Completing one more lap around the table, Albanos put his hands on the back of his empty chair and glared down at the assembled faculty. In their files had been all their personal information, all their student performance reviews, all their assessments of Portnoy's effectiveness as principal, all the information he could ever have wanted. He hadn't had as much time as he would have liked to study them, but there was nothing to be done about that now. It was time to see if doing his homework had paid off.

"What I have done, and what has been done to me for it, are neither here nor there while we are in this room, or this academy for that matter. While we are here, we are co-workers, comrades in arms against the fearsome and tireless adversary that is the student body. It is our job to teach them what they need to know to not get killed outside these walls. We are the only hope they have, and I will not allow petty infighting over events that you know nothing about to endanger their futures. We owe them more than that."

He caught a woman on the right side of the table and a man opposite her on the left sneaking a glance at one another. He knew them from their files as Ms. Elwhite, dean of thief students, and Mr. Lintlow, master of poisons. Portnoy Hagglit had liked the children well enough, but having never been in the field much himself, he did not understand what life was like out there. He'd softened the curriculum, allowed more electives, and taken a lot of the harshness out of the four years of class work that was, when you got right down to it, survival training.

It had made the students happier, but Albanos was not the first to notice the decrease in life expectancies. And now he was almost certain if he were to poll the students about who their favorite faculty members were, Lintlow and Elwhite would place quite high. It was obvious from their postural shifts that they cared about the students and were intrigued by what they were hearing, personal feelings aside. That care always showed in the classroom, too.

Students were remarkably perceptive about whether a teacher minded, or would even notice, if instead of turning in their homework, they stabbed the kid in the desk next to them and jumped out the window. And it was hard for teachers who gave a damn, even after a lifetime of knowing the risks, to hear news of a kid you'd had to stalk to get a book report out of having been cut down by manor guards in some gods-forsaken province on the edge of nowhere because he'd let something fundamental slip.

Two down, eight to go.

"If you are going to have a problem with this, speak up now, and I will relieve you of your duties and obligations here at the Academy, inform the council that you are leaving honorably and should remain available for work and benefits...hell, I'll even help you clean out your office. But rules are rules, as I have been so firmly reminded every day for most of my adult life.

"If you are no longer associated with the Academy, you will be given two weeks to take yourself, and any family you may have, and vacate the village of Kelsai, being for friends of the school only, as it were. Failure to do so will result in your being viewed as trespassers, and I don't think any of us want that."

Three more faculty, the youngest of the group and all fairly recently married with young children to think about, shifted uneasily. Billicks was among them. Their stares of uncomprehending hatred were gone, replaced by the looks of uncertainty about the world outside their quaint, sinister little hamlet, protected by secrecy, superstition, and innumerable pointy objects. The roads were dangerous, even for trained thieves and assassins, as all your training meant nothing when someone had a knife at your child's throat.

He could see in the way they began fidgeting or gnawing on their lower lips, any number of other tells, that they were beginning to wonder if there might be worse things in this world than serving under Albanos. He certainly hadn't killed them yet, didn't look like a salivating madman, and they'd just spent all that money on getting the landscaping done, or the addition built, or the privy moved closer to the house...

Five down, thought Albanos, mind leaping like an excited herding dog whose flock is obediently approaching the pen.

"If you remain on, however, I will be grateful for it. The students will be back in less than a week, and there is a lot of work to be done. Everyone will have to rework their schedules, as you will all be taking on extra classes, for which you will be fairly compensated before you even have the chance to ask. Hagglit's penchant for holding onto every copper has left us with an amazing budget surplus, which I will use, with no small amount of relish, to undo all the changes Portnoy Hagglit made to this institution.

"There will be no electives until a student has learned everything they need to survive. Dead languages are no use to you if you are, in fact, dead yourself. Assassins and thieves will now also be required to finish at least half of each other's core classes. There is not an assassin in this world who wouldn't be well served by knowing how to pick a lock, nor a thief that couldn't do with knowing how to dispatch an enemy in the quickest, cleanest, and quietest way possible. The dividing line has grown too defined, and our graduates are paying for it. No exceptions, no one is grandfathered in. Fourth-years will be required to catch up, even if it means an extra summer. They will thank us for it years from now when they're the only ones left standing in a hall full of bodies."

