Pale Lights

Chapter 159 32

Maryam was familiar with ambushes.

The first year of her mother's war against Malan had been a long streak of hiding in woods and along mountain paths so the Izvoric could charge out of cover and close the distance on Malani patrols before they got a volley out. The High Queen's armies did not use massed muskets like the Watch did, but they fielded squadrons of musketeers that would scythe through even knight's armor if they were allowed to get their shots in.

There was an art to ambushes, Maryam had learned. To the warlord's craft of knowing just when to sound the horn, feeling the tension thickening the air as the right moment approached, patiently letting the grunts and chatter of men on the road pass you by and know that now was the time to strike. It was every bit as eldritch to her as the Craft had been to those war captains, but much like they grew a sense for Mother's works Maryam liked to think she had developed a nose for their craft.

And the way the Twenty-Ninth Brigade waited for them on the Scholomance side of the plaza bridge had her sniffing that scent in the air. All four of them by the headless statue, black cloaks a stark standout under the Orrery's morning light.

"Oh, they waited for us closer this time," Ishanvi said. "That is nice of them!"

Maryam traded a look with Song, whose face had blanked. Yeah, she could feel it too. This morning there was something afoot.

"Keep your hand on that blunderbuss, Ishanvi," Maryam quietly said. "Something is off."

She could almost see mist rolling through skeletal branches, inhale the smoky scent of beech bark and fire-hardened spears. Stay hidden in the leaves, Little Queen, Jakov had smiled. This is a day for axework. Maryam shook off the too-vivid memory, feeling Hooks lift her hand from the veil to give her space. Another piece of her past returned to her with the colors she'd buried so the grief would not break her. Ishanvi blinked owlishly at her from behind her spectacles.

"You think the Twenty-Ninth would turn on us?" the Someshwari skeptically said. "They are our friends. Gods, we fought side by side with them just yesterday!"

"This is Scholomance," Song replied. "Friendship only weighs so much on the scales."

Maryam grunted in agreement, keeping her hands out of sight as they crossed the bridge. Emeni and the others wouldn't fight them, she was almost sure, but you never knew. Hooks roiled with anger at the anticipation of betrayal, filling her dead eye, and they tasted the aether around the other brigade: heavy, clouded. Thick with emanations, though their nav was not refined enough to be able to read the nature of them. But whatever they are about to do, they feel strongly about it.

Something Maryam could have deduced without use of her nav, given the way the brigade looked. Emeni Maziya's lips were puckered like she'd just sucked on a lemon while Yaq had his arms crossed and he was looking away. Silumko's face was calm but the Mask kept tapping his foot against the pedestal of the statue by which he stood, while Cemelli looked openly wretched.

But not, Maryam saw, wounded. Her eye was back and whole, the flesh knitted back as if it had never been torn into by a barbed javelin.

"Captain Ren, good morning," Emeni Maziya stiffly said.

"Captain Maziya," Song evenly replied. "It is a surprise to find you here."

The Malani captain's face twitched once before she got herself under control. Even her sister's anger cooled some at the sight of how blatantly the Twenty-Ninth's captain was not happy with what she was about to do.

"I wish I were not," Captain Emeni said. "I am saddened to inform you that our partnership in the exploration has come to an end. We are withdrawing from the exploration."

Maryam's fingers clenched, wooden and not. The still-burnt tips from yesterday left faint marks of soot against her palm. Hooks, though, drew her eye to a detail with a tap against the veil. When telling Song this, Emeni's gaze had dipped down and to the side for a flicker of a moment before returning to Song's face. Maryam had dismissed it as guilt, but now that Hooks dragged her to look down she found there was a chalk scribbling by Emeni Maziya's foot. It looked like... gates? Two front gates, crudely drawn in chalk.

"-what prompts this change?" Song was asking.

"I am not at liberty to say," Emeni said through gritted teeth.

An oath of some kind, Maryam guessed. She looked again at Cemelli, who seemed even more wretched than before, and at her restored eye. Why was she the one feeling the most guilt? A detail from yesterday clicked into place, something Maryam had not realized dug away at her. When they'd visited the hospital and found Cemelli's door was closed, Silumko had stated Lady Knit took an interest but never said outright that it was the goddess inside the room.

