Logan scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s probably something boring, like that there was a war going on, and everyone was exhausted and starving and not thinking clearly and Jorsin just made a mistake.”

“So what does that teach you about being a leader?” Kylar asked.

Logan looked perplexed. “Eat your vegetables and get enough sleep?”

“How about ‘be nice to your inferiors, or they might kick your ass’?” Kylar suggested.

“Are you asking me to spar, Baronet Stern?”

“Your exalted dukeliness, it will be my pleasure to take you down.”

Chapter 18

18

K ylar stepped into the safe house, flushed from his victory. He’d got three touches to Logan’s two. Logan fought better, but as Momma K had told Kylar, he’d also grown a foot in the last year and hadn’t adjusted to his new height yet. “Not only did I just make Logan Gyre my friend,” Kylar said, “I also beat him in sparring.”

Durzo didn’t even look up from the calcinator. He turned the flame up higher beneath the copper dish. “Good. Now never spar with him again. Hand me that.”

Hurt, Kylar took a flask from under the whirling tubes of the alembic and gave it to him. Durzo poured the thick blue mixture onto the calcinator. For the moment, it sat there, still. Small bubbles began forming and within moments the mixture was boiling rapidly.

“Why not?” Kylar asked.

“Get the slops, boy.” Kylar grabbed the pig’s slop bowl and brought it to the table.

“We fight differently from what any of this city’s sword masters teach. If you spar with Logan, you will adopt his by-the-book style and become a worthless fighter, or you’ll give away that you’re being taught something utterly different, or both.”

Kylar scowled at the calcinator. His master was right, of course, and even if he weren’t, his word was law. The blue mixture was now a dark blue powder. Durzo lifted the copper plate from the flames with a thick wool pad and scraped the powder into the slop bowl. He grabbed another copper plate and poured more of the blue mixture into it and put it above the flames, setting the first aside to cool with a heavy mitt. “Master, do you know why Jorsin Alkestes would insult his best friend by not giving him a ka’kari?”

“Maybe he asked too many questions.”

“Logan said Acaelus Thorne was the most honorable of Jorsin’s friends, but he betrayed Jorsin and that led to the fall of the Seven Kingdoms,” Kylar said.

“Most people aren’t strong enough for our creed, Kylar, so they believe comforting illusions, like the gods, or Justice, or the basic goodness of man. Those illusions fail in war. It breaks men. That’s probably what happened to Acaelus.”

“Are you sure?” Kylar asked. Logan’s reading of it had been so different.