At our second meeting Hermes was dressed much like the first: a deep navy doublet, with soft silken folds to mirror the sea and ridiculous frills to emulate the nobles. Perhaps he is a noble. There's a velvet fur thrown across his shoulder, tossed carelessly, but then arranged meticulously to attract our nervous gaze. I think the raven's-head cane is a bit much.

"You've been busy, my vicious urchins. Didn't even stop to close the deceased's eyes, or sing any sepulchral prayers; whatever has the church been teaching you?"

As he moved under the pier his face fell into greater darkness. Gone into shadow were the boyish amber curls, which had seemed to belie a youthful innocence. Now the town's light and the moon's sheen reflected from the waves onto his cane, making the man's expressions difficult to discern and the raven's head all the more visible.

"We did what you wanted," said the boy with the black hair. His fear is morphing into angry impatience.

"We humbly appreciate your confidence," I interrupt, trying to guide the conversation, "and have completed the contract you gave us. My companions and I are glad to hear that the priest passed away. We look forward to serving you again in the future, good sir, if you should ever need us."

Was that a smirk on Hermes's face?

"Deception ill becomes you, child. Better to be like the grunt behind you—callously speaking your mind—than to flatter so artlessly. I didn't need to overhear your council to recognize that you don't trust me. You'd have to be quite stupid to trust a stranger, really."

The girl with a scar shuffles forward, shifting onto her left foot, and for a moment it seems like she would mumble something. Then the moment passes and she turns her gaze back down into the sand.

"The names will change you, of course. Now you are only a part of what you might one day become, a soft clay which your names can sculpt, as they draw out the sharper features from your baser natures. They say that the man makes the name," and here he half turned away from us, facing the Ambassador, but leaving the illuminated raven's head still pointed in our direction. "Yes, the lords each say the man makes the name, but truly its the name that makes the man. Or at least, it makes his greater essence."

I’m having trouble following him. He spoke the same way last time as well, gradually circling around the topic we wanted.

"Choosing a name will alter your life yet to come. If you were named a sailor, you could never have the same existence as an architect. And yet again, you would never be same as you would have been had you been named a farmer, a page, a king. That's why slaves are so useful, isn't it my children? No name means you can do anything. Like assassinate a priest."

The boy with the black hair is boiling. "Just tell us our names! Give us the names that we've earned."

"...please…sir..." added the girl with a scar.

Hermes twirled his cane, playfully trying to rap the boy with the black hair for his impertinence, and then giving up when the boy took the prank too seriously. His red curls are visible now that the lights have altered—a sharp red, made even more so by his blue ensemble. "Oh very well," Hermes eventually replied, "but don't complain that I didn't warn you."

The boy with the black hair, the girl with a scar, and I stood grouped together. At some point the girl had grabbed my hand and now I held her own, the waves beating time behind us, and her pulse pumping to their rhythm.

"So let's see...you should be ready for your names, what with the priest's blood and your easy escape. Death and secrecy are the primary ingredients for assassins, although revenge also does the trick particularly nicely. All that’s left is to divvy up the roles. Maybe the brute's a guard, the mute's a seamstress, and the fool's in a theatre troupe? Or we could do soldier, cook, priest? That seems fair—and equal exchange for the life that’s been taken—plus the sermons will do wonders for your persuasive speaking."

I don't like where this is going.

"Hermes, the boy will be a guard, this girl with be an apothecary, and I will be named a trader." I spoke with conviction, for I can feel that I have spoken rightly. These are my friends, and I know what we each secretly want to become. Or at least, I ought to know better than a stranger.

"Aye," said the boy with the black hair. The girl just nodded, still holding fast to my hand.

"No one ever chooses to be the priest: it's the tonsure I suppose. An apothecary is especially useful—it's always better to brew your own poisons, isn't it?—but you must admit they are some of the first to be suspected. And I'm not sure if trading will suit you...I'll concede, however, since you've already chosen, and I can see the names taking shape within each of you. Look."

We gazed from one to the other, the boy with the black hair, the girl with a scar, and then back to myself, excited but hesitant, unsure of what we were meant to see. It was our last chance to break our deal with the amber haired man, to eschew this chance of becoming named but named dishonorably.

None of us spoke.