"Cemelli," Maryam said. "What price did Lady Knit ask for your eye?"

The Savant traded a look with Emeni, who after a moment of frowning nodded. Answering did not break the terms of their oath.

"Colors, Maryam," Cemelli hoarsely said. "All of them."

Gods, but Lady Knit was the worst sort of vile wasn't she? The Watch had bound her so she could not truly ask terrible prices of the students in exchange for healing, but that didn't mean she could not take from them things they loved. Taking colors from a painter? What vicious, petty thing that goddess was. Song, ever quick on the uptake, stiffened at Maryam's right. Ishanvi caught up a moment later, bringing out from her side the small box containing her writing kit.

"What colors is the wood painted?" Ishanvi asked.

"Blue, green and red," Cemelli replied without batting an eye.

Which she wouldn't know from memory, Maryam thought, since as far as they knew she'd never seen Ishanvi's writing kit before. She didn't pay the price Lady Knit asked for. Yet her eye was back, and Maryam could think of only one other power on Tolomontera that might achieve this. Emeni Maziya cleared her throat, tucking her wide coif under her arm, and bowed ever so slightly.

"I am sorry, Song," she said.

"So am I," Song softly replied.

Maryam's anger bled out at the sight, leaving only bones. The Twenty-Ninth filed past them in a row, hardly one of them meeting their eyes, as their brigade began the trek back to port.

"She really didn't like doing that," Ishanvi said.

"And yet," Maryam said, "here we are."

Did they know what it was that fueled Nathi Morcant's contract? Maryam hoped not. It was not common knowledge and she liked to think better of them than that. But she was not sure how much of a difference it would have made if they'd known. Morcant, he did not have to drain a man dry. He could take little sips from many, hold that gathered essence for a while even if it was not all that long.

That was how you snuck up a great evil on people: you brought it in piece by piece, speaking softly of how once surely couldn't hurt, until it was all inside the walls with you and there was no getting it out.

"No, I mean it," Ishanvi said. "Else she wouldn't have pulled a Malani ruse. Look at the chalk drawing on the ground, the gates."

Maryam cocked an eyebrow at her. She'd seen the doors, yes. So what?

"The shape is the same as the gates of Scholomance," Song said.

Maryam eyed the scribbling on stone again. Shit, was it? She couldn't recall. More than a year of going through those gates five days a week and right now, on the spot, she could not muster a precise description of them. A flaw the other two did not share, leaving her as the slow horse in the harness. She pushed away her irritation.

"She looked down at them while talking to Song," Ishanvi said, and that at least Maryam had noticed. "I believe it's because she gave her word to part ways with us only 'by the gates of Scholomance'."

And Maryam, who might be the slowest horse present but had been down a few roads the others had not, knew exactly why Nkosinathi Morcant would have asked for such a promise.

"So we'd know we're on our own at the last possible moment, right before they hit us," she said. "They'll be waiting for us in the great hall, not at either of the camps."

Her esteem of Emeni Maziya rose a notch for having pulled the trick. The Malani captain would have guessed it let the Thirteenth – and Ishanvi – figure some things out, and also that when word got back to Morcant he would likely blacklist the Twenty-Ninth from further access to his contract. Besides, Maryam found she could not muster much scorn for the other woman in the first place. The Twenty-Ninth had been allies, and friendly, but they were no sworn brotherhood.

Maryam could not begrudge them the choice to spare Cemelli that cost, not when they had then gone out of their way to deliver a warning after.

Ishanvi cleared her throat.

"Shall we go back, then?" she asked.

They both glanced at her in surprise.

"If they are waiting for us would it not be simplest to simply... not show up?" the Laurel asked.

"That's a fair point," Maryam conceded. "If Morcant is behind this – and gods know I'm sure he is – he'll have hired some hands for the purpose of slapping us around. We're making him waste resources by not biting. He can't keep posting people to wait for us forever, he hasn't got unlimited funds or favors."

