The Collegium cook, a moon-faced, eternally cheerful man called Mero, had turned up three days ago. The Collegium bells signaling the proper order of the day had resumed when Mero returned. So now, when Skif awoke at the first bell of the day and went down to the kitchen at the bell that signaled breakfast, he would join Kris and the girl Jeri and some of the teachers around a table in the kitchen for a real cooked meal. With so few to cook for, Mero declined help in cooking, but afterward they all pitched in to clean up. Some of Skif’s daydreams about food were coming to pass—Mero even made homely oat porridge taste special.

After breakfast came Skif’s first appointment of the day. It wasn’t exactly a class . . . especially not this morning.

And this morning, he could hardly eat his breakfast for impatience to get out to the salle, where some of the weapons training was done. He cleared the table by himself so that he could leave quickly.

He ran to the salle, a building that stood apart from the rest of the Collegia, and for good reason, since it needed to be a safe distance from anywhere people might walk, accidentally or on purpose. The Trainees from all three Collegia learned archery, and even some of the Blues, the students who weren’t Trainees at all. And some of those archery students were, to be frank, not very good.

Skif, although he had never shot a bow in his life, had proved to be a natural at it, somewhat to his own surprise. Seeing that, Alberich had tried him with something a bit more lethal and less obvious than an arrow. He’d tried him in knife throwing.

Skif had been terrifyingly accurate. Where his eye went, so did whatever was put in his hand. He had no idea where the skill had come from—but at least his ability to fight with a knife, or with the blunted practice swords, was no better than anyone else’s.

Alberich had promised something in the way of a surprise for him this morning, and Skif was impatient to see what he meant, as well as impatient to speak with him.

When Skif arrived at the salle, Alberich was throwing a variety of weapons at a target set up on the other side of the room. Alberich was a hair more accurate than Skif, but Alberich’s skill came from training, not a natural talent. Nevertheless, Skif watched with admiration as Alberich placed his weapons—knives, sharpened stakes, and small axes—in a neat pattern on the straw-padded target. He didn’t interrupt the Weaponsmaster, and Alberich didn’t stop until all the implements he’d lined up on a bench behind him were in the target.