"Here's how this will work," Valens said.

He and Domi stood before the conservatory dormitory, a massive thirty-suite peach marble building with blue-green columns and bronze-trimmed stairs.

"You are not a conservatory student yet," the worldholder continued, "and will not be until you catch up on your studies. That will take time. But you may live here so long as you behave yourself."

Domi grinned. "Excellent." That would make the lift way easier.

Valens turned from the building to peer down at Domi. "However, I expect you to arrive at my domus at Third Hour every day for salutatio. You will stay with me until Fourteenth Hour for lessons. If I'm satisfied, you may return here and do what you wish in the evenings. If not, you will stay with me, and we will continue our work."

"Stay?"

"I possess a guest room, of course." Valens's lip curled. "I'm sure you'll need it often at first. Any questions?"

"I heard I get a live-in servant," Domi said, keeping his voice casual.

Valens eyed him in derision. "You don't 'get' anything. No one is going to assign staff to you now that you're a Lightbearer."

"Yeah, thanks," the boy said, "but that's not what I meant. I have someone in mind." He crossed his arms. "Any rules I need to consider?"

"Radix?" Domi didn't deny it. "Why am I not surprised? When are you two getting married?" He shook his head as a furious blush flooded Domi's face. "There are no rules. Just be aware your feeding and keeping is my responsibility. The care of any servants you want to keep is your problem. If you can figure out the expense, do what you want."

"Great."

"Just try to avoid funding their stay through any illegal means." Valens dipped his chin to fix him with a pointed look.

Domi doubted his aedificans guessed anything, or this conversation would likely be very different. He did not know the Trueborn well, but he had figured out through his few interactions with the man that Valens was always very direct. Sometimes too direct.

Still, his heart beat faster, and he prayed the same heightened senses he now possessed didn't allow Valens to hear it. Domi lacked the ability to hear heartbeats or anything like that, but then again, he also lacked a laurel. Who knew what came next as his body adjusted to prometus? Valens might smell his nervousness, for all he knew.

"Of course," he said, keeping his voice as light as possible.

"Any other questions?"

"Nope."

He'd said something that annoyed the Trueborn. He was beginning to recognize that sideways glance, those narrowed eyes. "Ah yes," Valens said, "one more thing."

"What?"

"From now on, you will address me as Aedificanti."

What an insufferable arse. Domi kept that to himself, grateful his unwanted teacher was a worldholder and not a mindholder. He would be in a boatload of trouble for the curses running through his head. Out loud, though, he only said, "Fine, Aedificanti."

Valens turned away and strode across the courtyard. Domi shook his head at the weird behavior. He rolled his eyes as the Trueborn said, "See you two hours after Brightening tomorrow, Alumna."

The man might have been talking to the wind. Domi had never met anyone so obnoxious.

He grumbled to himself as he stalked up the dark-teal marble stairs to his new dormitory. It was hard not to slam the door behind him when he went inside.

The next day did not go any better, though Domi was on his best behavior. He got up as ordered before Brightening. He dressed in clothes of proper cut and color for a young Lightbearer, wearing the ankle-length pale-green tunica and lavender paenula his aedificans bought him. As he tried not to trip over the long fabric, he felt like a dunce—and an awkward one at that.

He resolved not to tell his unwanted aedificans the outfit the man bought resembled deadly nightshade dipped in milk. He promised himself he would not complain about the uncomfortable clothing. Neither did he sell the outfit off and send coin back home, though he planned to do just that with a few of the uglier garments Valens bought him.

No, he walked in dutiful obedience across the Collegium, up the hill—marveling that the exertion did not tire him any longer—and let himself into the worldholder's domus.

When he checked the hall, Valens was nowhere to be found. Didn't the Trueborn say during their tour the other day that he held salutatio here? The mansion was like a maze. How did a single man need this many rooms? Valens didn't have servants to use up some space. Several chambers sat empty, while others collected cobwebs and dust.

Domi had not taken a wrong turn; he had not gotten lost anywhere in a long time. Not when his ability to slip away from watchmen without wearing himself out depended on a sound sense of direction.

He shrugged and used the opportunity to visit the lavatory and—more importantly—the mirror.

