were we?  If we’d been asleep, we could be anywhere.  We could be on the other side of the country.  I looked at the distant hills, as barren as an aristo’s heart, and groaned.  We could be hundreds of miles from the hall.  I wondered if there were any civilians, if they were watching from a distance.  It was hard to believe someone could eke out a life for themselves in these surroundings, but humans were endlessly adaptable.  I saw a white spot moving on one of the hills and frowned, before realising it was a sheep.  Perhaps we weren’t that far from civilisation.

My bare feet ached while we walked.  Water droplets soaked my hair and skin.  Cold water slid down my back, splashing to the muddy ground.  The cuff seemed to grow heavier as we moved, taunting me.  The compass vibrated in my hand as we slipped down a rocky gorge, the barren interior suggesting the entire region would flood when the rain finally came in earnest.  I glanced back at Caroline and saw she looked as bedraggled, too.  We certainly didn’t look like Kingsmen!

“They said it was a survivalist test,” Caroline said.  “But how are we meant to survive here?”

I scowled.  It was quite possible to live off the land on the estate, but here?  I wasn’t sure the gorse was edible.  The water trickling down the streams might be poisonous.  There were spells to check if something was safe to eat or drink, but - without magic - there was no way we could use them.  I glanced up at the darkening sky.  Perhaps we should walk with our mouths open.  It might be the only way to be sure the water was safe.

“I guess we keep our eyes open for food,” I said.  The sheep were a long way away, but ... we could catch a lamb and turn it into food.  Couldn’t we?  Or would that be cheating?  Or ... were we allowed to ask a civilian for help?  Sir Muldoon hadn’t set the rules very clearly.  “Do you think we’re allowed to seek help?”

“I don’t know.”  Caroline snorted, behind me.  “We might not have a choice.”

Thunder crackled, high overhead.  I jumped, reaching for a spellcaster I wasn’t carrying as the skies opened.  It felt as if someone high overhead had tipped a bathtub over us.  I cursed and started to scramble for higher ground as the trickle of water became a flood, washing down the gully and threatening to take us down with it.  Caroline followed, cursing too as we reached the top of the gully and looked around.  Rain washed us clean.  We huddled together, too cold and miserable to care that we were naked.  The rain seemed never-ending.

“We’ve probably failed,” Caroline predicted.  “You think they’ll rescue us or just leave us to die here?”

“I think they’ll come for us,” I said.  We hadn’t lost yet.  We certainly hadn’t been told we’d lost.  “I ...”

The rain stopped.  I brushed water off my arm as I let go of her and stumbled to my feet.  We stood on a hill, staring into a gloomy fog.  Visibility was so poor that I was tempted to suggest we stay where we were, at least until it got better.  But I knew we couldn’t wait.  Sir Muldoon hadn’t mentioned a time limit, but I was damn sure there was one.  And besides, we didn’t have anything to eat.  We might starve to death before we were rescued if we stayed still.

They’re probably watching us and laughing, I thought, as we started to make our way down the trail.  And telling themselves we’ll never make it to the far side.

The compass vibrated again, drawing us on.  I kept walking, despite a growing tiredness that threatened to bring me down.  I hadn’t eaten anything.  My stomach growled ominously, warning me that I needed to find something to eat before I collapsed.  We’d been told we could go several days without eating, if necessary, but I found it hard to believe we could go without eating while hiking our way across rough country.  I started keeping my eyes open for sheep or something - anything - we could eat.  I wasn’t proud.  I’d eat a rat or two if the only other option was starvation.

“Let me take the lead,” Caroline said, stiffly.  “It’s my turn.”

I tried to think of a good argument against it, but came up with nothing that wouldn’t annoy her.  Instead, I shrugged and traded the knife for the compass.  Caroline grinned challengingly, then struck out at terrifying speed.  I forced myself to keep up, knowing she was making a point.  Neither of the girls were inclined to let the boys baby them.  Caroline was tougher than many people I’d met.  I tried to keep my eyes fixed on the back of her head as she moved, heading down a rough path.  She didn’t seem inclined to slow...

The ground gave way under her.  I jumped as she fell into a pit.  I heard a crash, followed by a grunt of pain.  A trap?  Or ... or what?  I inched forward, ready to hop back if the ground threatened to collapse under my feet too.  My head felt thick, thick and dull.  The cuff had worn me down.  I pulled at it with my free hand as I reached the hole and peered down.  Caroline had collapsed at the bottom, staring up at me.  I didn’t need to be a trained healer to know her leg was broken.  It simply couldn’t bend in that direction without being broken.  And she was bleeding.