Song slowly nodded, but Maryam could already see on her captain's face she would not agree.

"That is true," Song said. "But I find it unlikely he will not attempt this again, and next time we cannot count on a warning. We should find out what forces were mustered now instead of learning it in the middle of an ambush."

That... was also a fair point, Maryam thought. And she almost enjoyed the thought of just strolling in, doing a headcount of Morcant hirelings and strolling back out while they stared baffled.

"Besides," Song continued, "if we leave without a fight every time..."

"Then we are shut out of the exploration so long as he keeps paying," Ishanvi mused. "He achieves his objective regardless. That is clever. Should he have a large enough war chest to keep this going a while, I expect the bloodless victory is actually what he'd prefer – he just needs to keep us out of the exploration long enough the lead of other brigades makes it impossible for us to win Colonel Cao's prize. Five, six weeks?"

Maryam grimaced, because that sounded very plausible and worse it sounded perfectly within the lines of what the Watch would not give a single shit about curtailing. This wasn't public oaths of revenge and shooting people in the back, it was the kind of entirely acceptable elbowing between students that they would be told by superior officers was a learning experience.

Nkosinathi Morcant had taken his time learning the lay of the land and then had set out to retaliate against the Thirteenth in a way that not a single officer in Port Allazei would raise an eyebrow at. If not for Song having genuine investment in getting that prize, Maryam might have been seriously tempted to argue they should just let him have that win instead of adding another fight to the Thirteenth's already too-heavy tally.

It was a well-tailored attack, though. One that exploited how the Thirteenth could no longer afford to escalate conflicts with other students even when provoked.

"Fuck," Maryam muttered. "You were right, Song, he's smoother than he first seemed."

"When not taken by surprise," Ishanvi noted. "Or made angry."

Wasn't that true of everyone?

"Either way," Song evenly said, "I would have a look at what strength Nathi Morcant has gathered against us."

"I'd be useful to know how many Navigators he's been able to muster," Maryam agreed.

Song cleared her throat, turning to the third among them, but before she could even get started Ishanvi cut her off. The younger girl almost looked about to roll her eyes.

"I do not need your permission to go, Song," Ishanvi plainly said. "Thus it is not negotiable."

Song bit at the inside of her cheek, glancing at Maryam who shrugged back. If Ishanvi wanted to come along, let her. It'd be worth seeing if Morcant was focusing his efforts entirely on the Thirteenth, anyway. It would be darkly amusing should Ishanvi be merrily waved on through while they were stopped. Anyhow, for all that Ishanvi Kapadia tended to be all sweetness and lore Maryam had found there was an undercurrent of iron when she dug her heels in. Song evidently recognized that for the lost cause it was and gave in without further campaigning.

They crossed the plaza in silence, none of them in a mood for idle talk.

Gods, the gates really did look like the drawing. Maryam let the irritation flow, much preferring it to the knot of fear in her stomach she would be paying attention to otherwise. There were Garrison men by the gates, but otherwise the entrance was deserted. They crossed through the antechamber briskly, ignoring the spikes in the ground leading to classrooms on either side and continuing into the great hall. Whispers echoed ahead as they crossed into the well-lit room, blinded for an instant, but as they walked into the sprawling columned hall the sound abruptly cut out.

That made it resound all the louder when Maryam let out a low, impressed whistle: this was quite the welcoming party. She'd been keeping half an eye on the 'student association', the gaggle of independents and malcontents that she was certain Nathi Morcant was funding, so she had a decent idea of their numbers. Around twenty at the moment, with a few more only loosely aligned. Ten of them now stood in the middle of the great hall of Scholomance, and they weren't only first years either.

Maryam vaguely recognized that tall scarecrow of a man that was the Savant from the Fifty-Third and a pair of odds and ends from the collapsed Eighty-First Brigade. The student association had picked up a notable chunk of the second years shipwrecked by Misery Square and its ensuing shuffle of cabalists. All were holding clubs or truncheons.

Interestingly, Nathi Morcant himself was glaringly absent. No member of the Forty-Ninth was here, save for Bingwen half-hidden at the back – he nodded stiffly at her when she caught his eye. She nodded back.

