Liesel was in front of me before the fire had gone two feet.
I didn't see her move. Nobody did. One moment she was by the screen with her spear coming down off her shoulder. The next, she was between me and the fire, a silver half-plate and a crimson cape and a tangle of golden hair where the whole world used to be.
She swung.
Not a stab. A swing, two-handed, the way you'd swing a hayfork, with her whole body behind it.
Clang!
The steel head of her spear met the fireball, and the fireball burst.
It just came apart. Sparks went everywhere in a hot orange spray, hissing off the stone floor, pattering into the stew, winking out against the silver plates on the table. One landed on the carved screen and left a black dot the size of a fingernail.
Then it was over.
The roar was gone. The heat was gone. There was only a thread of smoke curling off the blade of Liesel's spear, the smell of scorched velvet, and a silence so big it filled the whole hall.
Liesel lowered her spear. She shook out her right hand, once, like someone who'd touched a hot pan.
"Lord Cassian," she said, in that terrible polite voice. "You missed."
Out in the hall, somebody dropped a spoon.
Then the whispers started, all at once.
"Did she just—"
"That was Blue—"
"In one swing—"
"Since when can the Second Princess do that?"
Ilse was staring up at Liesel with her mouth open. Even the second escort by the wall had turned her head, for the first time since I'd come around the screen.
I was still kneeling in the stew. I looked up at the back of Liesel's cape and thought, very clearly: Oh no.
Because I knew exactly what had just happened. A princess the whole capital knew for dodging banquets had batted a Blue fireball out of the air like a moth. In front of a dozen witnesses. In the capital. On our very first day.
And I knew exactly why she could.
Cassian's face had gone from red to a dark, blotchy purple. He stared at Liesel. Then at me, still on my knees behind her. Then at the little black dot on his screen, as if it had personally insulted him.
He raised his hand again.
The circle bloomed under his palm. Blue, brighter this time. The fire inside it was already twisting, already climbing—
"STOP."
One word. It hit the hall like a bell.
Everyone turned. Even the fire in Cassian's palm flickered and shrank, as if it had been told off too.
A woman stood in the doorway at the far end of the hall.
"Dame Valeria—" someone whispered.
"It's the battle mistress—"
"She's back early—"
She came down the hall between the long tables, and the girls on the benches sat up very straight as she passed, the way Naomi's guards do when Naomi walks into the yard.
She was tall even for this kingdom. Broad through the shoulders, with a thick dark braid going gray at the temples and a pale scar cutting through her left eyebrow. No gown. A sleeveless leather jerkin over a linen shirt, and a wooden practice sword at her hip, worn smooth at the grip.
She didn't hurry. She didn't need to.
She came up the three steps, around the screen, and stopped.
Then she looked.
At the broken plate. At the stew. At Ilse's scorched sleeve, and the clean pink arm underneath it. At me, on my knees. At the smoke curling off Liesel's spear, and the little black dot on the screen. And last of all, at Cassian's raised hand, with the Blue circle still glowing under it.
You could watch her put it together. Every piece, in order. It took her about as long as it takes to blink.
Then she asked anyway.
"Lord Cassian," she said. "Lower your hand."
For a moment, he didn't. Then, slowly, he did. The circle winked out.
"Now," said Dame Valeria. "What happened here?"
Cassian leaned back in his chair. Just like that, the boredom was back, smooth as a mask.
"My escort dropped my lunch on me," he said. "I corrected her. Then the border Saint stuck his nose in where it didn't belong, and Her Highness attacked me with a spear."
"I hit your fire," said Liesel. "Not you. If I'd hit you, you'd know."
Dame Valeria didn't look at her. "Lord Fabian."
I got up. My knees made an unpleasant squelching sound. Not my most dignified moment.
"He burned her arm," I said. "I healed it. He told me to mind my own business, and I didn't answer him. So he threw fire at me."
"Is that all?"
"He also said healing is nursing with a pretty light."
One corner of her mouth twitched. Then it was gone, like it had never been there.
"Lord Cassian. Is that true?"
"She's my escort." Cassian said it as if it explained everything. "What I do with my own escort is my own business."
"What you do in this Academy," said Dame Valeria, "is mine."
She nodded at the wall beside the screen. There was a board hanging there, painted in neat black letters. I hadn't even noticed it.
NO CASTING OUTSIDE THE BATTLE YARD.
"That rule hangs in every hall of this Academy, my lord," said Dame Valeria. "It was hanging there before you were blessed. You cast twice in this one. Once at your own escort. Once at another student."
"He ignored me."
"Then he has better manners than you."
The whole hall went silent again. I don't think anyone breathed.
Cassian's eyes narrowed. "You forget who you're speaking to."
"I never forget who I'm speaking to, my lord," said Dame Valeria. "That's why I'm still speaking."
I decided, right then, that I liked her. I also decided I never wanted her to talk to me like that.
It took about four heartbeats.
She turned to me. "Lord Fabian."
"...Yes, Dame Valeria?"
"You cast in this hall too."
I opened my mouth. "I healed her."
"I saw what you did." She glanced at Ilse's arm, and for a moment something in her face went softer. Then it was gone. "The board doesn't say except when it's kind."
"She was burned."
"She was. And in your place, I'd like to think I'd have done the same." She held my eyes. "It's still the rule. You broke it. In front of the whole hall."
Behind me, Cassian made a small, delighted sound, like a cat finding the cream.
