Chapter 18

The Colored Arches was the most expensive tavern in Port Allazei, but it did not look like much from the outside.

It was just a long, sloping building with a dark green façade and a sign displaying a rainbow. The inside, however, Maryam found to be fittingly luxurious. The antechamber was all smooth, polished wooden panels and elegant pillars of cloth in a shade of green that matched the paint outside – as did the livery of the dark-skinned servants welcoming the students, wiping their boots and skillfully divesting them of their cloaks.

Maryam idly flicked out her nav to follow where it was being taken away, Hook returning a few heartbeats later to tell her there was a cloakroom to the side and that their cloaks had both been placed under a slate displaying the number 13 even though the servant had never asked their brigade number. She told Song as much, leaning in to whisper as they were led deeper inside.

“Considering the rates I am told this all fetches, learning the brigades was the least they could do,” Song whispered back.

Colonel Cao must have coin to blow, then, because this certainly wasn’t coming out of the garrison coffers. Word was she had rented the whole place out instead of just a part like the Malani lordlings did. The servant paused by the entrance of a drawing room, gently bringing to their attention a basin of perfumed water by which another woman in livery stood with a soft cloth. The pair of them duly washed and wiped their hands before entering the drawing room, which Maryam immediately saw was too small to be where the meet would take place.

Though a few comfortable chairs had been laid out, the drawing room seemed to serve as a foyer of sorts – some students stood there chatting with drinks in hand, but all with an eye on the door. Waiting for missing cabalists, Maryam guessed. By the door to the hall ahead a beautiful slate in yellow stone marked the names of those in attendance, divided by brigade, and the servant besides it courteously asked for their name so they might be added to the display.

The whole thing left Maryam with an odd taste in the mouth, which she only put a name to when they were ushered into the banquet hall.

“Trouble?” Song quietly asked.

She shook her head.

“I have never had Malani treat me like this before,” Maryam murmured back. “It feels… peculiar.”

Islanders were not usually rude to her outright and Maryam was not unfamiliar with courtesy from their kind. But never before had so many acted… fawningly, like they had to please her instead of the other way around. She had never seen them act this way towards any Izvoric at all.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Song said, “I would wager the lordlings get their boots even more thoroughly licked whenever they have their little parties.”

Maryam hummed. Strangely enough, that did make her feel better. She rolled her shoulder.

“Let us proceed, Captain Ren,” she solemnly said. “Into the breach! I think I just saw a plate of cakes going around.”

The banquet hall matched the room Angharad had once described to her, all polish and warm lights, and stood about half-full. Students milled around, offered morsels and refreshments by greenclad and smiling servants. Song took a cup of wine when offered, Maryam knowing from experience she would then proceed to sip at it for the rest of the night while never actually imbibing more than a third. She herself took a cup of chicha when offered, as she was fond of the Izcalli maize beer – it was sweeter than most beers, and went down easy.

There was a second adjoining banquet room, they soon discovered, connected by several sliding door panels that had been removed for the occasion. It was only slightly fuller than the last. The two of them strolled through the crowd with their drinks in hand, trading smiles and greetings – well, Song did anyhow – until they settled in a corner near a small table meant to hold drinks. Maryam twice ambushed servants going around with plates of those little sweet rice cakes, inhaling the first and nibbling away at the second more sedately. Song sighed but said nothing, wise woman that she was.

“Mowre people hwere than I’d fwought,” Maryam said through a mouthful of rice cake.

“Swallow,” Song ordered.

Maryam swallowed the small possible piece she could, then offered Song a rice-filled grin.

“Ovwer a hundred, that’s morwe than the hunt ghot,” she continued.

Only when her captain physically cringed did she finally deign to swallow the rest. Her toll had been exacted.

“It is a greater number of students than the hunt,” Song agreed. “But much of the difference comes from underclassmen.”

A lot of the faces in the first hall had been unfamiliar to Maryam, but she’d assumed they were simply brigades she had never paid attention to. Song would know best, though, and it made sense since the first years didn’t know what they were dealing with quite yet. They hadn’t seen the worst of what Scholomance had to offer, so they likely thought the exploration the lesser of the dangers. Maryam rather believed it the other way around. You could run from the dantesvara, but once you were inside Scholomance you only went where it let you.

“My concern,” Song murmured, “is that.”

She gestured discreetly and Maryam glanced at what she was indicating. Or rather, who. Captain Vivek Lahiri was standing in the center of the room chatting away with Captain Philani, which Maryam thought little about until she recalled their respective Stripe rankings. Vivek’s First Brigade had come in first according to Colonel Cao, while Philani’s Thirty-Eighth had come in fifth place.

