Count Drake grinned and snatched the parchment. “I think I suddenly like you, Master Tofusin.”

“Wendel North helped me with the wording,” Solon said. “I thought I’d leave the signature and the seal to you.”

Count Drake rummaged through his desk, found a letter from the duke, and laid it on top of the writ of guardianship. With quick, sure strokes, he forged the duke’s signature flawlessly. Count Drake looked up guiltily and said, “Let’s just call it an artifact of a misspent youth.”

Solon dribbled sealing wax on the parchment. “Then here’s to misspent youth.”

“Next time you’ll move,” Blint said as Azoth groaned his way back into consciousness.

“I don’t think I’ll ever move again. My head feels like someone threw it against a wall.”

Blint laughed, the second time Azoth had heard him do that recently. He was sitting on the edge of Azoth’s bed. “You did well. They thought you were embarrassed because you got knocked down in front of Drake’s daughter, so they decided it was all harmless kid stuff. The young lord Gyre was mortified that he hit you—apparently he’s a real big friendly giant, never loses his temper. The fact you’re about a quarter his size and Serah was furious with him also helps. They were all quite impressed.”

“Impressed? That’s stupid.”

“In their world fighting has rules, so fighting means risking embarrassment and pain and at worst risking your looks if you get a broken nose or an unfortunate scar. It doesn’t mean dying or killing. In their world, you can fight a man and then become his friend. In fact, you’re going to play it so Logan does become your friend, because with a man like him, you can only come out of this as a great friend or a terrible enemy. Do you understand that, Kylar? We’ll work together on your new identity soon.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, why didn’t you want Master Tofusin to see you? That’s why you made me fight Logan, isn’t it? To be a distraction?”

“Solon Tofusin is a magus. Most magi—that’s male mages—can’t tell if you’re Talented just by looking at you. On the other hand, most magae—female mages—can. There are disguises against their sight that I’ll teach you later, but I didn’t have the time to do it and I didn’t feel like going upstairs and jumping out a window.”

Azoth was confused. “But he doesn’t act like a mage.”

“And how would you know?” Durzo asked.

“Uh …” Azoth didn’t think saying, “He isn’t like the mages in stories” was going to please Durzo.

“The truth is,” Durzo said, “Solon hasn’t told Logan or anyone else that he’s a mage, and you won’t tell anyone either. When you know a man’s secrets, you have power over him. A man’s secret is his weakness. Every man has a weakness, no matter …” Master Blint’s voice dropped to nothing, his eyes suddenly distant, lifeless. He stood and left without a word.

Azoth closed his eyes, confused. He wondered about his new master. He wondered about the guild. He wondered if Ja’laliel had bought review. He wondered how Jarl was doing. Most of all, he wondered about Doll Girl.

“Hey-ho, Azo.”

“Hey-ho, Jay-Oh,” Azoth said. Even as he gave the words the same stress he always had, Azoth felt part of himself die. This was supposed to be one of his last outings as Azoth. Soon, he would have to become Kylar. He would walk differently, talk differently. He wouldn’t ever visit his old neighborhoods in the Warrens. But now he saw that Azoth’s world was already dying, that he would never connect with Jarl again. It had nothing to do with the lies Kylar would tell, and everything to do with Rat. It was different now. It always would be.

Azoth and Jarl looked at each other for a long moment in the common room of Momma K’s house. It was almost midnight, and the guild rats would soon be shooed out of the house. They were welcome in the common room all day, but they were allowed to sleep here only in the winter, and then only if they obeyed her rules: no fighting, no stealing, no going anywhere but the kitchen and the common room, and no bothering the adults who visited. Any guild rat who broke the rules got his entire guild banned from Momma K’s for the winter. Usually, it was a death sentence for the offender, because it meant the whole guild would have to sleep in the sewers to stay warm, and they would kill him for that.

Still, the place was always crowded. There was a fireplace and a floor covered with soft rugs good for sleeping on. Those rugs had once been clean, but were now stained from their filthy bodies. Despite the damage, Momma K never got mad at them—and every few months, new rugs showed up. There were durable chairs the guild rats were allowed to sit on, toys, dolls, and piles of games they could play. Sometimes Momma K even brought them treats. Here they gambled and bragged and gossiped freely with anyone who was here, even children outside their own guild. It was the only place the guild rats were allowed to resemble children. It was the only safe place they knew.

Coming back, it looked different. What had seemed so recently the very lap of luxury now was just a plain room, with plain furnishings and simple toys because the guild rats would ruin anything better. They would stain everything and break anything delicate, not from malice but from ignorance. The place was the same; it was Azoth who had changed. Azoth—or Kylar, whichever he was—marveled at the stench of the guild rats. Didn’t they smell themselves? Weren’t they ashamed, or was it just him, ashamed to see what he had been?

As he always did after his reading lesson with Momma K, Azoth had looked for Jarl. But now that they were face to face, neither could find anything to say.

“I need your help,” Azoth said finally. There was no way to cover what he wanted. He wasn’t here to visit a friend. He was here to do a job.

“My help?”

“I need to know what’s happened to Doll Girl. Where is she? And I need to know what’s happening with the guilds.”

“I guess you wouldn’t know.”

“No.” Guilds weren’t part of his life now. Nothing was like it used to be.

“Your master hit you?” Jarl asked, looking at Azoth’s black eyes.

“I got this in a fight. He does hit me, but not like—” Azoth cut off.

“Not like Rat?”

“How is he?” Azoth said, trying to cover.

“Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who killed him.”

Azoth opened his mouth, but seeing two littles in Momma K’s front room, stopped.

“Blint made you kill Rat to see if you could do it, didn’t he?” Jarl asked, his voice low.

“No. Are you crazy?” In his head, he could hear the echoes of Master Blint’s voice from their training: “Word gets out. Word always gets out.”

Hurt filled Jarl’s eyes, and he said nothing for a long time. “I shouldn’t push, Azoth. I’m sorry. I should just thank you. Rat …he messed me up bad. I’m so confused all the time. I hated him, but sometimes…. When Rat disappeared and I saw you walking away with Blint …” Jarl blinked rapidly and stared away. “Sometimes I hate you. You left me with no one. But that’s not right. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just Rat …and me.”

Azoth didn’t know what to say.

Jarl blinked furiously again. “Shut up, Jarl. Shut up.” He dashed the tears from his eyes with fists. “What do you need?”

There was something Azoth should say, he knew it. Some assurance he should give, but he didn’t know what it was. Jarl had been his friend—was his friend, wasn’t he?—but he’d changed. Azoth had changed. He was supposed to be Kylar now, but instead, he was just a fraud straddling two worlds and trying to hold on as they tore apart. Whatever the cataclysm named Rat had left Azoth holding onto, one thing was certain. A chasm had opened between him and Jarl, and Azoth was afraid to even approach it, didn’t understand what it was, didn’t know anything except that it made him feel dirty and scared. Jarl was letting him put the walls back up by asking his simple question—a simple question that could be answered simply, a problem that they could actually resolve.