Skif nodded his head, concealing as best he could that he was racked by an internal struggle. He really, truly wanted to be Halcom’s friend. And he really, truly, did not want to make another friend that he knew he would only lose.

I ain’t stayin’ here forever, he told himself sternly. He wouldn’ be so nice if he knew what I was. Hellfires, he’d turn me straight over to th’ Watch if he knew what I was!

But he could almost hear the place whispering to him. It wanted him to stay. He could have a friend again. No one here would care what he had been, only what he was now, and what he might become. Oh, he’d never be rich—but he’d never starve either.

He steeled himself against the seductive whispers of peace. Him? Bide in a place like this? Not when he had a debt to repay! Not when there was someone out there that was so ruthless he would do anything to anyone who stood in his way!

Besides, this place would put him to sleep in a season. He’d turn into a sheep inside of a year. And if there was one thing that Skif had no desire to become, it was a sheep.

“Well, I imagine you’ve heard more than enough to send you to sleep about me,” Halcom said, hauling himself to his feet again. “And I still have my charges to attend to. I won’t keep you from your own duties any more, lad—but do remember what I’ve told you, and that if you want a second letter of commendation to go with the Prior’s when you leave, I will be happy to write one for you.”

That last, said as Halcom turned to go, had the sound of a formal dismissal, superior to inferior.

There, you see? he taunted that seductive whisper. I ain’t a friend to the likes of a highborn, even if his people did cast ’im off. A mouse might’s well ask a hawk t’be his friend. Hawk might even say yes—till he got hungry.

* * *

Another week passed, and the city was struck with a heat wave that was so oppressive people and animals actually began dying.