Twenty-six repaired the broken shelf bed, anchoring it more securely than it had been before. Because it was better and novel, Lathe moved back into that bunk.

  Unfortunately, that still left them with the required bed to fill and an annoyed Coffee Island master looking to prove a point.

  The cold stuck around until the new crop arrived at Thornfield. Rain battered the prospective Thorns, and Grandmaster had to shout over the wind, but no allowance was made for the poor weather. The welcome speeches and baths took place in the bailey, leaving the new arrivals to sprint into the hall and receive their new dry clothing while shivering uncontrollably.

  As newly promoted third-years, Izak and Twenty-six weren’t expected to serve the traditional first meal and could watch the new arrivals’ harsh awakening. Lathe was supposed to be in the kitchens, working off more lecture disruptions, but she’d slipped out to get a peek at their potential roommates.

  “Which one of ’em you figure is ours?” Lathe muttered, eyeing the white-faced, red-cheeked first-years warming themselves by the hearth. The unfamiliar gazes roved the hall, searching for a seat and naively looking forward to the food.

  “We won’t know until Malice shows him to our room,” Izak said.

  “We will know if Malice looks our way after handing out a set of clothing.” Twenty-six was pretending to be intent on his food, sneaking glances through the long fringe of sandy hair hanging in his eyes.

  Lathe was scrunched down between the two of them. She pulled on Izak’s shoulder and craned her neck to see better.

  “Stop being so obvious, Lathe,” Izak muttered. “If Malice sees you staring, he’ll assign us someone out of spite—”

  The words were barely out of Izak’s mouth when the Coffee Island master handed off a set of clothing and boots to a new arrival, then sent an eloquent glance their way.

  Izak made as if he were idly perusing the dining hall for someone. Twenty-six’s head was already lowered over his food; he simply dropped his eyes unseen.

  Lathe ducked below the level of the table. “We got trouble, us.”

  “We wouldn’t have if you had just looked somewhere else,” Izak muttered.

  “How’s about you shut up your mouth and listen for once? How’s about that?” Lathe growled. She hooked a dirty thumb toward the new arrival. “I knowed that kid a long time ago! He’s a close-rat, him.”

  “You are certain?” Twenty-six asked.

  “’Course I am! We all called him Scabs, us. He’s bad medicine on two legs.”

  Izak cursed. The scrawny young man hadn’t cleaned up much in the bath, unless that dirt was ingrained in his skin. He’d just finished dressing and was busy pulling his new Thornfield-issue boots onto the wrong feet. Malice stopped him.

  Twenty-six shoved his hair out of his face. “Lathe, you said once that all close-rats are loyal to the death. Would he keep your secret?”

  The runt’s expression darkened. “Once, Scabs give me and Pretty up to some rich folk for a piece of bread. And we wasn’t the onliest ones he done it to, neither. If’n he comes in our room, I’ll cut his throat, reach down inside, and pull out his guts.”

  “If he isn’t assigned to our room, we’ll have bigger trouble,” Izak said. “He could recognize you and tell his roommates. It would be all over the school in a matter of hours.”

  “Cain’t tell nobody without a tongue,” Lathe said, fingering the hilt of one twin sword.

  “If Scabs sold you out for a piece of bread, I think we’ve got a good argument for bribery,” Izak said.

  “Bribery is not a permanent solution,” Twenty-six began, before suddenly falling silent.

  Izak shifted in his seat to find one of the Saints standing behind them.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in the kitchens?” the gold-eyed weapons master asked Lathe.

  She scowled. “Ain’t you gotta be back for longer’n a couple days afore you tell me what to do?”

  “Go.”

  Cursing under her breath, Lathe slunk off.

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  “And make sure you’re in the bailey today for extra sword lessons,” he called after her as he headed for the masters’ table.

  Izak turned to the pirate. “I don’t suppose your pirate god allows murder for the sake of keeping someone quiet?”

  ***

  With the looming prospect of a new lodger, Izak and Twenty-six held off practicing for the day. The prince paced. The pirate pretended to read a book he’d taken from the Archives.

  Lathe returned from the kitchens and unsheathed her twin swords with hands stained purple from beet juice. Rather than leave for her sword lessons, she lingered just inside the door, perking up at every sound outside.

  “You cannot cut his head off when he walks in the door,” Twenty-six said. “One of the masters will be accompanying him.”

  Lathe scowled. “Like to shove this sword up his backside and shake him around.”

  “Again, not something you can do without being scourged and subsequently found out,” Izak muttered.

  “Might could get away with it if I say I tripped.”

  Izak reached for her twin blades. “Give me those.”

  “No, I got sword lessons!”

  “Then go!”

  “I’m going, me. Just soon as—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Izak shoved Lathe away from the portal, then opened it.

  Master Malice entered, leading the infamous Scabs. The former close-rat wore an easy grin that didn’t touch his eyes, and he slouched as if he would rather have been skulking in an alley with a knife. He was small, but that dirt-lined face was too aware to be a child, too harsh. Scabs looked older than Lathe around the eyes, but he hadn’t had the benefit of two years of steady meals to add to his height like she had.