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Mr. Downs, master of weaponry, and Mr. Hilnith, master of subterfuge, did not even bother trying to conceal their grins. They were the two oldest members of the senior faculty, and while not as aged as Albanos, anyone over 40 was bound to be a traditionalist. They were firm believers in offering students courses from the school of hard knocks, the school of you should have seen that hit coming, and the school of Stop Crying and Fight Back.

Hagglit had let everyone go soft, like him. Here was a man talking about discipline, and hard work, backbreaking even. This was much more their style. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Not for them, at any rate. For the students, it would be outright carnage.

And then there were three.

"I will also be moving the ethics and philosophy courses back from electives to the core requirements. They know full well they will be lying, cheating, stealing, and killing, but it is every bit as important that our Wolves know why they are doing these things, and who they should be doing them for, and to. We are the honor among thieves, the thinkers among the mindless killers. Leaving these halls always has and should always come with a sense of pride, and quiet dignity.

"We do not kill or steal because we are paid to, although we certainly don't if we aren't. I'm eccentric, not delusional. We perform these services, and accept our fee, for putting ourselves in danger for the greater good. We are the shears that prune the choking vine, the subtle hand that keeps the wealth from becoming too concentrated. The students must not be allowed to forget that, because if they do, we're no better off than the Spiders."

A mutter rippled through the room at the mention of their bitter rivals, though two sets of eyes remained silently fixed on Albanos. One belonged to Mrs. Vrailen, a severe-looking woman with an immaculate gray bun being held in place by two miniature stilettos. She headed up the Academy's history department and record keeping, which tracked every student, faculty member, and job that ever came through the place. If anyone in the room knew anything approaching the truth of his life, it would be her. Albanos got the distinct impression he was being sized up. Then, even to his surprise, she smiled.

His gaze passed to the other intent observer, one Mr. Crenshaw, the chair of the oft-maligned and somewhat idiosyncratic ethics department, which had shrunk considerably under Hagglit's reign. He gave Albanos an almost imperceptible nod, which he returned.

When the susurrations died away again, the only person not looking at the man at the head of the table was Rodderick, who was glaring at his cast, turning red as the seepage from his bandages, though this seemed to have finally stabilized. Albanos knew that there would be no pleasing some people, and was more than happy with how things had gone with everyone else so far.

If he hadn't endeared himself, he'd at least kept their curiosity, and himself, alive for a while longer. The only thing he'd had going for him was the general dissatisfaction that always followed in the wake of harmlessly incompetent leaders like Hagglit. It seemed to have been enough.

"I will ask that you all go about preparations for the students' return over the next week as though nothing had changed. I'll introduce myself at student orientation. Until then, I see no need to trouble any of the summer-overs or early arrivals with my presence. I will be spending most of the coming days brushing up on the details of taming this beast, but I am making myself available whenever you need me, in either my office or my room, which I can only assume is to be Portnoy's old lodgings."

An idea struck him then, the remnants of a thought experiment he had toyed with on numerous sleepless nights after laying another failed, nameless hitman to rest. Everyone was so very bad at killing him, and not that he was ungrateful, but he had wondered how he would have gone about fixing that.

"Also, deans, I will need the records of the top five assassins and thieves from each of the four years as soon as you can get them to me. If there is nothing else?"

Rodderick harumphed in angry protest, the edge somewhat taken off by the whimper of pain that followed.

"What, no meaningless boon or empty promise tailored to my interests? Have you nothing to give to me? No transparent pandering you'd like to try?"

They locked eyes for a few tense seconds before Albanos replied.

"Knife didn't kill you, did it? I think I've done quite well by you today. This meeting is adjourned, I will be in my office."

With that, he stood and strode out of the room without a second glance.