The man who gave Scramvyrn his first bondmark was missing a front tooth. He whistled now and again as he went over the terms, which five-year-old Scram had found very funny.

  It distracted from the fascinating horror of the man’s face—the disjointed, blackened brand seared into his skin, a mottling of raw pink and rotting gray tissue. He hid it beneath a thick hood indoors and, on the streets, under a mask pulled up to his eyes. They were a dark blue, the eyelashes long and curled—expressive eyes. Pretty eyes.

  But the traceries—normally so even and precise—had exploded across the rest of his face, so that, even covered, with only those expressive eyes visible, he still gave the impression of a roguish, shambling corpse.

  Oathrot, his mother had told Scram when he’d asked later. A visceral reminder of a bond broken by the one who had forged it. A mark of shame writ large.

  Some bondmages wore next to nothing, displaying their unbroken sigils for all to see—a sign of their fidelity. She had seen them herself in the city, dressed in silks so fine you could glimpse the beauty of every symbol—of every bond they had ever forged—underneath, and more than that besides.

  This one wore rough-spun cloth of a poorly dyed black, and he only removed his mask once the door to their room was closed. Mr. Laudner, the landlord, had brought him—and, along with him, a pocket-warmed sticky sweet and a grease-slick smile.

  They had barely fit in the room. Scram could remember the press of Mr. Laudner’s heavy belly against the back of his shorn head as the man wedged himself between the door and the makeshift table. The floor had strained under his bulk. Scram could remember wanting to push back—sink into that warm, heavy flesh. It smelled of baked bread and bacon fat—and they’d had only scrap broth for five days by that point. Scram could remember the candy—a lump of rose water sugar. It had coated his mouth in cheap flower oil and what tasted like sweet sand, but it was still one of the best things he’d ever had.

  His mother had perched on the edge of the mattress, tugging at the ends of their best blanket to better hide the yellowing wear. He couldn’t remember what else she had done that day, but he remembered the blanket—the way she would pull it over one stain only to expose another.

  The memories had taken on the exact hue of the Low Market in his mind— the ceaseless haze from the steamworks reflecting back the sky and casting what seemed like the whole of the world in gauzy blue-gray. It made recollections of his mother into ghoulish things—accentuating the smudge of ashy darkness under her eyes, the twisted gnarl of her hands, the dull cast of her skin.

  Scram had been given a chair across from the scarred man, separated only by two stacked crates his mother had set up to serve as a table. They’d belonged to Mr. Abeforth in the back room downstairs, and Scram had to return them after the business was done—the crates banging against his shins, bouncing him off the walls of the narrow boarding house hallways the entire trip. Before that though— before everything— he’d felt very grown up, every inch the man he needed to be.

  The bond wouldn’t hurt, they’d told him. He wouldn’t even feel it, and he’d have a mark no bigger than a thimble on his palm until the terms were complete. Only really helpful boys had a mark so young. It was a fine thing he was doing for his mother—a fine thing indeed.

  Owen’s would circle his wrist, like Custodial bonds tended to. It would be light, like a worn-over scar, barely visible. Scram took a long pull from the bottle—an acerbic mix of spruce tips, smoked lichen, and molasses filling his mouth. Maegra’s Finest. He hadn’t lied; there weren’t many who could handle northern ale.

  The first summer they’d tried it, Owen had spat it down the front of his shirt—a war between good breeding and utter disgust ending in sartorial tragedy. Scram had nearly choked with laughter at the expression on his face. He’d laughed harder when Maegra’s wheezing chortle joined in. He’d laughed so hard he’d almost spewed his own—his nose burning, eyes watering—but he’d gotten it down in the end. Scram preferred the sweeter ales of Astrophale—apples and peaches and honey—for their taste; Maegra’s, for the sun-tipped memory.

  He swallowed the bitter, piney brew and reached for another.

  “How does your little saying go? ‘Better to eat your own coin than drink your own stock?’” Owen asked from the door, as if he’d stepped straight from Scram’s idle musings.

  “Better to pan gold in your own shit than to piss your own stock,” Scram said, working at the leather wrap around the bottle’s neck. Owen shifted in his periphery—a blur of cream, green, and gold.

  “Knew mine was lacking a certain profane flair,” Owen said, his voice ringing with forced levity. He stepped further into the room. The door eased shut behind him.

  From the corner of Scram’s eye, he saw the trail of Owen’s billowy sleeves swaying as his fingers knotted and twisted together—the fabric trembling as he rubbed his arms now and again. Scram loosed the leather and, with a twist of his knife, freed the cork beneath.