The teeth of their outfit were on open display lounging by the pillars: Diego Calante was waiting there, a book in hand, which he closed after their entrance before straightening up. He'd be the sword, then. Part of her had thought it might come to that from the moment she heard the student association had hired him as Navigator muscle with the slaver's gold. Those twelve would have been trouble enough, but they weren't alone.

The Eighth Brigade was standing on the left side of the hall, Captain Saran Pillai smiling at them viciously when Song's gaze found him. Well, they'd courted that enmity by elbowing his brigade aside on the first day. Zama Luvuno, the bastard, was actually looking at Maryam directly for once. His dark eyes were unblinking, his face stern. He'd come intent on a dance, then.

There were also vultures waiting in the wings. Maryam was not all that surprised to see Tupoc and a scowling Alejandra watching by the pillars to the right, accompanied by Thando Fenya from the Eleventh, but she was startled when she caught sight of Amaru further in. The other signifier was accompanied by a tall, heavyset man with a rectangular face dotted with white paint – a curve under each eye, and a connecting to a line going up his forehead. That must be Fikile, the First Brigade's designated swordhand. She would have thought this whole business beneath the First, but evidently not.

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Maryam bent her head towards Song, pitching her voice low.

"So, now we walk away?" she murmured.

"I'll not leave the snakes grass to wait in," Song replied, voice gone wintry. "I would know who is adversary and who audience."

Shit, Maryam thought. While she had been taking the sheer array of enemies and potential scavengers in the hall waiting for them as sort of demented compliment on Morcant's part, Song saw it through Stripe eyes. To her, this was not so much a slap in the face as a rolling windmill of them: that so many different brigades would be willing to turn on them so openly was a failure of positioning and positioning their crew was Song's job.

So it was with something of a sinking feeling that she watched a straight-backed, cold-faced Song Ren take a few steps forward. Silver eyes swept the assembled students as if she were staring down wriggling worms, a faint sneer on her lip.

"Declare yourselves, then," Captain Song Ren said. "If you've stomach enough for this pathetic display, have the bravery to own it."

There was a ripple of surprise at the disdain of her tone, the open contempt. Maryam glanced to the right and, predictably, Tupoc was grinning like spring had come early this year. One of the student association crew – a dark-haired girl that looked a mix of Lierganen and Tianxi – stepped forward as if to meet her, smoothing down her black tunic and clearing her throat.

"Song Ren," she said, "on behalf of the student association-"

"Not you," Song scornfully interrupted. "I've no breath to waste on Morcant shadow puppets. Calante, Captain Pillai – what have you to say?"

Diego only looked amused at the words, while the Eighth's captain laughed unkindly. Saran Pillai raised his voice.

"Translating for my friend here," he said, gesturing at Zama Luvuno.

Who was staring past Song, straight at Maryam herself. She met his gaze trying to think of something cutting to say if it came to a logos duel but found she was too angry to come up with something good.

"Khaimov. Get your logos out or fuck off – we are serious about putting you in your place."

She could almost hear Tristan muttering a half-appreciative that's fair from her side. And, much as she did not like the taste of the brew, it had to be said she was the one to pick those herbs.

"Duly noted," Maryam said. "Diego?"

Diego Calante rolled his shoulder.

"I've found this lovely roll of inyosi fabric in town, but you would not believe how expensive getting a full outfit done in it actually is," he said without the slightest hint of apology.

"Spite and cupidity," Song harshly said. "Anyone else?"

The tall Skiritai from the first broke his silence, deep voice carving across the hall.

"We are under order to intervene only if lives are at risk," Fikile announced.

And Amaru Wayar, cheer nowhere in sight for once, was watching Maryam while he spoke. The Skiritai folded his arms after he finished speaking, a clear signal he was done. It was a small enough thing it should have been missed by half the crowd but he had just enough presence to pull it off. There was something oddly familiar about the man in a way that made Maryam uncomfortable. Eyes moved to the last pack around, the triad from the Fourth and Eleventh.