Despite personal skepticism as to how accurate Cao’s esteem was to their actual worth as brigades, Maryam had to concede that the rankings were good at weeding out the second stringers. You didn’t enter the top ten without having strong teeth, much less the top five. Which meant that if the First and the Thirty-Eight joined hands, they’d have a spread of competence that would be very difficult for anyone else to match.

“Philani’s like us, right?” she asked.

“He got into Scholomance through a trial,” Song agreed. “His brigade is mostly assembled from those without a strong background.”

Which showed, Maryam thought, since no Akelarre had judged him fit joining up with. That would likely change if Philani looked to be holding up this year, though. What a Navigator wanted of a brigade varied as much as any with other covenant, but there was a price of entrance to even be considered: would they be able to cover you while you traced in a fight, would they be able to help you through mania and basic assurances they wouldn’t need coin badly enough to ask foolish things of you.

The Thirty-Eighth fit all these and looked like a rising brigade besides. Some Navigator would want to trade their losing horse for this one, it was just a matter of time.

“We’re not going to outbid Vivek Lahiri,” Maryam bluntly told her captain.

The First Brigade was even richer than the Garrison princelings, going by rumor. The one thing the Thirteenth had once had over them was reputation, but that coin was somewhat devalued of late.

“And I would rather not scrap with the First,” she continued, “because Wayar is a walking mindfuck and a half.”

Amaru Wayar was a perky, chatty, delicately pretty Aztlan girl. Maryam hadn’t thought much of her until the bitchier of the Emain twins condescended to her last year, Wayar then promptly signifying said twin into thinking she was walking up stairs until she had one foot past the edge of the Abbey pit. Maryam had never seen anyone that good at slipping in Acumenals without the target noticing, it was terrifying. Even worse, near-murder was apparently the way to get on the good side of the Emains so now three of the most dangerous assholes in their year were as sworn sisters.

“We are short on choices, for allies. The only other brigade in the top ten here is the Eighth,” Song murmured. “I am not comfortable with such an alliance, considering that their signifier is close friends with Musa Shange.”

Maryam’s teeth clenched at the thought of the man in question, Zama Luvuno. They’d crossed paths before. The mute had helped Angharad and Tristan when they were fleeing the dantesvara, but it did not make up for his casual contempt towards her existence.

“Their Akelarre is not someone I can work with,” she curtly said.

Song eyed her, then slowly nodded.

“Understood.”

And the way she said it, it felt like a door closed and locked. Gods, but there was a reason that Maryam had stuck with Song even after their first arguments. How refreshing it still was, to be able to tell someone of a line in the sand and see it drawn for them as well. Hooks hesitated, tracing a thought against the veil. Ah, good point. Maryam coughed into her hand.

“Besides, you’re incorrect,” she relayed. “There’s another-”

“They do not count,” Song hissed. “The Fourth-”

“Oh my, my ears are aflame.”

Tupoc Xical, much like other evil eye drawn by mere mention of himself, slid up to them with dancer’s grace. Like the pair of them he was in his formal uniform, though he’d left his partly unbuttoned to show a stretch of flawless skin. The rest of his brigade followed behind. Alejandra Torrero, who Maryam traded a polite nod with, then the ever-nervous Bait and the inexplicably-still-breathing Cressida Barboza smirking like she knew something they didn’t. That’d be the day.

Maryam blinked at the sight of a fifth member, though, since that was very much new.

“What sweet whispers await me, Song?” Tupoc asked, batting his eyes.

“You will die alone,” Song replied without missing a beat.

“Don’t we all?” the Izcalli mused. “But your amiable banter distracts me, friend. I came to introduce you to my newest cabalist.”

Said cabalist stepped forward and Maryam raised an eyebrow brow. He was Tianxi, short and stocky. Built like a red-cheeked barrel with a messy topknot. With those strong arms and a rough beard sprouting from a leathery face, he looked like every mountain bandit Maryam had ever seen depicted on a Tianxi painting scroll. A Skiritai? The Fourth could use the muscle.

“Emergency Rations,” the man introduced himself, Antigua accentless. “Of the Umuthi Society, Deuteronomicon track.”

Maryam paused, reconsidering. The mountain bandit was a tinker. And his track might explain why the Fourth had gone for Scholomance instead of the Lord of Teeth, too. Besides Tupoc there weren’t a lot of frontline fighters left in the Fourth.

“Also,” Emergency Rations cheerfully added after a beat, “you are both worthless idiots.”

