Chapter 18: Summertime Blues

"Hey, Hecate!" I shouted from the top of the rocky outcropping above the Sea of Ghosts. "Watch this!"

The Listener briefly glanced up from her book to where I was perched a good thirty feet up from where she lay on the sandy beach. I raised my arms above my head and took the opportunity to dive from my ledge into the water below. My form was good enough that I barely made a splash as I hit the sea. I enjoyed the feel of the cool water on my skin briefly before breaking the surface again.

Hecate smiled narrowly and gave me a polite round of applause. I mock-bowed as best as I could in the water, pausing to brush my wet hair out of my eyes. It was getting long again; I would have to ask Babette to cut it soon. I looked up into the blue sky, appreciating the bright sun on my face. Even in summer northern Skyrim wasn't ever hot, but it was far warmer than the rest of the year.

While I loved fishing, it was something I could do virtually year-round. Even in the winter, I had found that I could crack a hole in the ice and go fishing with a pole and line. Summer lasted such a short time in Skyrim that I preferred to spend it in more active ways. Hecate, on the other hand, still preferred to lounge on the beach with a book rather than get into the water for any length of time. The only real difference from spring or autumn was that she wore only the barest of clothing during the summer, the better to work on her tan.

I certainly wasn't complaining about it.

Up and down the beach outside Sanctuary, most of the Dark Brotherhood were out and enjoying the pleasant weather. Nazir was wearing a sleeveless shirt and billowing pants while he tended to a fire pit, though he still kept on his Alik'r head wrapping. Meena was darting up and down the beach in pursuit of seagulls while old Garnag lounged on the soft sand, stripped to the waist and drinking from a large mug. Hecate herself was laying out on a broad blanket, propping her back on a large rock while she read. Vedave and Anaril, our two mer brothers, were helping Nazir with the fire pit and dressed in loose trunks, while Deesei, the only Argonian in the Brotherhood, lounged in a shallow pool on the shoreline.

Scanning the shore, the only members of my extended family that I couldn't see were Babette, Eiruki, and Cicero. Babette wouldn't be making an appearance while the sun was out—I had learned long since that whatever mysteries she might be keeping from me, the night time was her time. I assumed that Eiruki was probably hiding away from the rest of us somewhere.

While the Brotherhood had accepted her readily enough, Eiruki had continued to be reclusive and shy when it came to social gatherings. Her general habit was to slink in to dinner after everyone else had eaten, quietly gather a plate, and move to whatever part of the main hall had the fewest people in it. No one pressed her about it; one of the strongest unwritten rules of the Dark Brotherhood was that no one forced their company on anyone else, just like we weren't supposed to ask anyone what their lives had been like before joining. If they volunteered details, that was fine—but nothing more than that.

The only thing that Eiruki seemed comfortable with other than going on contract was attending my occasional musical perfornances. I had begun practicing with the mandolin every night, even spending a few coins from my precious hoard to buy sheet music and books about musical theory to look over during my downtime. Though I had wanted to find someplace private to practice, an unfortunate incident with a troll a few months back had left me wary of the abandoned rooms of Sanctuary. In the end, I had decided to just endure the good-natured jibes of my fellow assassins and practice in one of the common rooms.

Eiruki would always come creeping in when I began playing, her hair falling into her face as if to hide behind her own brown locks, and just stand awkwardly on the far side of the room. After a few days of that, I had started bringing an extra chair with me. I kept pushing it further and further away from me over the next several days, trying to find a distance she was comfortable with. It took another week before she would actually sit in it while I played and sang.

In time, other members of the Brotherhood had started showing up when I practiced. Though I was prepared for them to be as mocking as Cicero had when I was first learning, the laughter I had expected was instead applause. Deesei and Vedave had been the first to drift in after Eiruki, but eventually Garnag and Anaril had started coming too. Even Nazir would sometimes show up, though he would only stand in the doorway for a few minutes before moving on; he had a loudly professed hatred of everything musical, so I considered it a show of support for him to even be seen while I was practicing.

Through it all, Eiruki had stayed in her corner, quietly listening, only to disappear from the room when I put the mandolin down. I wondered occasionally if she was still embarrassed about winding up in my bed after the troll attack. I had tried to ask her about it once, but she would only stare at the ground and whisper so quietly that I couldn't make out what she was saying. In the months I had known her, Eiruki and I had only had two conversations where I didn't have to ask her to repeat herself constantly.

