On Saturday morning Alan made a promise to himself, and he made it in the strongest terms he knew: he wrote it down.

NO SUMMONING, said the note, in block letters, pinned to the inside of his dormitory cupboard door. NO TRAINING. NO FORGES, TOWERS, ROOFS, OR CHAPELS. SLEEP UNTIL NOON. EAT TWO MEALS. SPEAK TO NO ONE WHO LIVES IN YOUR HEAD UNLESS THE BUILDING IS ON FIRE.

He read it twice. He felt better. He had always found that a rule on paper was half a rule in practice.

-- That is a very strict document, -- observed Priscilla, in his skull, with interest.

-- It is a personal policy.

-- It does not appear to have a clause for emergencies.

-- The building is on fire. That is the clause.

-- What about a smaller fire?

-- A small fire is not a building.

-- What if it is a building and a very small fire?

-- Senior Priscilla, please.

-- I am only asking for clarity, -- said Priscilla, in the tone of a woman who had found a thread and intended to pull it. -- I enjoy a well-drafted exception.

He lay back down and pulled the blanket over his head. The leak in his stomach ticked, steady and cold. He had slept for eight hours, which was the longest in a week, and his reserve had refilled to something very close to full. He could feel the number in his body, like a glass filled to the brim, and he intended to leave every drop of it exactly where it was.

It lasted until ten o'clock, when the five of them began to hold elections.

It started innocently enough. Valeria remarked, from somewhere deep in the Lobby, that the weather was fine and that a fine morning was a waste if spent indoors. Nyx agreed, adding that she had not been outside in the daylight for a thousand years. Helga said she had a theory about the old stable's ironwork. Priscilla said she would very much like to observe the market. And Seraphina said, in a soft and reasonable voice, that it was only fair to point out that she had only had one day, and that it had been a cloudy one.

-- Who is in favor of motion one? -- said Nyx. -- That Alan should summon somebody. Anybody. Immediately.

-- Aye, -- said Valeria.

-- Aye, -- said Helga.

-- Aye, -- said Priscilla.

-- Aye, dear, -- said Seraphina gently.

-- Unanimous. Motion carried. -- Nyx's voice was brimming with satisfaction. -- Now. Motion two. Who.

-- It should be me, -- said Valeria. -- I asked at dawn.

-- It should be me, -- said Seraphina, mildly. -- The boy needs nourishment.

-- It should be the one who does not make him do push-ups, -- said Nyx. -- That narrows it down.

-- It should be me, -- said Helga, -- because I have a theory about the stable ironwork, and nobody else has a theory about anything, and a theory is a very valuable thing.

-- I have several theories, -- said Priscilla, offended.

-- Name one that involves metal.

-- ... The theory of everything, -- said Priscilla, after a moment. -- It involves metal. In a general sense.

Alan lay beneath the blanket and listened to five women argue in his head about who should be allowed to ruin his one day of rest. It occurred to him that he was in the middle of a genuine, historic, five-way tie. Somewhere in a faraway council chamber, a very old scholar was probably writing a paper on this.

-- I am not summoning anyone, -- he said aloud.

-- That is not democratic, -- said Nyx.

-- It is a personal policy.

-- It is tyranny.

-- I have a document.

-- It is a very bad document, -- said Valeria. -- It has no exception for morale.

At eleven, Tobias woke, stretched, looked at Alan's lump under the blanket, and announced that it was market day on Lantern Street and that if Alan did not come out and eat a pastry, he would sit on him.

It was a very difficult threat to argue with.

Lantern Street was the beating heart of the town of Lumin Vale, a long curving cobbled road that wound down from the academy gates between rows of tall crooked houses with red tile roofs. On market days it was a river of color. Stalls stood shoulder to shoulder under striped awnings, selling everything a student might need and a great deal that he would not. Bright silks hung from poles. Brass lanterns of every shape swung from ropes strung across the street, their glass panes catching the sun. The air smelled of roasting chestnuts and hot sugar and cut herbs and horse. A fiddler played on a corner. Children shrieked and tore through the crowds, chased by a very small dog.

-- Oh, -- said Seraphina, softly, in his head. -- It is so very bright.

-- It is a bit loud, -- said Alan, under his breath.

