Dalliance next saw Earnest on the same street corner as last time. He'd tried the temple, but the acolyte hadn't been there: alms duty again. The attendant sounded almost sympathetic.

  But it was different this time, because this time, Earnest was dealing cards.

  "No," he said to the man before him, his voice barely audible as Dalliance grew closer, "— I don't do full readings for the public. You'll need to go to the temple for that. I'm not licensed."

  "Then why are you here?" The old man looked frustrated.

  "I'm collecting alms for the Temple. I figure I'm out here all day, and it doesn't cost me anything to do some good, so NOT doing it would be bad, right? Plus, I need to raise my skill. I need practice."

  The man gave way, reluctant. "Fine then," he said. "My daughter is nearly of marriageable age. I am considering a particular potential partner. Weal or woe?"

  That didn't, to Dalliance, sound like a lot of information to go off of.

  Earnest held out the hand of cards for the man to touch, and he did, gingerly, tapping the top card with a knuckle.

  Dalliance rolled his eyes. He'd tried dealing Earnest's cards once before his friend had caught him, but they didn't seem to work right for him. That, or drawing the Two through Fve of Swords, plus the Cauldron, was a meaningful draw.

  No, Dalliance just wasn't cut out to be a seer, thank the gods.

  Anyway, they weren't going to bite you for touching them. Superstitious old man.

  His friend shuffled. He was getting dexterous with the cards, the shuffle crisp between his hands, flying between them for just a little way, though maybe that was the 'riffle'? The seer in training cut it twice and offered the deck to the man to cut, who declined. With a shrug, Earnest dealt the top five cards into his other hand, scrutinizing them closely.

  "I'll be honest," he said. "If it were my daughter, I would feel conflicted. This isn't weal or woe—"

  "That's nonsense," said the man, starting to look frustrated, his nose flaring red.

  Earnest's gaze flicked sideways, to where Dalliance was walking up. "No, no, I'm serious," the boy said. "Look—" and then, quietly, to himself: "Quick shuffle to them so you can't tell the order—pick three. . . ." He looked at Dalliance, eyes widening slightly, chin jerking like he was trying to communicate something. It took a second for Dalliance to realize he was supposed to have his [Prediction] going, but he turned it on.

  "You need to back me up," maybe-future Earnest considered saying, the foresight ghost gesturing wildly, unlike the present boy in front of him, predicted words echoing oddly. "There's a death and a happy family and children. I just can't say weal or woe. Please."

  Dalliance walked up behind his friend and craned his head over Earnest's shoulder. "What's the one with all the holes in the chest plate?" he asked loudly.

  "A Death card?!" hissed the man. "That's woe!"

  "Like he said—" Dalliance retorted, suddenly on the spot and resentful of it. "It's mixed. Neither bad nor good."

  The children gamboling around on the other card looked happy. Dalliance knew they were painted that way, but didn't know whether that invalidated the reading. Likely not.

  "Something with death in it is mixed? That would mean—" the man started angrily, then cut himself off. He'd figured it out. "Grandchildren," he breathed. "Oh."

  He looked at them through watering eyes. "You've made an old man's choice harder."

  Earnest looked conflicted, but the older man seized his hand and shook it vigorously. "He will be a great man someday," he said to Dalliance, his voice thick. "A great man."

  Dalliance watched the old man walk off in a daze and looked bemusedly at his friend.

  "I thought that would work," Earnest said once he was out of earshot. "And I truly wish I had your talents."

  Dalliance gave him a thin smile. "Look who's talking. You know, somehow I was under the impression you couldn't do public readings."

  A shrug. "I really do have to work on the skill. I have to master readings before I can get auguries. If Lupine wants to put me out here with the public instead of in the temple with the acolytes, that's his lookout. Besides, we get better alms this way."

  "Well, you're going to be a great man someday. I heard it here first."

  Earnest nudged him in the ribs. "Maybe. I've got a destiny, you know. You don't have to make fun of me."

  "Oh? You never told me."

  "I will," his friend said mysteriously. "Now, enough about little old me. Met any cute girls lately?"

  Dalliance shot him a strained smile. "Twice a week, for fencing. Sword work. Charity's still holed up in the healer's, though."

  "She has a fever. I'll tell her you thought about her. Or get Circe to."