No, I didn't really expect to see Eiruki at outdoor events like this one.

That only left Cicero.

I cupped one hand over my eyes to block out the sun and scanned back and forth for him. His jester's motley made him a distinctive sight, despite his great skill at stealth. Even when the two of us sparred—not as often now as when I had first joined the Brotherhood—he wouldn't take off his multi-colored hat. It was a little unusual for him to not be out and about while Hecate was, especially if it wasn't Sundas. That was the one day of the week no one expected to see Cicero, since it was the time that he set aside to take care of the needs of the Night Mother, our Unholy Matron. As the Keeper, Cicero had an important responsibility—one that he took deadly serious.

Still, it was strange to not see him out and about on a warm summer day. He had been more erratic and strange over the last few months, and I was beginning to worry that he was slipping back toward the state he had been in when I first joined the Brotherhood. Cicero was—not to dance around the issue—quite mad. He had good days and bad days but until the new year, the good ones had started to outnumber the bad. Now, as the year dragged on into the warmest months, he was starting to act ever more morbid and high-strung.

Though the jester and I had our differences—mainly, I didn't think he was good enough for Hecate—I admired his dedication to the Night Mother, and his skills as an assassin. Given how much he meant to the Listener, I had made it my goal to try and keep him from his worst moments whenever I could. I did my best to be cheerful around the Keeper, laughing at his jokes as much as I could, consulting him about my music despite his occasionally cruel jibes, and generally keeping him engaged.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cold tides of the Sea of Ghosts moved through me as I suddenly realized that both Cicero and Eiruki were missing. Either one of them being gone wouldn't be unusual—but both of them meant trouble brewing. I took off swimming for shore, hoping that I was wrong.

My worry had taken root back during the springtime, perhaps a week after I had come home from Whiterun with Nazir.

Whenever I came back from a mission, it was my habit to visit the Night Mother briefly. Ever since I had been taken in by the Dark Brotherhood, I had felt a debt of gratitude to our Unholy Matron. I had gotten to thank her in person—well, as close to "in person" as anyone could get with a supernaturally aware corpse—but that hadn't removed the feeling. Throughout my first year in Sanctuary, I had stopped by the makeshift shrine every few months just to bask in her presence for a little while, but it had become more formal ever since becoming a real assassin.

My mother had sometimes talked to me about the Divines when I was little, about how the nine gods watched over humanity, mer, and beast kin alike to guide us toward grace. We had visited the temple a couple of times, but we had never celebrated holidays or anything like that. Part of it was that we were very poor. As I had gotten older, I sometimes thought that my mother had lost her faith in the Divines as our lives had gotten harder. She certainly spoke about them less as I grew up.

That distant belief in faceless gods had never touched my heart the same way as the Night Mother. I knew that she was only the messenger of Sithis, the embodiment of the Void itself, but she was our matron. Sithis was just too big and too distant for me to wrap my mind around. The Night Mother was physical, she was present, and she was the one who directed our blades to those that cried out in vengeance. I didn't think of myself as a very deep person in most ways, but seeing the Night Mother made me think about the bigger picture—about the deeper meanings of what we did. It was a heady experience.

I suppose that it's what other people called "faith."

When I got home from Whiterun, I had taken a little time to get cleaned up, eat a bite, and tell a few (somewhat edited) tales of the journey while Nazir made the formal report to Hecate. Once all that was taken care of, and I was in something like a presentable state, I made my way to the Night Mother's shrine. If it had been Sundas, I would have waited until the next day; Cicero performed his Keeping duties on Sundas, and the shrine was off-limits for the whole day. Fortunately, it was mid-week so I was able to go right away.

Once I was in the small room where the Night Mother's coffin was kept, I laid out a small pillow on the floor to spare my knees from the hard stone. The first few times had been a real pain, and I didn't think the Night Mother was particularly interested in me being uncomfortable, so I made accommodations. The room was filled with candles that provided flickering illumination, but the only other adornments were a pair of tapestries depicting the black hand symbol of the Dark Brotherhood.