“Keep back.”  Caroline sounded as if she was in dreadful pain.  Blood spilled from her chest.  “Adam, keep back.”

“I’m not leaving you there,” I said.  I tried to find a way down.  The pit was cunning, clearly designed to keep someone - or something - trapped until the hunter could return to see what he’d caught.  Thankfully, he hadn’t lined it with spikes.  “I’m not leaving you there.”

I forced myself to think.  If I had a rope ... I had no rope, nor did I have a place to put it.  I could get down, easily enough, but how could I get up again?  It didn’t matter, I told myself as I swung my legs over the side and started to lower myself into the pit.  Caroline might bleed to death before help arrived, if we were being watched.  I shuddered.  If we weren’t being watched ...

I lost my grip halfway down the wall and fell the rest of the way, hitting the stony ground hard enough to hurt.  The impact jarred me, sending pains up and down my legs.  Blood ran down my legs as I forced myself to stagger over to Caroline.  Her leg was definitely broken.  And her chest wound was far worse than I’d feared.  I pressed my hands against her bare skin, trying to staunch the bleeding.  It didn’t work.

“They have to be watching us.”  Caroline sounded dazed, as if she was drifting away.  I wanted to slap her, in hopes of keeping her focused, but I didn’t dare.  A single spell would have been more than enough to save her life.  I tore at the cuff, but it refused to budge.  “They’ll come for us, won’t they?”

I swallowed, hard.  I hadn’t seen anyone before lowering myself into the pit.  It would take time - perhaps too much time - for help to arrive, even if it was dispatched the moment Caroline got hurt.  I knew a dozen spells that would save her life, that would get us both out of the pit effortlessly, but I couldn’t use them.  The cuff was too tight to remove.  Caroline was dying, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Caught you staring,” Caroline managed.  Her breath came in fits and starts.  “Just you wait.”

“Caught you staring too,” I tossed back.  There had to be something I could do, but what?  “You plot your revenge.  You’ll live long enough to punch me in the balls.”

Caroline laughed.  The sound became a choking cough.  Blood splattered around her mouth.  I put more pressure on the wound, but it seemed useless.  She was bleeding out in front of me and I could do nothing.  I looked up, hoping to see the instructors peering down at me.  But there was no sign of them.  A thought struck me and I reached for the knife, trying to act before I could think better of it.  This was going to hurt ...

“What?”  Caroline coughed again, spitting up more blood.  “Adam ...”

I took the knife in the cuffless hand and sliced down, cutting off my other hand.  The cuff fell to the ground.  Blood spilled everywhere.  I felt the magic return, followed by a wave of pain and ghostly sensations that suggested my body hadn’t quite realised I’d lost a hand.  I cast a painkilling spell I’d been warned never to use unless the situation was desperate, followed by a spell to cauterise the wound and keep me from bleeding to death.  Caroline let out a sound, something between a giggle and a cry of pain, as I bent over her, casting an entire string of healing spells.  If this was cheating, I’d make the most of it.  I sealed up the wound, fixed her broken bone and replenished her blood.  By the time I was finished, I was so weak and drained that it was all I could do to remove her cuff.  I should have thought to do that first.

“You saved my life,” Caroline said.  I almost laughed at her astonished tone.  “Adam, you saved my life.”

“I guess that means you can’t punch me in the balls, then,” I said, as she helped me to stand.  Blood - hers and mine - trickled down our bodies and pooled on the stony ground.  “I saved your life.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Caroline said.  I was suddenly very aware of her breasts pressing against my arm.  “You were staring.”

I leaned against her as she cast a levitation spell, lifting us both out of the pit and landing us neatly on solid ground.  I lay there for a long moment, staring up at the dark sky.  Had we failed?  We hadn’t been told we could remove the cuffs.  I looked at my stump and shuddered.  A hand could be reattached, or regrown, if someone was willing to pay.  I didn’t know if the instructors would agree.  Technically, I’d probably broken the rules.  But if I hadn’t, Caroline would have died.

Caroline swore.  I glanced at her.  “What?”

“The fucking compass is broken,” she said.  “We don’t know where to go!”

“It doesn’t matter,” a new voice said.  I looked up to see Sir Muldoon.  I didn’t know how he’d managed to get so close without us spotting him.  “You’ve both passed.”

I stared at him in shock.  “That was a test?”

“Of course.”  Sir Muldoon looked back at me, evenly.  “What did you think it was?”

