In any event, Mags was not going hungry by any stretch of the imagination, although he was missing two of the three meals served at the Collegia. In fact, Lydia had discovered a few of his favorite things and made sure that when he left to go back up the hill, he had a little basket made up with them “just in case you get hungry studying tonight.” Which was a great kindness, since he did study nearly every night, and did get hungry doing so. It seemed as if studying was as much work as the physical practice he was doing.

Even then, when he was done studying, his day still wasn’t over. When he was ready to close his books, he would let Dallen know that he was finished for the evening. And not long after that, Herald Nikolas would slip into the stable and take up yet another sort of lesson with him.

These were lessons in how to be unobtrusive, and in how to observe. Interestingly enough, the lessons in “how to be unobtrusive” were not always about being quiet. He was learning how to gauge the mood of people around him, what Nikolas called “reading the room,” and when being somewhat boisterous would be more useful, how to counterfeit looking careless, devil-may-care, and utterly oblivious to what was going on around him.

He was hardly the master of any of this, of course. These were like the beginning lessons in weapons work, except this was nothing he had a special aptitude for. So it was going slowly. On the other hand . . . Herald Nikolas appeared to feel that he was progressing well.

“I hope ye ain’t disappointed in me, sir,” Mags sighed one night, after repeated attempts to look as if he was more interested in examining a broom (standing in for a young lady) than his “target” had repeatedly failed.

“Not even close,” Herald Nikolas replied, with a ghost of a smile. “You are no worse and no better at this than I was when I started. It is very easy to get one noticed; it is a lot harder to remain unnoticed. And you don’t have to be perfect at this for a good long time. Right now, most people overlook you because you are a mere Trainee, a callow youth, because your accent and way of speaking give you away as poor and rural, and because you are inoffensive looking.” He smiled slightly. “I hope you take no offense at this, but in short, you are no threat at all—in fact, you are beneath the notice of most people.”

Mags nodded. He pretty much had counted on all of that to keep him out of trouble since he had gotten here. “Sir, what about m’ Gift? You ’spect that I use that, too?”