Chapter 151: Someone Else Is Responsible

Ten days disappeared faster than they had any right to. I blamed paperwork.

By the time departure morning arrived, Sanctuary had developed an entire system for saying goodbye without admitting that was what anyone was doing. Cedric checked my medical kit twice, and Lena checked it again after him.

Roland tried to sell me travel snacks at a discount that sounded less convincing every time he explained it. Mira informed me that the third carriage waiting at the western gate had an uneven wheel. I asked how she could possibly know that from the residence. She said she could hear it, and I decided not to ask anything else.

Penelope stood near the entrance with a folded sheet in one hand.

"No," I said.

"You haven’t seen it."

"It’s paper."

"It’s your travel list."

"I already packed."

"I know."

"Then why does the list still exist?"

"Because you packed."

That seemed unfair. My storage ring held clothes, medicine, the advancement book, three notebooks, two formal outfits, a blanket I didn’t need because Dream Haven existed, apothecary supplies I probably did need, and enough food from Sanctuary to survive a siege. Most of the food had appeared without my involvement. I suspected Lena, possibly Mira, and definitely Penelope.

"Formal clothes?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Medical supplies?"

"Yes."

"Notebook?"

I looked at her. She looked back.

"Yes."

"Good."

"You’re enjoying this."

"No."

She was. I could tell.

Behind her, Roland was leaning against the wall. "Three letters."

I pointed at him. "This doesn’t concern you."

"It concerns Sanctuary."

"You are not Sanctuary."

"Emotionally, I am."

Cedric made a noise of pure disgust.

The door was six steps away. I took one of them, and Penelope caught my sleeve.

"What?"

For a moment she only looked at me. Then she let go.

"Write."

"I said I would."

"I know."

She didn’t add a speech, or tell me to be careful, and I was grateful for that. I nodded once, and left before anyone could discover a fourth letter.

***

Three carriages were waiting outside Zenith’s western gate. Two belonged to the Academy. The third carried enough Crown markings that avoiding it felt like a political statement, so I chose the second Academy carriage, which had the widest rear bench. Elizabeth told me later that the Crown carriage held the kingdom’s official gifts for the beastkin delegation and nobody else, and that riding in it would have made her the easiest target on the western road. She said it as though it were obvious. It probably was.

Dream Haven expanded the moment the door closed, and by the time the first carriage began to roll I had claimed the entire corner.

The door opened. James stared in at me. I stared back. He looked at Dream Haven, which was now taking up enough room to qualify for tuition.

"Move."

"There are other seats."

"There are four of us."

"Five."

"You’re lying across two of them."

"Efficient use of space."

James put a hand on the doorframe. "Move."

I shifted six inches. He kept looking at me.

"Compromise," I said.

"That isn’t compromise."

"It involved movement."

He climbed in anyway. Sophie appeared behind him, looked at the available space, then at me, then at James.

"Did he get here first?"

"Unfortunately," said James.

"Then it’s legally his."

James turned around. "What?"

Sophie stepped past him and took the bench opposite. "Common carriage law."

"There’s no such thing as common carriage law."

"There should be."

I liked Sophie.

Daphne came next. She climbed in without a word and took the seat farthest from the door, close enough to the window to watch the road behind us. Then Elizabeth arrived, stopped on the step, looked inside, and sighed.

I closed my eyes. "There’s space."

"Your pillow is occupying more of the carriage than you are."

"It has status."

"It’s a pillow."

"SSS-rank artifact."

"Still a pillow."

Dream Haven expanded another inch. Pure coincidence.

Elizabeth climbed in and sat beside Sophie, and the carriage held all five of us. The thought arrived before I could stop it, and I opened my eyes. James was adjusting the sword at his hip. Sophie was looking out the window. Daphne had gone still in the way she did when she was paying attention to everything without appearing to. Elizabeth was unfolding a travel schedule, because naturally she had brought one.

Four people, carrying four pieces of something none of them knew they had. The System stayed silent. I appreciated that.

Outside, someone called for the gates. Zenith slid past the windows: stone walls, training fields, the outer gardens, a cluster of students by the road waving at someone, probably Elizabeth. Royalty encouraged waving.

I pulled Dream Haven under my head. "Wake me when we reach the border."

"That’ll take days," said James.

"Excellent."

"You can’t sleep for days."

I closed my eyes. "Watch me."

***

I did not sleep, not properly. The road was uneven, James kept shifting, Elizabeth kept turning pages, and Sophie hummed whenever she saw something interesting outside. Daphne had stayed completely motionless for nearly half an hour, which became distracting the moment I noticed it. Mostly, though, I wanted to listen. So I breathed slowly, kept my eyes shut, and pretended.

It worked for almost twelve minutes.

"He’s not asleep," said Elizabeth.

James lowered his voice anyway. "How do you know?"

"He breathes differently when he’s listening."

I opened one eye. Elizabeth was still reading.

