Turn 6 of 7

Send Tomas away and speak to Sarkady alone on the strip

You catch Tomas's arm before he reaches the clerk. His skin is warm through the sleeve and you can feel the bones of his wrist shift as he turns back to you, eager and frightened and desperate to be useful.

"Go check the blades," you tell him. "Both of them. Take them to the armoury table and wait there."

"But the recess — I should stay with you, I should be —"

"Tomas." You say his name the way Rendel says yours, flat and final, and the sound of it lands on him like a hand on his chest. He stops. He searches your face for something — an explanation, a crack, anything that will make this moment fit the shape of the faith he has built around you — and he does not find it. He nods once, stiffly, and walks toward the armoury table with the straight back of a young man who has just been told he is not needed. He will check the blades. He will oil the edges. He will wait, and he will wonder, and you have just taught him something about trust that he did not want to learn.

The clerk approaches with the ledger and you wave him off. The referee looks at you, then at Sarkady, then at the gallery, and you can see him deciding whether to enforce protocol or simply be grateful that two duelists want to talk instead of fight. Gratitude wins. He steps back to his position and begins reviewing his notes with the performative absorption of a man who is not listening.

Sarkady has not moved. She stands half a pace closer than the strip allows, her blade lowered to her side, her breathing finally slowing. The gallery above is settling into the particular restlessness of an audience that has been denied a conclusion — advocates checking their watches, clerks whispering to each other, a woman in the second row taking notes with the sharp penmanship of someone building a record. Rendel is still standing. His hand has not left his pocket. From this distance you cannot read his face, but you can feel his attention like a weight on the back of your neck.

"Your second is too young to be here," Sarkady says. It is not a taunt. Her voice has changed — the fierce edge of the strip is still there, but beneath it something has shifted, something almost careful.

"He doesn't know, does he? He thinks you've lost your nerve. He thinks you're finished." She pauses, studying you the way she studied your footwork — with patience, with precision, with the particular hunger of someone who has spent years building a theory and is now standing close enough to test it.

"Who told you my name?" you ask. The question comes out quieter than you intend. Sarkady's eyes widen a fraction — not surprise, but recognition, the look of a fencer who has just been confirmed on a line she expected to find empty.