"I'm a little surprised you were fih just leaving them there," I said.

  "Standard operating procedure with the Thieves' Guild," Faith said, as we rode back to Greenwood Vilge. "Unless we've got something specific to pin on them... we just leave 'em where they lie, once we're doh 'em. They prefer it that way, and it's easier for us."

  "Even if they're bleeding?" Talia asked.

  "Hano is willing to aowledge that Fingers, the God of Thieves, is a full member of the Hikaano Pantheon, but is otherwise wholly unsympathetic to anyone who pledges themselves to Fingers' service."

  "Man, Padins do not fuck around," Talia said.

  "Yeah, that's kinda their whole thing," I said. "Most of the Guilds are just ied in maintaining their social power, and their monopoly oain trades. The Padin's Guild is well-known for being different, and having a different agenda that they proactively pursue rather thaively maintaining. Makes 'em less dysfunal than most uilds, but... well. Let's just say their agenda isn't always uionable."

  "The War Of The Roses was three hundred years ago," Faith said.

  "My goddamn dad fought in that war, so no, you don't get to act like it's not within living memory," I snapped. "Sure, three hundred years is several human lifetimes ago, but humans arely the aggrieved party here, are they?"

  "I meant more, it's been three hundred years, every Padin involved is dead now," Faith said.

  "Hano is very much still alive and in charge," I said bitterly. "And he refuses to apologize or admit that sughtering children like mbs was a bad thing, because then his Padins might refuse to kill children for him, and he's not willing to take that option off the table."

  Thunder rumbled overhead, and I snorted.

  "e down here and say it to my face, asshole."

  The thunder rumbled again, but quieter.

  "Yeah, 'swhat I fu' thought."

  "I feel like the God of Padins isn't quite as intimidated by you as you might think," Faith said dryly.

  "Then you need a theology lesson," I said. "The Hikaano Pantheo called The Living Gods for no reason, after all. They've died before, and they'll die again. Look up how many Gods of Thieves there've beehe millennia."

  "I think maybe we should find something else to talk about that isn't going to bee a huge argument that ends with drawn ons," Talia said.

  "I think that there should be a God of Gay People," I said.

  "Fuo," Faith said. "Could you imagine how humiliating it'd be to get rejected by the Faggot's Guild?"

  "So, Saturday at noon, huh?" Dad said, once we got back from the Warehouse District.

  "The King of Thieves wants to see me," I said simply. "He's got something he needs an elf for, and he's willing to pay for it. I'll get the statue bad ten million dolrs for it."

  "That's a trap," Mom said immediately.

  "Well, obviously," I said. "Luckily, we've got time to prepare for it, so I kick his ass up and dowreet." I turo look at Faith. "You got any pints about that?"

  "...The King of Thieves, by default, has lost all protes of the w," Faith said simply. "Whoever they are, they are always wanted by the Padin's Guild. Dead or alive."

  "Duly noted," I said.

  "I don't feel good about you walking into an obvious trap," Mom said, frowning. "Even if you are my son, the fact that you handle yourself doesn't mean you handle everything. Are you sure this is worth it?"

  "Very certain," I said, nodding. "But hey, since you need assurances, how 'bout I promise t you baething pretty, like the funerary effigy of Dad's hearth-mother?"

  "I'll pass."

  "The King of Thieves' head?"

  "Now that's my boy."

  "Ahem," Faith said.

  "Is the Padin's Guild willing to pay a bounty for the King of Thieves' head?" I asked.

  "...Well, not as such, but-" Faith began.

  "Then they're not getting it," I said. "Once I've taken it from his shoulders, it is mine by right of quest, and they either pay a fair price for it, or they e down here and try to take it by force. And I don't know about you, but I don't like their odds."

  "...Fair enough," Faith said, sighing. "So... what ?"

  "Well, I'm the only cssically-trained Mage-Knight in town, so I am about to have my hands full giving my so bit of training," Dad said. "You and Talia, though..." Dad shrugged. "I don't know. Catch up on your reading? Waiting is all you've got."

  "Well, fair enough," Faith said. "Is there... any ce we could participate in that training, or...?"

  "I only train one person at a time, and with all due respect, I'm more ied in training my son than the girl wearing the uniform of the people who killed my entire family."

  "...So that's who he gets it from," Faith murmured.

  "Faith, I have told you that my hatred of Padins is born from the fact they killed my grandparents," I said. "That was a half ho."

