“Thought you didn’t like his lessons either. Aren’t they all just purposeless distractions from the oh-so-necessary war?”
He shrugs. “Prepubescent temper tantrum, though the thesis is true.”
“So you haven’t stabbed anyone lately?”
“No. Electra got territorial.” He smiles. “Their complaints may be valid, but I suspect their solution is flawed, the timing dreadful for the Republic, and deleterious to existing internal class tensions regarding the matriarchal hierarchy. But there’s little I can do but go along.” He doesn’t mention his parents, though I know they are always on his mind. “Electra is far more at home here than I am.”
“Well, you got more on your mind. And more of a mind than old Hatchetface.” Neither of us mentions Mercury. But that we’re both thinking it creates some awkward tension. “So what’s the curriculum?”
“Actually, everything about Obsidians except violence.”
“So drinking, shagging, gambling, and eating.” He watches me in amusement. “I miss anything?”
“Spakr,” he says. “In Nagal, quiet and wise are the same word. So if I say ‘Mann ni spakr,’ it means that man is not quiet, and thus stupid and loud.”
“Wait, you’re saying it’s Sefi the Wise?”
“To them.”
“I was about to say, it’s the worst moniker ever. All she does is talk about her Alltribe.”
“She was silent for more than thirty years. You should try it. You might learn something.”
“I liked you better when I was unconscious. Speaking of which, you got it?”
He pulls the thin chain around his neck to show me my engagement ring.
“
Some asshole stuff to do to a man in withdrawal. Pretty fucked up, young man.”
“I’m not as young as I look. Uncle Sevro used the stuff for a spell. Zoladone, I mean.”
“Did he now?”
“The Rat War was hard on everyone. He’s not really a Goblin. He’s actually very sweet.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him that if he ever catches up to me.”
Pax holds the ring, contemplating if it is time to give it back.
“Hold on to it for me,” I say.
He tilts his head.
“Gotta be responsible to someone.”
He grins.
“Now get. I gotta earn some liberty for two ladies.” I hesitate. “Glad you like the garage.”
“He makes his lessons into games!” he calls after me.
I mutter to myself as I walk back to the Obsidians just as a skuggi with a cleft lip tries to convince the Bloodhound that he lived on Pluto before he had pubic hair. The Green supervisors titter to themselves.
“Get out of here. You’re worthless,” I shout at them. They scurry away, making faces at one another in response to some subliminal communication between their cranial implants. “Anyone have a pack of Karachi cards?” The skuggi do not answer. “Come on, I know you’re a bunch of gambling degenerates, even if your spirits are pure as snow. You.” I point at Freihild. Today she wears ghastly jade earrings. “Gudkind.”
“I am Freihild,” she says, knowing I know her name.