“What’s going on?” he asked, voice scratchy from his long sleep.

“It’s Sponsor Day,” a boy said a few beds down. “No lectures or practicum today. We all meet with our sponsors.”

Kip shuffled to the communal bathroom and washed, gargled with salt water, and ran a comb through his hair a few times until it had something approximating order.

He walked downstairs alone and went to the dining hall. It was still serving food—much finer food than normal, he noticed—but there were few students. Those who were present were sitting with adults. One or two of the adults might have been older siblings, or parents.

It felt like a fist in the middle of his chest. Kip stood with his tray, looking for a place. It didn’t matter where he sat, he was going to be alone. Mother dead. Grandfather disavowed him. Father gone, as he’d been gone Kip’s whole life.

He sat, alone. Ate, alone. He forced himself not to hurry, some part of him not quite enjoying the pain, but reveling in it nonetheless.

These are the hammerfalls that shape a man. And he accepted the blows. So be it.

He finished and went to the library. The librarian, a surprisingly attractive woman, perhaps a weak yellow from her eyes, said, “I’m afraid all our private meeting rooms have been taken by sponsors already, young man.”

“I don’t need a room. I need books. On strategies for Nine Kings.”

“Ah.” Her face lit up. “I think we can help you.”

Rea Siluz was the fourth undersecretary. Usually worked the late shifts. Before Kip would be allowed to even view the books, he had to sign a contract swearing not to bring fire or to draft red luxin in the library. That done, she seated him at a desk on the shade side of the library, though of course there was plenty of artificial light from yellow lanterns throughout the space. Then she brought him half a dozen books.

“You play much?” Rea asked.

“Only twice. Lost both times, badly.”

She laughed quietly. Her dark hair, tightly curled, was massed in a huge, careful halo around her head, setting off a narrow face, full lips. “Most people lose the first twenty times they play.”

Ugh. “That’s not an option for me,” Kip said. “Where should I start?”

“Read these two first, and then study this one. This one has all the cards copied out, so you can refer to it when you don’t understand. The sooner you memorize them, the better you’ll be.”

Oh, boy. Kip settled in.

He read for twelve hours. When he went to the toilet once, as he was coming back, he saw a man hovering over his table, writing down the titles of the books piled there. He saw Kip coming and disappeared. Kip thought briefly of chasing him, but realized that he didn’t know what he would do if he caught the man.

Great, so they’re spying on what I read. Kip didn’t know who “they” were, but he figured it didn’t matter too much.

When he got up to get a late dinner, he went to Rea’s desk. “Can I come back after I eat?”

“You haven’t eaten yet?” She looked tired from working two shifts.

“No, but I’m starving now.”

“I’m sorry, then, but the library is closing in a few minutes.”

Kip looked at the students, who seemed to be giving no indication of leaving anytime soon, and gestured helplessly.

“Those are third- and fourth-years, Kip. Higher years and Blackguard trainees get to study whenever and wherever they want. With so many other duties, some of them don’t even get here until midnight. First-years aren’t trusted that much. You can only be here when librarians are.”

So Kip studied for a few more minutes. When he finally left to go to bed, he was stopped in the hall by Grinwoody. The man grinned wolfishly at him.

Kip hadn’t learned enough. There was no way he could win.

Andross Guile’s chambers were exactly like before, and when Kip sat, there was a superviolet lantern and a deck of cards. Kip looked through his own cards. The twelve hours had done him no good at all.

“What are the stakes?” he asked.

“Higher, I told you.” Andross Guile said nothing else. He played his first card, setting the scene.

Kip played. He played one of his good cards too early—which he only realized at the end of the game—and got slaughtered. He would have lost regardless, but it was the first time he caught a glimpse of something beyond his own helplessness.

“So what are you going to do to me this time?” he asked.

“Pathetic. Not a drop of Guile blood in you, whinger. You don’t have to lose. You are losing because you choose to lose.”

“Right, I’m choosing to lose. Because it’s so fun.”

“Sarcasm is the sanctum of the stupid. Stop it. The stakes this time were the privilege of eating tomorrow. Tomorrow, you fast. Maybe it will focus your mind. Now, another game.”

“What are the stakes?” Kip asked, stubborn. It told him how little Andross Guile thought of him, though, that he thought not eating was a greater loss to Kip than a girl being sent home and losing everything she’d worked for.

“Higher.” Andross Guile began to shuffle his cards.

“No,” Kip said. “I don’t trust you. I think you’re making up stakes after the fact. I’m not playing until you tell the stakes.”

A thin smile curved Andross Guile’s lips. “Practicum,” he said. “You lose this time, you lose your practicum.”

“I lose that every time you make me come up here,” Kip said.

“Permanently,” Andross Guile said.

Losing the right to go to practicum meant losing the one place where Kip could learn to draft in any sort of organized way. “Can you even do that?”

“There is very little I cannot do.”

If Kip couldn’t learn to draft properly, he had no future. “That’s not fair,” he said. He knew he’d lose.

“I have very little interest in fair. Guiles are interested in victory, not sportsmanship.”

“And if I refuse to play?”

“I’ll have you expelled.”

You asshole. “What do I win if I win?” Kip asked.

“I’ll send that bully Elio home.”

“I don’t care to send him home.”

“Maybe you should,” Andross Guile said.

What was that? A warning?

“I hate you,” Kip said.

“Breaks my heart,” Andross Guile said. “Draw.”

Kip drew. He recognized his opening hand as spectacular. He’d seen this hand in one of the books.

But three rounds in, he lost it. Got befuddled, didn’t move before his timer ran out. He didn’t know how to use even a great hand correctly. Andross Guile had obviously drawn a terrible hand—but he survived the damage Kip was able to do in the early rounds, and then demolished him.

Kip turned over his last counter as he lost, and said, “So what am I supposed to do while everyone else goes to practicum?”

“What do I care?” Andross Guile said. “Figure out other ways to be a failure and a disappointment. By the time my son gets back, he’ll be ready to relinquish this.” He gestured toward Kip, as if he were a cockroach to be swept away.

“You’re old,” Kip said. “How long before you die?”