“I know what it is. It’s that you dragged yourself through practice. Whatever you were doing last night to keep you up, you shouldn’t have been,” Kris said forthrightly. “You’ve got rings like a ferret under your eyes. If you thought he wasn’t going to notice that, you’re crazed.”

“He’ll probably give you a lecture about it, is all,” opined Coroc.

“I suppose,” Skif said, and sighed heavily. In actuality, he really wasn’t that tired, although he expected to be after dinner. That was probably when it would all catch up with him.

“Whatever it was, it can’t have been worth one of Alberich’s lectures,” Kris said flatly.

Skif just yawned and hung his head, to feign sheepishness that he in no way felt.

His next class was no class at all, it was a session in the sewing room, where he couldn’t stop yawning over his work. The other boys in his classes had twitted him about his self-chosen assignment on the chore roster, until he pointed out that he was the only boy in a room full of girls. They’d gotten very quiet, then, and thoughtful—and stopped teasing him.

Today he was very glad that this was his chore, because the girls were far more sympathetic about his yawns and dark-circled eyes than the boys had been. Not that they let him off any—but they did keep him plied with cold tea to keep him awake, and they did make sure he got the best stool for the purpose—one that was comfortable, but not so comfortable that he was going to fall asleep.

A quick wash in cold water while the rest of them were having hot baths woke him up very nicely, and he hurried through his dinner, now as much anxious as eager. Alberich wouldn’t like the plan, but would he go along with it anyway? It was probably his duty to forbid Skif even to think about carrying it out, even though it was the best and fastest way to get the man they were both after.

Well, Alberich could forbid him, but that wouldn’t stop him. He just wouldn’t use that plan; he’d come up with something else.

So as he walked quickly across the lawn, with the light of early evening pouring golden across the grass, he steeled himself to the notion that Alberich would not only not like the plan, but would put all the resources of the Collegium behind making sure Skif didn’t try it alone.