"That’s invasive."

She didn’t look up. "You were pretending to sleep."

"That doesn’t make observation legal."

"We’ve shared classes for months."

"Still concerning."

Sophie smiled. "I thought he was asleep."

"You think everyone’s asleep when they close their eyes," said James.

"Usually they are."

Daphne looked over at me. "Were you listening?"

"Only accidentally."

"No," said Elizabeth.

I looked at her. She finally raised her eyes from the page.

"Not accidentally," she said.

I closed my eye again. "Then I was resting while receiving information."

James muttered something, probably rude, and the carriage rolled on in silence until Sophie broke it.

"Have any of you been this far west before?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth.

"Twice," said James.

Daphne shook her head. Nobody asked me, and then Sophie remembered.

"Oh. You lived out there."

I opened an eye. "Near enough."

"For years."

"Regrettably."

James frowned. "Why regrettably?"

"Hills."

He waited. I didn’t give him anything else.

"The hills?" said Sophie.

"There are too many of them."

"That’s your complaint?"

"They go upward."

"Mountains do that."

"Exactly."

Sophie laughed, and I shut my eye.

A few minutes later, James asked Elizabeth about security for the signing, and that became a proper conversation. The Crown had already sent people ahead to Fort Halden. The first stretch of our route was the Academy’s responsibility, and Crown security would join us closer to the border. The treaty delegation itself was traveling separately. All of this was good news. More adults meant fewer decisions for me.

The carriage slowed, and then stopped.

James looked out. "Already?"

Someone knocked on the door, and Daphne’s hand went to her belt, fast, then stopped when a voice outside said, "Commander Renn."

The door opened on a lean man somewhere in his late thirties, with close-cropped sandy hair and a weathered face. He wore an Academy coat without any professor’s insignia, over military boots. His eyes went from Elizabeth to James, to Sophie, to Daphne, and to me. They paused on Dream Haven for a moment and moved on without comment. A professional. I approved.

"Everyone here?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth.

"I’ll keep this short. I’m responsible for the Academy escort until Crown security takes joint command near the border."

James sat up straighter. I sank a little lower, for balance.

"On the road, you follow instructions. If we stop unexpectedly, you stay with the carriage until you’re told otherwise. If something attacks, you don’t leave the defensive perimeter unless I order it."

James opened his mouth. Renn looked directly at him.

"That includes you, Lord Vellaroux."

James closed it. An excellent man.

"If the carriage overturns?" asked Daphne.

"Get out on the side away from the threat and regroup at the nearest escort marker."

"And if there’s more than one threat?" asked Sophie.

"Then you’ll hear the signal." Renn tapped a metal whistle at his collar. "One long call means hold your position. Two means dismount and regroup. Three means you’re authorized to fight."

James looked interested again. I disliked three already.

Renn’s gaze settled on me. "Lord Vortex."

"Yes?"

"You are not the expedition medic."

I blinked. "I never said I was."

"Professor Selene said you would try to be. If someone is injured, you wait for the assigned healer unless it’s critical."

"That seems inefficient."

"It’s designed to stop you emptying your mana because somebody scraped a knee."

That was annoying and also reasonable. "I’ll try."

"You’ll comply."

He sounded exactly like Selene. There were far too many of them.

"Fine."

"Good." He looked at all five of us. "You’re traveling as representatives, not soldiers. I know all five of you are capable. That does not put you in command of this road."

James glanced away. Elizabeth didn’t react. Sophie nodded, and Daphne said, "Understood."

I liked this trip more by the minute. Someone else was responsible for it, which has always been my favorite form of government.

Renn closed the door, and the carriage started forward again. For about ten seconds nobody spoke.

"I wasn’t going to argue," said James.

Elizabeth looked at him. "You opened your mouth."

"I was going to ask a question."

"What question?"

James hesitated. "It doesn’t matter."

Sophie smiled at the window. I pulled Dream Haven closer. This was going well.

***

By midday, we had learned several things about traveling together. James hated sitting still. Sophie loved roadside markers. Elizabeth had somehow brought documents for a treaty she wasn’t negotiating. And Daphne counted turns.

I found that out when the carriage took a sharp bend and she said, quietly, "Twenty-three."

I opened my eyes. "Twenty-three what?"

"Turns since the southern road."

"Why?"

She looked at me as if the answer were obvious. "In case we need to go back."

I thought about it. "Useful."

She went back to the window. Elizabeth had noticed as well; I could tell from the way her pen paused.

Sophie leaned forward. "Do you always do that?"

"Only when I don’t know the road."

"How do you remember them all?"

"I remember."

That ended the conversation. Sophie accepted it. James looked as though he wanted a better answer, and Elizabeth was almost certainly filing it away for later. I went back to pretending to sleep.

After lunch, the carriage grew quieter. James finally stopped fidgeting, Sophie had a book, Elizabeth had found another stack of papers from somewhere, and Daphne watched the trees. I watched all four of them through half-closed eyes.