“You ... you arranged for her to get injured as a test?”  I glared at him, balling my fist.  I hadn’t been so angry since Francis had hexed me in the back.  “She could have died!”

“But she didn’t, thanks to you,” Sir Muldoon told us.  “And between you, you escaped a trap.”

“You ...”  I threw the punch without thinking.  “You ...”

Sir Muldoon sidestepped the blow.  “You have been told, time and time again, that you will be tested,” he said, sternly.  He didn’t seem worried that I’d taken a swing at him.  I suppose it would have been a different story if I’d actually hit him.  “This was just another test.”

He turned.  “Come with me,” he said.  “We’ll get back to the hall, then assess your conduct during the test.”

“I’m not sorry,” I said.  “I needed to remove the cuff.”

“We know.”  Sir Muldoon glanced back at me.  “There wasn’t any other way to save yourselves.”

I glared at his back as we resumed walking down the trail.  The entire area seemed to be glowing with magic, now the cuff was gone.  I wondered, sourly, if we’d been walking in circles the entire time.  There was enough magic in the air to make sure of it, particularly as we hadn’t been able to sense it when we awoke.  The compass could have been programmed to lead us over the pit, just to ensure that one or both of us was injured.  I clenched my fist, struggling against the urge to throw another punch.  The bastard could have killed us!  I wasn’t sure he would have bothered to rescue us if we’d been permanently trapped.

Caroline touched my hand, lightly.  I scowled at her, unsure how she could take it so calmly.  She’d nearly died.  She would have bled to death - or worse - if I hadn’t cut off my own hand.  My thoughts ran in circles.  The others might be facing their own challenges - or worse.  Who knew what they’d be facing?

“Next time, it might be you who gets injured,” Caroline predicted.  “Or one of the others.”

“We’ll see.”  Sir Muldoon didn’t look back as the hall came into view, but I could hear the irritation in his voice.  “There’s a certain element of chance in the exercises.”

“You’re a bastard,” I said, crossly.

“That’s you’re a bastard, sir,” Sir Muldoon corrected.  “And these tests are designed to make sure you can handle yourself under pressure.  Which you did.”

“Hah.”  I wanted to clutch Caroline’s hand as the excitement steadily drained away.  It was suddenly very easy to envisage all the hundreds of ways everything could have gone wrong.  “I nearly panicked.”

Sir Muldoon stopped and turned to face me.  “You want to know something important?”

He went on before I could say a word.  “There aren’t many men without fear.  Those who claim to be fearless have often simply never run into anything to fear.  When they do, they tend to come apart at the seams.  They don’t learn how to handle fear until it’s too late.  For us?  The key is not being unafraid.  The key is learning how to work through it, to keep your fear from rendering you helpless and alone.  Today, you took an important step towards mastering your fear.”

“And learning how to mutilate myself,” I muttered.

“Get up to the healer’s chamber and have her check you out - both of you,” Sir Muldoon ordered.  “She can grow you a new hand.  You can report to the dining hall afterwards and get some food.  Tomorrow is another day.”

“Is that your way of saying there’s going to be another test?”  Caroline asked.  “A nastier one?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, princelings?”  Sir Muldoon sounded amused, rather than angry.  “The only easy day was yesterday.”

Chapter Nine

I’d thought Sir Muldoon was joking.  He wasn’t.

The next two weeks - or what I thought were the next two weeks, as it was hard to tell - grew harder and harder.  Sir Muldoon and the other instructors pushed us as much as possible, forcing us to develop our skills or risk being left behind ... or worse.  I sweated though combat training - with and without magic - and relaxed by studying social etiquette and how to handle myself in High Society.  Caroline seemed to find it easy, but the rest of us struggled.  We honestly didn’t know how to wear a proper suit or tie our ties.  I almost felt sorry for Akin and Alana as we worked our way through wine lists, learning how to bluff our way through social encounters I would have considered unthinkable.  If they’d spent their childhoods memorising millions of useless facts, I could almost see why they acted as if they had a giant stick wedged up their behinds.

“You have to be comfortable everywhere,” Sir Muldoon pointed out, when I protested.  “We need you to be a social chameleon, as comfortable at a wealthy man’s table as you are in a dockside pub.”

I shuddered.  I’d never been in a dockside pub.  Father had threatened to thrash me to within an inch of my life if I so much as looked at a dockside pub.  I’d heard enough horror stories to understand the old man had a point.  They were crammed with hard-living men, drinking and whoring to forget the horrors of their lives.  I knew I could have been one of them, if things had been different.  It didn’t mean I had to feel sorry for them.

