Chapter 810: Cost

The last part took him longer.

Beatrice heard the officer ask about his confrontation with Alex and Mingyue at immigration.

Rovan looked toward Mingyue, who had come out of the hearing room.

She did not help him answer.

He lowered his eyes and began again, leaving out the version in which everyone had misunderstood his intentions.

When he finished, the officer told him they would compare the account with the available witnesses and records.

"You’re free to leave," the officer said. "You need to remain reachable."

Rovan stared at him.

"My family won’t be arranging anything."

"Then give the receiving office the place you are staying when you know it."

The officer turned to the next account.

Rovan remained still for a moment. No one had called him Young Master or promised to settle the questions because of his uncle.

Beatrice closed her case and waited beside the door.

"Did you ask Petricia?" she said.

"Not yet."

"Then do it before the rooms fill."

He gave a small nod.

They found Petricia checking a row of beds in a building beyond the main ward. Rovan asked for a place without mentioning his family name until she asked what to put on the record.

She asked him the same questions she asked the others. Could he walk? Did he need help changing the dressing on his shoulder? Was anyone coming who needed to find him?

"No," he said to the last one.

Then he hesitated.

"If that changes, I’ll tell you."

Petricia showed him an empty bed and the shelf beside it. The man already in the room moved his own bag enough to make space.

Rovan put down the few things he had brought from the ward.

Beatrice watched him look at the small shelf. He had spent part of their flight through the city carrying her because there was nowhere else to put her down. Now he had a place to rest, and accepting it seemed harder for him than she expected.

A clerk stopped Petricia outside the door.

They needed someone to carry copies of the checked claims between this building and the bank office. The regular carrier had been moved to help with the next group of patients.

Rovan listened without looking up.

"Does it need two hands?" he asked.

The clerk glanced at his sling.

"No. You carry the case, get the receiver to mark it, and bring it back. You don’t change the papers or promise anyone an outcome."

"Is there pay?"

"There will be a small daily payment while the work is needed. Food and your bed don’t depend on taking it."

Rovan looked at Beatrice. She waited while he considered the offer.

"I can do that," he said.

Petricia told the clerk to make the first trip with him so he knew the route and whom to hand the case to.

Rovan started toward the door, then stopped beside Beatrice.

"I thought you’d ask me to come to the house."

"I need to take my father there."

"I could help."

"Not by carrying him with that shoulder."

He looked down at the sling.

The receiving attendants were already waiting with the transport for her father.

"Finish the route," she said. "I’ll tell you whether the house is still standing."

Rovan nodded and went with the clerk.

***

The house had lost two windows and part of the outer wall.

Beatrice stood at the gate while the attendants brought her father down from the transport. One supported his back while the other helped him put his feet on the ground.

He looked up at the broken windows.

"We’ll need to cover those."

"Yes."

"The workshop?"

"Still here. We check it after you sit down."

He wanted to argue, but his legs were already shaking.

They helped him to the chair inside the entrance. Beatrice opened the shutters enough to let light into the room, then set the returned access key on the table beside his hand.

He touched it with one finger.

The rooms smelled stale. Dust lay over the furniture, and the water formation did not start when Beatrice tried it. They would need repairs before they could stay here properly.

She did not mind seeing those problems. They were things she could point to and begin fixing.

Her father watched her test the old lamp beside his chair. It flickered twice before holding a weak light.

"Don’t use the returned money on the workshop first," he said.

"I know. The wages."

"And the people who supplied us when they knew we were struggling."

"We’ll check what we owe them."

He nodded, then looked at the empty doorway where the clinic supplies used to be stored before they moved most of the work into the company building.

"Will Alex keep the shop open?"

"He bought it because it could be useful. I still work there when we can reopen."

Her father turned toward her.

"You don’t have to spend everything putting my life back the way it was."

Beatrice sat across from him.

"I don’t think it can go back exactly."

There were people they would never see again. Much of the city had been destroyed, and no one knew what the Empire would do next. But House Varn’s name, once enough to threaten them, now appeared in evidence held by several offices.

Her father sat turning the returned key in his hand. This morning, his assistant had received the first part of her wages.

For that moment, she let herself look at him without planning how to carry him out.

He turned the key over in his hand and asked her to tell him how the others were getting their claims heard.

Beatrice took the list from her case and began with the people he knew. When he offered to help confirm their claims, she wrote down what he remembered.

They left before he could persuade himself to try the stairs. At the door, he asked her to lock it.

She did, and put the key in his hand for the journey back to the ward.