"With all that said," said Missus Tempest, clapping her hands together. "Penny, you're next."

  Penny-Ante's lips were pursed, her gaze, moving from the unconscious form of Flounce Petite to Dalliance, and then—briefly—to where Sterling sat off by himself, still disgruntled. Still, Dalliance supposed, probably still smelling faintly of rat.

  He took his place across the ring from her and stood, watching, and tried to work out what he actually wanted to do.

  "I may have been unkind," she said, softly. The hesitance in her voice surprised him as much as the content.

  "Begin," said the impatient voice of their teacher.

  What does she think I'm going to do, he thought, with a flicker of irritation. Rough her up?

  And then, looking at the wide-eyed form of Penny-Ante across from him, he had the uncomfortable thought that, viewed from her perspective, her concern was almost reasonable.

  What had she actually done? Said some mean words. And what had Sterling actually done, if he were being very strict with himself—the brush-off to a commoner might not have been intended as an insult strictly speaking, just an odious habit making itself known. And yet Dalliance had dumped a rat jar on Sterling, because he didn't like the boy and didn't like what he'd said. And Dalliance didn't have any reason to like her either, and certainly didn't like what she'd said. So in the final review, why should they be any different?

  Because Sterling was a git! came the immediate thought—but that wasn't quite right either, whether Dalliance believed his gracious acceptance of the apology or not.

  The trouble was that he couldn't nail down what drove Penny-Ante Nonesuch the way he could nail that down for Sterling. Sterling was easy: boo-hoo, I'm never going to be a knight, I suppose I'll have to settle for being rich, Dalliance thought unkindly. Easy to read. Penny-Ante resisted the same treatment. He wasn't sure what she wanted, or why, and not knowing made him cautious in a way that simple dislike didn't.

  He watched her, and she, after a few seconds had passed without him doing anything, began to cast.

  She had called him a brute.

  Despite her, he wouldn't be.

  He still hadn't decided what he wanted to do, so he let her cast. First one blade, then a cloud of them—two dozen crystalline shards of ice conjured up with each spell hanging before her like a floating wall, each one tracking him with infinitesimal adjustments as his weight shifted. Her hands were shaking—not, he thought, from fear, though her eyes were wide enough for that too—but from the sheer strain of maintaining that many simultaneous moving objects.

  She built up the wall of blades for a long moment, then round eyes fixed on him, narrowing, and, with a gesture, the blades launched themselves towards him faster than sight.

  But Dalliance was the wind, and this time he moved as fast as he could, a howling gale for the brief span his windform could sustain it, and every ruffle and strand of hair on Penny-Ante Nonesuch snapped straight back like a flag, her sleeves ballooning hard enough to push her back a pace. Icy blades spun through the air behind him like autumn leaves, impotent in his wake.

  And then he was a boy again, his sword lifting to her throat.

  He thought, distantly, that if she launched another volley now, he could simply become the wind again, her own blades left in the air, with nowhere left to go but through the space where she was standing.

  She did the math. He watched her do it.

  She ducked her head.

  "I yield," she said, her voice shaking from the strain of those many spells.

  Ice rained onto the wooden floor with tinkling sounds like glass.

  Her eyes fixed on his. "Thank you for being a gentleman."

  He nodded mutely, not entirely sure what he was meant to say, and stepped back before turning to leave the ring.

  "I'm sorry."

  Her voice carried. It might have been his imagination, but it seemed like the conversations outside the ring paused.

  He stopped. Still half-turned to go.

  She stepped forward and around him, positioning herself squarely in front of him, so he'd have to look at her.

  "I mean it. I'm sorry."

  Her words rang out into the listening hush as if she hadn't planned to say them out loud, which, Dalliance thought, she might not have done.

  "I shouldn't have used your inexperience in the theater as cheap fuel for mockery. That was beneath me. And, as you haven't had the opportunity, in a real way quite unfair of me. Could we let bygones be bygones? I'd like to do better in the future."

  Where was this coming from? He could see her asking, see her foreshadows reciting various reworkings of the sentence as she put the apology together in her head, but nothing where she'd explain her thought process. Maybe she thought he was being gauche to bring it up.

  But he knew the right answer: if everybody forgave people, the world would be a better place.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Sure. Water under the bridge."

  She looked relieved. "Good, because I want to take you."

  What.

  [Prediction] scrambled - too many sudden branches, her intention unclear, his confusion spiking the chaos of futures.

  Take me where? Why? Is this—

  And then an instant of pure panic: Did I just agree to something by accepting the apology?

  "Miss Nonesuch?"

  Effluvia was smirking at him from past Penny-Ante's shoulder.

  "To the theater. 'A real apology has an element of reparations about it'." The words sounded like a quote.

  "I . . . ."

  It would be an insult to say no. '. . . something something lady spurned' his memory provided unhelpfully. It was bad, whatever it was, to spurn a lady's advances.

  Were these advances?

  He recalled the girls shrieking and running off when boys pulled ribbons out of their hair, and adults telling them it was 'just a crush'. He'd always sort of thought if he ever liked someone, he would want to put ribbons IN her hair.

  What did she even WANT?

  "I suppose? Thank you?"

  Not very smooth. But he wasn't very enthused, either.

  She nodded, satisfied. "Thank you. There's one I know is running every night this week, 'The Whitest Lily among the Rushes'—I haven't seen it, but I'm told it's frightfully good. My chaperone could accompany us there after midterms?"

  Effluvia shrugged. Miss Tempest, back turned to him, was busying herself with her papers.

