Death Sworn(44)

“No. It was someone else.”

“Where is that person?”

Sorin jabbed his spoon into his porridge, which he had retrieved from his own table before coming over. “With the master, reporting on what he learned. And what he will not realize he learned, until the master points it out.”

His voice was terse. Ileni put her own spoon down. “You’re jealous.”

He stirred his porridge, then spooned some into his mouth.

She remembered how he had held her last night, controlled and wild. But most of all, joyous. She remembered her questions the first night, about how all these young men could be forced to kill. How incredibly stupid she had been. “You want to be sent.”

“Of course I do.”

Ileni picked up her spoon, slowly. “To kill someone you don’t even know.”

“Easier than if I did know him.”

She swallowed a mouthful of porridge. It went down in a hard lump.

“That wasn’t a joke. The noble I killed was a quick job—into his room and out in less than an hour. If you have to befriend someone before you kill him . . . those are the most difficult missions, the ones the master assigns only to his most trusted students.”

Ileni looked down at the rest of her porridge, mostly so she could look away from him, from the longing clear on his face. She had to stop forgetting what he was.

Even though she was hungry, the sweet, thick smell from her bowl made her stomach turn over. She forced in a few more spoonfuls, then put her spoon down and endured until the meal was over, closing her eyes periodically.

It didn’t improve her mood to find that her students—most of whom had been dancing all night, and had drunk far more than she had—were as attentive and disciplined as ever. Her attempt to get through class without expending any power seemed even more pathetically obvious than usual, and she braced herself for a challenge from Irun. But he said not a word. He just watched her grimly, his silence more menacing than an outright confrontation.

By the time she was finished with her first lesson, her mind had begun to work again. As her students rose to their feet, she said, “Sorin. A word.”

The two boys next to Sorin exchanged glances, which reminded her that they had seen her display of . . . whatever that had been . . . last night. Her cheeks heated up. By the time Sorin obediently came to stand in front of her, they felt beet red.

He waited patiently, as if he didn’t notice. She cleared her throat. “Did Absalm and Cadrel go to the celebrations?”

Sorin blinked, then rubbed the side of his neck. “Absalm did, yes. I don’t think we had any celebrations while Cadrel was here.”

“For two whole months?”

“It’s not unusual. Our missions depend on events in the Empire, on who wants to hire us, and on the master’s plans. Sometimes nobody gets sent for years.”

“How boring for you all.”

“It makes for better training.” He glanced over his shoulder at the now-empty cavern. “But since Irun’s success, our missions will probably be far more frequent.”

“Who invited Absalm to the celebrations?”

“I did.” Sorin shifted his weight slightly. “Why does it matter whether he went? Nobody killed him for that.”

“I don’t know,” Ileni said. “But there must have been something they did that led to their being killed. I won’t know what it is until I find it.”

Sorin considered her. “Ileni—”

But then the next group of students began filing into the cavern, and he stopped talking and turned away.

Ileni wondered what he had been going to say for most of the second class. By the third class, she had turned to the more productive question of what other small rules her predecessors might have broken. She had seen only one other illicit activity last night, and while she couldn’t imagine someone being killed over chocolate, either, it was the only avenue she had to explore.

She waited until she and Sorin were at the entrance to the dining cavern, with Bazel only a few yards behind them. Then she turned and said, “Bazel. Sit with me, please. I want to talk to you.”

Bazel blinked at her, then darted a nervous glance at Sorin, whose expression was flinty. Ileni turned her back on both of them and made her way to her table. As she sat, Bazel headed toward her, exuding reluctance. Sorin started as if to follow, then turned on his heel and stalked to his own table.

The midday meal was some sort of clawed, buglike creature that had been served once before—a delicacy in the Empire, Sorin had informed her then, and therefore something the assassins had to learn to eat with pleasure. Ileni looked at the red legs and antennae splayed out on her plate and decided she didn’t have to learn any such thing. She folded her hands together on the table and looked at Bazel, who was methodically taking apart his own food, keeping his eyes on the scaly red limbs. When she said his name, he looked up, stony resentment in his pale blue eyes.