Maryam blinked, so genuinely surprised that she spent a moment wondering if she had somehow misheard. A tracing on the veil had Hooks assuring her she had not. Song laid a restraining hand on her arm, but she was honestly too astonished to be angry.

“Two for the Ren,” Rations told Tupoc, “and one for the hollow.”

Her jaw clenched. In her shadow, Hooks roiled angrily.

“Oooh,” Emergency Rations said, eyes widening as he stared at her. “Hollow was a six, though.”

Was he measuring her reaction?

“If you use your contract on us again,” Song conversationally said, “I will cut out your eyes.”

Rations stepped back, hands raised defensively.

“No need to get all defensive on me, girl,” he said. “I was just joking aro-”

He did not finish, because Alejandra Torrero socked him in the stomach with her prosthetic. Rations doubled over, wheezing, and with her flesh hand the other signifier caught him by the scruff of the neck to make him bow low.

“Rations here meant to apologize for his rudeness, Captain Ren,” Alejandra said. “The words must have got mixed up in his fool mouth.”

“Yes,” Rations groaned out. “Very sorry. Words confusing.”

Tupoc clapped, beaming at them.

“Nothing like a round of introductions to set the mood,” he said. “Alas, Tristan’s still under arrest so none of us will get shot in the back as we leave.”

He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Unless one of you ladies is game?”

Maryam hid her smile. Tupoc was often genuinely amusing, but then his type often was. She’d known many men like him: captains of raiding bands who kept their warriors loyal by a mixture of charm, fear and prowess at arms. Most of them eventually got knifed by one of their men. The clever ones, though found a king to serve as Tupoc Xical had done with the Watch. Father had thought little of such men, but they had flocked to Mother like crows to a carcass and served loyally.

Until it looked like she was going to lose, anyway.

“I’m sure that should we go looking we can find someone to shoot you in the back, Tupoc,” Song politely replied. “You make a new volunteer every day.”

Serving as a proper minion, Maryam mimed shooting the Izcalli with her fingers. He winked at her in return.

“I can’t help it that I’m a friendly man at heart, Song,” Tupoc said. “Which is why I’m here, instead of out there gossiping with all our fellows about how it’s such a shame about the Thirteenth – so skilled, so brave, but then they’re a little unstable aren’t they?”

He leaned in.

“Best be careful around the Unluckies, you never know what will make one of them snap,” he whispered.

“Not you, despite the effort,” Maryam said.

He laughed.

“Of course not, Khaimov,” he said. “We both know you can’t draw on me after Abrascal had his little fit, no matter what I say. It’d sink you all the way to the bottom of the barrel.”

He was right, of course. Tupoc tended to be when whenever what he spoke about was deeply unpleasant. If Song and Maryam got into a loud altercation tonight, the Thirteenth’s reputation would plummet right into the gutter instead of merely sit on its edge, dipping in a toe to check the temperature. But there were other ways to deal with provocation than a screaming match or pulling a trigger.

“I don’t need to draw to curse you,” Maryam conversationally said. “How good is your contract a purging Gloam, Tupoc?”

Pale eyes met hers and he smirked.

“Ah, the lesser Khaimov steps in,” he said. “Bring out your sister, would you Maryam? She’s the fun one.”

Hooks traced against the veil, sending a wave of support, but beneath the current Maryam could feel she was ever so slightly flattered. Typical.

“Do you think it’ll be trickier to look like a hard man, if I make you shit your pants in public?” she calmly asked.

Seemingly amused, Tupoc flicked a glance at his second.

“Sure,” Alejandra said. “Most of us can do it. It’s relatively easy on an unmoving target, the Sign’s one of those rare Ancipital curses.”

The Sign’s name was the Lingshu Needle and it had some medial uses, but everyone called it the Crapper because that was what signifiers actually used it for.

“And you would not protect my honor from Khaimov’s northern witcheries?” Tupoc said, hand over heart.

“Eh,” Alejandra shrugged.

“So much for brigade loyalty,” Cressida Barboza slipped in with a smile.

“Rich, coming from you,” Bait muttered.

The Mask turned a hard look on him and he twitched away in fear, but then he visibly forced himself to turn back and glare. Good on you, Bait, Maryam thought.

“You are a faithless traitor,” Rations stage-whispered to Cressida.

She cocked an eyebrow at him and a moment passed.

“Really?” Rations said, blinking. “Not even a one?”

“There is dissension in the ranks,” Tupoc mused. “I will beat a retreat for now, Thirteenth, but I’ll be back!”

