The hosts rose as they approached. The Magnate's eyes gleamed like a beetle's carapace inset deep into his fleshy face. "Duke z'Daras!" he boomed, arms spread wide in greeting. "We dine together at last. You've been here three days; I was beginning to worry the luxurious Capital life had made a dinner with me unbearable."

Aevryn offered a thin smile. "Nothing of the sort. You have all the same charms of the Noble Houses, and twice their showmanship." A servant pulled Aevryn and M'yu's chairs back, but Aevryn simply rested a hand on the back of his. "I simply do my best not to mix business and pleasure; tonight will be our last evening in the Gloam."

"A pity. You really must let me host you one of these days—after my home is restored, of course." The Magnate's beetle eyes flicked over to M'yu, gaze intense enough to feel as if it were picking at his flesh.

"Ah, where are my manners?" Aevryn said. "Magnate Fesryn Tam, may I present Mykta z'Daras, the hero of the hour."

M'yu inclined his head. "Sir."

"A fascinating story indeed." The beetle eyes kept prying at M'yu. "You really must explain it to me again later, Aevryn."

From above, the announcer called, "Presenting Duke Dymtrus Dovalenko, a Capital Knight and head of the House of Mercury. With him, Ruslan Truska, apprentice of the House of Mercury." Down the stairs came the pair from the other hover. The man's muscles looked like they were trying to escape the fabric of his suit. The boy padded behind with his nose in the air, like a pampered cat called to its bowl.

The Magnate's attention fell off M'yu as he greeted the newcomers, and M'yu blew a quiet breath out from his lips. Across the table from him, the girl with the witchlight rolled her eyes. M'yu looked away, trying to tune back into the conversation. As they all sat, the Magnate introduced the girl as his niece, Sviya, and the silver woman as his wife. With a flick of his meaty wrist, the Magnate summoned the first course. Bowls of creamy truffle soup were placed in front of them, and the servants carrying them disappeared to the edges of the room as quickly as they came. M'yu's mouth watered.

The Magnate picked up his spoon. "My apologies for the subpar conditions. I would have preferred to host you all at my home, of course, but—" His spoon wound in the air as if composing the end of his sentence.

"I'm impressed by your efficiency," the boulder man, Dymtrus, said. "I hope we can be half as efficient at finding the culprits as you have organizing this wonderful meal."

"You're too kind," Mrs. Tam said. The electric candles shimmered over her skin like over a polished mirror. That can't be makeup.

Magnate Tam held a hand in front of his mouth as he finished swallowing. "Aevryn told me you were heading back to the Capital come morning."

"Well," Dymtrus stammered, "we are. But the thieves will strike again, and we'll catch them when they do."

"Thieves?" Sviya's voice rang like a knife on a whetstone. "Isn't that a bit kind? I'd call them terrorists."

Aevryn sipped from his glass. "If there are revolutionaries, you'll need to deal with them, Fesryn."

The Magnate flushed. "Isn't that what your forces were here to do?"

"Nothing of the sort. We were here to address linkcard thefts—Capital business, you know. Peace in the Gloam is outside of our purview. Unless the Capital needs to reassess security here...?"

"The Gloam is as secure as ever," he blustered, flashing a glare at his niece. "Riffraff is sort of like fire; it flares high and low. There's no real trouble here."

"Wonderful."

The Magnate took another bite of soup. "Speaking of fire, the girls here were hoping for some entertainment. Weren't you?" he said, looking to his wife and niece. Sviya simply blew on her soup, but the wife simpered and nodded. Magnate Tam looked at M'yu. "Won't you regale us with your exploits? How did you come to save my sweet Sviya?"

All eyes turned to M'yu, most with barely disguised mirth. Give them a hand to snicker behind, and they'd be the picture of the foundlings he'd grown up with, always setting the new kid up with a prank. These people expected a jester, a boy too dumb to know that he himself was the joke.

M'yu adopted his best Cap accent, honed from years mimicking Karsya and too many cons to count. "I once knew a girl who served in your house." The room's eyes widened, but M'yu kept his bearing somber as his mind spun for Cap-fancy words. "When I saw your home alight that night, I knew two things. First, that the fire must have caught on the inside because the snow kept the outer walls—" His tongue tripped as he barely avoided saying 'good and wet.' He spoke carefully. "Too wet to light. And second, that one of the bedrooms was hidden away from the others. I was afraid it would get overlooked."

They all just stared at him, as if they couldn't reconcile his banged-up face with his speech. Aevryn's face was skillfully neutral; he simply blew on his soup. M'yu hid a smile.

"Well don't stop there, my boy!" the Magnate boomed. "The story has just started."