The coffin itself was always open, revealing the Night Mother's desiccated form. She was dressed in a simple, dark burial cloth that left her face and arms exposed. The arms were clasped across her chest almost like a mother cradling a baby, and her body was bound in place within the iron coffin by sturdy ropes. The Night mother's head lolled slightly to one side, further increasing the impression of a woman holding a child.

The Night Mother's withered face caused even some of the assassins I knew to take pause or shudder in fear, which I considered strange. I had been afraid of corpses too, a long time ago, but it was the Night Mother that had removed that fear. For me, she was a symbol of how death was not the end. Corpses had been a source of fear for me only because of the wasted potential they represented—the unfairness of a sudden end. The Night Mother had shown me how that was not the case, and how the spirit could endure the death of the body. In short, performing the Black Sacrament and having it answered had made me a true believer.

By now, the others had learned about my "eccentric" habit and didn't disturb me during my visits to the Night Mother. Cicero apparently approved of my shows of faith; even he left me alone while I was visiting our Unholy Matron. The tendency toward privacy among members of the Dark Brotherhood worked well for me. My visits to the Night Mother were very much a personal ritual for me, and I didn't care for them to become a source of scrutiny as my musical lessons had done.

I knelt on my pillow and bowed my head before the Night Mother. It was pretty common knowledge at this point that the Listener could "hear" the voice of the Night Mother in her mind. Hecate had once told me that she could "speak" to the Night Mother with just her mind, but that she preferred to speak out loud when it was necessary to talk at all. The Night Mother normally just expected Hecate to live up to her title—to Listen. Because of that, I knew that the Night Mother could read thoughts, but I wasn't sure if it was something she could do to everyone or just to the Listener. So I prayed out loud to make sure the Night Mother could hear me.

I never asked the Night Mother for anything in my prayers. She wasn't some wish-granting daedra. There was only one wish the Night Mother would grant—and she had already granted mine long ago. My soul had been sworn to Sithis since I was ten years old, and all I could hope for was a long life serving the Dread Lord and Unholy Matron. No, when I prayed to the Night Mother, I simply told her all of the things I had done in her name while out in the world. I thanked her for the opportunity to carry vengeance to the deserving. It usually took an hour or two, but I considered it time well spent.

"What are you doing?" came a whisper-soft voice from behind me. I paused in my prayers and looked over my shoulder. Standing in the doorway, not quite in the room, was Eiruki, the newest member of my extended family. I sighed inwardly; she was new enough that she must not have known about my visits to the Night Mother yet.

"I'm praying to the Night Mother," I explained patiently, keeping my voice as low as hers. Eiruki took a step closer to me.

"But why?" she asked. "Can she hear you?"

"I think she can," I said. Honestly, I had no idea if the Night Mother could really hear me—or if she cared at all about what I said even if she could—but it comforted me to think that I mattered to her, at least a little. She certainly mattered to me.

"Has she ever talked to you?" Eiruki continued to creep slowly forward as she spoke, finally bypassing me and slinking up toward the Night Mother's coffin.

"The Night Mother only speaks to the Listener," I told her. "But she's talked to Hecate lots of times." I paused, thinking a moment. "Did they not tell you any of this when you joined?"

"I wasn't really that interested in it," she admitted quietly. It was the longest conversation I'd ever had with Eiruki. Up until that moment, I hadn't even been certain she was capable of saying more than a couple of sentences at a time. "I just wanted a place to call home. Hecate said I would have a new family."

"I hope we've made you feel welcome," I said, feeling a little ashamed. I hadn't gotten to know any of the new recruits as well as I might have, and Eiruki talking about family made me wonder if I could do more to get to know them all better. After all, I knew what it was like to have no one—and what it was like to have a new family.

"Oh, everyone's been wonderful," she said in a slightly higher tone than usual. "I just…" She turned toward me, her eyes downcast toward the floor. She bit her lower lip as though trying to keep the words in, and her soft brown hair half-covered her face. "I'm not… good with people."

I knew the feeling.

Eiruki turned away from me and walked until she was no more than an arm's length away from the Night Mother. She started to reach out toward the withered body, her hand tentatively moving toward the Unholy Matron's corpse.

"I wouldn't do that," I warned. Her hand froze in midair but didn't withdraw. "It's disrespectful. And Cicero wouldn't like it."