  "You do that. And I'll be sure to give Effluvia your love."

  His friend pinked, and began to pack up.

  "You know," Dalliance said, "I almost forgot—we could both do that. Use the future. Think there's anything to that?"

  Earnest shrugged. "You hear the words I don't say. It's not . . . world changing stuff. I do card tricks."

  Dalliance gave him a flat look, but he didn't rise to the bait. "Effie told you."

  A mute shrug. "Anyway, I don't regret it," said Earnest. "Choosing Seer. I know you've worried about me, but if you hadn't kicked that paper—well, I think you'd be buried behind the Rather farm by now. Wouldn't have wanted that."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Dalliance studied him. "Did you read that," he said, "or are you being kind?"

  Earnest smirked. "Being kind would have been to remind you that whether or not you died there, there wouldn't have been a second little grave."

  A beat of silence.

  "There wouldn't have been. You made sure of it already by then. Every last little goblin," Earnest told him quietly, "Safe and accounted for. The hob can die happy."

  He folded up the stool and cheekily handed it to Dalliance to carry. "Now, if you'll come with me, we have a contest for me to win."

  The temple of the Gremantle was dark and austere from without, the interior invisible from the courtyard due to a maze of staggered columns. The catechism of the Gremantle was written on every column, completely, from top to bottom.

  Dalliance remembered his brothers joking about it. 'Don't start none, won't be none,' Industry had said, and that the less summarized version took twenty minutes to read aloud—in person, Dalliance found there was rather more to it than that. And yet his brother wasn't entirely wrong; the catechism did speak of preventing strife, and then of handling it, escalating, resolving, and forgiving—the whole cycle.

  "Don't make threats you can't back up," said Earnest, in paraphrase, from behind Dalliance's shoulder. "If you make a threat and someone calls you on it, deliver with gusto. Don't leave a wounded enemy alive: if you're going to start it, finish it. You're finished when he is no longer able to hurt you, or is no longer your enemy. Forgive, but do not forget. Be so terrifying in war that people will leave you in peace." He paused. "If someone says something clearly and you choose to misinterpret it, it's your fault. If they said it badly, it's their fault. Other stuff. There's a lot to read."

  "Never really learned them, growing up. Suspect Da had his differences with this approach."

  As they approached, Dalliance could hear the chant of the priests—a constant call and response drone, drifting out through the open doorway.

  "Where are we doing this?"

  "Here's the thing," said Earnest. "All the administrative stuff is in the back."

  "Am I allowed to go in?"

  "Oh, yeah, sure, that's no problem—nobody cares," said Earnest, somewhat offhandedly, "but you'll have to pass through the temple."

  "I've never been," said Dalliance.

  "I know. That's what worries me. It's too dark to see."

  So cast a light spell, Dalliance almost suggested. But no, his friend wouldn't have one. He was getting spoiled by having mages for friends. "Do you have a candle?"

  "So," said Earnest, appropos of nothing. "Do you know why we mostly worship the six?"

  Dalliance had various thoughts on the topic, but nothing he'd commit to. "Honestly, I didn't think there was one reason in particular," he admitted.

  "We worship Dowser because fortune spells still work," said Earnest. "We worship Firth because he's still alive and sometimes answers."

  "The triple goddess, answers too," Dalliance noted.

  "Well—no," Earnest said, carefully. "Not as far as anybody knows. Not to anyone people would believe. Just saying."

  I.e., Dalliance. He snorted.

  "Alright. Fine. Then why?"

  "Because she is the goddess of crops," explained Earnest, "and it's too big a risk not to. The same goes for Pax, even though we know he's probably dead."

  "We know?" said Dalliance.

  Earnest gestured at the two of them. "You know, unless Charity's dad's wrong on that one."

  "Sure. But you're leading up to something," Dalliance said.

  "The Gremantle," Earnest said. "Is a little different. He doesn't answer prayers. His altars are cold, etc., but nobody doubts he's still up there because there is no light in his temple—in the worship hall."

  Dalliance gestured for him to continue.

  "If you walk in with a torch," Earnest said, "the torch will not go out, but you will not be able to see it, and it will not make anything brighter. There is no light in the halls of strife." He paused. "So we know—or we assume—he is alive, because there has never been light allowed in the halls of strife, and there is still no light allowed in the halls of strife, even if they build new ones."

