“Evin won’t say anything.”
“But someone else might. It’s hard to keep a secret anywhere on the Palatine. The servants carry on like a flock of crows.”
“Then we’ll have to go somewhere they won’t see,” she said. “Meet me on Tobin’s balcony tomorrow afternoon after your lessons.”
“The balcony?” Ki scoffed. “There’s only about a thousand windows facing over it around the gardens.”
“You’ll see,” Una teased, and was gone with a last challenging look over her shoulder.
“Girls with swords?” Arengil shook his head. “She’s going to get us all in trouble. In Aurënen, women keep to womanly things.”
“In Skala warfare is a womanly thing,” Tobin shot back, then hastily amended, “Or it used to be.”
All the same, he found this new boldness in Una rather disconcerting.
The following day Tobin and the others were on the balcony outside his room at the appointed hour, but there was no sign of her.
“Maybe she isn’t so bold in daylight,” Arengil said, shading his eyes to scan the snowy gardens.
“Here!” a voice called from overhead.
Una stood grinning down at them from the eaves above the balcony. She was dressed in a plain tunic and leggings and her dark hair was bound in a tight braid. The cold winter air had put roses in her cheeks, as Nari used to say, and her dark eyes were bright with a mischief Tobin had never seen before.
“How’d you get up there?” Ki demanded.
“Climbed, of course. I think you can use that old trellis over there.” She pointed to a shadowy recess several feet from the left-hand railing.
“That was you, wasn’t it, that first morning after we came to Ero?” Tobin exclaimed, remembering the mysterious figure who’d taunted them and disappeared.
Una shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not the only one who comes up here. Come on, unless you’re too scared to try it?”
“Not likely!” Ki shot back.
Going to the railing, they found a rickety wooden framework festooned with prickly brown rose canes.
“We’ll have to jump,” said Tobin, gauging the distance.
“And hope the damn thing holds.” Ki looked down, frowning. The ground fell away sharply below the balcony. Missing the trellis meant a fall of twenty feet or more.
Una rested her chin in one gloved hand. “Should I go look for a ladder?”
This was a side of Una Tobin had never seen. She was clearly enjoying herself, taunting them from her high perch. Pulling on his gloves, Tobin climbed onto the railing and jumped. The trellis creacked and groaned and the rose thorns pierced his gloves, but the framework held. Swearing under his breath, he clambered up to join her.
Una caught his wrist as he reached the eaves and helped him up. Ki and Arengil scrambled up beside them and looked around in surprise.
The palace was a huge, rambling structure and the snow-covered roofs stretched out before them like a gently rolling countryside: acres of sloping slates and low gables. Chimney pots jutted up like blasted trees, bleeding soot around their bases. Dragon statues, many with broken wings or missing heads, dotted ridgelines and cornices, their peeling gilt faded to cheap brass in the afternoon light. Behind Una, a line of footprints made a dotted path.
“I saw this once, but from higher,” said Tobin. When the others looked at him strangely, he explained, “A wizard showed me the city in a vision once. We flew over it, like eagles.”
“Oh, I love magic!” cried Una.
“Now what?” Ki demanded, impatient to get started.
“Follow me, and walk where I do. There are lots of rotten spots.”
Picking her way among the peaks and chimneys, she led them to a broad, level stretch sheltered between two high ridgelines. It was about fifty feet square and guarded by three undamaged roof dragons. They were far from the edge, and well away from prying eyes.
Several wooden crates stood under a slight overhang to their right. Una opened one and took out four wooden swords. “Welcome to my practice ground, my lords.” Grinning, she made them a deep bow. “Will this do?”
“You say you’re not the only one who comes up here?” Tobin asked.
“No, but most people only come up at night in the summer, to—you know.”
Ki nudged him with his elbow. “We’ll have to remember that!”
Una blushed, but pretended not to hear. “If you go over that way, you can see the practice grounds,” she said, pointing west through a valley of roof pitches. “And if you go that way, to the north, you’ll eventually come to my family’s villa at the far end of the palace—if you don’t get lost or fall through someone’s ceiling.”
Arengil picked up one of the wooden blades and made a few practice feints. “I still don’t know what you want with sword lessons. Even if you do learn, the king will never let you fight.”
“Maybe it won’t always be this way,” Una shot back. “Maybe the old ways will come back.”
“She can learn if she wants to,” Tobin said, liking her more than he ever had before. He paused, then added wryly, “Maybe we could continue with my dancing lessons here, too.”
That winter was not a mild one, even by coastal reckoning, but there was more rain than snow. For Tobin and the others, this meant frequent chances of clear footing for their stolen rooftop lessons, though they were often soaked. They met on the roof whenever the weather and their other lessons allowed, and though Una had sworn them all to secrecy, she was the first to break it.
One sunny afternoon Tobin and Ki arrived to find another dark-haired girl waiting for them with Una and Arengil. She looked familiar.
“You remember my friend Kalis?” Una asked, shooting a mischievous look in Ki’s direction. “She wants to learn, too.”
Ki colored a bit as he bowed and Tobin recognized her as one of the girls Ki had danced with at Caliel’s birthday ball.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Una asked.
Tobin shrugged and turned away, the lie burning in his cheeks.
Two more girls joined them after that, and Tobin brought in Nikides, who needed more practice than any of them. Of course, Lutha couldn’t be left out for long, or their squires. Ki dubbed the group “Prince Tobin’s Sword Fighting Academy.”
Tobin rather enjoyed having his own secret cabal, and was grateful to Una for another reason, as well. The roof was a safe place to call Brother. He stole up alone at least once a week and spoke the words.
He did it unwillingly at first. The scar on Ki’s forehead served as a reminder of one transgression, and Orun’s death still haunted Tobin’s dreams. The first few times he called Brother here he brought the doll and wouldn’t let Ki come with him, not yet trusting the ghost to behave.
But Brother was very quiet these days, and showed no interest in Tobin or their surroundings. Tobin wondered if he’d fade again, the way he had before their father’s death. But as the weeks passed Brother retained his strangely solid appearance. Was it the new binding, Tobin wondered, that had given him the strength to kill?
When he brought Ki up at last, they discovered that he couldn’t see Brother unless Tobin told Brother to show himself.
“Just as well. I don’t much want to see him,” said Ki.
Tobin didn’t, either. Ki’s scar might be fading, but not the memory of how it got there.
As the winter went on it became clear to Tobin that some of the girls in his “Academy” were more interested in meeting with boys than in the lessons, and that the boys had no objection to this situation. Kalis and Ki occasionally wandered off among the chimney pots, and returned sharing secret smiles. Barieus stopped pining for the unattainable Lynx; he lost his heart to red-haired Lady Mora after she broke his finger during a bout and was much more cheerful after that.
Una didn’t try to kiss Tobin again, but he sometimes sensed she wanted to. Grappling during practice fights, he couldn’t help noticing the emerging. curves of her body. Girls ripened sooner, Ki said, and got ideas sooner, too. That was all well and good for him, Tobin thought miserably.