-- It is lovely. -- Her voice had a wistful, careful quality, like a hand held out toward a window. -- I have not seen a market in so long.

-- You may look through my eyes, Senior. That is permitted.

-- Thank you, dear, -- said Seraphina, very quietly, and he felt something small and warm settle at the front of his mind, a presence leaning forward to see. For a moment, it was almost peaceful.

Then Helga said, -- That is terrible work, -- loudly, in his skull, as he passed a stall of copper pans, and the peace ended.

-- What is?

-- The rivets. Look at the rivets. They are crooked. Look. LOOK. Turn your head. No, the other way. Look at the pot. The handle will fall off in a month. Who made that? Whoever made that should be fined.

-- It is a cooking pot, Senior Helga.

-- It is an INSULT to cooking pots.

Alan walked on. Tobias, beside him, was holding a paper cone of roasted chestnuts and eating with the open-hearted joy of a boy who had been hungry for three days. He offered one to Alan, who took it.

-- You are very quiet, -- said Tobias.

-- I am listening.

-- To what?

-- To the, ah, ambient noise.

-- Which one? The fiddle, or the fishmonger?

-- Both, -- said Alan. -- Equally.

Behind a stall of embroidered scarves, someone was haggling loudly. Nyx cheerfully narrated the entire transaction, noting each lie and rating it on a scale of one to ten. Priscilla measured the spacing of the cobblestones. Valeria objected to the posture of a passing city guard. And Seraphina said, gently, again and again, -- Dear, there is a puddle. -- Dear, mind the step. -- Dear, that child is standing very close to the edge of the road, perhaps you might move to the left.

-- All right, -- said Alan, a little desperately, -- I am going to need all of you to be quiet for ten minutes.

-- We are being quiet, -- said Helga.

-- We are being extremely quiet, -- said Nyx.

-- This is the quiet you hear when five people are holding their breath, -- said Priscilla. -- It is a recognized phenomenon.

-- That is not quiet, -- said Alan. -- That is a different kind of loud.

-- Who are you talking to? -- said Tobias.

Alan froze.

He had spoken out loud. He had spoken out loud on a public street, in the middle of a crowd, to nobody in particular. A woman selling hair ribbons had turned to look at him. Tobias was staring at him, a chestnut halfway to his mouth, with an expression of friendly bafflement.

-- Myself, -- said Alan, quickly. -- I was, ah, rehearsing. I have an oral exam on Monday. It is on, on the basic principles of, ah, ley line dynamics.

-- You were telling something to be quiet.

-- It is a technique. A mnemonic. I tell my own thoughts to be quiet, and then they become clearer.

-- Does that work?

-- It is, ah, inconclusive.

Tobias considered this solemnly, and then nodded. -- You are a strange person, -- he said, with great affection. -- Come on. There is a stall that sells honey cakes. I will buy you one.

-- Please do not...

-- Do not argue. You are too thin.

The honey cake stall stood at the far end of the street, where Lantern Street opened out into a wide cobbled square with a stone fountain in the middle. Tobias plunged into the crowd like a happy retriever. Alan followed more slowly, one hand pressed lightly to his chest, trying to let the noise in his head settle into something he could ignore.

It was a perfectly ordinary Saturday. The sun was warm. The fountain splashed. And somewhere on the far side of the square, a horse screamed.

It was a terrible sound. It cut through the market like a blade, high and raw and full of terror. Alan turned. Everyone turned. At the north end of the square, a heavy freight wagon loaded with barrels of coal oil had begun to roll. It was a big, bulky, iron-bound thing, drawn by two enormous draft horses, and something had spooked them. Their eyes rolled white. Their harness jangled. The driver was shouting and hauling on the reins, and the wagon was gathering speed, careening down the slope of the square toward the fountain and the stalls and the crowd.

In the path of the wagon, directly ahead, a little girl stood alone in the middle of the cobbles, holding a red balloon.

She could not have been more than five years old. She looked up at the wagon and did not move. She was staring at it with huge dark eyes, perfectly still, with the blank peaceful fascination of a child who did not understand what she was looking at.

-- No, -- said Seraphina. It was not a word. It was a breath.

-- Frost, -- said Valeria, in a voice as hard as a blade. -- NOW.

