I glance toward the door, toward the yard, toward the place where Corin is still moving through patterns with that too-fast precision.
“Something’s different,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And we’re going to figure out what.”
“Yes.”
I look back at Rhazek, meeting his gaze fully.
Because whatever this is?—
It’s not over.
And this time, I’m not waiting for it to explode before I pay attention.
28
RHAZEK
Corin trains like a man attempting to murder an invisible insult.
He has arranged three practice targets along the far edge of the yard, each one built from bundled reeds, old canvas, and a stubborn quantity of spite. The morning is cold and bright, the sky washed clean after a night of rain, and the damp earth exhales the rich scent of mud, split bark, and iron. Water clings to the training stakes in trembling beads. Every time Corin strikes, droplets leap from the wood like sparks fleeing a forge.
His blades move too quickly.
That is the first thing I let myself name.
Not gracefully. Corin has always been graceful, infuriatingly so, as if his bones were assembled by someone with a theatrical weakness for elegance. This is different. His movements have gained a second rhythm under the visible one, a sharper acceleration just beneath human capacity. He pivots before the weight of a strike should allow it. He recovers from imbalance without the small, ordinary corrections a mortal body requires. His wrist snaps, the iron edge flashes, the target splits.
Again.
Again.
Again.
I stand near the porch with my arms folded, watching without pretending not to.
Corin knows.
Of course he knows.
He keeps his back to me for the first several passes, which is his way of announcing that he has noticed my attention and chosen to make me work for the conversation. His hair is tied at his nape, pale against the dark collar of his shirt, and his sleeves are rolled to the elbow. The scrape from yesterday is gone entirely. Not healed poorly. Not scarred. Gone, as if the wound was a rumor his skin found impolite.
Sable is inside, cataloging old contract notes with the kind of focus that convinces furniture to behave. I told myself this is why I choose this moment. Practicality. Privacy. A controlled examination before alarming her.
That is not the whole truth.
The whole truth smells of cowardice, and I do not care for it.
Corin turns and throws one blade.
It crosses the yard in a silver blur and sinks into the center target exactly where a heart would sit.
“Subtle staring,” he calls. “Very refined. Did they teach that in demon finishing school?”
“I was not sent to finishing school.”
