Chapter 950: You Can Sense Them?

?"

Liam considered answering with another insult.

Instead, he decided the question deserved a proper response.

"Sheila is commander. The year needs a functioning hierarchy. Undermining that because I dislike being restricted would be counterproductive."

Charlotte watched him.

He continued, "Her orders are reasonable. I have no reason to interfere with them at the moment."

"At the moment," Charlotte repeated, catching the qualification immediately.

"Yes."

She laughed under her breath.

"You really do choose your words carefully."

"Someone has to."

Charlotte leaned back against the stone.

"I think you trust Sheila more than you want to admit."

Liam glanced at her.

"I consider her judgment reliable."

"Which sounds suspiciously like trust."

"Professional confidence."

"Oh, sweetheart." Charlotte placed a hand against her chest. "From you, that practically sounds like a declaration of love."

"You have an unfortunate understanding of affection."

"And you have an unfortunate habit of making perfectly sweet statements sound like battlefield assessments."

"It was a battlefield assessment."

"Of course it was."

Liam shook his head.

Charlotte’s smile lingered, but her tone softened slightly.

"Joking aside, I understand what you mean."

He looked toward her.

"Sheila’s doing well," Charlotte said. "And Edith is making sure her orders actually reach the people who need them. I spent most of the morning dealing with scouting assignments, and I didn’t have to go looking for Sheila every time something needed clarifying."

"That is the point."

"I know." Charlotte glanced toward the courtyard below. "It makes a difference. The students are starting to understand who handles what."

Liam followed her gaze.

For a moment, they watched a small group of students carry supplies between two work areas. One stopped to consult a supervisor before changing direction, and the others followed without argument.

Charlotte smiled faintly.

"It’s becoming an actual settlement."

"A barely functional one."

"Still progress."

"Yes."

She turned back toward him.

"And you helped with that."

Liam’s expression remained indifferent. "I offered suggestions."

"Several rather important suggestions."

"Sheila decided what to do with them."

Charlotte studied him a moment longer, then seemed to accept that he was not going to turn the conversation into an opportunity for self-congratulation.

"That is probably why she listens to you," she said.

Liam raised an eyebrow.

"Because I don’t congratulate myself?"

"Because you usually have a point, even when you present it like an insult."

"Efficient communication."

"Terrible manners."

"Compatible qualities."

Charlotte laughed again.

The conversation settled into a brief, comfortable silence.

Liam considered using the opportunity to return to meditation, but Charlotte’s earlier proposal still held a point worth examining.

"Your observation positions," he said. "You mentioned evaluating them before use."

Charlotte looked pleased that he had returned to the subject.

"Mm-hm."

"What exactly are you using to determine whether a location has been occupied recently?"

"Depends on the location."

"Be specific."

She tilted her head.

"Are you interviewing me?"

"Would you prefer I stop?"

"Absolutely not. I rather enjoy having your attention."

Liam gave her an unimpressed look.

Charlotte smiled before continuing.

"Sight is useful, obviously. So is Myst perception. But neither tells you everything."

She gestured toward the trees beyond the wall.

"People tend to think concealment means making yourself invisible or suppressing your Myst. That’s only part of it. You can hide your appearance and still disturb the environment. You can suppress your presence and still leave a trail."

"Physical traces."

"Exactly."

Charlotte shifted slightly, adopting a more thoughtful tone.

"Scents linger. Leaves get disturbed. Branches bend in directions they wouldn’t naturally bend. Sometimes the ground tells you more than a person ever would. A footprint might disappear, but the pressure of movement can still leave something behind in soft soil or crushed vegetation."

"Assuming the terrain preserves it."

"Of course. Rain, wind, other animals, or simply time can erase most of it. And someone skilled enough can avoid leaving obvious signs in the first place."

She glanced toward the forest.

"But I’m not always looking for obvious signs."

Liam waited.

"Sometimes it’s the things that don’t fit. An animal trail that suddenly becomes unusually quiet. A patch of vegetation disturbed in a place nothing should have passed through. A scent that appears briefly and disappears without a reasonable continuation. Or a location that looks undisturbed until you compare it with the surrounding area."

Liam considered her explanation.

It was practical.

Tracking did not require the subject to remain visible. It required evidence of passage, and that evidence depended on the interaction between the subject and the environment.

His own abilities approached the problem differently.

Shadow Sight could reveal hidden gaps, unusual darkness, old traces, and inconsistencies ordinary sight might miss. Raven and his other shadow creatures could extend his observation range. But none of those methods guaranteed that he would notice every scent, disturbance, or behavioral change in nearby wildlife.

Different tools produced different information.

Charlotte possessed another advantage.

Her jaguar transformation.

"When I’m transformed," she continued, "my senses give me a different understanding of an area. Smell, hearing, small changes in movement. Things I’d barely notice as a human become much easier to distinguish."

"Within limits."

She smiled approvingly.

"Within limits. A strong concealment technique could hide most of that. Some people know how to cover their trails properly. And Eldervale has enough strange creatures and Myst conditions that not every unusual scent means someone is hiding nearby."

"Good."

Charlotte gave him a curious look. "Good?"

"You understand your own limitations."

She blinked, then laughed softly.

"Was that a compliment?"

"An observation."

