He asked what I’d been up to for the last few days. My first course — an onion soup — arrived as I described my experience at court and my first lesson with Cordus.

Graham nodded. “Any questions?”

I hesitated, perplexed. “Do you still think of yourself as my trainer?”

“No. But I can answer questions.”

I must’ve looked dubious, because he gave me a sad smile and added, “Just don’t ask me something I’ll have to lie about.”

I gave him the laugh he was looking for, though his comment was painfully close to what I’d actually been thinking.

Well, why not ask some of the questions that had occurred to me over the past couple days, some of the things I couldn’t ask Cordus himself? It’s not like I had to believe Graham’s answers, if I didn’t want to.

I lowered my voice. “Why does Lord Cordus let Williams get away with wearing all black?”

Graham looked at me blankly. “I hadn’t realized that was happening. Williams doesn’t go to court much. I guess I never noticed.” He thought about it. “I don’t know why Lord Cordus would allow that. If you qualify to wear white, you have to.”

Our entrées came. My chicken breast was indeed accompanied by a dish of snails, each sitting in its own bath of melted butter. Graham showed me how to fork one out of its shell. It was actually pretty good.

“Do you know anything about the snowman ambassador?”

“They’re actually called ice men. And no. Sorry. She’s quite new to the job.”

“Good thing you helped with the snail, ’cause a fat lot of good you are on the questions,” I said, leaning back.

He smiled a little.

“Is Lady Innin stronger than Lord Cordus?”

“No idea. They keep that kind of information to themselves, understandably.”

“I thought you could tell if you touch someone.”

“Ah, right. First of all, I’ve never touched Lady Innin. Second, it’s more complicated than that. If you touch someone who’s weaker than you, you’ll probably get a pretty good sense of how strong they are. If you touch someone who’s stronger, you’ll know they’re stronger, but you won’t get as accurate a sense of what they can do. Touch someone like Lord Cordus or Lady Innin, and you’ll just feel overwhelming power. The differences between them won’t be discernible.”

Okay, that was helpful.

“Do you know how old Lord Cordus is?”

“He was born in Constantinople in the 330s or 340s, I think.”

My mind went blank. It was like he’d started speaking another language.

“Going on seventeen hundred years,” Graham added, when he saw I wasn’t getting it.

“That’s impossible.”

“Nope. The most powerful Seconds can live just about forever if they want to. Some of them are millions of years old. Hundreds of millions, maybe.”