The Days stared down at his mug, knowing he’d said too much, needing to say one thing more. “Your Lordship, perhaps it is well that you do not value virtue in your friends. You will know not to trust them. And if you are wise, you will not trust yourself.”

“How so?” Gaborn asked, wondering. With each Days twinned to another, they were never alone, never had the luxury of trusting themselves. Gaborn wondered if this pairing was really an advantage.

“Men who believe themselves to be good, who do not search their own souls, most often commit the worst atrocities. A man who sees himself as evil will restrain himself. It is only when we do evil in the belief that we do good that we pursue it wholeheartedly.”

Gaborn grunted, considering.

“If I may be so bold, Your Lordship, I’m glad you question yourself. Men don’t become good by performing an occasional kindly deed. You must constantly reexamine your thoughts and acts, question your virtue.”

Gaborn stared at the thin scholar. The man’s eyes were getting glassy, and he could barely hold his head up. His thinking seemed somewhat clearer than a common drunk’s, and he offered his advice in a kind tone. No Days had ever offered Gaborn advice before. It was a singular experience.

At that moment, the inn door opened. Two more men entered, both with dark complexion, both with brown eyes. They were dressed as merchants fresh off the road, but both wore rapiers at their side, and both had long knives strapped at their knees.

One man smiled, one frowned.

Gaborn remembered something his father had taught him as a child. “In the land of Muyyatin, assassins always travel in pairs. They talk with gestures.” Then Gaborn’s father had taught him the assassins’ codes. One man smiling, one man frowning—No news, either good or bad.

Gaborn’s eyes flicked across the room, to the two dark men in the far corner. Like himself, they had chosen a secure position, had put their backs to the wall.

One man in the corner scratched his left ear: We have heard nothing.

The newcomers sat at a table on the far side of the room from their compatriots. One man put his hands on the table, palms down. We wait.

Yet this man moved with a casual quickness that could only be associated with someone who had an endowment of metabolism. Few men had such an endowment—only highly trusted warriors.

Gaborn almost could not believe what he was seeing. The gestures were so common, so casual. The speakers did not stare at one another. Indeed, what Gaborn thought was a discussion could have been nothing.