"I'm not going to hurt her," Eiruki complained. "I just want to see if she's really in there. If I touch her, it shouldn't be like touching a normal body, right? It should feel different."

Before she could finish her train of thought, Cicero melted out of my peripheral vision and snatched her hand. I hadn't even heard him enter the room.

"She's there all right," he hissed, pulling Eiruki roughly away from the coffin. "And loyal Cicero is here to make sure no one disrespects her." I had been on the receiving end of Cicero's anger before—I had tried to touch the Night Mother too, when I first joined the Brotherhood. Her body was somehow hypnotic, to the point that I hadn't even realized I was reaching for her until Cicero had stopped me. I heard Eiruki whimper in pain as Cicero dragged her back.

"She understands now," I said, standing up and brushing my knees off. "You can let her go, Cicero."

"Does the girl understand?" he snarled. The Keeper had been in a foul mood since New Life Day, and he seemed in no better condition now. "I wonder if she needs a harsher lesson, hmm?" He looked at her and his face widened into a grimace that might have been an attempt at a smile. "Do you remember the Tenets, girl? The First Tenet, especially?"

"Let her go," I insisted, putting a hand on Cicero's arm. He looked at me with a wild, feral expression, and for a moment I thought he might strike me. Finally, after a long moment, he straightened his posture and released Eiruki's hand. I could see the skin already bruising from where he had grabbed her.

"Never let it be said that poor Cicero is unkind to new recruits," he said in a cheerier voice, though his face still lacked its characteristic smile. He turned from us to begin inspecting the Night Mother's body, his hands hovering over the withered flesh but not quite touching it as he muttered to himself. I quietly moved to Eiruki and took her by the arm to lead her out of the room. I was surprised that she didn't flinch away from me, but instead leaned over so that she was resting most of her weight against my side.

Once we were out of Cicero's earshot, I let go of her arm and turned to face her.

"Look, Eiruki," I started, "you can't do that sort of stuff. Cicero takes the Tenets really seriously."

"But I'm not disrespecting the Night Mother," she half-whispered. "How is touching her disrespectful?" She reached up and caressed my cheek gently, her fingers skimming the skin as lightly as a feather. "Do you feel disrespected?"

"That's different," I said, my cheeks beginning to burn. I grabbed her hand and immediately felt terrible when she whimpered and clenched her eyes shut. When I let go of the hand, she cradled it to her chest like an animal with a wounded paw. "Sorry," I muttered. "But my point stands. You can't do stuff that upsets Cicero. He's the Keeper."

She nodded and I started to walk away, but what I heard next chilled my blood.

"He isn't around her all the time," she murmured, so softly that I was barely able to hear her at all.

I quickly toweled off and made my way toward Sanctuary, pulling on my trousers as I went. I hadn't been able to find my shirt while running, and completely ignored my boots since they would have taken too long to get on. Once I was past the Black Door and out of the sun, the chill of Sanctuary hit me like a wall of ice. I shivered and the hairs on my arms stood on end. I padded across the stone floors of Sanctuary in my bare feet, racing for the Night Mother's shrine.

Ever since that first incident, Eiruki hadn't been content to leave it alone. She would find excuses to visit the shrine while no one else was around and leave little token behind on the ground in front of the coffin. Cicero would usually throw a mild tantrum about it, but as long as she wasn't actually touching the coffin or the Night Mother's body, he didn't really have cause to do anything about it. He would just throw away the flowers, or coins, or incense, or whatever else Eiruki had left behind, yell at her for a few minutes, and then go storming off.

During these tirades, Eiruki was always very still and quiet, her eyes downcast and near tears. She would never say anything to defend herself, and no one would step in since it was just verbal. I'm not sure that anyone but me would have stepped in if it had escalated to more than that—Cicero's position as Keeper made him the arbiter of "right" and "wrong" when it came to the Night Mother, after all. Still, despite everything, it kept happening.

It worried me on multiple levels. On the one hand, I didn't want to see Eiruki get hurt. On the other, she seemed to be almost intentionally taunting the Keeper. I couldn't imagine why she would want to do that, so I had generously allowed that she was trying to show her own faith too, just in a way that was a little inappropriate. Assassins were a notoriously unstable lot—myself included—so maybe it was just like how Pavot would sometimes bring me back a dead badger while we were out on walks.