James was different outside the Academy. Not calm; that would have been unrealistic. But whenever the carriage slowed he checked the road, and he looked toward Renn’s escort before doing anything himself. He had listened, which I hadn’t been sure he would.

Sophie looked relaxed, perhaps too relaxed. Every village we passed caught her attention, with its children and animals and market stalls, and when people waved, she waved back. Once she nearly hit James in the face doing it. He complained, she apologized, and twenty minutes later she did it again.

Daphne was the hardest to read. At Zenith there was always somewhere else to look: a class, a training field, Greywall, Nadia. Here there was only the carriage, and she rarely moved without a reason. Every few minutes her eyes went to the window, then the door, then the rest of us. It didn’t look like nerves. It looked like habit.

Elizabeth would be studying all of this as well, which meant at least two people in the carriage were pretending not to observe everyone else. Three, if Daphne counted. Possibly four. Sophie might secretly be terrifying.

I shut my eyes properly. Five vessels, together. For the first time since the Gallery, the thought didn’t immediately turn into a problem. It just stayed there. They weren’t fragments while they argued about seats, and they weren’t quest objectives while Sophie laughed at nothing. That should have made things easier. It didn’t, because telling someone they carried a piece of something enormous was hard enough, and telling people you had known for months, and had said nothing on purpose, was worse.

I opened my eyes. Sophie noticed.

"Finally awake?"

"I’ve been awake."

James looked at Elizabeth. Elizabeth smiled without looking up.

"What?" said Sophie.

"Nothing," said James.

"It wasn’t nothing."

"It really was."

"It didn’t sound like nothing."

Daphne glanced at me. "He was listening."

"I know that now," said Sophie.

The trip was turning hostile. I sat up, and Dream Haven shrank enough to fit behind my back.

"Since everyone’s discussing me, I should be allowed to take part."

"We weren’t discussing you," said James.

"You were about to."

Elizabeth looked up at last. "Predicting other people’s conversations. That’s invasive."

I stared at her. She smiled faintly. I had walked straight into that one.

Sophie closed her book. "What were you thinking about?"

Four faces turned toward me. Absolutely not.

"The road."

James looked out at it. "It’s straight."

"Exactly."

"What about it?"

"I appreciate consistency."

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, though not enough to call me on it. Not yet.

***

Zenith had disappeared by degrees over the course of the day, first its towers and walls, then every road I recognized. By late afternoon even the villages looked different, with steeper roofs and more stone walls between the fields, and fewer Academy wagons on the road. The western road widened through farmland and narrowed again between low hills.

I recognized none of it. That should have been comforting, and it wasn’t. Every mile west made old memories feel a little less old.

A hill rose beyond the window, and for half a second I thought I knew it. Then we passed its crest, and I didn’t. Good, I told myself, and wasn’t sure I meant it.

Sophie had fallen asleep, actually asleep, with her head against the window. James had given up on his book and was staring at the ceiling. Daphne still hadn’t slept. Elizabeth was writing something.

"Does anyone know where we’re stopping tonight?" I asked.

"Commander Renn said a Crown waystation," said James.

Elizabeth didn’t look up. "Tomorrow night as well. After that, a town called Marrowfield."

"How do you know?"

"It was in the route packet."

"There was a route packet?"

She stopped writing, slowly. "You received the same packet."

I considered this. "Was it attached to the royal letter?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Theoran had told me I’d ignored half the second page.

James covered his face with one hand. Sophie woke up.

"What happened?"

"Alash lost another document without losing it," said James.

"I didn’t lose it."

"You didn’t read it."

"Different problem."

Elizabeth set her pen down. "Where is it?"

"In my ring."

"Read it tonight."

"That seems unnecessary now that you have."

"Read it."

"I’ll consider it."

"You will read it."

I leaned back into Dream Haven. "Commander Renn is responsible."

Elizabeth stared at me. I closed my eyes. Someone else being in charge was still an excellent system.

***

Far from the western road, in a place none of them would have thought to look, something moved inside a broken shell.

The deep crack running along one side of the shell had widened since it struck the stone months ago. Not quickly; nothing about this was quick. A thin black limb pressed against the inside of the shell, stopped, and pressed again. The shell shifted against the stone. Something wet dragged across its inner surface.

The pale lines beneath the shell had changed since then. They no longer flickered near the surface. Faint threads now moved deeper through the black shell, slow and alive only in the loosest sense of the word.

The thing inside had no name, and understood nothing of the world beyond the shell. It had instructions. Two of them. Nothing else mattered yet.

Hunt the Akashic Key.

The limb pressed harder, and a piece of the shell broke inward. For the first time, cold air touched what waited inside. It did not react. It had no reason to.

The second instruction lay beneath the first.

Return at all cost.

The creature moved again, and this time the broken shell did not settle afterward.