M'yu knew how to spin a story. He'd spent enough nights huddled around dying hearths with cold, bored children not to learn to liven up the evening. But his kind of story was full of exaggerations and gestures, funny voices and fabrications. Even if he could impress the rotting Caps—and fat chance of that—Aevryn had said no lying, and Aevryn was the only one he cared to impress.

M'yu shrugged. "I just did what I thought was right, sir. The fire couldn't be put out, so people needed to be brought out. I was glad to help." He took a bite.

Magnate Tam chuckled low and throaty, shaking his whole body. "Quite the hero you have on your hands, Aevryn!"

"I tried to tell you." Aevryn shrugged lightly.

"I think we could have managed on our own," Sviya scoffed. "We do have feet."

M'yu's nose scrunched up, accent slipping. "You'd almost—"

Aevryn stomped on his foot.

"Almost what?" Sviya's eyes narrowed in challenge.

Gazes descended on M'yu again like a pack of rats on a crumb. He inclined his head at Sviya and took back up the accent. "Almost freed the door when I arrived, ma'am."

Sviya smirked, but Magnate Tam's chuckling took up the room again. "They fight like young lovers, Aevryn!" Mrs. Tam laughed with him, quickly followed by Dymtrus and nose-in-the-air boy. Tam wiped at a tear. "Ah! To be young again. I see why you snatched him up so fast."

"They do say some gems lie beneath stony crusts." Aevryn smiled and started to say something else, but Dymtrus interrupted.

"They also say you only know it's a gem if you crack the shell open."

Dymtrus's sidekick snickered, but the Magnate coughed into his handkerchief. "My goodness. I think the boy has been cracked enough saving my niece. Unless of course you meant Scrollschool?"

Dymtrus laughed. "A child of the streets attend Scrollschool? What wit."

"It's not a witticism at all. No, no, a hero like this, who runs into burning buildings simply to do the right thing, well—" The Magnate folded his hands. "I simply can't imagine him not going to Scrollschool forthwith."

M'yu swallowed a hot bite of soup. Scrollschool was where noble brats trained to beat each other in the Washfall Trial, the grand ranking contest of the Houses—should it even come in their generation. Only adolescents were allowed to play for some barbaric reason, and there was no telling if all that training would even pay off. The last Washfall M'yu remembered, when the sky danced with warm rain and the snow lost its grip on the world, was as a toddler.

Aevryn set his spoon across his bowl. "You're right. Perhaps I'll send him next year."

"Nonsense, nonsense." The Magnate gestured for the next course. "I'm sure your House's budget has been made for this year already, Aevryn, but don't worry about the difference. I'll fund the boy's tuition myself. In fact, I insist on it." The new plates, roasted sparrows with the eyes still watching them, were placed on the table. The Magnate cut a hunk off of his bird. "My niece will be returning at the end of the week. They can go together."

"I would prefer to give him plenty of time to settle into the Capital—"

"Nonsense! A boy his age settles in wherever he's at."

"And," Mrs. Tam tittered, "everyone knows that peers make much better guides than guardians do. Sviya can show him around."

"Don't you think I'll be busy with my own classes?" Sviya said pointedly.

Magnate Tam wagged his knife at her. "Not too busy to repay the man who saved your life. No, no, it's settled. I'll have the funds wired to your account by the end of the night, Aevryn."

Aevryn's lips curved tightly. "The gift is ever too much."

Tam grinned, mouth half full. "Just remember me when our boy wins the Washfall Trial, no?"

"When do you think Washfall will be?" Nose-in-the-Air's reedy voice lilted over the table.

The Magnate lifted one hand. "Who knows?"

"They say only the sky and the Tsar know." Mrs. Tam shrugged one silver shoulder, head half turned toward Aevryn. "What say you, Prince? Any secret insight from your forefather?"

"Oh, leave him be, darling," the Magnate said, but his voice said anything but. "Everyone knows he's sore on that point."

Aevryn cut his bird in precise angles. At the other end of the table, Dymtrus snorted. "It wouldn't be a problem if he didn't believe in fairy tales."

"Fairy tales?" Aevryn's eyes flashed, his voice pointed. "You deny there was a Tsar, Dymtrus?"

Mrs. Tam stretched her hand out toward Aevryn's, her voice sugar. "No one is saying that. I even asked you if he has any wisdom for us."

"Hundreds year old wisdom?" Dymtrus scoffed.

"And I suppose in three hundred years, you won't ever have existed either?" Aevryn raised a brow.

"In three hundred years, no one will care if I existed. And they certainly won't get special titles and privileges for supposedly being my great-great-great-great... what was it again?" Dymtrus asked.

