And after all, there was no need to hurry to get to dinner. He never ate with anyone in particular, mostly choosing his isolated seat where he could keep a wary eye on all the company. So it was with a start of surprise that he felt his elbow seized as soon as he came in the door.

“I’ve been waiting for you forever, Mags,” said Lena, looking up at him with eyes still red-rimmed from weeping. “Come on. I’ve saved you a place.”

Chapter 9

9

THE thing about having a room in the stable, Mags was discovering, was that people, Heralds included, tended to forget that there was someone here besides Companions. And because he would sequester himself in his room long before most of the other Trainees were in theirs, he was the unintended witness to a lot of conversations he was pretty sure shouldn’t have been overheard. Or at the very least, conversations that no one wanted overheard.

Most of those conversations were merely embarrassing; most were stablehands in eager pursuit of women—and women eager to be pursued. Since the Companion’s Stable was heated when the others were not—the stable proper was not as warm as the couple of rooms that were here, but with the exception of Mags’, those rooms were shared. So when privacy was wanted, maybe a stall was the best choice these fellows had. He and Dallen often shared a sardonic word or three about some of what they overheard.

Mags got to hear an awful lot of lies, to put things bluntly.

“Of course I love you,” was the one he heard most often, along with “You’re the only woman in my life,” coming a close second. Though to be fair, the women lied almost as often. “You’re all I think about,” and “Never change.” It was interesting. He’d heard that Heralds could do something that let them know when someone was lying, but it was getting so that he could tell without that—whatever it was. “Truth Spell.” Dallen seemed to think this was remarkable, but very useful.