[A freak is perilously too close to the tip of Paul's tongue, his guard lowered by a number of things: Palamedes' solicitousness, the way this place feels like it can hold secrets better than a grave, his own increasingly frantic efforts to understand what is happening to him. But he laughs instead, polite, worldly, barely audible.]

It's forbidden to train outsiders, so there's no word for it. Of course, that means it happens enough there should be. [He can't deny to himself: there's a pleasure in taking even this petty of a revenge on them, mocking their precious secrecy.] A witch's son, maybe.

Not that - my mother isn't a witch. But they call her that, sometimes. [He doesn't know if he should sound as defensive as he does; maybe he's insulting Palamedes indirectly.] The Lady Jessica. She's the one who trained me. It's usually mothers.

Anyway - I'm good with pain. Don't worry about that.

[Including the self-inflicted kind, if that embarrassing little outburst on his part is anything to go by.]