"I know it wasn't her fault," Dalliance said. "I was embarrassed, and I was angry at myself, and I avoided her. I ran from my problems. I spent a little time as the wind, thinking about it."

  His sister pursed her lips. She had an odd mixture of reactions to that particular skill—impressed that he could do it, excited that he could do it, and wary of him doing it—and the combination still sat oddly with him.

  "Anyway," he said, "I basically punished her because I was embarrassed. For something that wasn't even her fault. And I didn't really explain myself before I left."

  Whimsy nodded. "You didn't," she agreed. "You should probably not have left at all." Then, with a quick grin: "But that's the great thing about having friends. Nobody expects you to be perfect. I certainly don't."

  Dalliance rolled his eyes. She was half-listening, toying with the hem of her novice robe with pale fingers. "Do you think I was being ungentlemanly?"

  She considered the question with precisely the seriousness it deserved, which was very little. "You've never been gentlemanly in your life," she pronounced. "And the word is genteel. No. There has always been something more important than following the rules, for you."

  He looked away. "There were a lot of rules. Growing up."

  "We're talking about propriety," she said primly, "and there aren't that many."

  She ticked them off in a tone that suggested she had given this some thought. No one thought badly of him, she said, they wouldn't at his age. It would be different once he started to approach manhood, fifteen or sixteen, that was when her mother had told her: never, under any circumstances, go alone somewhere with a young man. Never go anywhere with Woebegone either, because Da didn't like the look of him or the way he watched people. Never go anywhere with the field hands. Never talk to the field hands. Never get on a stranger's horse, or into a stranger's coach, or out of sight of the house in company with a stranger—because she was small, and she needed to be able to call for help.

  Dalliance had never thought about it. Not once. Not in those terms.

  He thought about Effluvia's guardswoman, and the walk along Lakefront Circuit to the archive they'd taken without her, and all the times he hadn't thought about what it meant that there wasn't a chaperone with . . . well, any of his friends, save Earnest. He wasn't a danger, but . . . did people have to think that way?

  He remembered an arrow piercing a knee, and the resignation on the robber's face as he was taken away to die.

  He wasn't really dangerous, though.

  "Besides," Whimsy added, in a tone of generous concession, "you were nearly proper. You weren't alone with them very often. I was there quite a lot of the time."

  A pause.

  "Not," she continued, her expression turning thoughtful in a way that made him immediately uneasy, "that I would have been much of a chaperone. You could have bought me sweets, put me in the corner, and canoodled freely. And I'd probably have lied for you afterward." She tilted her head. "Though I suppose chaperones have been known to canoodle with their charges themselves. That's not unheard of. There's no real safety in the world."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Dalliance stared at her.

  He thought about the books his Ma had let her read.

  He decided, with some effort, not to pursue this line of inquiry.

  "Anyway," Whimsy said, standing and brushing off her slim skirts with the air of someone who had completed a task satisfactorily, "if you feel bad about it, tell her so. I'm not going to do it for you."

  She arched a brow at him, the same brow she'd been arching at him since she was old enough to have opinions, which was essentially always, and walked back through the convent door without looking back.

  Dalliance sat alone on the bench.

  He supposed he had an apology to make.

  "You've been such a dear seeing to tea," said Effluvia fondly to Miss Benefit. It was not, it seemed, a recent acquaintance, though he didn't know why he'd assumed otherwise.

  "But there's something about which I must speak to Dalliance," she said, not apologetically. "It concerns my oath."

  Dalliance wondered whether the events around their lunch table had become common knowledge in the Effluvia household. It was a strange thought for someone who had never expected to be a topic of conversation in any corner of the halls of power.

  "I shall have Grim inform your father," said Miss Benefit, nodding.

  "I shall remain just here on this bench," said Effluvia, patting the seat and settling onto it. The balcony was expensive-looking, overlooking an exterior courtyard with pruned trees and stone columns.

  "We shall not be long," she said.

  "I will be just within," promised Miss Benefit, and closed the door behind her, as though leaving her charge in the company of a young man was much less of a concern than Penny-Auntie had made it seem, those hours earlier.

  "I was talking to Whimsy," said Dalliance. Effluvia regarded him with an alert expression that somehow failed to divulge whatever was going on behind her eyes.

  "She said something that made me think I don't actually know all that much about what propriety is for. Or what women are feeling. And I felt some of that earlier, with what Penny-Ante said, that I had wronged you. And so instead of working out whether I was right, or listening to you when you told me you weren't bothered, what I understood, when you said that, was that you were already making adjustments for my behavior."

  "I said," she interrupted him, "in essence, that my reputation is my business and my responsibility to maintain, unless and until I say otherwise."

  He nodded.

  "Besides," she told him, "Miss Nonesuch does not know what she's talking about. The chaperone was my idea, in a way."

  His eyes started up from his hands in his lap.

  "I was startled," she said, in a level tone. "No, horrified—at the breadth of invasion of privacy your skill leaves perpetually at your fingertips. I didn't tell any of your secrets."

  She needn't have said. She was still breathing, after all.

  "But my father could read from my inquiries into goblins that something was off. In class, or on the wall. I asked him not to press the matter, and he trusted my judgment—setting an escort aside for my use should I need her services. And I quite enjoy the company of Miss Benefit, all other concerns aside. As I approach marriageable age, it will be to my benefit—" Dalliance smiled slightly, "—to have been accompanied around others, just as Charity is. That's all."

  Effluvia glanced towards the ornate doors, beyond which waited the chaperone.

  "We are among the Magi now," she said thoughtfully. "Even Laken, were he so inclined, could likely overpower Miss Benefit and her protection. But a second pair of eyes, and someone my father can question as to my safety: it merely serves as a deterrent. Raising the cost of misbehavior."

  "I wouldn't," he said.

  "I know. I'm not doubting you. I never did." A pause. "Frankly, Morality is the only concerning one of the lot."

  Dalliance pictured the younger girl practicing her forms, and remembered her oath of vengeance. He nodded. "No offense taken."