They chattered outside one of the school’s many libraries until the end-of-study bells told them it was time to get back to their rooms. The boys escorted Varice to her building, where she was housed with older girls, then ran for their dormitory. Ozorne showed Arram a shortcut by way of the gardens behind the buildings. They were approaching their own place when Ozorne held out his arm to stop Arram. They halted in a grove of lemon trees planted in the edges of the garden. Two figures in the brown shirts and breeches of the university stable and field staff were standing at Ozorne’s window. The shutters were open; Ozorne had told Arram he always left them that way.
“I’ll get the guards,” Arram whispered.
Ozorne put a hand on his arm. To Arram’s shock, the older boy was chuckling softly. “Just wait,” he murmured.
One of the would-be thieves boosted himself up and over the ledge. The second followed. There was a yelp.
“Come on!” Ozorne said. He raced for the door to the building; Arram followed, wondering if he knew any battle spells. He’d learned Ozorne had fighting lessons after university classes four days a week, but he’d had nothing of the kind.
When they entered their room, Ozorne produced a ball of light, one of the few magics they were allowed to do outside class. Arram gasped. Two ragged men lay on the floor. They looked as if they’d fallen into bronze spiderwebs and been rolled up in them.
Curious, Arram went over and poked at the substance. The man inside it spat at him. The webbing itself was far thicker than spiderweb and not sticky, but these men would not be going anywhere until they were freed by a mage. He looked at his new friend.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to cast anything but tiny spells in our rooms, and only with permission,” he said, curious and awed.
Ozorne chuckled. “Silly lad, I know that. But the university understands I might be a particular temptation to those who don’t value their positions here.” He walked over to the other bundled thief. “Master Chioké cast this trapping spell for me. Would you let the housekeeper know we’ve caught fish in our net?” he asked Arram. He nudged the man with a toe.
Arram was at the door when he heard his new friend ask softly, “Are you Sirajit? I’ll know if you lie.”
That’s right, Arram thought as he knocked on the housekeeper’s door. Ozorne’s father was killed fighting Sirajit rebels. Arram had only been in Carthak for a year, but he remembered the student in black, and the memorial celebrations for the hero father. Even though Siraj had been part of the empire for years, its mountain people still resisted imperial rule and frequently tried to fight it off.
When he returned with watchmen, Arram found Ozorne still questioning his captives. As far as Arram could tell, the men were unharmed.
Feeling himself to be in the way, he retreated to his own part of the room as the guards chained the would-be robbers and took them out. Ozorne followed them to the door and slipped a few coins into one guard’s hand. “For your trouble,” he told the man.
After closing the door, Ozorne flung himself into Arram’s chair. “Gods save us, why are you reading that dusty old thing?” the prince demanded, looking at a book on Arram’s desk. “You don’t even have any class studies—you could read whatever you want. You could read something fun!”
Arram grinned at his new friend. “But this is my idea of fun. Is trapping robbers yours?”
“I don’t like strangers handling my things,” Ozorne said with a shrug. “And now you needn’t worry about more thieves. Once word gets around that our place is trapped, they’ll think the better of it.”
“Were they actually servants here?” Arram asked, concerned. “I wouldn’t have thought it.”
“More like family of servants, or acquaintances who overheard who the servants wait on. Word will get around. And I can tell Master Chioké the traps didn’t even leave a mark.” Ozorne grinned. “You now live in the safest room in the dormitories!”
—
The next morning was their day of worship, for those who chose to do so, and a day of rest for those who chose to relax. Arram heard Ozorne rise early and dress, but he went back to sleep. He had given up religious services not long after his arrival at the university, preferring to take one morning to loll in bed.
It wasn’t long before someone tapped on the door. Ozorne, who had returned, opened it and spoke softly to his guest: Arram recognized Varice’s reply. She asked him something, and Arram heard Ozorne walk closer. He turned over toward the wall and made a grumbling sound, as if he were still asleep. If they were going somewhere, he didn’t want them to feel obligated to ask him along simply because he was Ozorne’s roommate.
Ozorne hesitated, then left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Arram flipped on his back and sighed. He would have liked to go somewhere with them, but his pride got in his way. Pride was a horrible thing, and he wished he didn’t have any, but it was his family’s pride, so he was stuck with it. He didn’t even want to sleep anymore.
He had just gotten dressed when the door swung open.
“Oh, good,” Ozorne said. “I’m on a mission. I’m not allowed to return to the Northern Gate without you. Varice says you no doubt pretended to be asleep because you thought we were going to invite you because we felt sorry for you, and you are supposed to stop being silly and come along.”
“But…,” Arram said, knowing he ought to protest.
“Come on,” Ozorne insisted. “We’re going to lunch in town—my treat—and then there’s a play in the Imperial Theater. My treat also. She’s right—you are being silly. We wouldn’t invite you if we didn’t like you. I’m much too selfish to do otherwise. You’ll need better shoes than those sandals if you have them.”
Dazed by this whirlwind of information, Arram donned his holiday shoes.
Varice shook a finger at Arram when they joined her. “Wicked boy!” she cried. “Never do that again! You’re always invited, until you’re not! That’s our rule! Now, let’s go have fun.”
Arram did, more than he ever had with his father and grandfather. He made the three-lined Sign against evil when he thought it, and left a copper in a corner shrine to Lady Wavewalker, goddess of the sea and those who sailed on it, but it was still true. It was one thing to walk along the stalls with someone who took interest only in cloth and clothing, being told no every time he asked for something unusual (though they were kind—to a limit—about books and maps). It was another to go with people who looked at the same things he looked at and discussed them; stopped to watch jugglers, fire eaters, acrobats, people who walked rings and balls along their arms and backs, and musicians; pondered over the second- and third-hand volumes at the booksellers; and looked at the animals for sale—only to be forced to leave when Ozorne began to shout at a seller who didn’t clean the dung from the animals’ cages.
“If I had the power, there would be a law that they would have to keep the animals clean and properly fed,” Ozorne said, fuming, as Varice and Arram dragged their friend away from the seller. The man shouted obscenities and threats as their party mocked him.
“Maybe when your cousin is emperor you could ask him for the law,” Varice suggested.