More than he had to, anyway.

A voice whispered in his ear: “I hear you’ve connived your way into being declared legitimate, little bastard. Don’t think it changes anything. I know what you are.”

Kip turned. “So nice to see you, Magister.” He said it like he meant it.

She gave him a nasty grin. Kip’s training and fighting had changed him so much that perhaps he should have taken some solace in the fact that Magister Kadah looked exactly the same: shrunken like an old woman despite only being in her early thirties, disheveled with hair that hadn’t seen a pick since the last time Kip had been in class, green spectacles on a gold chain around her neck. “Should I get my switch ready?”

“I don’t know,” Kip said. “I’m just the ignoramus son of a whore.” He winced. Kip the Lip wasn’t so far in the past, apparently.

“Any more language like that, Kip Guile, and it’ll be knuckles. You remember, I believe?” Magister Kadah said.

Kip put his hands on the desk before him. The fingers of his left hand still bowed upward, stiff and stubborn, though he was working on them. The pain of getting that hand smashed with a switch would be excruciating. The whole hand still felt like one exposed nerve.

He looked up at the magister, puzzled. What? He was supposed to be afraid of getting his knuckles rapped?

Teia and Ben-hadad came in right before class was supposed to start. They saw Kip, and mirrored each other’s surprise at seeing him there, looked at each other, and then sat next to him.

The magister went to the front of the class, cleared her throat, and waited the moment it took for the class to fall silent. “Discipulae.”

“Magister,” the class answered. Kip joined them. A new start, Kip.

“Discipulae, today we’re going to be discussing orange. Any orange drafters here today?”

A few discipulae raised their hands. Kip debated raising his, and raised a couple fingers.

“Orange is singularly useless,” Magister Kadah said. She grinned nastily. “You’ll spend your lives making lubrication for machines and for storing away metals so they don’t rust. It is, however, a relatively easy life. Your patron may have you draft barrels of the stuff each day, which may take you from sunrise to noon, and then to keep you from dying early, you’ll be done by noon every day. Some will, happily, have other duties for you to perform. Usually non-magical ones: cleaning stables, dusting furniture, mopping barracks. Yes, Ben-hadad?”

“Orange can be used for more than that,” Ben-hadad said. “And with a war looming that could destroy all of us, I think we should start training oranges to live up to their full potential.”

“Their full potential?” Magister Kadah asked. Her tone was meant to be a warning, but Ben-hadad seemed to think it was a real question.

“Oranges can craft hexes. It’s said that in Ru, orange spies infiltrating the city crafted fear hexes invisible to the naked eye but so potent that people avoided whole neighborhoods—allowing the heretics to tunnel under the walls unopposed. Oranges can spike food and drink. Fear-casting, tromoturgy. Pathomancy. Will-blunting.”

“Forbidden!” Magister Kadah snapped. “And at your level, forbidden to even discuss!”

“We’re at war!” Ben-hadad said. “I just heard that the last fort below Ruic Neck fell. From there, there’s nothing to stop the Color Prince until they reach the Ao River. Even if you won’t teach the oranges to craft hexes, you should be teaching us all how to resist them, and certainly how to recognize them.”

“This Color Prince will doubtless be put down in weeks if he hasn’t already been. None of you will have to face orange heretics.”

“There are people who have already faced the Blood Robes in this very room,” Ben-hadad said.

Thanks, Ben.

“I see. So you are friends now, is that it?” Magister Kadah asked Ben-hadad, looking from him to Kip. “Trying to make the ‘Guile’ look good? Quite the pair you make, huh? The ignoramus and the boy who can’t even read? How’d you learn all this?”

“I can read,” Ben-hadad hissed.

“The words just get scrambled for him is all, Magister,” Teia said. “He can read if he goes slow.”

“Slow is a nice way of saying stupid,” Magister Kadah said.

Kip sighed. He’d had the best intentions.

“Ben-hadad, you think being friends with this lordling will help you?” Magister Kadah asked. The whole class was silent, expectant.

“I’m not his friend because he can do something for me,” Ben-hadad said. “And I resent your implication. You dishonor me and you dishonor yourself by speaking such petty vileness.”

A wave of shock passed through the young teens. They looked like they didn’t want to look away for a heartbeat, in case they missed Magister Kadah’s head exploding.

Magister Kadah’s eyes widened, fists balled. “You think he can protect you?” she demanded. “Report yourself immediately, Ben-hadad … for expulsion.”

There was a collective gasp.

“Expulsion?” Ben-hadad asked, disbelieving.

“For gross insubordination. I’ve not used my power to expel a discipulus in three years. Perhaps it is time. You’re worthless as a drafter; you’ll be useful as an example.”

The old Kip would have jumped out of his seat and started shouting furiously. He would have tapped into the well of hatred at injustice that he’d carried since growing up with his addled mother. Growing up, it had never felt safe to be furious with her on his own behalf, but when he’d seen others suffering injustice, it had been there, hot and ready, a powerful insanity he could put on and only take off when he was exhausted. Kip had been going green golem since long before he could draft. Even Ram had feared him when he’d been like that.

Kip stood slowly. Teia tried to grab him, tried to keep him in his seat.

“What do you think you’re doing, Kip ‘Guile’? You think I can’t expel you, too?”

Of course she couldn’t. “You can’t even expel Ben-hadad,” Kip said. He spoke evenly, respectfully, even mournfully. He didn’t raise his voice, but he spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “He’s a Blackguard inductee, and if you think Commander Ironfist is going to let you thin his already strained ranks in a time of war, I wish you luck in the conflagration that will be your own career.”

A profound silence fell over the room. The whispering teenagers weren’t even whispering, and Kip’s tone somehow defanged Magister Kadah.

Respectfully, regretfully, Kip continued. “Magister, you weren’t always like this. You don’t like children, I understand that. It’s a failing, but all Orholam’s sons and daughters have failings. You’ve been assigned by an angry superior or perhaps through cruel chance to do work that has never fit you. You’ve served quietly in a difficult posting because you love Orholam and you love the Chromeria and you love the Seven Satrapies. But you hate your work, and I bet that you hate what you’ve become. You’re better than this. You’ve been punished for something, or perhaps for nothing, and you’ve done a lot of damage in turn. Not least of all to yourself. I will do what I can to help you.”