Tavia’s glare reappeared and Karam couldn’t help but laugh at her outrage.

“You’ve got something on your face,” Tavia said, her voice a stale monotone.

Karam stopped smiling.

“There.” Tavia crossed her arms over her chest in satisfaction. “All gone.”

“Guard up,” Karam said. “Or I may stab you for real this time.”

“No, you’re way too fond of me now. We’re practically best—”

“We are not friends,” Karam interrupted.

Though mostly she said it out of habit rather than truth. Like a game between the two of them, insults a common currency of affection. Tavia had a knack for being simultaneously very unlikable and very, very endearing.

If only she had the same knack for being good with her fists.

As it was, when it came to teaching Tavia how to fight, Karam had her work cut out for her. It wasn’t that the busker had no skills whatsoever, just that none of her skills were the right ones, and so Karam spent half her time sighing in despair and the other half trying not to punch Tavia in the face.

“After this, we’re moving on to magic lessons,” Tavia said. “That Nolan bastard had some damn good charms that I’ve been waiting to try out. I’ll be teaching you how to turn your enemies into literal dust in no time.”

Karam grimaced.

Not because of the violence, but because using magic still made her skin itch. She preferred her fists and being able to feel her enemies’ bones rattle. There was a strange comfort that came with a good old-fashioned brawl. It was simple and certain.

Magic was like a question with no answer, or an answer with no question. It was there one moment and gone the next, in all things and part of nothing, existing entirely outside of the world and yet responsible for each and every particle of it.

Karam’s most dreaded days were when her lessons with Tavia finished and Tavia’s lessons with her began.

“Don’t give me that look,” Tavia said. “This was the trade-off. You teach me how to be a stealth assassin and I teach you how to be a damn fine trickster. If we’re going to survive this war, we need magic and fists to work together.”

“A very inspiring speech,” Karam said.

“Not as good as the one you gave about how to poke someone’s eyes out. I still have nightmares about that.”

Karam merely shrugged. “I am a firm believer that every woman should know how to blind her enemies.”

Tavia laughed, loud and unabashed one moment, only for it to be cut short with jarring finality the next.

She stared ahead, to a space beyond Karam, all the joy gone from her face.

Across the way, Saxony was talking to a group of Crafters in her Kin, and Tavia watched her with all the curiosity of a hunter watching prey.