Mav let her in, because she looked as if she might fall down in the hallway.
The room had 20 folding beds and one small window, and it was empty at this hour. Tamsin sat on the edge of a bed with her slate on her knees. Her hands were shaking.
"Someone is raiding my World," she said. She spoke even faster than usual. "He comes every night. It started almost two weeks ago. He kills some of my moths, he takes my silk, and he leaves before morning. I had 24 moths when it started. I had 21 on the day of my duel. Now I have 13."
"Why didn’t you tell anyone?"
"I was ashamed. And I thought that I could stop him by myself." She looked at the floor. "I couldn’t."
Mav knew the rules about raids, because Quill had taught them in his second week.
Nobody could enter a World of rank F. The Genesis protected new Awakened until they were strong enough to defend themselves. But that protection ended at rank E. After that, anyone who knew the coordinates of a World could open an arch to it. He arrived there inside his own Manifestation, with his beasts, and the arch stayed open behind him until he left.
Coordinates were a long line of numbers, and every World had its own. An Awakened could read them in his Status. He was supposed to keep them secret for his whole life.
Raiding wasn’t a crime. The Arbiter only ruled the Nexus, and on a World, the strong did what they wanted. A raider could kill Subjects, so that his own beasts gained their Essence. He could steal whatever was valuable. And if he reached the Heartstone, he could take the whole World. Then its owner had two choices, which were to swear allegiance to him or to die with the stone.
"He could have taken your Heartstone already," Mav said slowly. "You only have moths. So why hasn’t he done it?"
Tamsin’s mouth trembled.
"Because he doesn’t want me dead. He wants me to swear. Every night, before he leaves, he shouts the same thing into the dark. He says that it will stop when I swear allegiance to his master." She held the slate tighter. "I read about it. A vassal who swears by herself is worth more than a vassal who was beaten, because she works harder and she doesn’t run away. So he kills my moths a few at a time, until I give up."
’That’s cruel, and it’s also clever. Someone taught him to do it that way.’
"How did he get your coordinates?"
Her face turned red.
"I gave them away. On the first day, a recruiter from a noble house told me that he needed them to see if my World was worth a contract. I have five brothers and sisters on Earth, and my parents can’t feed all of us. So I let him look. Then he said that my World was too weak, and he sent me away. But he kept the numbers."
Mav thought of Bram Hollis and his pen, at the table on the Row. He had been one word away from the same mistake. That thought made him uncomfortable, so he pushed it away.
"Why are you asking me? You should ask Quill."
"I did. Instructors aren’t allowed to enter a student’s World." She finally looked up at him. "I’m asking you because I watched your four duels, and I wrote down everything. Your beasts hide and wait, and that’s what I need. Nobody else in our class could catch a raider in the dark, but you could."
"What do his beasts look like?"
"I’ve never seen him, because he stays behind them. They’re gray, like dogs, but they’re thinner. And they laugh." She shivered. "I can pay you. My moths make silk that glows in the dark, and it sells well at the market. I’ll give you half of it."
Mav was silent for a while, and he thought about it.
On one side, there was some silk, and the thanks of a girl he had spoken to three times. On the other side, there was a fight on a World that he didn’t know, against an enemy that he had never seen. It would put Six and his three stalkers in danger. It would also give him one more enemy, when he already had Dorian and the whole of House Pyrecrest.
There was an even bigger danger. A raider had a master, and that master would learn who had stopped him. After that, someone might start to look for Mav’s own coordinates. Mav thought of Sela’s street, and of the eggs that had opened that week.
"No," he said.
Tamsin’s face didn’t change at first, as if she hadn’t understood the word.
"I’m sorry," Mav said. "But it isn’t my problem. I have my own World to protect, and I have a family on Earth that already pays for everything I do. I can’t fight for everybody."
"I’m not everybody," Tamsin said, very quietly. "I’m only one person."
That hurt, and he didn’t answer.
She stood up. She was trying hard not to cry. At the door, she stopped.
"I have 13 moths, and he kills two or three each night now," she said. "So I have about five nights left. I only wanted you to know the number."
"I’ll do it."
The voice came from the hallway.
Ronald stood there with a loaf of bread under each arm. He had heard everything, and for once, his round face wasn’t smiling.
"Ronald, no," Mav said.
"Why not? I have 14 grown boars, and they’re made for dry land. A forest is perfect for them." Ronald looked at Tamsin. "Give me your coordinates. I’ll go tonight."
"You don’t know who he is, and you don’t know what he has."
"You don’t know either," Ronald said. "That didn’t stop you from saying no."
He didn’t say it angrily, because Ronald never said anything angrily. He said it as a simple fact, and that made it worse.
Mav felt his face grow hot. He wanted to say that Ronald was being stupid, and that a good heart couldn’t win a fight in the dark. But Tamsin’s face had filled with hope, and he couldn’t say it in front of her.
"Your boars charge," he said instead. "They don’t hide. If his beasts are fast, they’ll go around you."
"Then I’ll stand in a place where they can’t go around me." Ronald put the bread down on the nearest bed. "She asked for help, Mav. Somebody has to say yes."
Tamsin wrote a long line of numbers on her slate with a shaking hand. Ronald read them twice, and then she rubbed them out.
They left together a few minutes later. Mav stood alone among the 20 beds, and he listened to their steps go down the stairs.
He told himself that he had made the right choice. He had thought of everything, and his reasons were good.
But he didn’t sleep that night.