A dozen Demonai warriors accompanied the visitors, and Han found excuses to pass by their camp. They were proud, elite, mysterious—the stuff of legends that dated from before the Breaking, to the wars between the wizards and the clans.

In the old days, it was said that the Demonai put a braid in their hair for every wizard killed. Many of them still wore braids studded with beads, and some said killing a wizard and taking his amulet was still the price of admission to their ranks.

It’s like any gang, Han thought. You have to show what you’re made of to get in.

The Demonai warriors rode the best horses and carried the most powerful enchanted clan-made weapons. They wore the Demonai symbol around their necks—an eye radiating flames. It was said they floated over the ground, leaving no trace of their passing. Han often saw Bird sitting at their fires, eating from their common pot, raptly listening to what they had to say. Having little to say herself for once.

Han couldn’t help feeling a twinge of jealousy. More than a twinge—a bone-deep ache. Truth be told, he felt left out. For the nobility in the city, name day parties proclaimed them of age and eligible for marriage. Some of them came into their inheritances then. Wizards received their amulets and left for the academy at Oden’s Ford to explore the mysteries of their calling.

Among the clans, the renaming ceremony admitted the young to full membership in the lodge, launched their life’s work, welcomed them to the temples, and often began the dance of courtship.

Han was in a kind of no-man’s-land of existence. His sixteenth birthday had come and gone months ago, scarcely noticed. Mam had brought home a honey cake from the bakery on the corner and had reminded him that he needed to find a real job. No ceremony marked Han’s transition from lytling to grown-up. He just oozed over the borderlands, like any creature close to the ground.

So Han was envious, yet Dancer seemed miserable. Was he having trouble choosing a vocation? Was Willo pressuring him into something he didn’t want?

He tried to talk to Dancer about it, one day when they were fishing. At least Dancer would fish with him. In fact, he seemed eager to be out on the mountain and away from camp. He’d seize any excuse to do so.

“So,” Han said, flicking the tip of his pole so his fly lighted on the water, “Digging Bird barely talks to me. She always has her nose in the air.”

Dancer grunted. “She’ll talk to you, don’t worry. After the ceremony.” Dancer set down his pole and lay back on the riverbank, closing his eyes. His eyelids looked like great bruises in his unusually pale face.