Chapter 46: The Mushroom Had a Legal Department

Chapter 46: Chapter 46: The Mushroom Had a Legal Department

Dante asked to see the rule before answering the attendant, partly because he wanted time to think and partly because standing beside Anika had stopped feeling like a decision he needed to repeat. Honey took the tablet.

The attendant showed them the line about people named in an open inquiry. The court wanted to question Anika before letting her through its exit, using Blackwell’s witness notice as its excuse. Rhea asked why a sign for a public shuttle had brought them to a private checkpoint in the first place.

"The lower paths choose their own visitors," the attendant said. "You can make a complaint after your departure has been approved."

Anika requested a connection to Blackwell and gave her adviser’s number. Rhea added that security knew they were missing. Dante watched a beetle carry the attendant’s pen back to its stand. Even the stationery could leave its desk, which put it ahead of them.

Dante helped Anika claim a padded bench and offered Rhea water before Honey sat beside him, nudging his knee away from her folded wing.

"You may admire them from a sensible distance, despite your obvious difficulties," she told him. Dante apologized for being new to furniture with wings, since his last chair had only tried to break his ass.

Rhea laughed while Anika asked about a public exit. Honey pointed confidently toward a doorway until a porter emerged with laundry.

The attendant returned with a statement that Blackwell would have to answer their message during business hours. Anika showed him her adviser’s incoming call, watched it fail beneath the mushroom ceiling and asked him to stop pretending the problem was the university.

A porter answered a phone beside the laundry doorway while Anika’s call failed again, and Dante stood before the attendant could repeat his excuse. He pointed to the working handset and asked to use that connection, raising his voice only when the man tried talking over him, until the other waiting travelers began paying attention too.

They used the wall receiver to reach Ms. Lane, giving the guest court’s name, their last street corner and the false-sign details. She promised to contact campus security, and Dante sat down knowing someone outside finally had a place to look.

Their relief lasted until the attendant brought three visitor forms. Each asked who had agreed to bring them inside and who would answer for their behavior. Dante’s had an extra question about his family, asking which magical bloodline he belonged to.

"Me, so far, with mixed reviews," he said. "I don’t belong to anyone, and I’m not signing somebody else’s name because your boxes are too small." He crossed out the blank space for a sponsor and wrote that he had followed a shuttle sign, taking care not to let his cramped grip turn the explanation into an autograph.

Honey stopped turning pages when he said he had no sponsor, and the attendant asked him to repeat it beside the brass gate. Dante followed because he thought they had finally found a useful question, watching a pale line of light pass across his hand before the lock clicked open.

Beyond the bars stood a corridor marked PUBLIC PERIMETER. Dante stayed on their side as Anika approached, but the gate snapped shut, doing the same for Rhea before reopening for him.

Dante stopped with both feet behind the threshold and asked Anika to stay back while he stepped away. The gate shut when he moved out of reach, then opened again when he returned alone. He repeated it once without speaking, unable to blame a clever phrase for something happening before he opened his mouth. Honey watched his hand as closely as the bars, but did not give him an answer.

Printed strips said the court had admitted the women as guests without approving departure, although neither had filled in a sponsor.

The attendant touched their arrival record. The talking tree’s wooden face pushed through the tablet glass and repeated Dante’s claim that they were expected guests. Its promise of protection had admitted them, but the court now used that promise to prevent departure. Dante stepped back when the bark lips sank into the screen.

The pale shapes outside had obeyed that protection too. He had thought of it as a password, something clever that got them past a threat. Now Anika stood behind a gate that opened for him, and withdrawing his words only earned another waiting number.

"Don’t let me make the next decision just because I sound certain," he told Anika quietly. "I knew where that shortcut went too." She said she had followed the same sign and would keep looking at the next one herself, which gave him less blame to enjoy and more work to do. He took the printed strip rather than another guess.

Honey examined the strip and found an appeal reference beneath the printed edge. The attendant disliked her reading it aloud enough that Dante suspected she had finally found something she understood.

"The route witnesses can correct an arrival," she explained. "They’re by the lower orchard, and they hate having their work quoted inaccurately."

At Rhea’s request, the attendant wrote the appeal instructions and orchard directions on their slip, which Anika photographed before giving it to Dante. He refused the offer to leave alone, since Ms. Lane was already finding help and the women would still be locked inside.

"Then take us to the orchard, because we’re leaving together," Dante said, collecting the slip before the attendant could put it aside. Heads turned across the waiting area, and the attention made his promise feel stronger, although nothing about the locked gate had changed.

A woman pushing a cart of empty flower cups stopped behind the attendant. Her green sleeves were stained with soil, and a narrow copper band circled one ankle above her worn shoes.

She asked whether leaving together included residents assigned to the route. Dante noticed the raw skin above her ankle band when she moved closer. The attendant ordered her back to work, and people looked at Dante for an answer. He wanted to deserve that look before he knew how to help.

"If you’re allowed to apply, we’ll take you with us," Dante said, using the steady voice that had made the attendant finally listen. The woman looked at his open gate, then at his face, and smiled as though he had just done more than he actually had. She abandoned the cart before he worked out how to take the certainty out of his promise.

Rhea called for her to wait, but the copper band flashed before she could reach her. The woman fell against the brass rail with a cry, and the smell of burned cloth reached Dante as the gate shut around her leg.