My ears went hot. Not Marika pink. Worse.
"Lady Severine will hear of this before supper," Dame Valeria went on. "Both of you. So will the headmistress, the day she returns." She looked back at me. "And I'll take them one more thing while I'm at it. A Saint who can only heal in a battle yard is no use to anyone. This Academy has never had to think about that. It's about to."
"So I'll be allowed to?"
"You'll be given a place. A proper one, set apart, for healing and nothing else." Her scarred eyebrow went up. "Until then, you heal in the yard, or you don't heal. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Dame Valeria."
It was clear. I didn't like it. But it was clear.
Cassian looked at her for a long moment.
Then he laughed. Short and light, like none of it mattered at all. He picked up a napkin, dabbed at the stew on his coat, and dropped the napkin on the floor.
"Ilse," he said. "Come."
Ilse flinched.
Then she got up. She looked at me once, a long look, holding her healed arm against her chest like something someone might take back. Then she followed him. The second escort fell in behind them both, eyes front, saying nothing at all.
I wanted to say something. Stay. Don't. You don't have to.
But she did have to. That was the whole problem.
At the edge of the screen, Cassian stopped and turned around.
"Four days, little Saint," he said. "The battle yard. No screens there. No dining hall rules."
His eyes slid to Liesel.
"And next time, Your Highness, stand somewhere else."
Liesel smiled at him. It was not a nice smile.
"No," she said.
He left. The doors at the end of the hall boomed shut behind him.
I realized my hands were shaking. I put them behind my back.
Dame Valeria watched the doors for a moment. Then she turned, and looked at Liesel's spear. At the scorched steel, and the blackened stretch of shaft just below the head. Then at Liesel's right hand, which Liesel was holding a little away from her side.
"That was a Blue fire, Your Highness."
"Was it?" said Liesel. "It felt small."
"It wasn't."
Dame Valeria looked at the spear a moment longer. Then at me. Then back at Liesel.
"Hm," she said.
Then she turned to me. "Lord Fabian. You're in my battle class. Four days." Her eyes went to the sword at my hip, and then, like everyone's always do, to the top of my head. "We'll see what you do with that."
And she walked away.
I didn't like that "Hm." Naomi has one exactly like it. It's the sound she makes right before she finds out everything.
Lunch was over. Nobody said so. It just was.
We walked back across the yard the way we'd come. Wren on my left, very close, her sword not quite all the way back in its sheath until we were halfway to the residence. Liesel on my right, spear across her shoulders again, her right hand tucked under her cape.
I looked at her light.
White. Mostly. With a thin thread of yellow running through it.
"Let me see."
"It's nothing."
"Hana's page says that when someone says it's nothing, it's something."
"Hana's page is about you."
But she showed me. The knuckles of her right hand were pink and shiny, with one small blister across the middle two. A burn. A little one.
"It'll be gone by supper," she said quietly. "You know it will."
I did know. Regeneration. A cut thumb closes in a few hours; a little burn wouldn't take much longer. I'd have spent a splash on it anyway. She looked at me like she knew that too, and tucked her hand away.
Wren had been watching all of this out of the corner of her eye.
"Your Highness hit a fireball," she said.
"I did."
"With a spear."
"It's a good spear."
Wren hummed her three notes. Then, very politely: "Very hard, Your Highness?"
Liesel didn't miss a beat. "Recently."
Then, without any warning at all, a candle spoke.
(Report from Sanctara,) said Liesel.
Her lips didn't move. Her face stayed perfectly calm. She just kept walking across the yard like a princess out for a stroll.
(A young lord burned his escort's arm in the dining hall. The Saint healed her. The young lord threw fire at him. Blue. I hit it. Then the battle mistress scolded them both. The Saint too. For healing.)
For one heartbeat, the bond was completely silent.
Then everyone at once.
(He WHAT?) Marika.
(Liesel, your hand—) Hana. (I felt something in your candle. A sting. Was that—)
(It's small,) said Liesel. (It's already closing.)
(Is Fabian hurt? Fabian, are you hurt? Did it touch you? Did you eat? You didn't finish, did you, I can tell you didn't finish—)
(I'm fine, Sis Hana. I had two bites.)
(TWO?)
(I'M COMING,) said Marika. Her candle was already moving, fast, in the direction of the stables. (I'm saddling my horse. Right now. I'm coming.)
(No,) said Naomi.
(He threw FIRE at—)
(I know.)
Marika's candle stopped. It stayed very still, halfway to the stables, burning very hot.
(And the girl?) Hana asked, more quietly. (His escort?)
(Ilse,) I said. (I healed her. She had to go with him.)
Hana didn't say anything to that. Nobody did.
(Fabian.) Naomi again.
(Big Sis.)
(Did you hit him back?)
(No.)
(Good.) A pause. (Did you want to?)
I thought about Ilse, kneeling in the stew with her teeth clamped shut. About the girls at the long tables, looking down at their plates, all together, like they'd practiced it.
(...Yes.)
(Good,) said Naomi.
Somehow, I understood she meant both.
(Name,) she said.
Liesel answered. (Cassian Ardane.)
The bond went silent. Long enough that I checked Naomi's candle.
Steady as a lantern by the door. Very, very steady.
(Noted,) said Naomi.
I've heard her say that word a hundred times. About her own tiredness. About things she'd decided not to argue with.
I'd never once heard it sound like a sword being drawn.