The note was waiting on the sill at dawn, and Alistair knew it was bad before he read a word of it, because there was not a single joke anywhere in Silas's handwriting.
Coren went to Aldous last night, the note read.
I had eyes near enough to know that much, but not near enough to hear, so the rest is what I pieced together after.
He told Aldous the salon ran clean.
Said the young Marrow lord fences honest Veilform, Class C, careful, nothing in him worth remarking on.
Then he told him one more thing. He said the lord lost the third exchange a half second too slowly, and that the half second was a choice, not a failure. Aldous made him say it again. He said it again. Aldous wrote it down.
At the bottom, Silas had added a few more lines.
I have watched a lot of men decide to kill other men, and they never write it down. Aldous wrote it down. I don't know what that says about him, and I have decided I don't want to.
