I say nothing. I know all too well that holders have a great deal of coin. Well, usually. The venom in Hawk’s voice makes me pause, though. Such vitriol has a history behind it, and I’m afraid to ask.

“It’s not uncommon for a young Taurian man to leave home the moment he’s old enough to earn coin on his own. I was twelve when I left home.”

“Twelve!” I’m shocked. It’s so very young.

“Aye. I had three brothers and four sisters and there was never enough food to go around. So when I hit the ripe old age of twelve, I set out for Vastwarren to make my fortune. I was young and arrogant and full of myself. It went about as well as you’d expect.”

There’s a hint of amusement in his voice but I can’t even laugh. I just ache, thinking of a twelve-year-old forced to leave his family behind because he wanted to have a full belly. Then there was me, still living at home at thirty and fretting because I didn’t have enough coins for finery. For parties. Meanwhile Hawk was just trying to survive to the next week. I’m a little ashamed of how disparate the fortunes of holders are in comparison to the poor. I know all too well that holders have a ridiculous amount of wealth, and tax their landowners heavily so they can continue to acquire more artifacts to protect what they already have. It’s a vicious cycle, and the moment you fall behind, everything collapses.

Just as my father has had everything collapse around our family.

A knot rises in my throat as Hawk continues. “I showed up at the guild hall and declared myself to be as capable as any students they had here already, and that even though it wasn’t Swansday, I should be allowed to apprentice. They laughed in my face, and when I didn’t give up, they told me if I could beat Osprey at the obstacle course, I would be allowed to join. He beat me handily and all I got for my pride was a public shaming and the realization that I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living. I slept two nights in the gutters before Magpie offered to buy me a drink. Said she felt sorry for me. I followed her home and showed up on her doorstep the next day, asking for work. Any work, no matter how difficult. At first she declined, but I kept showing up, and she started to give me errands. Running things to the guild hall. Grabbing supplies from merchants. Making sure the practice swords stayed sharp. I made a nuisance of myself but I also made sure she saw that I could do the tasks she set for me. She gave me a place to stay, but I wasn’t considered part of the guild. When I was eighteen, I was allowed to join as a fledgling. Her fledgling. I passed my very first testing. Excavated for two years, and then I lost my hand.”

“Lost your hand?” I squint into the darkness, not sure I’ve heard him correctly.

“Yes. I was in the tunnels with my Five. They were idiots, looking back, but I was just happy to have work. Our navigator took us down a wrong turn and a tunnel collapsed over us. My arm was pinned and our healer buried under the rock. The others left us for dead.”

I gasp. “They left you?”

“It was self-preservation,” he says, voice bland. “If they’d have stayed, they’d likely have run out of air or encountered ratlings. They swarm after a tunnel collapse, looking for carrion. But aye, they left us behind. I was there when the healer died, crying out for help until the end. I thought I was a goner, too, that it was just a matter of time. Don’t know how long I was down there, pinned. Two days? Maybe? But then Magpie showed up. She’d heard they’d left me and brought her students down to come and save my arse. Rescued me and carried me out of the tunnels. My hand was crushed, so there was no choice but to amputate it. And just when I thought I couldn’t owe her more, Magpie used her connections to acquire me a hand.” He lifts an arm and flexes it. “A magical limb from Old Prell, grafted to my stump with words of magic.”

I’m shocked. “I didn’t realize you had a false hand.”

“Most don’t. It changes its appearance to match my skin and moves just like a real hand.” He rotates his hand in the air, flexing his fingers, and I can barely make out their outlines in the shadows. “There’s naught but a small line on my lower arm to show where it’s connected, but if you run your fingers over my wrist, you can feel the glyphs carved there.”

It’s a siren call if there ever was one. “May I?”

“Of course.” He extends his arm toward me, his palm open.

Hesitant, I brush my fingers over his hand, wondering what it’ll feel like. I’m not entirely surprised to find that it’s warm, his skin like normal Taurian skin under my touch. Magic, like he said. I trace each finger and then run my hand over his palm. I move lower, encircling his wrist, and sure enough, I can feel the etchings of glyphs as if they’ve been carved into his skin. “That’s incredible.”

“It is. It feels like a real arm, a real hand.” He makes a fist, as if proving to himself that it’s possible. “But because it’s an artifact, it’s expensive. The guild agreed to sell it to me rather than to one of the holders. I suspect it would have been a different story if one of the holders was in need of a right hand, but since I was the only one, it came to me.” He flexes his fingers again. “Now I must pay the guild back for its largess, and to do so, I need students that tithe to Magpie’s nest.”

Of course. Because that’s how guild brokering works. Teachers don’t go into the tunnels, so they’re paid via tithe from graduating students. If no students graduate, there’s no money coming in. No wonder Hawk is so very stressed. Magpie is at risk of losing her job and becoming homeless, and Hawk…well, Hawk could lose his entire hand. “So it’s more important than ever that we get things right. Not just for Magpie, but for you, too.”

“Indeed.”

I reach up and play with his fingers, thinking. There has to be something I can do. Some sort of string I can pull. As a holder’s heir, I’m used to being the one with all the power. People listen to Lady Aspeth Honori. People fear getting on her bad side. But here, I’m just Aspeth who wants to be Sparrow. I’m just another student, and if I interfere, it’ll cause more problems.

Money would solve things. Money would solve things for both of us, but it’s the one thing I don’t have, even with all the power of my family name. I think of my father…and then I think how he would react if he knew I married a Taurian just so I could apprentice. He’d be horrified at both the Taurian and the apprenticing. My father is a holder who believes firmly that grunt work should be left to, well, grunts. Lessers.

I don’t think of Hawk as my lesser, though. If I’m being honest, he’s better than me—and most humans—at absolutely everything he puts his mind to. I don’t think of Magpie, Lark, and the others as lesser, either. Or Gwenna, despite the fact that she was my servant for years prior to coming here. We’ve bonded over the last several days of exercises, helping one another with the ropes that tie us together, or laughing when someone makes a mistake. We share our successes and pick one another up when we fail.

They’re my companions.

My…friends.

I don’t think I’ve had friends before now, and the thought is a sobering one. I know of every family in society, of course. I know which holder’s son is married to which daughter and who lives where and their crests and who tithes to them. I know about them all, and yet I don’t know them. The thought of telling any of them of my guild adventures is utterly terrifying. They wouldn’t understand.

I grew up with the nobility, and yet I’m a stranger to all. Sad.

I continue to toy with Hawk’s large fingers, marveling at the magic that makes it feel as real as flesh and blood. It’s strange. His hand is so warm and so big and yet I wouldn’t know it was magical if he hadn’t told me. It’s fascinating to think of how much he’s overcome. There are sides to him I’m unaware of, pieces I haven’t yet learned. That’s rather exciting. He’s an interesting person, my strange new husband. I tug on one fingertip, wondering how it must have felt to lose a hand and then regain it. “Tell me more about this. What does it feel like? Does it feel different or does it feel like your hand? How does the magic work? Can you do fine movements with the artifact? Is there loss of motion?”