Alan did not think.

It was the strangest thing about the next four seconds. Afterward, he could never reconstruct a single decision. He remembered only that his body was already moving, and that the world had slowed to a thick bright syrup, and that five voices had risen in his head all at once.

-- Left foot forward. Weight low. Do not run, drive. -- That was Valeria, and his legs obeyed.

-- Fourteen meters. Closing speed approximately eleven meters per second. You have one point three seconds. -- That was Priscilla, in a voice that did not drawl at all.

-- Shoulder down. Go under the horse's line of sight. -- That was Nyx, and his body dropped, and he was sliding, skidding low across the cobbles with the speed of something that was not entirely his own.

-- The wagon tongue. Grab it. Grab the iron. I will hold your grip. -- That was Helga, and his hands clamped onto a bar of cold iron with a strength he had never owned, a grip like a vice.

-- Ward, -- said Seraphina. It was a whisper, and a plea, and an order. -- Alan. Ward. Now.

He did not know how. He had only practiced it twelve times in a chapel. But the shape of it was in his hand, the memory of gold, and he flung up his palm and something bright and round and hard flared into being in front of the little girl, a disc of pale light no wider than a dinner table, a shield that shuddered and held.

Everything happened at once.

The horses reared. The wagon slewed sideways, one wheel lifting off the cobbles. Alan hung on to the iron tongue with both hands, his feet scraping, his arms screaming, and the strength of five legends poured through his body in a torrent. The wagon lurched to a halt with its wheel a hand's breadth from the shield. The barrels groaned. The horses screamed. The little girl blinked up at the huge dark shape above her, and then, with dawning delight, she held up her balloon to show it to the horse.

It was very quiet. Then the whole square began to shout.

Alan let go of the iron. His hands would not open at first. He had to look at them, and tell his fingers to uncurl, one by one. A woman burst through the crowd and snatched up the little girl, sobbing, and the girl said, in a loud clear voice, -- I saw a big horse. -- A man was shouting at the driver. Someone was patting Alan on the back. Someone else was saying, -- Did you see that? -- over and over, and a dozen voices answered, -- I saw it, I saw it.

-- Well done, -- said Valeria quietly, in his ear. -- Very well done. Your foot placement was wrong. Your instinct was mine.

-- Beautiful grip, -- said Helga, hoarse. -- That was my grip. You are welcome.

-- The trajectory calculation held to within two percent, -- said Priscilla, breathless. -- Alan. This is extraordinary. I have never had so much data in so short a time...

-- You saved her, -- said Seraphina. Her voice was thin and shaking. -- You saved her. Oh, my dear. You saved her.

Alan did not answer.

He was standing very still in the middle of the cobbles, with his arms hanging at his sides, and a thin cold line of fire was beginning to spread through his body.

It started in his hands. It was not pain, not yet. It was a numbness, a prickling, a sensation like a limb that had gone to sleep. Then it climbed his forearms, and burst in his shoulders, and rippled down his spine, and every muscle he owned began, one by one, to shriek.

He had borrowed five skills at once. He had drawn on the reflexes of a swordmaster, the speed of a thief, the grip of a smith, the mathematics of a scholar, and the ward of a saint, all in the same four seconds. He had known, in the abstract, that Soul Sync demanded a price. He had not known what it would cost to buy it five times over.

The ring on his finger throbbed. It was warm, and then hot, and then it flared with a sudden clean pulse, and a thin cool thread of calm spread out from it through his hand and up his arm, damping the worst of the fire. It took the edge off. It could not take it all.

-- Your pulse is irregular, -- said Priscilla, very quickly. -- Alan, your mana. Check your mana.

He checked.

It was like looking down into a well and finding the bottom. The number was not low. It was almost gone. The ward had cost him forty. The sync, five ways at once, had drained the rest in a rush. He swayed on his feet. Three. There were three points left, and the leak in his stomach was still ticking.

-- You should dismiss us, -- said Valeria.

-- We have not been summoned, -- said Nyx. -- We were only borrowed. There is nothing to dismiss.

-- Then stop borrowing!

-- He is not borrowing anymore, he is bleeding, -- said Helga.

-- Everyone, -- said Alan.