He wagged his finger at them, like the villain in some Ramayan serial, then smiled at Song and the playfulness thinned until Maryam could glimpse the leopard’s eyes watching them through the cracks.

“I would offer you terms now, but there’s no point,” Tupoc Xical said. “See you after you’ve knocked at every other door, Song.”

“One day Alejandra will finally kill you,” Song told him, “and I will help her get away with it.”

“If she needs the help, I will be very disappointed,” Tupoc replied, seeming entirely honest.

He waved them goodbye and strolled off, whistling. The others followed: Alejandra waved, Bait nodded, Rations called them manly flatfoots and Cressida spared them a sneer. A beat passed.

“Is it wrong,” Maryam finally said, “that every time we run into them I feel better about the Thirteenth afterwards?”

“I hope not,” Song muttered, “because I do as well.”

Neither of them quite needed to turn to see the quirk of the other’s lips. Maryam let herself savor the complicity, just a moment, then let duty drag her forward.

“Rations’ contract,” she said. “Is it what I think it is?”

“He sees how insulted we are by any insult he speaks while calling on his contract,” Song agreed in a murmur. “The prick is contracted to the Tail-Puller, of all things. In most parts of Tianxia that thing’s not even considered a god, just the idiot in a story who thought that pulling a fox god’s tails would make him immortal.”

Unless Maryam had misheard, that was tails plural. As in more than one. She coughed into her fist.

“Well,” Maryam finally said. “I have some guesses as to how he ended up in the Fourth, at least.”

“Do you?” Song drily replied. “Mostly I am surprised Izel never mentioned him. There are fewer Deuteronomicon tinkers than Cathedral track and I cannot possibly see those two getting along.”

Considering Rations seemed almost compelled to insult everyone he met and Izel had once apologized to Maryam when she spilled tea on an essay he’d been working on for two days, the signifier was inclined to agree.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if ending on the wrong side of a pricklier Malani is how that one landed among Tupoc’s lot,” Maryam mused.

Song grunted in what sounded like agreement but her attention was clearly elsewhere. Maryam followed her gaze, finding it wandering around the banquet hall. Picking out those who had been discreetly eyeing the two brigades while they talked and were now pretending to have been doing anything else.

“We didn’t make a scene,” Maryam quietly said. “That has to be a mark in our favor.”

“Yes,” Song said, then her lips thinned. “Yet it occurs to me now that Tupoc did not exactly rush to meet with us.”

Maryam grimaced at the implication there: that no other brigade had seen it fit to approach them first. Maybe that would change now that Tupoc had tested the waters, the Izcalli’s unpleasant temperament ironically proving the Thirteenth to be capable of conversation without drawing a knife. But as Maryam drained the last of her chicha, she found that no one else was stepping forward. Considering how before the mess at the Old Playhouse seemingly everyone had wanted a piece of the Thirteenth, the absence was felt all the more starkly.

“Fuck,” she muttered. “All right, so we’re in worse position than expected.”

And the two of them had come in tonight with the intention of making at least a few allies. Exploring the depths of Scholomance as a pair with no one to watch their back was a recipe for getting themselves killed.

“My contract is not known,” Song said. “And while your work at Misery Square was impressive, the exploration is not likely to be a heavy combat assignment.”

Meaning that, from the perspective of those looking at them, the two members of the Thirteenth present weren’t bringing much to the table and their brigade’s reputation was freshly stained. If the five of them had been here, Maryam thought, the balance might have been different. A lot of things would have been different if they were all here.

“Tell me our only choice isn’t the Fourth,” Maryam pleaded.

“No,” Song replied, to her relief. “Is saw Captain Emeni Maziya in the other hall. Tristan tells me their Mask is something of a tinker and they lack a signifier. They are by no means a leading cabal, but they have bite and a need for what you can offer.”

And they were not so famous or in demand that Song was likely to get the grass cut under her foot when feeling them out for an alliance. Maryam slowly nodded.

“I can-”

She cut off, cocking her head to the side as Hooks slipped into her body fully and her eye swam into focus. Gloam, a great deal of it, was being gathered in the other room. Yet there was no reaction to a Sign being traced, shouts or gasps or – ah. Someone was calling a conclave.

“You will have to go without me,” she said instead. “My guild is gathering for a talk.”

Song’s silver eyes swept the room.

“I see no Sign,” she murmured.

“You wouldn’t,” Maryam said, clapping her shoulder.

They were fine eyes, Song’s, but they could not see through walls.

“Good luck with Maziya. I’ll find you when we’re finished, or when Cao arrives.”

“And you,” Song stiffly nodded back.

