“I really should get to bed,” Magpie says after a moment, straightening and wiping her mouth. “Got fledglings to train in the morning. Right after I get another drink.”

She wanders away, knocking one of the canned jars to the floor with a crash. Glass and sticky peaches spill all over the floor, and Magpie doesn’t seem to notice.

I bite back a sigh and pat Aspeth on the shoulder. “Go to bed. I’ll clean this and make sure she ends up in her bed and not in a gutter somewhere.”

“She…You…” Aspeth’s gaze blinks from me back to the door Magpie pitched herself through a moment ago. “That was…”

“I know.” I give her shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll talk about it in the morning. Go sleep.”

“She’s…”

“A drunk. I know. And that’s why we’re in danger of losing everything. Now you know why you have to pass this year. If our class fails out, Magpie loses everything.”

And I do, too.

FOURTEEN ASPETH

22 Days Before the Conquest Moon

My hands on my hips, I stare up at Guild Master Crow, trying to pay attention. It’s difficult to be in the moment this morning, because in my head I’m still stuck on last night, watching my hero vomit at my feet.

Over and over again.

“The goal of this drill is to maneuver,” Crow is saying. He clasps his hands together, walking along a wooden beam high above the obstacle course. A thin rain drizzles down on us, turning the dirt course into mud.

I hate this. I hate Master Crow. I hate mud.

I hate that Hawk canceled on us this morning and instead of him training us, we’re with strangers as he goes on a retrieval mission.

Behind me, a man flicks the hanging edge of my fledgling sash, earning chortles from his teammates. I ignore him, but at my side, Lark growls in her throat. If Guild Master Crow notices anything, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he points at each section of the obstacle course designed to test our dexterity. “Tunnel. Then climb over the boulders. Tunnel again. Sprint past the falling rocks.” Point, point, point. “Belly-crawl under the fallen wall. Tunnel again. Grab a pack and then make it across the finish line before the hourglass runs out of grains of sand. If you don’t, you’ll have to do it all over again.”

“Not much of a challenge, boss,” calls one of the fledglings. “Maybe we should all be tied together again like yesterday?” He grins over at us, showing off a gap-toothed and evil grin.

“Monster,” Gwenna mutters. “I hope your dinner gives you the shits.”

“Excellent idea, Rosto,” Master Crow says, producing two long lengths of rope. “Master Magpie’s team, tie yourselves together. My team, you do the same. We’ll have you both on the course at the same time just to keep things interesting.”

“Oh, they’re interesting all right,” Lark mutters. She catches the rope when Crow throws it in our direction and moves toward me. I take it and loop the end through my belt, handing it wordlessly to Gwenna. She watches me with a curious look but says nothing. We all tie together—Mereden at the end and Kipp at the front, ahead of me.

Then we march to the starting line, and I squint at the muddy obstacle course as it rains down even harder upon us. The group of men at our side are nudging one another and smothering laughs, no doubt at our expense, but I ignore them.

I have to, or else I’m going to start screaming.

She’s a drunk.

“Go!” Master Crow shouts, flipping over the hourglass and setting it down on the beam next to him.

Kipp races ahead, his pull so strong that I stumble. The team of men alongside us today—Crow’s fledglings—push past us, sweeping Kipp off his feet and giving me a violent shove. I stumble and Gwenna catches my arm.

“What’s wrong with you, Aspeth?” she whispers. “You’re not yourself today.”

If our class fails out, Magpie loses everything.

Everything. Everything’s wrong.

I jerk forward as Kipp rights himself and races toward the first tunnel. I stagger after him, getting on hands and knees to crawl through the damp tunnel made of rotting wood and more mud. It narrows down until I have to turn my head to the side and crawl forward using my elbows, but I manage to wriggle through and stand up, only to drip with mud, my boots and pant legs holding an obscene amount of the filth.

“Keep moving,” Crow screams at us. “No one told you to stop, Magpie fledglings!”

Gwenna sticks a hand out of the tunnel and I grab it, hauling her forward. She collapses on me and pants, waiting for Lark to push through. As we wait, she looks over at me. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. If I start to vent about how wrong things are, I won’t stop. Kipp is pulling at the rope, desperate to get to the nearby boulders and continue on the obstacle course. Lark pulls herself through, and then we wait for Mereden.

“Something’s wrong,” Gwenna hisses at me.

Mereden stumbles toward us, hauled up by Lark’s hand, and then we turn toward the boulders. Kipp makes an excited sound and races toward them, tugging us along. He skitters up the side of one boulder, taller than a staircase, and then holds his small hand out to me. I take it—

—and immediately pull him down. “Whoops, sorry about that.” I set him on his feet. “Apologies for the touching.”

He pats my hand as if to say Apology accepted and then turns back to the boulders. He climbs halfway up the first one and then watches us, pointing at a ripple in the otherwise sheer surface that might act as a handhold. I put a hand there and try to haul myself up.

And fail.

And try again.

Lark gives my backside a shove. “Everyone, help out.”

My face burns with humiliation as the others pitch in and more or less push me up the rock’s surface, until I’m at the top of the boulder next to Kipp and gasping for air. It takes far too long and I’m sure I’m going to have bruises in unmentionable places, but I’m up there.

“Put a hand down for me,” Gwenna says, reaching up and pressing herself against the boulder’s surface. “We can do this together.”

I reach down for her, and Gwenna latches on. Holding on to her threatens to pull me back down and I yelp in distress as her sweaty hand slips out of mine.

“Time!” Master Crow roars.

“Time? Already?” Lark puts her hands on her hips, glaring off at the distant fledgling team that is already at the far end of the obstacle course. “What the mucking fuck? We barely got started!”

Master Crow claps his hands. “Let’s do it again, Magpie fledglings. Try to do better this time.”

“Again?” Mereden echoes, her lower lip quivering. “He’s joking, right?”

I haul myself up to a seated position atop the boulder and look up at Crow. From the sour expression on his face and the smug ones of his fledglings, no, I don’t think he’s joking at all.

As I watch, one of Crow’s fledglings rubs his hands under his eyes, pretending to cry.

Another grabs his chest and pretends like he’s jiggling his breasts, and makes kissy faces as he does.

I exhale heavily. Cretins, all of them. “Come on. Let’s get back to the start and put Lark next to Kipp. Maybe that will make a difference.”