sweat, smiled.

Henry readied the swords for the next pair, and when the Partisan squire called, “Rohan Mehta of Knightley Academy against Volomir Dusseling of Partisan School,” Henry clapped his hand on his friend’s shoulder and wished him luck.

Volomir, Henry noticed, was one of the larger Partisan students, and Henry wouldn’t have thought him to be a first year.

Still, Rohan took his place opposite his hulking opponent, giving a curt salute and waiting for the call to begin, never betraying his fear.

Henry wished he were allowed to cheer along with his schoolmates as Rohan quickly landed a hit to Volomir’s stomach.

With the scoreboard changed to 1–0, Henry turned his attention back to the match. Rohan, although not quite as flawless in form as Adam, was light and quick on his feet—amazingly so. He was nothing but a blur to Henry, while Volomir seemed to stand still, his sword darting dangerously around him.

Volomir landed a hit high on Rohan’s target zone, and Henry changed the scoreboard, hoping fervently that Rohan would win.

It was close, with a final score of 4–5, but the match went to Volomir.

Rohan removed his mask and shook hands with his opponent, and Henry watched Volomir pander to the Partisan crowd, pumping his fist in triumph, and then galloping toward Henry and throwing down his sword.

Rohan smiled ruefully, his chest heaving and his face trickling with sweat.

“You almost had him,” Henry said, and Rohan nodded seriously.

“Next year,” Rohan swore.

The fencing competition turned to the main attraction now that the novice fencers had gone, and Henry felt as though he was constantly hanging numbers on the scoreboard as the older boys’ swords clashed and hit to deafening cheers.

Henry realized what Rohan had meant about the Partisan boys seeming so much bigger than their Knightley opponents, and as he watched Jasper Hallworth land a crushing blow to the side of a Partisan student’s mask while fencing sabre, comprehension dawned. It wasn’t that the Partisan students were taller or heavier, it was that they all looked like athletes, their muscles thick and their hair cropped short. The Knightley students spent their free hours sitting around their respective common rooms in front of chess and checkerboards, and they looked it.

Finally, after Henry was long sick of hanging numbers over the scoreboard, the last fencers shook hands at the end of their match, and the Partisan squire called the end results: Partisan led by two bouts.

Bad luck, Henry thought as the other students went off to watch the choirs compete, and he stayed behind to account for the swords.

Henry busied himself with his checklist, watching the Partisan squire on the other side of the anteroom do the same with the masks and gloves. The last of the expert sabre fencers were toweling off, and the room had a musty, postsport smell that Henry hoped wouldn’t cling to his clothes.

“Hallo,” the Partisan squire called, nodding at Henry.

“Hello,” Henry said back.

“Rum luck we’ve got here,” the Partisan squire said, indicating the boxes of gear he had to sort and account for. “Whadya do?”

“Sorry?” Henry asked.

“Whadya do, t’get stuck with equipment duty?” the boy asked in his Nordlandic accent.

“Nothing.” Henry said, surprised. “At least, I don’t think I did. But my head of year isn’t particularly fond of me.”

“I’m Meledor,” the boy said, and Henry couldn’t tell if it was his first or last name, but didn’t think it polite to ask.

“Henry,” Henry said, dragging the equipment over to Meledor’s side of the anteroom. “What did you do, then?”

“What ha’ent I done?” Meledor laughed darkly. “Ten demerits this week at inspection.”

“Inspection?” Henry asked.

As they sorted through the work, Meledor told Henry how he’d failed to tuck the corners of his sheets, correctly stow his spare uniform, iron the wrinkles from his trousers, tidy his work space—the list went on exhaustively. It seemed that Partisan was far stricter than Knightley, and with more severe punishments.

Henry listened sympathetically. He was fascinated to learn the differences between the two schools, to find out that Partisan admitted students who were members of the Morsguard—a sort of student scouts who sang songs about their chancellor, marched in parades, and took Sunday lessons in making the right choices.

“I cannae fathom how ye get on with that brown student,” Meledor said while Henry helped him finish sorting the gloves by size.

“Rohan?” Henry said, puzzling through Meledor’s slightly foreign way of talking. “He’s one of my good friends.”

“And yor folk at home don’t mind?” Meledor asked.

Henry tallied the last of the large gloves and marked