reason to turn him into the street, knowing that Londer would be looking for him to silence him.
And Beel — Beel had protected him, Beel could have reported a hundred times over that Skif had fulfilled his education, but he didn't. And when Beel could have told his own father where Skif was, he'd kept his mouth shut.
And the Heralds —
Oh, the Heralds. Weak, were they? Foolish?
Skif felt warmth coming back into him, felt his heart uncurling, as he thought back along the past weeks and all of the little kindnesses, all unasked for, that he'd gotten. Kris and Coroc keeping the highborn Blues from tormenting him until Skif had established that he was more amusing if he wasn't taunted. Jeri helping him out with swordwork. The teachers taking extra time to explain things he simply had never seen before. Housekeeper Gaytha being so patient with his rough speech that sometimes he couldn't believe she'd spend all this time over one Trainee. The girls teasing and laughing with him in the sewing room. The simple way that he had been accepted by every Trainee, and with no other recommendation but that he'd been Chosen —
Cymry.
Cymry, who had rilled his heart — who still was there, he sensed her again, now that he wasn't listening to the poison that bastard was pouring into his ears. Cymry, who cared enough for him to wait while he listened — to make his own decisions, without any pressure from her.
No love, was there? Self-delusion, was it?
Then I'll be deluded.
Did the Guildmaster see his thoughts flicker across his face? Perhaps —
“Kash, now!”; he shouted. The wounded bodyguard lunged, arms outstretched to grab him —
But Skif was already moving before the bodyguard, clumsy with his wounds and pain, had gotten a single step. He jumped aside, his hands flicking to each side as he evaded those outstretched arms.
And between one breath and the next —
The bodyguard continued his lunge, and sprawled facedown on the floor, gurgling in agony, one of Skif's knives in his throat.
The Guildmaster made a strangled noise — and so did Alberich.
The arm around Alberich's throat tightened as the Guildmaster slid down the wall.
Skif's other knife was lodged to the hilt in his eye.
But Skif's dodge had been deliberately aimed to take him to Alberich's side. The Guildmaster had been a stationary target. And at that range, he couldn't miss.
In the next heartbeat he had pried the dead arm away from the Weaponsmaster's throat, and Alberich was gasping in great, huge gulps of air, his color returning to normal.
Skif helped him to his feet. “You all right?” he asked awkwardly.
Alberich nodded. “Talk — may be hard,” he rasped.
Skif laughed giddily, feeling as if he had drunk two whole bottles of that fabulous wine all by himself. “Like that's gonna make the Trainees unhappy,” he taunted. “You, not bein' able to lecture ‘em!”
The wry expression on Alberich's face only made him laugh harder. “Come on,” he said, draping his teacher's arm over his shoulders. “We better get you outside an' get back to where th' good Healers are afore your Kantor decides he's gonna put horseshoe marks on my bum.”
They got as far as the door when Skif thought of something else. “I don' suppose you did arrange for help, did you?”
“Well,” Alberich admitted, in a croak. “It comes now.”