As I watched the boy with the black hair, I suddenly began to remember our past at St. Alodia's. His face when we had fought and he had won. The time he had broken Father Victor's clock, shattering it against the cupboard wall and then hiding it within an urn. Him crying when we had been beaten by the neighborhood boys, arms muddy and knee scraped. These images—the things that I had also experienced—were increasingly crowded among other memories, ones that I had never seen before. The boy with the black hair, alone, watching the fishermen sail out early at sunrise. Kissing a girl beneath the stairs while the priests overhead were chanting their evening prayers. Gazing at some knight-errant that visited the church, or perhaps...perhaps that was only a drawing from a storybook. Too many images to count, or even recognize, but each of them focused on the boy with the black hair. On Levin.

Later that night, when the three of us were alone, Elidia murmured that she felt a sense of loss when receiving her name. Or not a loss, exactly; more of a transition, an ending as well as a beginning. "...we cannot go back…" she said with a gentle smile, "...we’ve changed now…"

Hermes left us under the pier, clutching his raven-head cane as he skipped along the dock. "A satisfactory exchange, as I'm sure you'll each agree. The names should get you started. If not, well, I'll call upon your residences in a couple months, once you're half-decently established. Consider buying some actual clothes, won't you? Until then, my dear Levin, Elidia, and…"

"Dragan," I called out. "My name is Dragan."

Opposite the weather-worn docks where the Ambassador was moored the land methodically rises, and so too do the houses, apartments, and guilds. Here the nobles—eternally vying for prestige and power—build higher and higher, sometimes two stories, sometimes three, all the way up to the great stone walls of Samark's castle, which overlooks the city and the bay. The same night when Levin, Elidia, and Dragan were being named, an alarm was raised along this noble district. Three unknown dark-clad men had decided to pay a visit to Lord Nikita's estate.

Lord Nikita, fourth of his name and chancellor to the king, stood within his book-lined study, brooding over the endless lists of grains purchased and farmers taxed. Two of his loyal praetorian guards waited outside, vigilantly watching despite their unceasingly boring task. The night had been peaceful.

At least, until a steel crossbow bolt caught the left guard below his exposed jugular.

"We're under attack! To arms!" The remaining praetorian bellowed, rousing Lord Nikita from his political and economic concerns. The left guard was now slumped over, hands at his own throat, dying as he tried to twist out the assassin's bolt. At once the sole defender—remembering his training—drew his hand-and-a-half sword and lowered his stance, preventing any assailant from ambushing the study door. A second crossbow bolt deflected harmlessly off the guard's heavily armored shoulder.

Lord Nikita had not assumed his position without a fair share of intrigue; this was not the first, second, or even fourth time he had been targeted. The lord pulled two cords behind his desk: the first to ring an attendant's bell, the second to open a secret passage. Lord Nikita took nothing—no jewels, no reports, nor any heirlooms—but fled immediately down this hidden stairway, seeking escape into the night.

At the study door the guard stood fast. "Come out, vile assassin! Show yourself!" An impotent third bolt missed him entirely, burying itself meaninglessly into the oaken door. And, as the guard watched, he saw a diminutive form disappear back down the corridor and into an unoccupied bedroom, clutching the weapon which had so suddenly killed his comrade.

"That's right! Run you coward."

Lord Nikita barreled down the hidden stairs, taking them three steps at once, rushing headlong towards the manor stables. This particular passage opened into a closet within the stables that he had always kept locked and fastened, and now the key was jangling against his doublet. Safety was in sight.

"Deep breaths. Calm yourself. No one knows about these stairs besides the slaves who constructed them. The same trick worked last time, didn't it? Deep breathes. The key—where is that blasted key?—into the lock, quickly now...do I turn it clockwise? Come on. Open already.”

The closet door swung outwards, slamming against the back stable wall in Lord Nikita's hurry. Speed was the order of the day, fueled by an escalating adrenaline. Many of his fellow nobles would have been surprised with the vigor that the middle-aged chancellor exhibited as he snatched up his bridle and saddle, preparing for flight upon his favored horse.

"No time for an old friend, Nikita?"

The lord’s heart froze as he heard those mocking words. Maybe it wasn't the words themselves that gave him pause—but rather the voice that uttered them, one he thought was long lost, yet, to be honest, one he had never quite forgotten. Two assassins detached themselves from the sides of his horse's stall. They had been awaiting him all this time, cloaked by the night's shadows.

"Don’t worry my lord."

"It'll be over soon."

And as Nikita turned to flee, discarding first saddle and then bridle to sprint onto the estate grounds, he felt a cutting pain along his sternum.

Lord Nikita, fourth of his name and chancellor to the king, was found at sunrise lying upon the stable floor. Two daggers were arrayed between his shoulder blades.