  "Okay."

  As early as it was in the morning, Flora remained gracious enough to see him, though his cousin was stuffy enough to insist on making tea anyway.

  Charity wasn't seeing anyone, but that presumably meant that she was well enough not to want to, and to tell people that.

  Frustrated, he'd turned away and stewed through Divinations, before giving in and going to see his cousin.

  He'd needed to get advice from someone, because wracking his brain over it still hadn't produced anything sensible to him. First had been her contempt. Then he'd wronged her with the document signing. Then she'd shamed him in front of the class. Then he'd spared her in the duel, and she'd apologized, and asked him to the theater.

  He couldn't find, anywhere in that sequence, the place where affection could have grown.

  So why would you ask someone to the theater?

  Probably she'd meant what she said about reparations.

  He didn't like this at all, now that he'd had time for thought on the matter.

  Perhaps Flora would know something.

  Flora's apartment was small and bright and very new, in the way that things are new when someone has just finished making them their own. There were curtains she had chosen herself, her beloved tea service lay out on the table, and she'd hung little wreaths below each of the windows that still smelled of fresh herbs. It was . . . homey.

  One day, Dalliance thought, he might live somewhere like this.

  One day.

  "So," said Flora, already moving toward the kettle. "What brings you to my doorway?"

  "I needed to ask someone I could—" He stopped. She'd turned to look at him, curious, and he realized she was his cousin and nearly his age and not quite someone who wouldn't laugh. "Someone who would understand," he said instead. "What do women want?"

  She sat down and began to distribute china, her eyes thoughtful. "What an interesting question for so early in the day," she said brightly. "Well—they want to feel special, and safe, and respected." She looked up. "Why?"

  "I'm going to the theater with someone after midterms. I don't want to risk impropriety."

  "Well." She began to sort out saucers and little spoons, the kettle still working, and folded her hands. "A young lady must always be chaperoned in the presence of a young man. For the good of both their reputations." She looked at him with sudden anxiety. "You do have a chaperone arranged?"

  "I think so. I don't think I'm the one who's meant to supply—"

  "Oh dear. Well, if you need one, I can see if I have time—"

  "She'll have one. I'm sure of it. She's remarked before that another young lady didn't, so she's quite aware of the need."

  "Oh, that's probably fine then." Flora relaxed. "Good."

  Dalliance thought about all the times he'd been alone with the girls and said nothing. Flora handed him a saucer and cup. He glanced inside, finding it empty.

  "Why is it such a big deal?" he asked. Effluvia's take on the matter had been instructive, but didn't quite seem to match up.

  "It's about what I said before. Special. Safe." She rose to attend to the kettle. "Girls want to know you're willing to go about things the right way, even when doing so makes things more difficult. That you'll do it anyway helps to show them you're safe. And it makes them feel special, that you'd put yourself to the trouble." She poured from the teapot, first his and then her own, set it down, and began to add cream. "Now. I know it's a date, but you mustn't touch her."

  Dalliance thought about how handsy his female friends were and began to have quiet reservations about the applicability of this advice. Besides, why would the context change things? He was hardly going around touching people anyway.

  Not on purpose.

  He took a polite sip.

  "So who invited whom?" Flora asked, settling back with her own cup.

  "She asked me. During class."

  "Oh my." Flora's eyebrows rose. "She must be a very bold girl."

  Dalliance remembered her clash with Effluvia. "Perhaps."

  "Well, a girl wouldn't bother asking unless she truly wanted your company," Flora said, easily ignoring his uncertainty. "So that's all the better. Do you know where you'll be seated?"

  He gave her a blank look. Why would that even matter?

  She began to look concerned. "You have called upon her properly, before all—" she gestured, "—this? I hope?"

  "No?"

  "So you haven't met her family?"

  He thought about the uncle's hand on his bicep, steering him down the processional path. "I met some of them," he said. "Briefly."

  Her expression was beginning to look pouty: she tended to if frustrated. He supposed she wasn't getting the information she considered useful out of his answers, though knowing she was frustrated didn't mean he was any closer to actually knowing what was important enough to merit mentioning.

  "And how did you meet her?"

  "At a funeral."

  Flora set down her cup. "Do you go to a lot of funerals?"

  "It was for a class assignment. Is this relevant?"

  "It's just so irregular," she said, with the expression of someone trying to find the thread of normal advice in a conversation that kept escaping her. "Well. Whatever happens, keep in mind that the theater is a reserved circumstance, very much like a funeral, actually. Don't exclaim loudly. Walk, don't run." She paused. "And please don't take your shirt off."

  He looked at her with flat irritation.

  "I have known you for a long time," she said defensively.

  There had been some embarrassing blunders.

  "When I was a little kid—"

  "Dalliance." Her voice shifted, gentler now. "You're still a little kid. You're making too big a deal of this—it's just practice. You're not old enough to do this for real life. Not yet."

  He thought about Effluvia and Morality and Charity. About the hunts. About Whimsy. About what he'd had to do already in what was definitely real life. He wondered, not for the first time, how Flora had come through her own Hunt still able to think this way. Her time on the Wall was still ahead of her, but he wasn't sure whether that explained it.

  "Everything's for real life," he said, under his breath.

  Flora looked at him with fond, slightly sad eyes, the way parents look at someone who is being very earnest while being very small.

  He thanked her for the tea. She asked him to stop by after the date, because she would want to hear how it went. He said if he was in the neighborhood, he might, which was his polite way of indicating he probably wouldn't, and left for class.