The mistake of utopia is to assume that all will be perfect. Perfection may be the definition, but we are human, and even into utopia we bring our own pain, error, jealousy, grief. We cannot relinquish our faults, even in the hope of paradise, so to plan a new society without taking human nature into account is to doom that society to failure.
—The Glynn Queen’s Words, as compiled by Father Tyler
William Tear was deeply worried about something. Katie was sure of it.
Even after almost a year of working with him, she didn’t know Tear well. He wasn’t a man one came to know, for he guarded himself too closely. Katie didn’t think even Mum completely understood him. Some days Katie felt as though she could almost see the thing, weighing on Tear, bowing his shoulders and making him age, and because he was worried, Katie was worried as well.
She was seated on the ground in the middle of the Belt, the narrow strip of dense woodland that bordered the northern side of town. The tree cover was thick here, allowing only rare patches of sunlight to dapple the dry grass.
“Push!” Tear barked. “His footing is weak, you see? This is the moment when you use the weight of your body to close on him and put him down. Get a man solidly beneath you with a knife in your hand and you’ve already won.”
Katie wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to concentrate on the sparring area in front of her, where Gavin and Virginia were locked, straining. Each had a knife in hand, but right now weapons were secondary; this lesson was about leverage. Katie wasn’t fantastic with a knife, and she didn’t have the size to overpower anyone, but she was one of the quickest among them, and she had an easier time trusting her own body, her reflexes and balance. Virginia was taller and better muscled, but she couldn’t find the place to push, and a few seconds later Tear called a halt and began to point out what she had missed. Virginia looked disgruntled, but Katie didn’t think it would be counted against her. There were nine of them in training here: Katie, Virginia Warren, Gavin Murphy, Jess Alcott, Jonathan Tear, Lear Williams, Ben Howell, Alain Garvey, and Morgan Spruce. They all had different strengths, but Virginia’s was the most valuable: she feared absolutely nothing. Katie had learned much in the past year, but fearlessness couldn’t be taught, and she coveted the quality.
“Virginia, sit and watch. See if you can spot it this time.” Tear snapped his fingers. “Alain, have a go at Gavin.”
Alain got up from his spot across the circle and approached Gavin warily. The two were good friends, but Alain was the weakest fighter among the group, and Gavin knew it; a gleam of overconfidence had entered his eyes. Katie shook her head. Gavin was a good fighter, but he tended toward arrogance, and it had gotten him in trouble more than once.
“Shrink your size, Garvey!” Aunt Maddy called from beside Tear. “Or he’ll knock you flying!”
Alain tucked his shoulders toward his chest and pulled a knife from the sheath at his waist. Their knives were crude, little more than pointed spears with handles, the same tools that workers used to slaughter cattle. But Katie had overheard Mum talking to Aunt Maddy, who said that Tear had made them all real knives, fighting knives. Such weapons had to be made in secret, and carried in secret—sometimes it seemed to Katie that, in the long year since she had sat on the bench with William Tear, her life had filled up with secrets, like a pot beneath a leak—but they would receive the knives when they were ready. Katie could barely wait.
Alain was taller than Gavin, but Gavin was the best knife handler among them, and he could move like a tree lizard to boot. Within only a few seconds, he had maneuvered behind Alain and grabbed his knife hand, rapping Alain’s wrist over his knee, purposefully and methodically, trying to make Alain drop his knife.
“Hold!” Tear called, stalking into the ring. Mum came with him, her eyes snapping with disapproval.
“What would happen in a real fight, Gavin?” Mum demanded.
“I would have kept hold of him,” Gavin replied, his voice toneless. “I would have broken his wrist and then busted his knee.”