  “Seventeen, you will board with the third-years.” The Coffee Islander indicated each of them in turn. “Twenty-six, Lathe, Four.”

  Scabs’s eyes slid over each of them, then jerked back to Lathe.

  “Brat?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ve misheard,” Lathe said in a handy imitation of Izak’s courtly drawl. One could hardly hear the muddy river in her voice when she said, “My name is Lathe.”

  Her mimicry was getting better every day. Unfortunately, she couldn’t change her face. Taller, healthier, marginally cleaner, she was still just the elfin-featured runt the recruiters had dragged in from the low streets. She stood like the runt. She stared left-eyed like the runt.

  “Oh,” Scabs said, that easy grin stretching. “Musta been river water in my ears. I never knowed no Lathe, me. Just a little close-rat.”

  Malice stepped in. “If there is any past between the two of you, remember that it was forgotten when you entered Thornfield.”

  “We ain’t got no past, us.” Scabs grinned at Lathe. “Hain’t we?”

  Lathe shook her head. “Not none.”

  Izak rolled his eyes. He hadn’t expected her to keep up the false accent forever, but she could at least have committed to it until Malice left.

  “Good,” Malice said. “Because if there’s any trouble, you will answer to me.”

  A heartbeat of stillness passed after the master left the room.

  Then Lathe turned into a blur. Scabs scuttled back against the door, while Izak and Twenty-six stopped the twin swords, eventually catching the runt’s arms and stretching her out between them like a Thorn about to be grafted.

  “Let go!” Lathe screamed, trying to shake them off. “I ain’t gonna kill him, me. I ain’t! I just wanna ask him something.”

  “Ever’body I knowed said that lyin’ Brat finally got got.” Scabs’s grin hadn’t dropped once while his life hung in the balance, and it didn’t waver now. “Guess they’s the fools now, ain’t they?”

  “Let me go!”

  “Drop the swords first,” Twenty-six said.

  Disgusted, Lathe dropped the matched blades. Izak snatched them up and got them out of her immediate reach.

  Lathe fixed Scabs with that one-eyed stare. “Is Pretty all right? When’s the last time you seen her?”

  “I figured she got took when you did. Ain’t she here?” Scabs got his answer from the look on her face. “What, these sword boys don’t want two gals to pass around? You all used up?”

  This time, she disappeared before she attacked. Twenty-six had to find her by the scratches and bites appearing on Scabs’s dirty skin.

  Finally, the pirate pried her away and pinned her against the far wall.

  “He deserves to have his belly cut open and be dangled over the side of a ship until the scavengers are finished with him,” Twenty-six growled, “but I am not attacking him. Can you understand why?”

  “’Cuz you left your cutlass on your bed like a fool and you ain’t got no ship!”

  Twenty-six gave her a shake. “Because if we kill him now, it will not look like an accident.”

  “Who’s carin’ about looks?”

  “We’re your brothers, Lathe,” Izak said. “If you want our help, take it. If you want to throw away your chance at the uphill placement you’re always talking about, then by all means, kill him now.”

  The runt reappeared. She spat Scabs’s blood back at him. “You’re a liar, and I hate ya.”

  “I ain’t no teller a’ tales, me,” Scabs said. “Unlike a little Brat I once knowed.”

  “Both of you, shut up.” Izak helped the bloody young opportunist to his feet. “Scabs. Name your price.”

  Scabs’s eyebrows jumped up on his dirty forehead. “Price?”

  “The amount it will take to keep you from telling anyone that Lathe is a girl.”

  Twenty-six glared daggers at Izak. “Do not offer him a bribe to stay quiet. Offer him steel if he talks.”

  “’Druther have the money, me.” Scabs picked at the ragged edge of one bite mark, adding a tinge of red to the dirt beneath his nails, while he considered the price. “A silver.”

  Izak had to stop himself from laughing with relief. The little gutter brat didn’t know a prince from a palfrey.

  Scabs took his pause for shock. “Shuttin’ up don’t come cheap, now. You want a secret, you gotta pay secret prices. If’n you cain’t…” He shrugged. “I got a bad memory, me. Might be I forget to keep quiet without something shiny to help me ’member.”

  “Give us a day to come up with it.” Izak didn’t have any silver stashed away, but perhaps someone in the barracks could make change for a gold piece.

  “Take as long’s ya need,” Scabs drawled, grinning through his busted lips. “Me, I’ll just be tryin’ to recall what I’m s’posed to keep my mouth shut about. Mayhaps I’ll talk to some folk ’twix then n’ now. Mayhaps not.”

  “Let go, I got sword lessons!” Lathe shook off Twenty-six and stormed toward the door, snatching her twin swords from Izak on the way.

  Scabs wisely gave her a wide berth.

  On the threshold, Lathe stopped. She pointed a steel at his throat, sighting her good eye down the length of the blade.

  “You best be prayin’ to the Cormorant that Four and Twenty-six don’t never fall asleep afore me.”

  The door slammed behind her.

  e

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