“No need—I am here,” said a new voice. A pair of black boots trimmed with silver chains stopped beside Tinwright’s face where it rested against the floor. “And here is the poet. Still, it seems a strange place to wait.”

Tinwright had just enough sense to scramble to his feet. Hendon Tolly watched him rise, the corner of his mouth cocked in a charmless grin, then turned away and moved to his regent’s chair, which he dropped himself into with the practiced ease of a cat jumping down off a low wall. “Tinwright, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Lord. I was…I was told you wanted to see me.”

“I did, yes, but not necessarily in that strange position. What were you doing on the floor?”

“I…I was told I was to be executed.”

Hendon Tolly laughed. “Really? And so you fainted, did you? I suppose it would be the kind thing, then, for me to tell you that nothing like that is planned.” He was grinning, but his eyes were absolutely cold. “Unless I decide to execute you anyway. The day has been short on amusements.”

Oh, merciful gods, Tinwright thought. He plays with me as if I were a mouse. He swallowed, tried to take a breath without bursting into helpless sobs. “Do…do you plan to kill me, then, Lord Guardian?”

Tolly cocked his head. He was dressed in the finery of a Syannese court dandy, with pleated scarlet tunic and black sleeves immensely puffed above the elbow, and his hair was dressed in foppish strands that hung down into his eyes, but Tinwright knew beyond doubt that if the mood took him this overdressed dandy could murder the poet or anyone else as quickly and easily as an ordinary man could kick over a chair.

The guardian of Southmarch narrowed his eyes until they were almost closed, but his stare still glinted. “I am told you are…ambitious.”

Elan. He does know. “I–I’m not sure…what you mean, Lord.”

Tolly flicked his fingers as if they were wet. “Don’t parse words with me. You know what the word ‘ambitious’ means. Are you? Do you have eyes above your station, poet?”

“I…I wish to better myself, sir. As do most men.”

Tolly leaned forward, smiling as though he had finally found something worth hunting, or trapping, or killing. “Ah, but is that so? I think most men are cattle, poet. I think they hope to be ignored by the wolves, and when one of their fellows is taken they all move closer together and start hoping again. Men of ambition are the wolves—we must feed on the cattle in order to survive, and it makes us cleverer than they. What do you think, Tinwright? Is that a, what do you call it, a metaphor? Is it a good metaphor?”

Puzzled, Tinwright almost shook his head in confusion, but realized it might be mistaken as a denial of Hendon Tolly’s words. Did the guardian fancy himself a poet? What would that mean for Tinwright? “Yes, Lord, of course, it is a metaphor. A very good one, I daresay.”