Domi did not own a mirror back home in the slums. He had caught his reflection now and then, of course, but always distorted. It wavered in wash water and puddles and smeared across uneven blown-glass windows. He knew he sported black hair and brown eyes. He knew he possessed dark-olive skin, not unlike Valens's own. But there was one thing Valens had that he did not, and it pissed Domi off.

The boy scowled at his reflection as he peeled down the collar of his paenula. He didn't know why he bothered; the mantle and tunica beneath had been tailored to show off a laurel. The laurel he still lacked. Even so, he hoped there would be some other sign the thing might be on its way.

He wondered how it would develop. He had claimed a few chances here and there to eye Valens's and Arbita's laurels up close with covert glances, and he had seen the Dyer's laurel, too, of course.

Up close, the light pooling under Lightbearers' skin appeared to travel in veins or something like them. The tracings radiated from a bright node above the solar plexus and branched over the collarbones. There, they faded away again as they stretched toward the hollow of the throat. The patterns varied from person to person, some reminding him of antlers or lace and others of the crowns of metal leaves worn by the Rex and four Princepses in all the wondertales.

He thought he might perhaps be able to spot a hint of the veins or whatever they were, even if his own prometus didn't glow yet. To his dismay, he still bore naught but smooth olive skin.

"Is that all you care about?"

The sudden voice made him jump and yelp. This time, though, he managed not to trip over himself and fall to the floor. Progress.

He glared at Valens. "Do you need to keep sneaking up on people all the time?" Belatedly, he remembered what Valens told him the day before, Eyes devour the obnoxious man. "Aedificanti."

Valens's lip curled. "You're a thief. You should possess better awareness of your surroundings than this." He shook his head as Domi tugged his tunica and paenula back into place. "You might as well stop looking for it. You won't see it for some time."

"How long?"

"However long it takes you to connect with your prometus." Domi did not realize his confusion passed over his face until faint amusement curled Valens's lip. "See," he said, his voice dry, "it will be a while."

"Well, how will people recognize I'm a Lightbearer?" Domi needed to hire a lifeholder for his ma, and fast. He was running out of time. She was running out of time.

"Why does it matter?" Valens asked. "You should focus on your studies, not on your vanities."

"Van— That's what he thought this was about? Domi struggled to keep his voice civil. "I don't own a mirror at home, Aedificanti. I've never seen myself all that much. I don't care what I look like. But that thing on your neck is a free ticket, and I want to know when I'll have one."

The worldholder regarded him in disdain, though now tinged with amusement. "You're serious. What do you imagine it gets you?"

He was an idiot if he did not know that, or so sheltered he did not understand much about the real world everyone else lived in.

"Everything that matters," Domi said. "Respect. People thinking twice about messing with you. Special treatment. Heck, you can get into restaurants." Domi shook his head. "Not wine bars, either. The fancy places, with dulciola sugar cakes and things like that. I have never been in a restaurant, let alone tried dulciola. Got to fight for every scrap. I even need to steal the dole. You don't need grain rations, do you? Live every day with feasts like it's New Year's Observance," he spat.

Valens just waited for him to finish. Then— "Are you done ranting, Alumna?"

Domi glowered at him. "No. You can also hire people to do things for you. Aedificanti."

"Things—Ah, a lifeholder. For the leader of the criminal syndicate."

"For my mother."

The worldholder was unmoved by his anger. "Your foster mother. You're a Promethides. She's not."

Domi's fists balled at his sides. He wanted to hit the man. Even if Valens's lightning struck him down again, it might be worth it. "Yeah, well, my real parents didn't want me, Aedificanti." Judging by his fresh-cut birth cord when the Appraiser found him, his mother and father chucked him out like bad milk the instant they first saw him.

"A pity. You're such a delight to be around." Valens flicked his fingers toward the door. "If you're done admiring yourself in the mirror, we need to get you started practicing your breathing."

His what? Domi blinked at the abrupt change of subject, his anger fizzling like a flame without a wick. Which was no doubt Valens's intention, Eyes take the man. "My breathing? What practice is needed? I've been breathing my whole life."

The worldholder sniffed. "Not like this, you haven't." He turned. "Come along."

Domi glared at the man's back. He hoped he would figure out how to call lightning soon so he could take his turn at striking the Trueborn down. First, though, he needed to learn. He grimaced and followed.