More than that, though, I stayed out of it because I had seen what Eiruki could do in a crisis. I had no doubt that she was just as competent a killer as any of us—she had been out on contract as much as I had since joining the Brotherhood, for Sithis' sake. Hecate had recruited her personally, just like all of our new brothers and sisters. Her competence wasn't in question for me. Her sanity, on the other hand… Well, provoking Cicero wasn't something that I thought anyone sane would do intentionally.

No, the two of them alone in Sanctuary could only be trouble.

Running through Sanctuary in bare feet had my heels aching in moments. When I got to the Night Mother's shrine, I was relieved to find the place empty and quiet. I sagged against one of the stone walls, resting on the balls of my feet to take some of the pressure off of my aching heels. I felt vaguely foolish for being so worried but also deeply grateful that I had been wrong.

My sense of peace and quiet lasted just long enough to hear the blood-curdling screams echo through Sanctuary.

It sounded like they were coming from the upper hallways, somewhere near the private living quarters, so that's where I headed toward. A quick glance around showed most of the doors closed, so I quickly stuck my head into Nazir's office, then continued on down the hall to the practice room. What I saw there made me stop in the doorway, stunned into paralysis.

Cicero was stalking up and down the room in his shortclothes, hair disarrayed and wild like a red halo around his head. He was livid with fury, which made his near-nudity somehow hilarious and even more terrifying. I was trapped between wanting to burst out laughing and wanting to run and hide under a very large rock. As he moved erratically through the practice room, he would stop and flip over benches, knock over training dummies, push down weapon racks, all the while ranting and screaming.

"Where is it?" he shouted. "What did you do with it? How dare you violate the Tenets! When I find you, I'll kill you!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, his face red and puffy with anger, stopping only to howl wordlessly and beat his fists on the stone in a gesture of futile rage. When he stopped for a breath, I could see a red smear on the wall from where he had hit it hard enough to draw blood.

I backed out of the room slowly, glad that I hadn't drawn Cicero's attention, when I bumped into someone. I turned around with my fists up in a defensive posture and relaxed only slightly when I saw Eiruki's tear-streaked, terrified face. I started to ask her what was going on when I saw that she was cradling a bundle of red cloth to her chest, holding onto it like a drowning woman clinging to a log.

"Oh, Sithis," I cursed softly. "You stole his motley?"

"It was just a prank," she whispered. "Everyone else was out swimming, and Cicero was staying in and being all grumpy, so I thought if I hid his clothes while he was in the bath, he would… you know…" She trailed off. "I didn't mean anything by it. I thought it would be funny." She winced at Cicero's latest howl of fury and backed away a step. "I mean, he dresses like a jester. He should like pranks, right?"

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with two fingers, the way Babette usually did when she was frustrated with me. I suddenly knew exactly how she felt whenever I did something really stupid.

"Go to Cicero's room and put the motley on his bed," I said, desperately trying to find a way to salvage this situation. "Then go change into something to swim in and get out of Sanctuary. I'll distract him long enough for you to get clear, then try and convince him that he just misplaced it." She nodded frantically, still wide-eyed and fearful, and ran off as soon as I turned away from her.

Of course, I was lying. Cicero would sooner misplace his eyes than his motley. It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time I had ever seen him without his jester's cap on. No, he wouldn't believe that he had just forgotten where he had put his most prized possession. But if he found out that Eiruki had done it, he would probably kill her. My only option was to take the blame myself and apologize. I honestly didn't think that Cicero would do anything lethal to me—we had known each other too long, and he knew that Hecate cared about my life.

With a deep breath and a flutter of trepidation, I stepped out into the room.

"Cicero," I said in an even voice. The jester stopped in the middle of flipping over a table covered in practice sticks and looked at me, his eyes wide and his nostrils flared. I quirked up a smile that felt a little more genuine than it might have a minute before; he genuinely looked kind of silly, holding a table up at an angle in just his underpants.

"Aventus," he responded, dropping the table with a clatter. He came walking toward me like a stalking wolf, clenching and unclenching his hands in front of him. "She stole it! She broke the Fourth Tenet! Not even the Listener—dear, sweet Hecate—could argue!"

"Who stole what?" I asked innocently, walking out to meet him in the middle of the room.

"The jester's motley!" he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "She stole it!"