  “Avenna came down for supper, so I got to hold the baby,” Owen said. This time the cheer was more natural—the last bit delivered in an excited whisper, as if holding an infant were some special treat he shouldn’t be indulging in. Owen took another tentative step into the room, skirting the walls and reaching out to idly toy with a hanging belt and the cuff of a recently laundered shirt sleeve.

  “She’s very curious! Wiggly, too. That’s a common trait among baby animals, I’m finding—they squirm quite a bit.” He continued rubbing the cuff between his thumb and forefinger, his gaze caught by something on it.

  “You have to support human baby heads,” Owen said, as if passing along some ancient, esoteric wisdom. “Maribelle showed us a few different ways to hold her, actually! She likes to sit up the best, I think. Avenna said she was crying something awful, but as soon as Maribelle put her in this—rather awkward-looking—position, she calmed right down! I wonder what about that position specifically appeals to her? Perhaps being able to see everything? It’s rather uncomfortable-looking, kind of like—” He dropped the sleeve and demonstrated something on his face that Scram couldn’t quite make out without looking at him.

  Scram took a long drink instead.

  “—to hold up her head, but with the baby sitting in her other hand, which I shan’t demonstrate. It looks rather precarious, but Maribelle assured me it’s quite safe—”

  “D’you need me for somethin’?” Scram interrupted, his mouth feeling lax and soft. He blinked a few times and sat up straighter.

  “Oh!” Owen fluttered a bit—a buzz of movement to the side. “No. I just—I was just—I wanted to—well, rather, I didn’t want—I mean, I think I should—”

  “Owen,” Scram said. Owen took a deep, steadying breath.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “You know I don’t like it when you’re angry at me,” he said softly.

  “Not angry with you,” Scram said, taking another sip. The bitterness of the lichen was almost pleasant now—the acrid spruce a balm.

  “Today’s…” Owen struggled to find a word, “avoidance says otherwise.”

  “What avoidance?” Scram gestured to the room at large—a stand-in for the wealth of tasks he’d completed that day. Liquid sloshed in the bottle as he went over-wide. “Most of the fuckers’ve taken themselves down the hill, so not much to do there. Don’t give a fuck about the rest of them. Set Cookie to seeing to supper so everyone got fed. Pot Lad’s closing up.”

  “Yes, but—” Owen tried.

  “Even asked if you needed me, didn’t I?” Scram cut him off again, then finished the bottle.

  He was surprised at how little it contained—he’d have to talk to Maegra about cheating him on the fill—and with thick fingers, he attempted to set it on the table next to the other five.

  “Those are all very good points,” Owen agreed. “Better made when accompanied by sobriety.”

  “More to drink about ‘round here than you,” Scram pointed out.

  Owen let out a small breath.

  Scram didn’t want to see his face, so he didn’t. Instead, he watched the shape of Owen’s reflection in the dark glass of the bottles. It split him into many Owens, formless shadows moving and swaying in the flicker of the lantern.

  The room fell silent for several agonizing moments. He could hear movement out front—the shuffle of Owen’s feet, the odd burning hiss of the lantern, the clink of bottles as Scram lifted another from the crate.

  “I am sorry,” Owen said. “I should have consulted with you first. Been less impulsive, perhaps, but—”

  “You’re Steward, ain’t you?” Scram interrupted, tipping the bottle to point it at him.

  Owen’s vest was the color of spring moss, glinting with golden threads, a pattern of leaves and sprawling branches along the borders. It was worn at the pockets, a rend patched by rust-colored tartan. Owen had sewn it in himself, under Maribelle’s strident instruction—the stitches careful, even, and hard-won.

  “What you say goes.”

  It took Scram longer to free the leather wrap this time, his hands trembling in time with Owen’s rough breathing.

  Scram swallowed. It felt like rot in his belly, caustic acid rising in his throat.

  He was struck with a sudden urge to heave the bottle at the wall. His fingers tightened around it.

  “I am,” Owen acknowledged with careful, shaking syllables. “I am the Steward. And, as such, I have a duty to protect the people of this outpost—which includes you. With or without the Mandate.”

  Scram snorted in disgust and, frustrated by the tiny knots in the cord, hacked away at the leather with his knife.

  “Explain to me how getting yourself strung up for bleedin’ by that witch protects me,” Scram said between strikes. “Explain how putting yourself at her mercy protects this fucking outpost.”

  “So I should have let them kill you over pure bullheadedness? Let them kill you for lack of cooperation?” Owen demanded.