What came next turned out to be the easiest, dullest, and yet also somehow the hardest day of Domi's life.

Breathing. He did nothing all day but breathe. He did not eat. He did not talk—except about how to breathe and how not to breathe—or get up to use the lavatory. He did not fidget. Valens refused to even let him rise from the ornate rug where the worldholder made him sit, cross-legged, with his eyes closed. The most Valens let him do was stretch his legs a bit, but only if he strove not to let the movement change the pace of his breathing.

In through the nose for four counts. Out through pursed lips for eight. Repeat. All day.

"Sinking into the black," Valens called it. A pathway toward—one day—connecting with his prometus, whatever that meant.

Domi found it more a pathway toward falling asleep. He was so bored. Yet he was not supposed to think about his crushing boredom, or how his leg kept falling asleep, or how annoying he found Valens, or how much he hated breathing and wished he could stop and die. His aedificans wanted him to focus his thoughts on nothing but the air expanding his lungs. Utter torture.

By the end of the day, a solid ten hours of the most arduous inhalations and exhalations of his life, Domi trudged home. His throat hurt. His abs hurt. His back, neck, and shoulders hurt. He barely remembered choking down supper and falling into his feather bed.

Salutatio the next morn was better. Surprisingly so.

Domi eyed the dishes spread across the low table in Valens's hall. Fruit, some of it mysterious but juicy looking, piled in bowls next to baskets heaped with several kinds of bread. Jars of spreads made of something only the Eternal Radiance knew clustered near plates of cheese and honey. Candied nuts topped a giant breakfast salad with yams, toasted coconut, and blueberries. And in the midst of it all, a tiered platter of dulciola perched, the sweet buns still steaming from the oven.

Valens said something. Domi just stared.

The worldholder frowned. "I said eat, Alumna."

Domi shook his head, more in disbelief and to brush away his own shock than in disagreement. "You're feeding me now? You?"

"Do you want it or not?"

Never one to pass up food, Domi piled his plate high and shoved a few rolls and sugarcakes into his pockets for later. The dulciola was sticky, but a little lint never hurt anyone.

Valens's eyes followed the bread from plate to pocket. For a moment he inhaled like he would say something, but he stayed silent, only shaking his head. Domi cast him a challenging glare and slipped another roll into his pocket. Radix would want some. They would be moving in that eve.

After a few bites, he flicked a glance he hoped appeared grateful Valens's way. "Thanks," he said, mouth crammed with bread and what turned out to be a nut spread.

"Thanks, what?"

He only scowled a little at that. "Thank you, Aedificanti."

"You're welcome. Tomorrow you will prepare breakfast for us." Domi stopped chewing and stared in dismay. "From now on this is your responsibility."

"No can do." There was no way he would prepare all this. He could bake bread and cook eggs, too, but little else. He doubted Valens would want those, and besides, Domi had better things to do with his time than cook for the lout. Luckily, he had the perfect excuse. "Arbita said I need to get lots of rest these first few weeks."

"Well, then you need to go to bed early, don't you?" The worldholder hesitated and then gathered himself. "Speaking of lifeholders, I arranged for one to go visit your foster mother and any others in need in your old, ah, neighborhood." For the third time that morn, Domi could do little but stare. "Do me a favor and tell them to avoid trying to steal her blood or aught else that may lead to the abrupt end of their lives."

Domi realized his eyes were about to pop out of his head, but he couldn't help it. "Thank you."

Valens glanced away. "You're welcome." He turned his attention to breaking apart an orange. "Now, focus on your new life, and stop letting worries about people from your past distract you."

"Yes, Aedificanti." Like he could think of anything else after an announcement like that. How could Valens talk about saving his ma with such an expressionless face? Domi did not care though. If she would be cured, he would take far worse from the worldholder.

The rest of the day—nothing but breathing again—felt way easier than the first with that news carrying away the enormous weight on his heart. While he focused on inhaling and exhaling in the carefully-prescribed way Valens had taught, he allowed his mind to wander.

Radix had been right. They usually were, but this time they surpassed themself. Staying in the Collegium and playing along with this whole Trueborn thing was already paying off.

His ma would be healed. She would make it. And soon the rest of the Pullati would reap the benefits of Domi's unexpected good fortune, too.