Maryam lengthened her stride heading to the other banquet hall, already wondering who it was that was putting out the call. Her expectation it would be Amaru Wayar turned out incorrect: in the back corner Zama Luvuno stood with one hand behind his back, slowly layering more and more Gloam into a sphere out of sight.

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It was a Command exercise, one of those elementary tricks you learned starting out, but when done by someone who’d pursued their mastery there was enough Gloam being gathered it felt like someone stacking a large tower of wooden blocks just beyond the corner of your eye to every Navigator nearby. Someone brushed against Maryam’s arm and she stiffened, but she turned to the sight of a beaming smile.

“Maryam!” Amaru Wayar happily said. “There you are, I was starting to think you’d disappeared.”

Wayar had a round face, with bow-shaped lips and rich brown hair that somehow made every hat she wore look like it’d been designed just for her. Between that, the warm brown eyes and the slender figure she was a sight, though more pretty than beautiful – which worked well for her, given her usual cheer. If the world were a fairer place Amaru Wayar’s frightening skill at Signs, good looks and personal charm would have been balanced out by some sort of grave defect.

As far as Maryam could tell, there was no such thing. Wayar just genuinely enjoyed being nice to people, which sounded like some sort of disease but which Maryam supposed could happen naturally.

“Wayar,” she replied, inclining her head. “Any idea what Luvuno’s calling us for?

“Oh, I expect just to establish rules of engagement,” Wayar said. “The Stripes can have their games, but there’s no need for us to squabble too much over it.”

A pause.

“And I told you to call me Amaru,” she reproached.

Maryam ignored that, as she had every time before and would every time yet to come.

“Imagine what the Watch would be, without Academy pissing matches,” Maryam mused instead.

The other signifier laughed as they crossed the last of the hall towards Luvuno.

“Oh, we must let them have those,” Wayar said. “Otherwise they might actually try to run the order, and that just wouldn’t do.”

The mute Malani the corner raised an eyebrow, making a few quick signs with his hand.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say we are slagging the Stripes,” Wayar demurred.

“We were slagging the Stripes,” Maryam confirmed.

The Malani snorted. He had not, she noted, looked directly at her yet. In her experience, he would not until conversation forced him outright.

“What’s this about slags?”

Alejandra Torrero swaggered in, eyebrow raised. Maryam had always admired how she managed that, considering she was one of the shortest in their year – and if all the scowling and hard talk were in part to ward off any other opinion at the pass. Amaru Wayar giggled, Luvuno rolled his eyes and Maryam scoffed.

“We were discussing how Tupoc is such one he counts as plural,” she replied.

“Can’t argue with that,” Alejandra agreed without a beat of hesitation.

Maryam choked. Luvuno signed again, Wayar letting out a scandalized gasp.

“He’s not a dish, Zama, he’s former Leopard Society,” she said.

Her tone was almost chiding, and she spoke the latter half of the sentence the same way someone might have said he has syphilis. Their circle spread to accommodate two more in quick succession. First came Diego Calante from the Twenty-Third – with the death of his brigade’s captain at Misery Square, it was a surprise to her he’d show up – then Shumise from the Seventy-Ninth. The latter’s brigade was nowhere in sight, which Maryam found odd, but she soon learned there was a reason for that.

“I transferred to the Eleventh,” Shumise told them. “Solid crew and well suited to delving Scholomance.”

That the dark-skinned signifier had no intention of going anywhere near the dantesvara if she could help it went unsaid. So Imani Langa had replaced Qianfan already. Quick on the trigger, that one. Normally getting an Akelarre in your brigade killed would see you informally blacklisted, but Misery Square deaths had largely been given a pass.

They waited a minute longer quietly chatting about the new Sign benchmarks assigned for the year’s final exam – the only one pleased about the two required tracking Signs was Calante, who for some twisted reason actually enjoyed them – and waiting for anyone else who would have felt the layering of Gloam. The invitation had also been a test, in the end: any signifier not capable of picking up on it was implicitly uninvited.

There was a slight tinge of unfairness to that though, Maryam thought. No doubt several of the Akelarre first years she’d seen earlier had noticed but not yet been taught what it meant. Still, no point in wasting time.

“That’ll be all, I think,” she said.

“I’ll put up a curtain,” Wayar volunteered, raising a hand but then pausing.

One last arrival squeezed in at the last moment, a short Tianxi with uncharacteristically loose hair and what Maryam thought she had once heard Song call ‘fox eyes’ – sharply angled eyebrows and eyes. Maryam glanced at Alejandra with a raised eyebrow and the other woman shook her head. A first year, then.