  His boots struck the wood in sharp raps as he crossed the room at speed, yanking the bottle from Scram’s grip. The knife dropped from Scram’s other hand and clattered to the floor.

  “Bah.” Scram waved the newly emptied hand. It overbalanced him slightly, made him catch himself on the table. “One woman who just had a baby, a neutered Bondsmage, and a bunch of bastards who’d sell their own mother for a bit of shine and sparkle? An afternoon of cleanup and a stiff bribe—and you decide to sell your soul instead.”

  Owen had freed the leather and shoved the bottle back at him. Scram’s fingers scrabbled along the floor for the dropped knife, knocking into it and setting it spinning.

  “You think me such a fool.” Owen’s voice was thick and rough.

  If Scram looked at him, he’d know why—and as Scram had decided that was not something he would do, he focused on grabbing the knife. “So helpless and… and… mixed up, I couldn’t possibly know better than you.”

  He felt the edge of the blade against his finger, and slowly reached around to grab the handle.

  “Taneah Winterglade is not someone who can just disappear,” Owen said, the reflections in the bottles throwing shadow-limbs in exasperation. “She is not someone who can simply be written off as a— as a—tragic accident.”

  “Last I checked she’s still mortal, don’t care if the papers like to pretend otherwise,” Scram said, his tongue having trouble forming the words.

  “My brother would send someone up immediately.” Owen said. “He may still! You heard her, they are aligned. He will question it. And what am I to say if he does? And if he questions those ‘bastards who’d sell their own mother for a bit of shine and sparkle’ on their return, how exactly do you think they’ll answer—once they’ve got your bribe in hand, Roland? Knowing you can’t go after them and they’ll likely be rewarded for that information? They may not know who they’re transporting but they’ll know who paid them for silence.”

  Scram had closed his eyes at his name. He let his arm go limp, the bottom of the bottle scraping along the floor. It weighed so much, he’d have to talk to Maegra about overfilling them. His boneless fingers let the bottle go, it rolled across the floor away from him.

  “A bond was the only way to protect us. It goes both ways,” Owen insisted. He sounded a bit farther away, though he hadn’t moved. “She has just as much stake in seeing it remains intact as I do—more, even! It’s her secret, after all. It seemed to matter to her quite a bit, if you recall.”

  “You really thought some piddling drawing-room gossip was worth more to her than having a feather-witted Astrophale under her fucking thumb?”

  Scram stood and finally turned to him, frustration overriding his better sense.

  Owen’s face was streaked with the damp lines of recently shed tears.

  Scram took a step towards him, instinct again taking the reins.

  Owen stepped back.

  Scram had been stabbed before. It hurt less than that step. He let his arm drop useless at his side.

  “No. I thought there was no way you would ever be moved to break a bond that would hurt me. They’d break you first.”

  Owen’s voice was so quiet, Scram could barely hear it.

  “I may be, as you say, feather-witted… but I learned that lesson a long time ago.”

  Owen’s hand was on the wooden latch behind him, his body already turning away.

  “Lazrin is setting the bond before they depart in the morning,” Owen said.

  His voice had an odd tone Scram had never heard in it before, but his thoughts were swimming too frantically to name it.

  The floor heaved under his feet. The walls had started a slow, meandering spin.

  “Pot-Lad will run up if I oversleep.”

  “You aren’t staying?”

  “No. I’m heading back.” Owen had opened the door, stepping into the hall.

  Scram should stop him, but the drink was stronger standing.

  “I’ll walk you,” Scram said, more a grunt than proper words.

  “No need,” Owen said. “I can find my own way back.”

  The door closed behind him.

  Scram could only shift his way to the bed with careful deliberate steps, collapsing onto it with a heavy creak of the frame.

  They’d been telling the truth about his first bond.

  The mark had been no bigger than a thimble—a small cluster of triangles within triangles within triangles, etched in thin silvery lines on the fleshy part of his palm.

  It hadn’t hurt a bit. A small tickle. A slight burn. The green glow of the scarred man’s magic. Stumbling over the words until he’d gotten them perfect—and then the deed was done.

  He’d lain in bed, his mother’s heavy breathing beside him, trying to catch a glimpse of the mark on nights when the moon shone full and bright through their window.

  When he turned his hand, the opalescence against the dark of his skin would catch the light—and make him feel proud.

  Scram held his hand up. It wavered in the air above him, the walls still spinning their lazy circle.

  He squinted at his palm, turning it this way and that. The mark had long since vanished.

  No scar to mark its passing. No punishment carved into flesh.

  The consequence had been a single name written in a ledger—the simple scrawl of newly learned letters.

  The name of a helpful little boy.