“You’ll be visiting all sorts of places,” Sir Muldoon said, dryly.  “Believe me, you’re going to be fitting into all of them.”

“I still don’t understand why I have to wear a suit,” I protested.  “It’s obvious I haven’t worn one in ... like, ever.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Sir Muldoon assured me.  “Now, in what order do you use the cutlery?”

I groaned.  “From the outside in, at a formal dinner,” I said.  “There should be a set for each course.  Asking for replacements is a sign of lousy upbringing.”

“Quite,” Sir Muldoon agreed.

I did my best to pay attention as he launched into a long lecture covering the symbolism of using the right cutlery for the right occasion.  It made no sense.  Father was relatively wealthy, for someone born and bred in Water Shallot, and he couldn’t afford hundreds of sets of cutlery.  He’d have had a heart attack if I or my sisters suggested it.  I tried to imagine how much it would cost to buy so much just for my small family, and scowled.  It would cost more than we’d make in a decade.

“It makes no sense,” I complained to Caroline.  “The aristos are mad.”

“If you belong, you know the rules,” Caroline pointed out.  “It’s astonishing how much you can get away with if you don’t look out of place.”

I nodded, sourly.  We’d studied the case notes.  Some of the greatest con artists in history had pretended to be aristocrats, without making even a single slip until they’d completed their plans and slipped back into the shadows.  High Society didn’t seem to like talking about how it had been fooled, even though it had happened dozens of times.  I found it rather amusing.  Alana might talk about how blood tells, but ... blood didn’t seem to be any more talkative than water.  And if an aristo couldn’t tell the difference between another aristo and a commoner aping his betters, was there any difference at all?

The thought made me smile as we were ordered upstairs into one of the training rooms that had been - until now - firmly locked.  I looked around with interest as Caroline and I stepped through the door, spotting a heavy wooden desk and a young woman sitting behind it.  She looked harmless, although I knew - by now - that was meaningless.  The Kingsmen had taught me that some very dangerous people looked utterly harmless, until the time came to lower the boom.  She looked bland, wearing an outfit that made her look more like a secretary than a secret agent.  I reached out with my magic and sensed nothing.  She was masking very well.

“Greetings,” the woman said.  The door banged closed behind us.  “Look at this ...”

She moved her hand in a complicated gesture.  Green light flashed.  I felt my will drain away.  I could hear her speaking, but the words seemed muffled.  I knew, at some level, that something was dreadfully wrong, yet ... I couldn’t force myself to care.  It felt like a dream, or a nightmare.  I’d heard stories of people who were hag-ridden in the depth of the night and were never the same afterwards.  But ... I just couldn’t force myself to care.

The trance snapped.  I started, feeling my senses reel.  Beside me, Caroline swayed.  She would have hit the ground if I hadn’t put a hand on her shoulder.  What had she done to us?  I glared at her, sitting behind her desk.  My head was starting to pound, but ... it felt like a ghostly headache.  It felt as if it wasn’t really there.

I found my voice.  “What did you do to us?”

“This.”  The woman’s voice was very cold.  “Chicken.”

I felt my entire body jerk, then start to hop around like a chicken.  Horror flowed through me as I clucked and squawked helplessly, flapping my hands as if they were wings.  Caroline did the same, eyes wide as her body betrayed her.  I’d faced compulsion spells before, but this ... I struggled, desperately, to stop my treacherous body, but nothing worked.   Whatever she’d done to us, it made the little spells I’d learnt as a student seem weak and ineffectual.  They could be brushed off by someone with a very strong will.

“Stop,” the woman said.  I sagged in relief as I felt the compulsion vanish.  “I trust you learnt an interesting lesson?”

“Who are you?”  Caroline demanded.  She sounded badly shaken.  “And what gives you the right to ...?”

“To answer your first question, I am Lady Grey,” the woman said.  “And to answer the second, it’s part of your training.”

She motioned to a pair of chairs, pressed against the far wall.  “Take a seat,” she said.  “We’re going to be quite busy here.”

I gritted my teeth as I chose a chair and sat down.  “Why did you ...?”

“So you would take this seriously,” Lady Grey said, without giving me a chance to finish the question.  “Many people choose to overlook the more subtle compulsion and dominance spells, even though they’re incredibly dangerous.  They don’t realise how easy it can be for someone to worm their way into their mind - or how easily their perceptions can be warped, once there’s a hole in their defences.  Making you two act like chickens is harmless, compared to some of the other tricks people can play.  It isn’t impossible for someone to find their mind so full of holes that they have almost no free will of their own.”

