In the two weeks after the ice World, Mav fought four more challenges, and he won all four of them.
He didn’t do it for the noise, although there was plenty of noise. He did it because Tamsin had been right. Before he could ask dangerous questions, he had to be strong enough that asking was safe, and the Class Ladder was the only measure that the Nexus understood. The last two people that he beat were nobles from Evergrove with trainers and two skills each. Neither of them lasted three minutes. By the end of the second week, his name stood 41st on the wall of the arrival plaza.
He was proud of it, but he didn’t let himself think that it was enough. Isolde Frostmere had cleared a cave with nine wolves, and she owned 30. So on the free days, he went to the hall of records.
It was a long, dark room under the Proving Grounds. The Arbiter kept a moving picture of every official duel there, and anyone could watch one for 10 Essence. Mav had spent more there in two weeks than he spent on food in a month. He sat in a corner on a stone bench, and he watched Isolde’s duels one after another. She had won her first-round duel in 11 seconds. He watched those 11 seconds six times, and he still couldn’t say exactly what she had done.
He was watching them a seventh time when someone sat down at the other end of his bench.
"She does it with the builders," a voice said. "Look at the ground under the third wolf. The ice is already there before the wolf arrives."
Mav turned his head.
It was Thalia Sunspire. She looked as she always did, which meant that she looked like nobody else in the Nexus. She was tall, with warm brown skin and sun-bleached hair in a braid that reached her waist. There was gold dust on her eyelids. She wore her white coat with the nine-rayed sun on the chest, but she had turned up the collar, as if she didn’t want to be recognized. For once, Perrin and her other friends weren’t with her.
He looked at the picture again. She was right. A thin skin of ice appeared on the sand a heartbeat before each wolf stepped on it, so the wolves never slowed down.
"Thank you," he said, and he went back to watching.
He heard her breathe out through her nose. He thought it might have been a laugh.
"Do you know how many people in this Nexus would ignore me twice?" she asked.
"I don’t know. Not many, I suppose."
"Nobody. Nobody would." She sounded almost interested. "There are no glass eyes in this room, Silkborn. My house isn’t allowed to film in here. That’s why I came, so stop pretending that you’re busy."
Mav stopped the picture. He waited.
Thalia didn’t speak at once. She looked at the dark wall, where Isolde’s frozen wolves still hung in the air.
"There were three students who didn’t get out of the ice World," she said. "One of them was a second-year called Mina Dawnmere. She was sworn to my house. She had stags in her World, and she went there to hunt stags. I knew her a little." Her voice didn’t change, but her hands had closed on her knees. "Tonight, my mother’s show will read the court’s ruling on every screen on Earth, and it will call it justice. It will say that a madman from a small house acted alone."
"You don’t believe that."
"I’ve sat at my mother’s table since I was six. I know exactly what I believe." She turned to look at him. "So I’ll tell you two things, and then I’ll go."
Mav nodded.
"House Sunspire sells the recordings of every official duel. That isn’t a secret. Anyone with enough Essence can buy them, and House Ashgrove bought every one of yours, from the first round up to your last." She paused. "But a second buyer bought the same recordings in the same week. He paid three times the price, through three different names. When one of our clerks tried to find out who it was, my mother told him not to ask. My mother doesn’t tell people not to ask, Silkborn. She always wants to know."
Mav felt a chill. It reminded him of the Arbiter’s refusal at the Orphan Gate.
"And the second thing?"
"Someone has paid House Stormveil for your trail. I don’t know who. I heard it at dinner, and the people who said it laughed, because they thought that a boy from Wildroot wasn’t worth the price."
"I change arches every day," Mav said. "I go home at the busiest hours."
"Good. Then they’ll need patience. Stormveil has a lot of it. You don’t even know what they are prepared to do in order to acquire coordinates. They aren’t recognized as the most stubborn imperial family for nothing." She stood up and pulled her collar higher. "That’s all."
He looked up at her. Two months ago, she had stood at the wall of names and read his number aloud for the whole plaza to laugh at. She hadn’t changed her coat or her face since then, and she clearly hadn’t stopped being proud. But she had come here alone, to a dark room with no cameras, to tell him things that her own house wanted hidden.
He didn’t understand her, and he didn’t like not understanding people.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.
Thalia thought about it seriously, which surprised him.
"Because I’m tired of what my family does to stay on top," she said. "And because I want to see what you do with it. That’s the truth, and it isn’t very noble."
"Thank you, then."
She shook her head. She was already walking toward the stairs, and she didn’t look back.
"Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything."