He put her into his bed.

“I am so sorry.” My hands are clasped in my lap. I brace myself not to reach out. Touch is not what Ulín needs right now, I am sure of it as I am sure of anything.

I wonder how can someone so eloquent be silent so much. I want to take one of these notebooks and write a dictionary of her silences.

I say, “You do not need to tell me. I will not pry. I assume it is him you want killed. I will do it gladly.”

I have the skills for this. Surviving underwater is easy. The dreaming wilds are not a danger to me. When my dirk sinks into his neck, I will smile.

She pries her mouth open to speak. “He never forced me.”

“All right.” Not much of a defense of him, but I am relieved to hear this.

Laufkariar sat on the edge of the bed. Ulín was still paralyzed, but she could think. He was so beautiful, and she knew that only the First Dreamer could have carried her whole body through the dreaming wilds. He made no move to caress her, but he seemed almost drunk.

“I am the most powerful dreamer in the west,” he said, and his voice was pleasure and power. “Nothing can stand between me and my heart’s desire, not even your brother. Especially not him. I heard that your father imprisoned him for hurting you. Well, I’ll do even better. For hurting you, my bride, my wife, your brother will die. I had seen your father’s dreams, and I’m sure he will love me for it, and if not, he will understand me. Perhaps we will even be friends. Then will your brother’s crime be truly forgotten.”

Wait, Ulín wanted to say, but she was paralyzed.

I grimace. “What would you have said if you hadn’t been paralyzed?” I imagine her saying, ‘Please don’t hurt him, this is my revenge. One day I will travel to Ladder’s court and hire an assassin.’ I swallow hard. I waited so long for my final graduating contract, and now that she’s here I am bitter. Her story upsets me more than I am willing to show. “Forgive me.”

“I would have asked for peace.” She sighs. “Or perhaps I would not. I was only nineteen, and so hurt. But I hope that I would have asked him for peace. In any case, I could not.”

Laufkariar did not wait for Ulín’s voice to return. And she knew full well that he did not think these decisions were fit for women.

He laughed when he took the serpentshape and leapt up to the dreaming sea, leaving Ulín in the bed, still unable to move.

A few hours later, she regained her voice, and her limbs were just beginning to thaw when Laufkariar crashed from the dreaming wilds and into the room.

Gone was the grin and the triumph and the gleam. His serpentshape sloughed off him. He was badly wounded. Torn, slashed, and bleeding. Something was wrong with his face.

“What happened, love?” she asked, but when he looked at Ulín, she saw only his hate.

“Your brother might be out of my reach, but you are here,” he snarled. He took a step forward, but then his people ran into the room and began to fuss around him.

His rage was cold when he hit her later that night, for the first time.

I hiss. I am not supposed to feel this fiercely about a contract, but I don’t care. “You waited ten years to purchase this assassination. Perhaps you were short on money? Don’t worry. I’ll do it for free.”

“I have money,” she says quietly. “But . . . I still do not know if it’s Laufkariar I want killed. He didn’t—eh.” That eh sound she makes is so achingly familiar, I need to tell her—

She rubs the sides of her face. “I am sorry, Stone Orphan. Could you—could it be your turn now to speak? There’s—too much despair.”

I shrug, pretending calm. “You’ve come to the right place with your despair. I can tell you about serving despair.”

The lore of assassins

When I came to Ladder’s court of sandstone terraces, I did not know where I was or what it meant. I was severed and bleeding, having narrowly pulled my body out of the siltway isles through an age-old memory which wasn’t a bond in any way that I knew. Instead of the cold, wet spray of the sea, I felt heat under my hands and knees, and a burning in my throat as I coughed up water and bile.

The Headmaster chose not to kill me. I did not yet understand that he could, and that it was a choice he had made.