Gruff stomped on, muttering something about her having a ‘real mouth on her’. After a while, he asked, “Do you think the traps will work?”

“O’ course, my traps will work.”

“First two catches are mine,” he reminded her, pink tongue flashing out beyond the bounds of his beard before vanishing once more.

“As long as ye don’ let an angry woman with a stick steal ’em from right under yer bulbous nose.”

He fired a scowl in her direction, but then visibly brightened, as if an idea had struck him at that exact moment. “Hey, has your mentor told you about the most important thing you need to do if you want to learn to use yer Ability?”

“Mentor?”

“You know, Sinna’s favorite novice—Jereb.”

It was Perfidy’s turn to frown. “He’s only told me it’ll take time, an’ that I need to keep practicin’ an’ suffer like the rest o’ ye did.”

The dwarf stopped dead in his tracks, slapping his knees as he laughed so hard his beard bounced and swayed. “Of course he didn’t tell you. Part of how he likes to initiate new novices. It’s kind of mean, if you ask me. Look, the first thing you need to do doesn’t have anythin’ to do with trainin’ or beatin’ yerself up all day. And since you were kind enough to help me with yer traps, I’ll tell you, free of charge.”

“Whut is it?” Truth be told, Perfidy would’ve done almost anything at this point to give herself a better chance at using her Ability. Pretend to be a chicken, sleep standing up, walk on her hands…all he had to do was name it.

But he didn’t name any of those rather mundane things. No, what he named would be far more of a challenge.

“You need to steal Lady Brenner’s magic stick,” he said solemnly.

Gruff had explained everything. How none of the other novices were able to perform, much less master, their Abilities without having stolen Lady Brenner’s white stick first. “That’s why we call it magic,” he’d told her. “Call it a fool’s superstition, but it works, I swear on the Mountain—and also Narcissi,” he’d added as an afterthought. He went on to tell her how he couldn’t turn anything back on anyone until he’d stolen the stick. How Clemmy couldn’t conjure a single plate of armor, or Jereb so much as an eagle feather, or Aliza even one poisoned quill. And as for Julio, his thunderclap was more like a kittenclap before he’d pulled off his heist. “Of course, we always give the magic stick back to her,” Gruff had said. “So it’s a victimless crime, innit?”

That much was true. If Perfidy did manage to steal the stick, it’s not like she would keep it for herself. What did she need a random stick for? Nothing, that’s what. So even if there was a half-chance that stealing Lady Brenner’s so-called magic stick could help her penetrate this little bottleneck in her progress, then wasn’t it a risk worth taking? What was the worst that could happen? She’d get scolded by an ornery old woman dressed in fancy clothes? She’d faced a void of a lot worse in her life than that.