"Worry not, we are here to defend all that is good and proper," Tupoc righteously told them.

Maryam turned the snort that escaped her into a cough.

"I am genuinely curious," Song said. "What is the plan here? Your signifiers to attack mine, then physically barring my companions from reaching the delve?"

"Ishanvi Kapadia is free to leave," the girl from early said in a clipped tone. "You, Ren, are not. Neither is your northern witch."

To leave? Maryam stiffened. They had, she realized with a dropping stomach, misread the nature of this ambush. Morcant wasn't just looking to drive them off: this was to be a public beating, an example. She glanced behind to find that out of the side halls of the antechamber another six students had emerged to stand between them and the exit. Like the student association thugs inside, they had no bladed weapons or pistols on them – only clubs, staffs and other blunt weapons.

Of course they don't, Maryam thought. That way if we use blades or guns it's the Thirteenth acting like wild animals again. Fucking Morcant, covering all his angles. Even if they pulled out all the stops to punch out of the encirclement it would still be a fat black mark on their reputation. Hook's hand on the veil was a cherry-red iron of hate. It was for the best that the slaver was not here, else Maryam would have broken the terms of the Akelarre truce and splattered his zeljezari entrails all over the great hall floor.

"Ishanvi," Song quietly said, "you must-"

"With all due respect," Ishanvi cheerfully cut through, eyeing the first year addressing them, "you word is worthless, Susana. And the rest of yours as well."

She smiled, just a little scornfully.

"You are not an association; you are paid thugs in slaver's employ, doing his dirty work because you failed to qualify for relevance on your own. That you are at all willing to be hired thugs marks you as people who will never achieve anything of note and perish the same way they lived: utterly, damningly banal."

Maryam choked, reluctantly impressed at the short-thrift savagery. Well, there went that bridge. By the furious looks on more than a few of the students' faces, the offer for Ishanvi to leave had just been informally rescinded.

"Solid work," she praised. "Might cost you some teeth, though."

"I didn't leave the House of Autumn to keep scuttling under people's feet," Ishanvi Kapadia said, her tone like a clenched fist.

Maryam grunted in approval. Across the room their enemies began to move. It must be the same behind. Without hesitation Song loosened her blade from her belt, keeping it sheathed. She'd noticed too, then, that blowing out some knees would be a problem for the Unluckies going forward. Ishanvi less elegantly shook her blunderbuss, emptying it of powder and shot on the ground, and tried out the gun in a testing swing.

"You two must head for the gates, try to make it out," Maryam said.

"Maryam, don't be a fool," Song harshly said.

"They won't touch me," Maryam said, utterly certain. "The Guild wouldn't let it go. That's why Morcant got three Navigators on board: they're the only ones that'll fight me."

Song hesitated, and they simply did not have time for that.

"Go," Maryam hissed, and to make the choice for them stepped forward.

As she'd thought, Diego mirrored her. He was first in line then. The two of them moved towards another, and without ever saying a word room was made around them as if an invisible line had been drawn. They slowly circled one another, black cloaks trailing.

"I'm not going to be gentle," Maryam said, then spat to the side.

"Would you even know how?" Diego casually replied.

Her dead eye opened, Hooks riding it, and together they raised a hand. It was not needed, wielding one's nav was an exercise of pure will, but it helped her focus. She shut out the noise around her, the moving bodies and the shouts and the swinging of what began to be a fight, and looked not at the smirking Diego Calante but the placid pond of aether between them.

Logos fencing usually happened in two parts: the first was called the caping, after some fool Lierganen bull-baiting game. Still, Maryam had to concede the metaphor was not inapt.

She traced a line in the aether to her left and let it ripple out then withdrew her nav, keeping close watch on the fabric of the pond. The aether was essentially a dark sea, but they could both 'see' ripples when they happened, so the caping consisted of each signifier acting on the aether in ways that made it ripple out, trying to find the other's nav by touching it with a ripple.