“Shit,” I said.

“Quite.”  Lady Grey eyed me severely.  “You will be authorised to use such spells yourself, if you feel it necessary.  Should you use the spells without good cause, you risk spending the rest of your life in exile - or worse.  The mere existence of such spells is not common knowledge.  You will have to weigh the risk of using them against the dangers of not using them.  And the risk of being thrown to the wolves by your superiors in order to prevent a greater disaster.”

“Like General Dyer,” Caroline said.

I scowled.  General Dyer had opened fire on rioting crowds, ten years ago.  He’d claimed, at the time, that he’d restored order.  But he’d killed upwards of ninety people and the public had demanded his head.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.  Dyer had been a shithead, but it had been clear - when I’d studied the records - that he’d been denied the right to a fair trial in the haste to disavow him.  The wrong thing for the right reasons?  Or the right thing for the wrong reasons?  I honestly wasn’t sure.

“Correct,” Lady Grey said.  “There are strict rules for using such spells.  If you break them, you will be in some trouble even if you are found to be completely justified.  Do you understand me?”

“A little too well,” I muttered.

“Good.”  Lady Grey smiled and raised her hand.  “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

I hastily gathered my mental defences as she cast the spell.  My shields shivered, then shattered under her pounding.  I felt her mind press into mine, reading my thoughts and scanning my memories.  A surge of shame shot through me as I forced her back out, cursing her as savagely as I knew how.  She didn’t seem displeased as she nodded to me, then turned her attention to Caroline.  I watched, terrified, as Caroline’s defences weakened and broke in front of Lady Grey.  She could have done a lot worse to us than make us cluck like chickens.

“This is how you cast the spell,” Lady Grey said, an hour later.  “Do not practice without both prior permission and supervision.”

I studied the spellform, feeling sick as I realised just how simple it truly was.  The compulsion spells I’d seen at school were a lot more complicated.  It made me wonder if they’d been kept deliberately complicated, just to make it harder for students to master.  But this spell ... I cast it on Caroline, time and time again, before she cast it on me.  It grew easier to resist, as we practiced.  And yet ...

“We’ll continue this tomorrow,” Lady Grey said.  “Sir Muldoon will be lecturing you over dinner.”

I rubbed my forehead.  “Can I draw a headache potion?”

“If you need one,” Lady Grey said.  “It’s never a good idea to leave a headache unattended.”

Caroline caught her eye as she dismissed us.  “How many people know these spells exist?”

“Too many,” Lady Grey said.  “Us, the Great Houses ... they keep being reinvented, even when we try to keep them out of the textbooks.  And you’ll be learning how to watch for people who’ve been influenced by magic over the next few days too.”

I collected a headache potion from the healer, then made my way down to the dining hall.  The food seemed to have gotten better over the last week, although we were kept so busy it was hard to be sure.  It was certainly hard to eat while listening to the evening lecture, covering a wide range of subjects from healing magic to history and current affairs.  I wasn’t sure how many of the subjects were actually important, but I didn’t dare ignore them.  We had to be getting close to our exams.

Caroline had the same thought.  “How long have we been here?”

I shrugged.  “Years?”

“I think it’s been around two months,” Caroline said.  She smiled at my questing look.  “I’ve ... bled twice, as far as I can tell.”

I nodded, stiffly.  I knew the facts of life.  I’d grown up with two sisters.  I just didn’t want to think about them.

“Today, we will be considering the intricacies of truth spells,” Sir Muldoon informed us.  I filled my plate with food, then sat down as the instructor continued to talk.  We knew from experience that he wouldn’t repeat himself.  “There are two different classes of truth spells, one that merely makes it impossible to speak a lie and one that actually compels the victim to speak.  The latter category is actually forbidden without a court order, although someone can volunteer to waive their rights and have the spell cast on them to prove their innocence.”

He paused.  “Why would the former category be less effective?”

Caroline stuck up a hand.  “Because the victim can choose his words to give a truthful, but misleading impression.”

“Correct, in part,” Sir Muldoon agreed.  “It’s also worth noting that the victim may genuinely believe he’s telling the truth, even though he’s clearly not.  It isn’t uncommon for one person, in a dispute over sexual consent, to believe he had consent while his partner - equally truthfully - believes that consent was withdrawn.  They would both pass the truth spell test, even though they would both believe the other was either mistaken or lying.”

