Warrior proud of the Third House! Ride forth now as my sister! Ride we to death, and the proving!

Ride we with heads held high; we shall bloody our blades in the foe’s heart; death shall we bring to the foul ones—

Death shall we win for ourselves, as the prize for our high deeds done on the ash-choked plains of the ravens!

Book Eleven. Matthias Nonius and the cavalier secondary of the Third House would proceed to destroy a whole legion in exhaustive detail, after which the grievously injured daughter of the Third had to be carried over a thanergy-irradiated desert while Nonius mused aloud on the nature of fate all the way into Book Twelve. You fell asleep.

By the next afternoon, an envelope had been slipped under Ianthe’s door. It was paper of a deep, creamy brown, and sealed with wax. When Ianthe broke it open, you peered over her elbow at the contents. A single page—also real paper, also dyed a creamy tan colour, lettered artistically in flawless handwriting and deep blue ink:

AUGUSTINE THE FIRST, LYCTOR OF THE GREAT RESURRECTION, FOUNDER OF THE COURT OF KONIORTOS, FIRST SAINT TO SERVE THE KING UNDYING

REQUESTS THE HONOUR OF THE PRESENCE OF HIS YOUNGEST SISTERS

IANTHE THE FIRST, EIGHTH SAINT TO SERVE THE KING UNDYING

&

HARROWHARK THE FIRST, NINTH SAINT TO SERVE THE KING UNDYING

DINNER WILL BE SERVED AT HALF AN HOUR PAST EVENING COMMENCEMENT

ATTIRE: FORMAL OR CEREMONIAL DRESS

Your head pounded with a tedious recognition.

“No,” you said.

Ianthe tapped your shoulder with the invitation in her usual parody of playfulness, which was a little like being batted around by a predator while still alive. “This is the plan, Harrowhark. Just sit back and watch my teacher work.”

You said, “I do not understand the faith you place in that man.”

It was no good. You would have preferred a time that was not hours hence; you would have preferred a plan that did not involve a formal invitation, a dress code, or dinner. The last dinner you had attended had not gone exactly to plan, and you thought another dinner in poor taste. But you had not reckoned on your roommate, who—as a princess of the Third House—thought of dinners the way you thought of morning orison.

“I still have my robes of office,” you said as she tore apart her wardrobe, fingering each article therein before tossing it aside.

“It’s no longer your office. No—no.”

“It’s technically correct.”

“Not this time, my child. I’m sick of being associated with a half-snapped stick of liquorice, dressed in a tent— No—hideous—not even Corona would wear that. No—no.”

“My shirt and trousers will suffice, then. Beneath my Canaanite whites.”