"Cicero, calm down" I said in as calm a voice as I could manage, holding my hands out in front of me, palms out. "No one stole your motley." I took a deep breath and prepared to lie to a man I sometimes thought of as my adopted father for a girl I barely knew. "I hid it."

"You what?" he asked, his face drooping.

"I hid your motley," I repeated, more firmly. "I didn't steal anything. It was just a little joke, that's all. Everyone was saying that you don't get out enough, and I thought about you hanging out in here all alone, and…" I trailed off, shrugging slightly and wearing my best disarming smile. "It was a bad joke, and I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be so upset."

Cicero hung his head low, his long red hair falling into his face.

"A joke?" he asked. I nodded, and he started to chuckle, deep and low in his throat. Then the chuckles became snickers and finally guffaws, a deep and rolling belly laugh. His laughter was infectious, and I was so relieved that I started to laugh along, through less deeply. "Sorry, he says," he said between the laughs. He laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned forward, barely able to stand from laughing so hard.

I was so caught up in my relief that I didn't even see him swing the first punch. I didn't even know that he had done anything aggressive until I was lying on the floor at his feet, stars swimming through my vision and my jaw feeling like a giant had kicked me.

"Sorry, he says!" he roared, the laughter dying in an instant. He clenched his fists and paced toward me. "Not yet! Not yet!" He launched a heavy kick toward my midsection, and I rolled enough to take it on my hip instead of my belly or ribs. It still sent me rolling across the stone floor and sent horrible numbness up my back and down my leg. "You will be sorry! Sorry indeed!"

I realized that I might have perhaps made a miscalculation about Cicero not being willing to hurt me.

I kept rolling as Cicero launched another kick, then lashed out with my unhurt leg at his ankle. He danced away, light on his feet as ever, but it gave me the breathing room I needed to kip up to a standing position. I staggered for just a moment as the feeling came back in my numb hip, sending sharp agony through the left side of my body. Cicero saw my momentary weakness and rushed back in to exploit it, throwing a flurry of light jabs at seemingly random places. I back away from him, weaving my hands defensively but still letting a pair of sharp knuckle-strikes land on my torso.

My only advantage—if I could call it that—was that Cicero was fighting angry. He had always had such control and finesse when we were sparring that I could never find an opening before. Now, he was throwing wild and furious blows with no overall fighting strategy. It was an advantage in the sense that I could try to capitalize on it to keep him from tearing me apart. It was a disadvantage in the sense that I was beginning to worry that he might actually do it. Cicero was the best fighter I knew, and I had never even landed a single blow on him in our sparring matches. If he wanted to kill me, all I could really hope to do was hold out long enough for him to change his mind.

He threw a sharp forward punch that I managed to partly deflect, but it grazed my shoulder with enough force to knock me a few inches out of my stance. Cicero immediately followed up with a snap kick to my midsection that knocked the wind out of me. While I was staggered from losing my breath, he punched me full across the face hard enough to rattle my teeth and knock me into the wall. I sagged partway down to the floor, tasting blood in my mouth.

"I won't kill him, no," Cicero muttered as he walked toward me. "First violations should just be a warning." At least he didn't mean to kill me, which was something. The fact that he was talking to himself while he fought me didn't fill me with confidence that he could stop himself short of murder, though. Assassins didn't fight to wound or disable—they fought to kill. The instinct became strong enough that holding back could become a struggle.

As Cicero muttered and I struggled to stand up straight, a sudden realization hit me. Cicero was the best assassin I knew—and that made him likely to go for killing and crippling blows above merely wounding or stunning ones. His whole fighting style revolved around exploiting an enemy's weakness. He was faster than he was strong, so he could afford to throw a dozen punches at me and wear me down with whatever hit, because I just wasn't quick enough to defend effectively. Once a few shots got through, I would be weakened enough that he could finish me off at his leisure. I couldn't afford to just defend myself and hope he got tired of beating me.

If I wanted to survive, I had to go on the offensive.

With a roar of fury, I launched myself away from the wall. To his credit, Cicero was only surprised for a fraction of a second, but it was enough to make him lose his footing and stumble out of my path instead of making a more useful defense. Once I wasn't backed into a corner, I shook the blood out of my eyes and lifted my fists in front of me, settling into a broad, powerful stance. Cicero's narrow stance was more mobile, but it didn't have as much raw force attached to it.

