Another reason to never lower his guard.

He was immersed in text and making handwritten notes to himself on a separate sheet when he sensed someone standing close by. He looked up to see the faces of Garrett Wu and Violet Bransom, and instantly knew it wasn’t a social visit.

Jess put the book aside and his pen down before he stood up to face them. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “Tariq was shot from above. Ask Sergeant Botha.”

“You shot him first,” Bransom—they never called her Violet, and Tariq had coined her official nickname, Violent, the first day—said, and with one shove, she put him back down in the chair. He didn’t resist. It gave him excellent leverage to kick knees and break bones. “I saw it. He went down when you shot him.”

“He was aiming at a Scholar. You know, the one we’re sworn to protect at all costs? Are you actually telling me you wouldn’t have done the same?”

“You’re lying,” Wu said. He wasn’t a bad guy, and Jess normally got along with him, but seeing that stiff, angry expression, he knew getting along wasn’t in the cards today. “Tariq would never betray us. And he’d never shoot a Scholar. That’s sick!”

They’d never accept the truth, and Jess didn’t blame them. Tariq had been a friendly sort, likable. Jess had taken pains not to be part of the group. He’d wanted to stay apart, after the pain of losing his friends from his Postulant class.

And this distrust was what caution and distance had earned him.

“I’m telling the truth, and Botha backs me up about how Tariq died. Whether I shot him or not makes no real difference. I didn’t kill him. A sniper from the rooftops did.”

“And you think you did your duty,” Wu said. The boy’s fists were clenched hard at his sides, his stare very dark and fixed. Jess knew the look. He’d faced it before. He kept his attention split, because Bransom would be the one to make the first move, if one was coming. “You’d do it again, wouldn’t you? To any one of us.”

“Yes, I’d do it again, to save a Scholar’s life. And so would you!” He was getting angry now, could feel it like a sunburn blooming under his skin. “Tariq was working with them. Maybe he wasn’t the only one.”

Wu’s face went a dangerously dark shade. “You saying we’re Burners?”

There was, Jess knew, no insult he could have given that would be greater, but there was no taking it back, and it didn’t matter. Neither of the two facing him was listening anyway; they had their minds well made up about what they thought. He was wasting breath.

The area had quietly cleared of other soldiers. Disputes between people of equal rank weren’t prohibited, unless officers were present. Bransom was about to kick it off, he thought, and he prepared to shatter her left kneecap, but just then a calm voice from the doorway said, “Is this a private two-on-one fight, or can anyone join?”