Her own ripple touched nothing, not that she had expected to discover his nav on an opening stroke, but in the heartbeat that followed she felt something act on the aether close to her, to her right – bold. It was an aggressive strategy. In logos fencing one usually tried to find the opponent's nav, but there was an alternative. Since a nav was essentially a paintbrush made up of a part of a soul at the end of rope whose other end was the rest of your soul, you could locate one end of the rope by finding that same greater soul.

And the ripple from Diego's opening move was set to reach her soul – which he would then directly attack, forcing her on the defensive – so Maryam dispensed with subtlety. She slammed her just ahead of his ripple's edge, throwing a boulder in the pond. It took him by surprise, she could tell – he'd been waiting close, following the edge of his ripple and waiting to pounce, so her own brutal and larger wave touched his nav, revealing its outline for the fraction of a moment.

She pounced before he could.

The second part of logos fencing was called the crossing, and it hardly needed an explanation why: the blades forged out of their will had found each other, now there was nothing left but to cross them. Yet for all that the terms implied elegant swordplay, there was nothing graceful about what ensued now.

Maryam rapped the length of his nav with the point of hers, matching soft to hard and felt the wince shiver up the line. He tried to pull back into the dark but it was too late, a small loop had entangled her rope with his. So they pecked at each other like furious birds instead. That was the traditional method to 'win' logos fencing, hitting the weakest part of the bindings on someone's soul-effigy again and again until they began coming loose and the opponent had to withdraw.

It was not permanent damage, nothing that a few weeks of meditation could not fix, though actually cutting through some of the bindings would damage a signifiers' ability to trace Signs for good.

Not that Diego seemed to be putting her at risk of that.

In all fairness, Maryam thought as she turned away a thrust and sharpened her nav while sliding down the side of his, scraping it raw to a muted scream, Diego actually wielded his nav deftly. It was just that he was predictable in how he wielded it: always cuts and thrusts, the elementary methods. It betrayed the mindset of someone who thought of their nav as a bayonet at the end of a rope, someone whose entire knowledge of such fights came from the teachings of Professor Baltasar Formosa.

But Maryam's own nav wasn't just a piece of her own soul, it was also the whole of Hooks: what they could do with it was fundamentally different.

It was like a knife trying to kill a storm. Diego cut, but in the same instant that Maryam parried the blow Hooks reached out and slapped the back of his nav. He withdrew but her sister tugged at the rope, and he went still just in time for Maryam to hammer the side of his nav. It was almost bullying, she thought. She caught a thrust and turned it, Hooks splashed the aether to fill his 'sight' and Maryam hit the base of his nav while he was blinded.

One blow after another, the man across her paling and sweating as she delivered the equivalent of a savage beating without pause or mercy.

With every blow his nav became shaken, loosened, and he withdrew the rope ever further into himself as she followed – until it was all the way back inside him and Maryam coldly smiled, tracing Gloam. She slapped the Teacher's Seal onto him none too gently, slamming the door on his nav, and Diego Calante gasped in pain as he stumbled back. His collar was visibly sweat soaked, but then so was the root of Maryam's hair. He was breathing loud and slow, leaning against a pillar, and Maryam drew her gaze away.

She did not look at him again. Behind her she could hear fighting, shouts and Song snarling. They didn't make it out. Yet what could she do? She was far from out of the woods.

"Next," Maryam said, rolling her shoulder.

Head held high, Zama Luvuno walked into the invisible circle like a duelist entering the ring. The tall mute sketched the barest excuse of a bow. Maryam answered by spitting to the side again, enjoying the tensing of his face at the sight.

They began.

Diego had little experience with logos fencing and it'd shown, just as it soon showed that Zama Luvuno was rather more schooled in the exercise. Gloam in the family, she guessed, or a private tutor. He initiated the caping conservatively, a small cut in the middle of the pond. Maryam answered with a small cut to the left. They played out the caping as they'd been taught, a slow and careful dance. It was no pounce-and-brawl like with Diego, but instead a game of ambushes.

Pulling closer and away, drawing and fleeing. Maryam took the first strike by clipping the side of his nav, but she ran against what felt like... hardened ridges, almost ribs. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. Definitely Gloam in the family.

