“Master?”

The ride was barely three hours old and I was already weary of it. The oppression of the gray sky and the knot in my sense of it were only the smallest parts of that fatigue. “Yes, Almond?”

“Do we have souls?”

Startled out of my despond, I said, “Of course you do.”

“Even though we’re constructs?” she asked, hesitant.

The word sounded horrible in her mouth. That gentle soprano confessing to doubt over its owner’s soul! But surprisingly, it was not my voice that answered, but Eyre’s.

“You should not allow the enthusiasm of young men and women eager to question everything to sway you, Miss Almond. They live to debate abstractions; in their zeal they occasionally forget that their words may be taken amiss by those without their training.”

Almond was clinging to me now, as startled by Eyre’s approach as I had been. And, no doubt, by the form of address: Miss Almond! I rather liked the sound of it, and smiled.

“Do you think I have a soul, sir?” she asked him. And added, shy, “You are Master’s teacher. Surely you are wise.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eyre said, smiling faintly. “I think we all believe we are wiser than we are, unless we are old enough to know better. But I have no doubt on the matter. No creature with eyes like yours is soulless.”

Almond tucked her face against my back, pressing it there. To Eyre, I said, “It does begin to seem....” I trailed off, seeking words.

“Impractical?” Eyre offered.

“A luxury,” I said. “To discuss philosophy as if it was something abstract, and without answer.”

“Does philosophy have an answer?”

I eyed him, mouth trying to form a smile. “And now you will default to dialectics?”

“An honest question, my student.”

“I think if our philosophies do not prepare us to answer the challenges of our lives, then they are nothing more than words.” I touched Almond’s arm at my waist. “The genets have souls, because to think otherwise would be to treat them in a way that dishonors their right to choose their own destinies, and to be taken as seriously as any man. Right is right because it serves the good of others, and fosters righteousness in oneself. Evil is evil because it destroys, casts down, and unmakes.”

“We glorify God because if we don’t, demons will eat us.”

His tone was serious; his eyes amused. Because it was a gentle amusement, I said with a lopsided smile, “I suppose I have ended up a pragmatist.”

“When angels lend their divinity to humans in order to protect them from the depredations of demons, then being a fantasist is pragmatism.”

I couldn’t help it… I laughed. “Is that the route you have taken, then? Did your knowledge that elves once existed make your morality?”

“It didn’t make it, but it surely shaped it. As does everything we experience. We either become more sure of our premises, or we find them wanting and seek new ones.” Eyre glanced at Radburn, having a spirited conversation with Kelu in front of him in the saddle. “Sometimes with grace. Sometimes, not so much so.”

“It seems like it should be simple,” I said. “To be good.”

“And yet people are complicated, and life more so.” Eyre nodded. “So the philosophers engage in their endless debates, and young and impressionable students arrive to sit at their knees and absorb what they believe to be wisdom, but what is actually the uncertainty of their mentors.”

I frowned. “You sound as if you question the system.” He grinned at me until I saw my error and relented, laughing. “All right. It is your duty to question the system. I should say you sound as if you have serious reservations about it.”

“I do, yes.”

“And yet you teach?”

He laughed. “What can I do, ah? I love teaching.” He let the amusement go, and what settled on him then was a resignation that I liked not at all. “But I can’t say we are creating a nation of thinkers. It is too easy to create believers.”

“What’s wrong with believing, sir?” Almond asked hesitantly.

“Nothing, Miss Almond,” Eyre said. “It is the trick of knowing what to believe that is the problem.”

“Is that so hard?” She pet her own arm where she had them linked around my waist, thinking. “The sun is good, and so is light. Kindness is good, and gentleness. Helping others is good. Hurting them is bad. God is good—angels are divine. Demons are terrible. What else is there?”

Eyre rode in silence for some time. Then he said, “Not much.”

Since there was neither rain nor wind, I put the question to my companions later. “How does a man do right?”

Ivy said, “Men don’t, as women will often tell you.”

Guy snorted. “Feel better now?”

“It had to be said,” she answered, laughing.

“And having said it, we can leave it behind.” Guy adjusted his scarf, covering more of his throat. “So. Our invalid prince is concerned about moral action.”

“Better that than he be unconcerned with it,” Radburn muttered.

“Now we’re all jokers, I see.” Guy shook his head.

“I think Ivy has the right of it,” Chester said. “Men do right badly. And not often enough.” At Radburn’s repressive noise, he added, “Women also.”

“Is there universal right, though?” I asked.

Radburn glanced my way. “Why, are you seeking a moral code that applies to both elves and humans?”

“And magical constructs,” Guy drawled.

“I like biting people,” Kelu said. “You can keep your moral codes to yourselves.”

A rash of laughter.

“How do we do right, when we do wrong so easily and so often?” I asked. “If the right course is so obvious, why do we not do it? Or is it that it is rarely obvious, and so we don’t?”

“You speak as if the world is mostly immoral,” Ivy said. “I think you tarry yet in the Archipelago. If men were all so evil as that, we would live in a far less fair world.”

“And yet the world isn’t fair,” Radburn said.

“Life isn’t fair,” Guy said. “What of it?”

I glanced at Eyre, who held up a hand. “I will leave the homiletic proclamations to someone else.”

“‘Life isn’t fair’ is the first thing you people have said that makes sense,” Kelu said.

“Perhaps it’s good that life isn’t fair,” Chester said. “If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have a chance to help others. And then how would we be good?”

“True. You can’t have good without evil,” Radburn said, satisfied. Before anyone could object, he said, “Don’t even start. We live in a world of demons and angels—”

“Maybe,” Guy interjected.

“—so there must be poles of behavior.”

“Is it behavior or nature?” Eyre offered.

There was nothing for it but that this should inspire a whole new ruction, and everyone had a piece of it this time… even Kelu threw her own barbs into the arena, and took the ones directed at her sportingly. The whole thing made Almond cringe against my back… during one of the more violent exchanges, I patted her arm and said to her in Angel’s Gift, “Do not fear. I agree more with you than them.”

“Then why did you ask?” she wondered.

“Because,” I said, realizing. “I really wanted to know the answer.”

That evening was cold, with a thin quick wind that existed only to sting water from one’s eyes. We camped at the base of a hill not far from the road, and for my drill that night Last ran me up and down it. The bruises he dealt me healed within heartbeats; this was the only reason I could think of that he would grant me so many of them. To train at violence as an elf was a mental exercise that most nights I could only partially understand. Pain and damage could not stop me, unless I gave in to them. I could feel fatigue, but the utter exhaustion that oppressed my companions was unavailable to me. Perhaps I had not worked this body hard enough to find its limits?

Humans, I knew, trained until they were exhausted and their bodies could not handle more work. Or because they were too damaged to continue. I experienced neither condition. We stopped when Last decided.

“How do you know?” I asked. “When to end the lesson.”

“When you need time to learn,” he said. “Then I send you to sleep.” At my patent confusion, he said, “Your mind is involved in these lessons. When the mind is open and ready, it is flexible and retains what it perceives. When you have been beaten on long enough that your thoughts no longer give, then we must stop. Everything else will fail to take.” He considered me, composed and perfect as all elves were, and he was in particular despite our exertions. “Your greatest weakness, Lord Locke, is your mind. You don’t believe yourself capable of what you could do or be. Your body hears you, and obeys.”

Stunned, I said, “Captain?”

“You learn. But slowly.” He shook his head and bowed to me, and I let him go.