"Newphew, they say," the Magnate supplied.

"Right," Dymtrus said. "A hundred greats nephew. Because that carries real weight."

"Almost as much weight as the law." Mrs. Tam pouted at Aevryn with heart-shaped, silver lips.

"You all are being nasty," Sviya said.

"Ah, we're just playing with him, aren't we, Aevryn?" Dymtrus said. "After all, we're old school buddies. Do you remember when you used to go on about the Tsar coming back some day?" He covered his mouth with his fist like he almost couldn't contain the laughter, and Mrs. Tam tittered with him.

"Did you? Did you really?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm sure we've all said a great many things we wish we could take back," the Magnate said, beetle eyes boring into M'yu's teacher. "I mean, you'd take it back now, wouldn't you, Aevryn?"

"Wouldn't you?" Mrs. Tam echoed.

The room held its breath, waiting for Aevryn's answer as he cut the meat on his plate. His knife ground quietly against the china, a soft, steady grating back and forth. It was the only sound, the only movement in the room, and they all bore down on it, eyes glittering, anticipating its inevitable end and the beginning of an answer—

"I think Washfall will be in a few months," M'yu said, and everyone startled.

Sviya shook her head, ringlets dancing around her face. "You think it will be in a few months? Winter's been on for twelve years, and you think the spring rains are just around the corner?"

Nose-in-the-Air broke into high, breathy laughter that grew sharper and louder. "And I'm to attend Scrollschool with the likes of this?" His chest shook, eyes closing he laughed so hard.

"Well, we don't all go to school knowing everything," the Magnate grumbled, and M'yu hid a smile, glad to have interrupted him. The man frowned as he fought with his bird.

"A few months!" Mrs. Tam laughed, and Dymtrus joined her.

The Magnate's fork and knife hit the table with a clatter. "I think that's enough of this. Next course!"

Their plates were whisked away and replaced with vibrant, huge specimens of witchcandy. M'yu's eyes widened. Even cut in half to lay flat, these shroom-caps were bigger than M'yu's whole hand—ten times as big as that crumb of witchcandy he'd eaten the night of the heist. The violet of the fungus showed bright against the white cream it swam in. Caramel garnished the dish, complementing the tan, almost gold, speckles. His fingers dug into his leg. An ordinary specimen of the gold-speckled candy was worth more than most slaves went for at auction. They lent themselves to pheromone production, a powerful, dangerous tool in the mouth of the right consumer. But candy of this size? And one on each person's plate?

With that kind of power, you could rule half the city.

"I think you were right, Aevryn," the Magnate said, lifting his spoon. "Best not to sully pleasure with business."

M'yu cut a glance over to Aevryn. Surely he was going to eat some; surely he didn't mean what he'd said before about abstaining. This wasn't a winter bonfire, with kids roasting their mushrooms and folks giggling about patches of purple skin and random explosions of light. This dinner was a knife fight, and leaving that food untouched was showing up empty handed.

Aevryn's spoon stayed on the table while the others dug in. They ate greedily, eyes rolling up in the back of their heads. The Magnate hummed in pleasure. Mrs. Tam took a bite and shivered. Like a pecking bird, Sviya cut out quick, delicate bites and swallowed them swiftly, while Nose-in-the-Air held the corrosive candy in his mouth for long seconds at a time.

The fragrance of the warm witchcandy, like rain and summer and sugar, taunted M'yu. His mouth watered. He swallowed nothing and swallowed again, as if he could pretend he was eating. He looked to Aevryn, but just as quickly, looked away. Aevryn didn't need to see the plea in his eyes. If he changed his mind, he would say so.

M'yu's fingers tightened on his chair.

A clumsy mix of sensations washed over M'yu's mind: tensing up before throwing a punch; leaning toward Karsya when the moonlight shimmered over her hair; laughing with the other foundlings; curling up in warm blankets after a long day. Blinking rapidly, M'yu tried to sort out what was coming from where. The fighter's instinct probably came from Boulders for Sleeves at the end of the table, and it wasn't a stretch to imagine the thoughts of Karsya were triggered by Mrs. Tam, who was currently making moon eyes at Aevryn. The rest of it, though, was a tangled mess growing stronger by the second.

M'yu measured out his breaths. If he could have just a little bit, just a taste, he could heighten his senses, block it out, figure out who was who and how to fight it. Instead, the storm rolled in his mind, sweeping him away like the Washfall rains pushed out the fallen snow...

"Thank you for the lovely dinner," Aevryn said.

M'yu tensed, his body not sure whether to fight someone or kiss them or lay back and forget everything else. The different pheromones bounced off of each other, alternately amplifying and canceling out the impulses. Sviya leaned back into her chair, eyes closed, and M'yu's gaze traced the curves of her face. Her skin was like fresh-fallen snow. Her lashes fluttered like raven's wings.

"You can't mean to leave just now," someone rumbled. Their voice annoyed M'yu, and his hand twitched into a fist.

He hissed a breath out between his teeth. Control.

"If the boy is going to Scrollschool three days from now, preparations must be made forthwith. I'm afraid we must leave tonight, and you know how long the ride is back." Aevryn's chair scraped against the floor, and M'yu jerked toward him, muscles tight. Control, control, control...

A butterknife whizzed past M'yu's head; Aevryn dodged and snatched it out of the air. From the end of the table, Dymtrus growled, "So you plan to leave me chasing after you, playing catchup while you run back to the Tsaright? I think not."

Aevryn set the knife on the table. "Enjoy your evening."

Mrs. Tam hummed, a dreamy smile tilting her face. "We'd enjoy it more with you here."

M'yu's breathing sped up; his cheeks warmed. He gripped the table so hard his fingers turned white; he focused on that, the red fleeing, the jagged edge to his nails, the crinkle of the tablecloth beneath, rather than at Sviya's spring-apple lips across the table from him. He wondered if she'd ever been kissed; he wondered if she wanted to be kissed.

M'yu bit his tongue. Control! But it was much harder when the effect was external rather than internal, when they were the ones in control, no matter how sloppy they were about it. He imagined Lania huddled in that cell, and the warmth fled out from him.

"Perhaps another day. Mykta," Aevryn called.

M'yu stood, but so did Dymtrus. The man's fists were clenched, muscles in his neck bunched, face red. Teeth grit, he pushed around the table. "You always get the world offered to you and throw it in the trash."

"It's too late for a fight tonight, Dym." Aevryn took a step back. "Enjoy your meal."

Dymtrus's fingers curled and uncurled. Nose-in-the-Air jumped to his feet too. "Grind him to dust, Master!"

Dymtrus growled, shoulders tensing. Aevryn stepped back, but the other Knight matched him.

"Oh, that's quite enough." The Magnate's words rippled out with a strong sense of laying in front of the fire, almost too warm to move. M'yu gripped the chair's back, knees weak.

"Shove off," Dymtrus growled. Head swimming, M'yu looked back just in time for the Knight to throw a punch.

"Dinner and a show!" Mrs. Tam squealed, clapping.

Aevryn ducked, then stepped in and hissed something to Dymtrus. Dymtrus shoved him back. Aevryn threw his arms out. "I don't want it out with you, Dymtrus."

Dymtrus charged. Aevryn side-stepped and threw his leg out, but Dymtrus jumped it. He swung, striking Aevryn on the cheek. They exchanged a flurry of blows, Aevryn blocking with his right hand and landing with his left.

"Boys," Tam called.

Another wave of debilitating calm washed over M'yu, and he stumbled away from the table. The stairs weren't that far away; the stairs were forever away. M'yu tripped over his own feet, as clumsy as if he hadn't slept two nights in a row. The ground loomed closer, and M'yu bit the sore in his mouth. Pain lanced through him, clearing his mind. He straightened.

Aevryn cried out. Dymtrus held Aevryn's right hand in his giant palm and squeezed. Aevryn called out again, bent forward. M'yu blinked. He knew plenty of holds and that wasn't one, unless—

Old injury, Aevryn had said. Dymtrus twisted, a dark gleam in his eye.

"Finish him, Master!"

"I can't look!" Mrs. Tam squealed, watching.

"Boys," Tam said.

M'yu snatched a pitcher from a waiter and chunked it. It sailed toward Dymtrus, water spraying through the air, and he released Aevryn to dodge.

Aevryn swept his foot through Dymtrus's off-balance stance. The man thudded to the ground, and Aevryn pressed a foot to his throat. "Submit," he said, cradling his injured hand.

Dymtrus snarled.

"Submit." Aevryn's foot pushed lower.

His lip curled. The foot pressed down.

"I yield," he grit out.

"Then let's not fight." He stepped past him, clicked his tongue at M'yu, and strode up the stairs. M'yu hurried after him.

M'yu snagged his coat and Aevryn's cloak from the wall before the servants figured out to. One white-suit opened the door, and Aevryn stalked out without breaking his stride.

The cold air was refreshingly clear, and M'yu gulped it in. The snow pelted his shoulders, already beginning to cover the once-clear sidewalk. M'yu doubled his pace to catch up with Aevryn's long strides. They slipped into the warmth of the hover, and the door closed securely behind them.