She withdrew but too quickly and he took the next two blows – thrusts out of the black, then fading back into the dark water unseen. He was, Maryam was forced to admit after he took a third blow in a row, better than her at reading the currents. Humiliating, given the differences in the nature of their nav, but others were allowed to be skilled.

Hooks had begun wincing with every blow and it'd only get worse. They needed to close, betting on them being better in a brawl. So Maryam carved a wide crescent into the aether, letting it ripple out and riding right behind the edge.

When he flanked the ripple with a quick cut of his own to disrupt, she immediately mirrored him and the impact of their cuts next to one another was like lighting a lamp in a dark room. They were both blinded for the barest instant, then they struck.

This one was a crossing the way the instructors described it: furious attacks and ripostes, fast enough that skill mattered more than strength. And Luvuno was good. Maryam found she could not overwhelm him as she had Diego, because he simply did not let her get into that tempo – he kept threatening to withdraw back into the dark, return to the caping, so she had to keep attacking on his terms. Which unfortunately meant he could play up was what quite evidently a cultivated skill for ripostes.

Every time she struck he parried and stuck back, counting on the ribs of his nav to take the remains of her hit while he kept hitting the same fucking places in their nav with unerring accuracy.

Unfortunately for him, she had tricks of her own. Take the reins, she told Hooks, leaving their nav in her hands, and her eye came into focus. The Malani's own gaze was absent, almost lidded, though they were both circling as they skirmished. Still, his attention was only half there.

He paid for that, when Maryam charged up to him and kicked him in between the legs as hard as she could.

A shout of pain and he crumpled on the ground, moaning, as Maryam slipped back into their nav just in time to see Hooks grab his wriggling nav in her grasp and squeeze. It creaked around the sides, the sharp rib bones creaking under their combined grasp, and in a panic Zama ripped his nav out of their fingers hard enough the rope might have been damaged if they didn't let it slip. As it was, though, them letting loose his nav just as he pulled as hard as he could had him pulling the rope much further inside than he'd expected.

Enough that it was child's play to push his nav all the way back into his soul just a heartbeat before Hooks slapped down the Teacher's Seal on it.

"My place?" she rasped out. "My fucking place, Luvuno? You're lucky I didn't use the hatchet."

Only narrowly did she hold back from kicking him again. Maryam drew away from his bent form, hands on her knees as she panted and fought down the nausea. Shit, even with Hooks handling their defenses for the most part her head was swimming. They were still in the fight, but if they'd worn chain mail at the start now all that was left was padded cloth. They had little room left for mistakes before they had to withdraw or risk real damage. Maryam glanced back, saw the ring of black-cloaked thugs surrounding what had to be Song and Ishanvi in the antechamber and snarled.

One more. She just had to beat one more and she could chase off the vultures with a Sign, let the three of them retreat with a limp but still on their own strength.

"We don't have to do this."

Blowing out a breath, Maryam straightened up and met Bingwen's gaze. She'd not hear him approach. She wiped the sweat off her brow, her forehead feeling as hot as boiling kettle.

"It's the only way I get those two out," she rasped back. "So we very much do."

"The orders are to avoid breaking bones or any sort of permanent damage," Bingwen told her. "It is a measured response to settle the matter."

"Slavers always say that, Bingwen," she said. "Take the beating, it's for your own good. They always tell us they're in the right."

Hair swept back, she spat to the side and found there was the taste of iron against her gums.

"Come on, then," she said. "Show me what you've learned."

He was better than she'd thought.

Knowing she didn't have much staying power left, Maryam went into the caping hard and heavy: she slapped the aether right in front of his soul, all-in from the start. There was a reason such a tactic was rare, though. He splashed right back, ripples obscuring one another, but so close to his soul he was... quicker than he was, and in some ways stronger. They found each other at the same time, but when the crossing started Maryam found herself on the back foot.

He took first strike, nipping at the side of her nav in a way that had Hooks swallowing a scream, and even turned her retorting thrust. The real surprise was when she distracted him with a feint and Hooks flanked only for them to be met on both sides. Sort of. It was as if his nav was cut into several filaments, which she would have found fascinating if it weren't currently so fucking inconvenient. It wasn't as flexible as them, but he could sort of absorb the blows on several sides – though not without wincing, so it must still hurt. He was quick and precise in a way that made her think of Song's calligraphy, which made him hard to pierce through.