  "Why?"

  Earnest shrugged. "It's for the catechism, I think. The rule is the priests chant their catechism the whole time the doors are open, and it's dark, so you focus on what you hear instead of what you see." He paused. "We're going to have to go through there to get to the back, is all. It freaks some people out, and I'll have to guide you, so you'll need to let me."

  "I don't suppose it's open to the sky?" said Dalliance, hopefully.

  "I'm afraid not," said Earnest. "What's the problem?"

  "I just—" Interfered with this sanctioned duel once, wonder if he'd mind. "—I just had a passing thought. Never mind."

  "Well, then—unless you're afraid?"

  Dalliance stepped through the door into the cool domain of the grey god of strife, and light failed him. He had been able to see the columns from the doorway, but he couldn't see them now. A surprisingly broad-fingered hand grabbed his.

  "You've got to follow the groove in the floor," said Earnest, tugging him in the correct direction. "It's a bit rough near the walls, but smooth where everyone's been walking, so just stay where it's smooth."

  For all that Earnest had complained about spending his time out in the streets, Dalliance couldn't imagine this was any better—though it was clear his friend knew where he was going.

  The darkness was absolute, and the walls echoed with the chanting.

  "What is the crime of the half-measure?" came the deep voice of the Quaesitor, the ritual speaker.

  "An ember left burning," came the chanted response from all around him—from Earnest as well, Dalliance realized. "A root left in the ground. A wounded foe."

  Earnest's grasp drew Dalliance through milling crowds of people, priests chanting all around, and Dalliance stumbled on in a kind of awestruck terror. In the absence of light, he'd found his prediction didn't work either.

  "Might this be an [Acolyte] I hear?" came a voice close at hand.

  "Father Riordan, sir," said Earnest, not letting go of Dalliance's hand. "My friend and I were just bound for the administrative rooms in the back."

  "Indeed. For what purpose?"

  "I wanted to show him my penmanship, sir."

  The man snorted. "Any other acolyte," he said, "would have told me that with a quaver in their voice for me to use to discern truthfulness or falsehood."

  "I could pretend, if you like, sir."

  Amused silence, broken by the call: "What is the path of the upright?"

  "Be peaceful until you cannot. Then be ruthless until you can, that all shall fear the wrath of a righteous man," came the chorus.

  "On your way, acolyte," said the man.

  Dalliance grinned as he was pulled onward through the darkness.

  "Not everybody hates me," Earnest said, sotto voce. "Obviously, some people have taste."

  Dalliance set down his pen, admiring his work.

  Dalliance's 'D' had a flourish before the upper left corner, but ended abruptly, the 'a' being a new start with no connection.

  But the 'R' was perfect.

  It was an elegant stem, leading to a sudden rondure after the serif, then piping out nearly instantly into a broadened stroke that almost skittered over the page, and ending in a small whorl.

  Father Riordan, who turned out to be a grey-haired man with a brick-red mustache, came into the light and looked over their shoulders for a long moment.

  "You weren't lying," he congratulated Earnest. "Or betraying temple confidences—though I don't know what to make of your chosen activity."

  "Mine is better," said Earnest Verity, stubbornly. The 'V' was nearly closed off from the strength of the four strokes that made it, serifs and all, the pen having lightly skipped off the page rather than making a fifth stroke.

  Earnest's 'E', in contrast, was two half-circles, like stacked 'C's', with a second spoke, also circular, going up for the middle stroke—two quick strokes, rather than the usual four, but omitted the serifs.

  "Acceptable," the father said vaguely. "I suppose you were being forthright, Master Verity."

  His face was hard to read, with a slight quirk in the brow as if he couldn't quite resolve whether Earnest was lying. Apparently, the light didn't help as much as he might've hoped.

  "Your penmanship lessons," he said finally, "are doing you no harm. Carry on." He paused at the open door, through which came the chorus answering an unheard question: "Where the move is forced, the blame rests with the aggressor."

  "It is nice to see a sliver of normalcy, sometimes."

  He left without explaining what he meant by that.

  Earnest looked at Dalliance.

  Dalliance looked at Earnest, then at his paper. He sniggered.

  "Draw," said Earnest, with the tone of a man conceding nothing.