  "Also your aunts and uncles," Dad added. "Hell, the only reason Frederick survived is because he wasn't in the try at the time- he was off studying with the shugenja on the far side of the ti, and the Padins couldn't kill him. Now, you, young dy, are not being chased out of here with a sword because you're eighteen, and your stupidity is as excusable as it is unsurprising. You've beeo about the noble cause of the Padin's Guild, and it's not pletely your fault you believed them. But..." Dad grimaced a little. "Well. If yoing to be stig around after this Sunday, I'd appreciate it if you didn't bring that uniform past my doorstep again."

  "Napoleon," Talia said firmly, pnting her hands on her hips.

  "Talia," Dad said calmly. "I uand your position, and also your father's position. You both grew up knowing only a world where elves living under Hikaano w was the norm. I uand how and why your position is to just make the best of what we have now, and work for a better future. I even respect that. But Talia, I ot join you in the nd of letting go, because I didn't grow up that way, and I still remember having to identify my father's crispy-fried corpse by his fug teeth. That tends to leave a mark on a fellow!"

  "Likewise," I tinued, "the fact that I got to grow up hearing stories about all the cool shit my extended family did, and then be remihat they are all dead, has also left its mark o any rate, it sounds like I've got a camping trip to pack for, so... Both of you out of my house."

  The targets all popped with a puff of smoke and a sharp noise- but much, much quieter than my own on should've been. They were all balloons, created from leaves a aloft by what Napoleon Iro called 'simple druidcraft,' but which would be devilishly plicated for a wizard to aplish, despite the fact both primal and are magic dealt ierial. It was down to the driving forces; primal magic owered by the Livih and your retionship with it, while are magic was all you. The Livih uood the natural world very, very well, better than any schor of the natural sces could ever hope to manage, but the truly artificial, while often ceptually simple, was often far beyond its grasp.

  "I didn't have time to do it properly," Dad admitted, as I lowered my on. "These are just the basic charms- sileng, accuracy, and power. But they'll have to suffice."

  "It's already a lot better than it was," I said. "The accuratment is throwing me off a little, but... it mostly amounts to not ating for the arc at le. I'll have to adjust the sights a little, get it dialed in. But for now..." I engaged safety catch, and holstered my on. "I like it. Thank you."

  "I'm gd," Dad said. "There'd usually be a long ritual of finding the right tree, carving it into your bow and the hundred unbreaking arrows that would forever be by your side, and anointing it through three trials, but..." Dad shrugged. "Well, we don't have time for that, and you're not using a bow in the first pce. We're improvising."

  "And some people say elves don't uand the meaning of haste," Mom said. She'd decided to e with us, to shore up my training as a Wizard, on at I couldn't do the same sorts of magic that Dad could.

  "As if elves don't deal with the same cycle of the seasons as everyone else," Dad muttered. "The ohing we dle with is the specific timeframe of a human life, and that's because it's so much lohan anything else found in nature, aside from elephants, tortoises, and some sea creatures. And even then, humans have lived among elves for thousands of years! Half-elves have always been a fact of life!"

  "Focus, Napoleon," I said.

  "Right," Dad said, nodding. "The fact we like to run our mouths probably isn't helping with that misuanding. Anyhow! I'm going to mark out a circur trail, and yoing to ride it on your motorcycle a few times. Once you're fident, I'm gonna put up targets, and yonna shoot 'em while riding your motorcycle. Ready?"

  Using a ranged on from the back of a moving horse- steel or otherwise- was the sort of skill that was so abominably hard to do usefully that it retty much impossible for a human to learn it as an adult. They had to be raised in an enviro where horse archery was a basic life skill- how every adult man hunted and fought, and what every boy pyed at from the day they were old enough to sit on a sheep and shoot a toy bow.

  Now, I'd been practig with a toy bow in a little toy wagon pulled by my father since I was four, and with this on on this motorcycle ever since I'd built them, two years ago. I was already pretty good, and could reliably nail even moving targets- fake riders on fake horses, structed from leaves and twigs by more of my father's druidcraft. But I didn't strictly need long practice- I was an elf, and one of the things elves were known for ossessing a dexterity and quiess of reflex that surpassed humanity, making us far more accurate archers with the same amount of practice, for all that a human could shoot a heavier bow that would unch arrows farther and with more power behind them. With humans, archers had to be raised, not trained, and doubly so with horse archers. But with elves, those were skills that could be learned in adulthood, given that elves learhem faster and had more time in which to learn them.

  So, what did it matter, that I wasn't strong enough to fight a human with just a sword and win? That wasn't the elven way. That was the human way. The elven way was to fight smarter, not harder, and pick our enemies off from afar with well-pced shots; not to fight them like men, but to hunt them like animals.

  I o my father. "I'm ready," I said.