He paused.  “You have to be careful, even when the truth spell is firmly in place, to watch what you ask.  Experienced interrogators tend to triangulate around the subject, asking the same question in several different ways to limit the risk of being misled.  A couple of murderers nearly escaped justice because we thought we were looking for a single murderer, not two murderers with two separate victims.  We asked each of them if they killed both victims and - of course - they answered no.  Perfectly truthfully, yet totally misleading.”

I rubbed my forehead as the lecture went on and on.  It was growing harder to think these days, as if I was reaching my limits.  I couldn’t face the thought of stuffing more facts and figures into my brain, of trying to pull all the spells into a coherent whole ... I tried to think of a way to get my hands on some memory-enhancement potion, but nothing came to mind.  Sir Muldoon had warned us that such tricks wouldn’t just be useless, they’d be actively harmful.  I believed him.  He’d shown us enough ways to tell if someone was under the influence that I knew there was no hope of getting anything past him.

Caroline is doing well, I thought, as I surveyed the room.  She was, too.  I had the feeling she had reserves of bloody-mindedness and gritty determination the rest of us lacked.  But the rest of us ...

My headache grew worse, despite the potion.  Hector and Archie looked grim, as if they were nursing headaches too.  Jean’s face was blank.  Chance looked ready to jump out the window, something they’d actually taught us to do safely.  I wondered what Sir Muldoon would do if we went to him in a body and told him we needed a break, then sighed as I realised he’d consider us quitters.  I felt my muscles starting to hurt too, a grim reminder that I’d lost the last bout in the training circle.  Archie had struck me a mighty blow and nearly caved in my ribs.  

“The only easy day was yesterday,” Sir Muldoon said.  I felt a flash of naked hatred.  Ancients!  I was getting sick of hearing that ... that saying.  “Tomorrow is another day.”

He cleared his throat.  “Next week, you’ll hit the qualifying exams.  Should you pass, you’ll be raised to squires.  Should you fail” - he gave us a completely sweet, completely fake, smile - “try not to fail.  Please.”

Caroline caught my arm.  “This is it!”

I felt a flush of excitement, mingled with fear.  We’d been pressed so hard, over the past few weeks, that I couldn’t imagine anything worse.  And yet, I knew it could be worse.  I was sure of it.  Sir Muldoon’s horror stories had grown even more gruesome.  We’d probably have to fight a dragon stark naked or pretend to be an invited guest at the aristo ball.  I’d sooner have faced the dragon.  At least it would probably have killed me quickly.  

“You’ll make it,” Caroline said, reassuringly.  She grinned at me.  “We’ll all make it.”

“Yeah.”  I tried to sound confident, though I was nothing of the sort.  It had taken me longer than it should have to realise that the tests had been steadily growing harder.  I’d felt as if I was making no progress at all.  “And then the real pain begins.”

“Not really.”  Sir Muldoon had overheard me.  “If you pass the exams, we’ll know we can rely on you.  We won’t press you that hard.”

“We’ll be pressing ourselves, sir,” Caroline guessed.  “Right?”

“Yes.”  Sir Muldoon smiled.  “If you’re not self-motivated by now, you won’t be self-motivated at all.”

I mulled it over as we were dismissed.  Sir Muldoon no longer escorted us back to the barracks, now that we were experienced enough to understand that we needed as much sleep as possible, but we headed back to the bunks anyway.  Was I motivated?  It was growing harder and harder to remember my life before Haddon Hall.  Did I really have a father and two sisters?  Or was my family the one surrounding me now?  I glanced at Caroline.  She glanced back.  She seemed as tired as I felt.

“Do you think they’ll give us some leave, afterwards?”  I met her eyes.  It was surprisingly easy to ask her out, unlike the girls I’d known back home.  “We could go home and see our families.  Or visit somewhere new.”

“I have no idea,” Caroline said.  She shot me a wistful look.  “My family probably doesn’t want to see me again.  But it would be nice to go somewhere new.”

I blinked.  “They don’t?”

“Yeah.”  Caroline didn’t seem inclined to talk about it.  “We can go see your family, if you like.”

“Just get through the exams first,” Hector advised.  He nodded to Archie, who winked.  “They’ll probably make you take them again if you fail.  Or retake the entire course from the start.”

“Or boot you out completely,” Jean said.  She stripped and clambered into her bunk.  “What will they do with us if we fail?”

I shrugged.  “We’d better not fail,” I said.  “It might be the end.”