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“Let me do it.”

Haarm.

I spun toward him. “What?”

“I may not be your apprentice,” Haarm said to Messenger, “but I am still an apprentice and you have been charged with my training for now.”

Did Messenger suspect something was very wrong with this bold request?

“I can do it,” I said, peering closely at Haarm.

“You’ve already done the girl,” Haarm said. “It’s my turn.”

I had not thought of the ritual of the Piercing as something to be fought over, and I admit I was baffled, though suspicious.

“Haarm will perform this duty,” Messenger said.

Haarm roughly dragged Oliver to his feet. There was no fight left in Oliver. Oliver was a whipped dog, cringing and subservient.

As I had done with Nicolet, Haarm now moved behind Oliver and placed his palms against heart and head. For perhaps two minutes I watched and waited, splitting my attention between Haarm and Nicolet and Messenger.

Something was not right here, and if Messenger didn’t sense it then he was not the person I believed him to be. But he said nothing and did nothing.

At last Haarm blinked, and wiped his hand over his eyes as if waking from a nap.

“He has many fears,” Haarm said, steadfastly refusing to make eye contact. “But his great fear is of . . .” Haarm swallowed and his eyes flitted left and right. “He has a strange fear of plush animals. Teddy bears.”

I was looking right at Oliver as Haarm said it. I saw the surprise. I saw the mystification. And the relief.

Fear? Not even a little.

Haarm, on the other hand, looked nervous and belligerent.

I was still trying to make sense of what had happened when the answer appeared, looking, as always, like the girl who was actually too hot for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

“What are you doing here?” Haarm cried.

“Where else should I be?” Oriax asked innocently.

“But—”

Oriax waved him off dismissively. “Oh, don’t be dull, Haarm. Did you really think they wouldn’t figure it out? Little mini-Messenger here isn’t stupid—sexually repressed and frustrated but not stupid.” She slinked her way toward Messenger, grinning with her too-sharp teeth. “And Messenger? He’s not just a pretty face.” She sighed theatrically, enjoying her moment of victory. “Although it is a very, very pretty face.”

“It’s my fault,” I said. “I mentioned Oriax to Haarm. He came to see me and he made me angry and I blurted out her name. He must have—”

“Oh, please, mini, don’t disappoint me,” Oriax said. “The big dumb Dutch boy here has been mine for a long time.”

Messenger nodded slightly, almost a token of wary respect. “The timing was less than perfect,” he said.

Oriax shrugged. “Yes, true enough. I was hoping to get Haarm into your little circle earlier.”

“It was Trent you wanted to rescue,” Messenger said.

“Trent,” Oriax said wistfully. “He was on a very useful path. There’s never really a bad time to add another hater, but Trent, well, there was a particular role he could have played. He would have been just the right thug at just the right time. My lord is not happy with me for failing to save Trent.”

Haarm had begun to edge away from me and from Messenger.

Oliver just looked scared and wary and still badly shaken from his encounter with the Master of the Game. But he responded to Oriax the way people do, eyes taking in every detail, and then taking in those same details again.