Dirva stood minutely taller. A hardness settled on him like armor. “No, Ariah. My father has one wife and one husband. Da is a term for a male co-parent.”

The words sunk in very slowly, but my mask was impenetrable, and he was not reading me, so I don’t know if he could tell how much the facts of his life caught me off guard. I took a quiet second to recover. “You are close to him? Your da?”

“Very close.”

“And he is not well?” Dirva frowned at me. “Yes, you said that. Well, I…it is not a fast trip to the City, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“So, this will take some time. The travel, and then you’ll want to stay with your family, and then there’s travel back.”

Dirva stood still, calm and composed, but his fingers beat a twitchy rhythm against his elbows. “There’s half a year left in your training, and this trip would take you out of the country for most, if not all of it. I welcome you to come, but I should say that you’re quite bright, quite disciplined, and I am not convinced you actually need these last few months of training.”

I swelled with pride when he said it. There was a kindness to Dirva, but he was a man who was not generous with praise. I was, and still am, a man who laps up praise like a cat laps up cream. “Oh, I need the training.”

“I don’t know that you do. And I don’t know that I’ll be in a state to teach you much of anything in the City.”

“I have tonight to think it over?”

Dirva nodded and stared back out at the alley. “You have tonight.”