He recovered quickly and danced in toward me, bobbing back and forth as he tried to remain unpredictable. I didn't bother trying to predict his angle of attack. Instead, as soon as he was within my greater reach, I threw a wide haymaker. The seemingly wild punch force him to duck under it as the shorter combatant, and when he popped up again like a jack-in-the-box, I put a rabbit punch into his lower ribs. His narrow stance made it impossible for him to block, and he staggered aside to reduce the force of the blow.

I didn't have the time to congratulate myself on my first successful hit against my teacher before he renewed his attack, jabbing up at my throat with his fingers extended. I narrowed my stance and slid aside from the strike, then widened my stance again, leading with the opposite foot so that Cicero's flank lined up with my line of attack. I threw a shovel hook into his kidney with my off hand but didn't have the opportunity to press my advantage before he put a backfist into my nose.

We staggered apart, eying each other warily. I wasn't nearly as hurt or winded as I would have been only a few months ago, but I had barely managed to touch Cicero. He was breathing heavily, though—he must have exhausted himself with his tantrum before we had started fighting, and now he was feeling the burn.

"Stop this," I growled, trying my best to sound intimidating. "Hecate wouldn't want us fighting over a silly prank." Cicero paused and looked at his bloody hands. His face drooped with sorrow and his shoulders slumped.

"Of course," he said in a voice that was small and pained. "The boy is right. The Listener doesn't want her family fighting." He walked toward me with a hand out. "Apology accepted, Aventus."

I think that it was him using my real name instead of calling me "the boy" that lulled me enough for that trick to work. When I stuck out my hand to shake his, he stepped inside my reach and punched me full-on in the face. I felt my nose break and I blacked out.

I came to a few moments later, Cicero hunched down on his heels next to me. His face was composed and neutral—almost haughty—as he looked down at me.

"Age and treachery will always beat youth and enthusiasm," he said as he offered me a hand. It didn't seem like he was just talking about the fight, but I was too dazed to figure out what he was saying. I blinked blood out of my eyes and just stared at it until he leaned the rest of the way down and grabbed my arm. He hauled me to my feet like a bundle of rags and pulled my arm around his shoulders. "Consider it a lesson earned easier than most of its kind."

I was too dizzy and numb to respond as he dragged me through Sanctuary to Babette's quarters. He pounded on her door until she finally opened it, bleary-eyed and annoyed. If she was going to say anything about being bothered during the day, seeing the two of us standing there—blood, bruised and half-naked—made her keep it to herself. She tended to our wounds and applied her usual standards of treatment to lessen the damage, but I still wound up having to wear a nose splint. It helped drive home the point Hecate had made to me more than once: potions could keep you going during a fight or take away the pain after, but they didn't make the damage go away.

By the time everyone had come back to Sanctuary, Cicero and I had both gotten cleaned up and dressed. Thankfully, his motley had been just where I told Eiruki to put it. Hecate asked what we had been doing to get into such a state, and we both just laughed it off as a sparring match gone a little too far. If anyone besides Eiruki suspected the truth, no one said anything.

Assassins didn't pry, after all.

A few days later, while I was practicing with my mandolin and most of the Brotherhood was out of Sanctuary, Eiruki came wandering in. She took her usual seat, then stood up and pulled the chair closer to me until she was near enough to touch. Neither of us said anything about what she had done, or that I had lied to protect her. We just sat together as I played music, companionably quiet. When I finished practicing and stood up to put away my mandolin, she stood up too. I turned toward her, opening my mouth to ask her what she had been thinking.

That's when she kissed me.

At first, I was too stunned to do anything except stand there while she pressed her open mouth against mine, but after a moment I collected myself enough to start kissing her back. I didn't really know what I was doing—or even why I was doing it—but I was lost in the sensations for long minutes. Finally, she broke the kiss and took a step back from me. I looked at her with what must have been a shocked expression, unable to form coherent thoughts, let alone words.

"Thank you," she whispered, before turning and running from the room. I stood there, still as a stone statue, for what felt like forever before my jaw finally unlocked. My body was tingling from head to toe, and I felt as stunned as if Cicero had hit me in the nose again.

"You're welcome," I muttered to an empty room.

…to be continued…