“And why did you not ask Herald Alberich if you could show him these things in private?” asked Elcarth, his voice like a wintry blast from the snowstorm outside.

“Um. He’s very busy?” Adain seemed to be doing all the talking; Mical was sitting like a stone. Alberich knew why; Mical was from a family prosperous enough to possess one or two real glass mirrors and he knew just how expensive they were, although he probably had no idea that the price increased exponentially with the size. Adain was highborn; until he came to the Collegium, he had never had to pay for anything himself in his life, and he had no idea what even a hand mirror cost, much less one of the huge panels in the salle. Mical thought he knew, and he was scared, just thinking it would cost about the same as a good horse; Alberich knew better, knew that you could buy a nice house with a garden in a good part of Haven for less than one of those mirrors.

“Never, to my knowledge, did you inquire of me, these new moves to observe,” Alberich said from behind them. “My duty it is, to make time for such things.”

“You wanted an audience,” Arissa said, in that same hard, sharp voice—which, given that she was a Master Bard, was certainly deliberate. And, given that she was a Bard, and so was one of the miscreants, her statement about their motive was probably correct. “You couldn’t bear not to have an audience. You wanted to show off what you thought you could do.”

Alberich’s surmise that she had uncovered what had really driven the match today was borne out by the way that both the boys winced.

“Well,” she continued, “you got an audience. I trust you’re pleased. You’ve made fools out of yourselves in front of that audience, not to mention the damage you did in the salle.”

Now it was Elcarth’s turn. “Speaking of damages… are either of you aware of just how difficult—and expensive—it is to replace a mirror of that size?”

Identical head shakes.

Elcarth named a figure. Both of them went white as the snow falling outside. Even Alberich was impressed, hearing the exact cost; it made what he had paid for his stained-glass window look like pin money by comparison.

“Now,” Elcarth continued. “Naturally, some of this is going to come from your stipends. We shan’t take all of your stipends, but you’re going to be down to less than half of what everyone else gets.”

Mical finally said something. “But—we could never pay all that back, not even if we stayed Trainees for a hundred years!” He gulped audibly.