He did not know that he had said it out loud. It came out in a low and level voice, hard and flat and perfectly even, with no tremor in it at all. It was the voice he used when he was holding something very heavy and could not afford to put it down.

-- Everyone be quiet, -- he said. -- Please. Pursuant to Article Three of the Agreement, the daily allowance is fixed, and I have exceeded it. Under the terms of the covenant I am entitled to a period of rest. I request that nobody speak to me until I have recovered.

There was a stunned silence in the Lobby.

-- Pursuant, -- said Nyx, in a very small voice.

-- Of course, dear, -- said Seraphina, faintly.

-- That is very, very legal, -- said Priscilla.

-- Is he all right? -- said Helga, in a different voice. -- Is that a normal voice for him?

Nobody answered. Alan turned, slowly, and walked out of the square.

He did not run. He walked, at an even pace, with his back straight and his hands loose at his sides, through the dispersing crowd. A man tried to shake his hand. He smiled, politely, and shook it. A woman held out a honey cake. He thanked her, and took it, and put it in his pocket. Tobias came pushing through the crowd with his eyes enormous and a halfway-eaten chestnut in his fist.

-- Alan! Alan, how did you do that? You moved like, I have never seen anyone move like, you were a blur! Are you hurt? You do not look well!

-- I am fine, -- said Alan.

-- You are white as a sheet.

-- It is adrenaline. It will pass. Please excuse me, I need a moment. -- He smiled again. His lips felt numb. -- I will find you in a few minutes. Go and, ah, buy the cakes.

-- But...

-- Please, Tobias.

Tobias stared at him. Some part of him, deep down, must have heard something in the voice, because after a moment he nodded slowly and let go of his sleeve.

-- A few minutes, -- he said. -- Do not go far.

Alan turned into a narrow alley between two houses, a cramped stone passage that smelled of damp and cats. He took six steps into it. Then seven. The world began to tilt. A faint ringing rose in his ears, like a high thin wire.

-- Alan, -- said somebody, softly, in the back of his head.

-- I am fine, -- said Alan.

Even through the ringing, he heard it. It was a very short answer, a single flat syllable, with no softening on it at all. It was a door closing. He knew exactly how it sounded, because he had spent most of his life closing that door.

And in the haze, he saw his mother's hands.

It was only a flicker, a half second of memory, as sharp and bright as a spark struck on stone. A small room. The smell of bitter herbs. A cracked white saucer on a table, with copper coins counted out on it, one by one, and a pharmacist's thin hand sweeping them into a drawer and shaking his head. He was eleven. He was standing by the door. His mother was lying in the bed behind him with her hand hanging off the edge, very pale, with the faint grey veins of mana toxin creeping up her wrist like frost on glass. She said, in a voice that had no breath left in it, -- It is all right, Alan. I am fine.

He put his hand against the cold stone wall of the alley.

-- I am fine, -- he said again, aloud, to nobody.

His legs gave out. He slid down the wall, slowly, until he was sitting in the dirt with his knees drawn up. The alley swam. The sky above, a narrow strip of pale blue between two rooflines, began to go grey at the edges.

-- Alan, -- said Seraphina, and it was the first time he had ever heard her voice break. -- Alan. Dear. Please. Please answer me.

-- Hold on, -- said Valeria sharply. -- Keep him conscious.

-- His pulse is dropping...

-- He is not responding...

-- Frost! FROST!

Their voices came from very far away. They were all shouting at once, a chorus of fear and command and panic, tangled together, rising and falling like surf. Alan listened to them with a strange distant calm. He thought, quite clearly, that it was the first time anyone had ever been this loud about him.

Then, through the noise, one voice came, quiet and close and very level, pitched so low that he knew at once that nobody else was meant to hear it.

-- Kid.

He tried to answer. He could not find his mouth.

-- Kid. Stay with me. -- It was Nyx. She was not joking. -- You do not have to say anything. Just listen. I need to ask you one thing. Just one. You can answer later.

His head dropped against the wall. The light narrowed.

-- Who, -- said Nyx, very softly, -- taught you to say fine like a door closing?

He did not answer. He had no answer. The dark closed over him like water over a stone, and the last thing he heard, from very far away, was Tobias, calling his name down an alley that smelled of cats.