Chapter 12: Where They Can See

Ansgar told it in the great hall at supper, standing on the dais in front of two hundred students.

I hadn't asked him to.

I'd only said, over the cold bread in the north tower, that a thing like that shouldn't be known to so few people.

Hedda had gone down ahead of me and stood on the table by the fire and whistled until the hall went quiet.

Then she'd got down and said, "Dahl's got something to say," and sat, and folded her arms like a magistrate.

I stood at the back by the door.

He used nine sentences, and I'd already heard every one of them.

He didn't make his voice sad.

When he finished, he took the key from his belt and laid it on the lectern.

It opened the Rune Master's rooms.

"I'll go if you say so," he said. "Tonight.

"The brand stays on me whether you keep me or not. I'd rather you chose knowing."

Nobody spoke.

A spoon scraped a bowl, somewhere near the fire.

Then a tall girl from the second year stood.

She was the one I'd beaten in the duel final.

"My brother's in the Wardens," she said. "He thinks the Oath's for his own good."

"I know."

"If you're the man who knows how they work, then I want you to stay and teach me."

She sat.

A boy near the front said, "Aye."

Then a dozen voices, then a hundred, in a ragged rising roll, until the tables rattled with fists.

I hadn't expected it.

I hadn't expected to cry again, either, and I did, silently, with my back against the door.

Ansgar looked up the length of the hall and found me.

I walked down the middle of the room with every face turning, and stopped at the foot of the dais.

"It isn't theirs to forgive," I said.

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