He also barely ever attacked, which had her realizing exactly what his plan was: Bingwen was waiting her out.

It wasn't a bad plan. She was riding the edge. But he was ceding the initiative and that'd cost him. The trick was to use the way his soul-effigy was built against him. You couldn't split your nav into filaments without bringing weaknesses into the binding, and Maryam had a good notion as to where they might be. They had to go the opposite of broad, fine as a needle, and when he moved to catch a blow of Maryam's her sister jabbed that needle right at the base between two filaments.

Bingwen went stiff as board, eyes rolling back. Shit, that part was completely unprotected. If she cut him there she'd be carving straight in his soul.

"Don't move," Maryam said. "Otherwise I push. Nod if you'll pull your logos all the way back."

Bingwen nodded jerkily and, after a beat, Hooks pulled out the needle. Like an eel hiding back in the rocks his nav pulled back in his soul and Maryam breathed out in exhausted relief. She traced the Teacher's Seal, pulling in Gloam, and – shit. It was like she'd breathed in half the room, light bending around her hand in something closer to the beginning of wind carding that a small seal.

Maryam panicked, pulling the Gloam together in what she might be able to turn into a Sphere, but – the nav cut shaved the edge of where her own touched the Gloam, seizing the entire mass and leaving her with fumes. The roiling Gloam was gone a moment later, forcefully dispersed, and Maryam was left staring at her hand.

She'd just been Sign-broken.

She staggered, because a moment later her nav was forcefully rammed back into her body. Maryam turned just in time to see Amaru Wayar approaching, looking genuinely angry.

"I'm sorry," Amaru said in a clipped tone. "But this is wildly irresponsible. Applying seals directly on the souls of others while your Grasp is irregular? I thought better of you."

She shook her head.

"I am not sure why you've not gone to a teacher about it, but it is too dangerous to let you walk around like this."

And Maryam swallowed a scream as a seal was slapped onto her soul, strokes of Gloam flowing like cursive. Gods, but it was like going blind. Her vision swam and she toppled, but someone caught her. She was dragged... somewhere? She couldn't make her eyes work right and Hooks was inside her head, shouting up a racket. She had a pounding headache, her veins hurt.

Maryam was laid down on the ground, gently. The stone felt cool against her cheek. How long it took before she came back to herself, she did not know. But eventually she did, eye blinking wearily.

"Song?" she croaked.

"We are here," Song said.

Maryam tried to push herself up sitting but her arm gave and she bumped her head on the stone. Almost sniffling like a whining child, she had to settle for putting her head on her arm. It was enough to see that she had been laid down next to Song and Ishanvi.

They looked like they had just been publicly beaten, because they had been.

Even in pressing his advantage, Morcant had been careful not to overstep. Neither were unconscious, or with visibly broken bones. They would badly bruise and have a difficult time moving for days, but they were in no danger of dying and neither had they been robbed. It had been a very fine line being walked, but walked it had been.

"Can you walk?" Maryam asked.

"I'm not sure," Song rasped back.

Ishanvi laughed.

"No," she said. "Crawl, maybe."

"My fault," Song said, eyes closed. "Shouldn't have pushed to see them."

"No, you were right," Maryam replied. "They'd just have pulled this somewhere else. Morcant wasn't going to settle for anything less."

Approaching steps. She reached for her hatchet with a groan, feeling all too vulnerable, and turned. Ah, she thought when she saw who it was. Of course. In some ways, Scholomance dropping a lemure on them might have been preferable. He took his time, light-footed and almost cheery, before settling amidst them. Tupoc Xical knelt facing them all three, knees folded up to his chest and his spear balanced across his shoulders as he grinned and his golden earrings swung to the side.

"So," Tupoc mused. "I heard a rumor you ladies might be on the lookout for a new alliance."

He leaned in, grin growing even wider.

"How about it, friends?"