"From you, those are practically the same thing."

"Don’t get accustomed to it."

"Oh, far too late."

Liam ignored that.

He found her explanation more useful than he had expected.

Charlotte had demonstrated considerable scouting ability since arriving in Eldervale, but hearing her describe how she approached reconnaissance made the underlying method clearer. She did not simply rely on enhanced senses or move through the forest hoping to notice something interesting.

She compared evidence.

She questioned inconsistencies.

She understood that a missing trail could be as informative as an obvious one, provided there was a reasonable expectation that a trail should exist.

’Useful. Especially when Myst perception isn’t reliable.’

Still, nothing she had said justified an immediate expedition.

Those methods would strengthen scouting procedures, but the settlement could incorporate them after Sheila approved the revised observation approach.

There was no reason to rush.

Charlotte rested her hands against the parapet and looked out across the surrounding woodland.

"Actually, that’s part of why I’ve been curious about a few places outside Veyrhold."

Liam glanced toward her.

"What places?"

"Nothing dramatic. A few locations I noticed during earlier scouting. Places that didn’t quite make sense."

"In what way?"

Charlotte considered the question.

"One had a faint scent that stopped too abruptly. No obvious continuation, no matching trail, and nothing nearby that explained why it had been there. Another had disturbed branches near an elevated position, but the ground below didn’t show the movement I’d expect from an ordinary animal climbing around."

"Could have been a flying creature."

"Certainly."

"Or another student."

"Also possible."

She smiled slightly.

"That’s why they’re observations, not conclusions."

Liam nodded.

Charlotte continued, "There was another place that looked as though someone had occupied it recently. An elevated section with a decent view over the surrounding routes. Nothing visible when I checked, and I couldn’t identify a useful Myst signature. But a few details suggested something had been there."

"Details?"

"Minor disturbances. A different scent from the surrounding area. Nothing strong enough to identify a person, and I didn’t stay long enough to investigate properly."

"Why not?"

"Because I had an assignment to finish, and wandering off to investigate every interesting smell is how scouts become cautionary tales."

Liam looked at her.

Charlotte smiled innocently.

"What? Surprised I can resist temptation?"

"Moderately."

"I’m full of wonderful qualities."

"And apparently very modest."

"Naturally."

Liam shifted his gaze back toward the forest.

Her observations were interesting, but they were also inconclusive. Eldervale contained unfamiliar creatures, unstable Myst conditions, and evidence of countless disturbances that might have nothing to do with intelligent activity.

He was not going to invent an explanation merely because Charlotte had encountered unusual traces.

’Still, those elevated positions are worth checking eventually.’

If she could identify places offering useful observation angles, they might improve Veyrhold’s reconnaissance procedures even if the unexplained signs turned out to be ordinary environmental effects.

Charlotte leaned back on her hands.

"Besides," she said casually, "for all we know, some of those places could have been used by the academy observers."

Liam’s attention sharpened.

He did not move immediately.

Charlotte continued looking toward the forest, apparently unaware that her last sentence had changed the value of the entire conversation.

"I’m not saying that’s what they were," she added. "Could be students who passed through earlier, unusual Realm-Touched activity, or something else entirely. But the observers have to position themselves somewhere if they’re monitoring what happens outside the settlement."

Liam remained silent.

His thoughts had already shifted.

The academy observers.

He had been interested in them since the assessment began, but locating them had proved considerably less straightforward than spotting an ordinary hidden creature. Advanced concealment could suppress visible presence and disguise Myst signatures. Even Shadow Sight had limitations against techniques designed to conceal more than appearances.

Charlotte’s observations introduced another possibility.

Concealment did not necessarily erase interaction with the physical world.

A hidden observer might leave a scent, disturb vegetation, occupy an elevated position, or influence the behavior of nearby animals without exposing a detectable Myst signature.

Of course, skilled observers might account for those things as well.

And Charlotte could be interpreting unrelated disturbances.

But the possibility was worth considering.

’Interesting.’

Liam looked toward the surrounding treeline, examining the matter from a different angle.

Charlotte knew the nearby scouting routes better than most of the students currently inside Veyrhold. She had noticed several locations that deserved closer inspection. Her enhanced senses could identify traces he might overlook, and her position as scouting lead meant that proposing a controlled reconnaissance operation would not be unusual.

More importantly, she had already begun considering exactly that.

A legitimate operation.

Approved observation positions.

A reason to inspect locations outside the walls without making the expedition an exercise in personal curiosity.

And potentially, an opportunity to investigate the academy’s hidden presence.

For the first time since Charlotte had interrupted his meditation, Liam found himself reconsidering her proposal as something worth pursuing sooner rather than later.

Not because it would get him away from Sheila’s restrictions.

That remained an attractive secondary benefit.

But because Charlotte might possess information he could not obtain alone.

He studied her for a moment.

Charlotte was still speaking, one hand gesturing lightly toward the distant forest.

"Of course, there’s no way to know whether any of those disturbances actually belonged to an observer without looking into them more carefully. And even then, someone using advanced concealment could—"

"Charlotte."

She stopped.

"Hm?"

Liam turned toward her fully, his earlier irritation replaced by a more deliberate, attentive expression.

"Are you saying you can actually sense the academy observers?"