Chapter 135 The Date, Under Management

Yukine’s itinerary ran four pages, with the first devoted entirely to a seating chart.

Isolde sat at the corner table of the Lantern Inn in her best dress, back rigid as a statute. Riven took the opposite chair with the itinerary folded beside his plate, every single minute already assigned to somebody.

"Item one is conversation," Isolde said, smoothing the cloth flat, "I have prepared six topics."

"Want to start with the weather?" Riven asked, tearing a roll in half.

"The weather is topic four... you are skipping ahead," she said, scandalized.

Across the street Yukine crouched on a rooftop in a dark hood, flashing hand signals through the window. Nix lingered by the door in a flower seller’s apron, offering one single rose to a bewildered lamppost.

"That is our entire support staff," Isolde said, closing her eyes, "I would like it noted that I never approved them."

Mara prowled the pavement outside in a coat stitched with the single word PATROL, scowling at pigeons.

"Noted, though Nix will bill us for the rose and the apron."

A waiter arrived with a tray of soup, apron tied wrong, head bowed so low his hair hid his face. He set the first bowl before Isolde, raised his eyes to ask about pepper, then froze with the tray tilting.

"Is that—" Cassen began, his voice cracking like a boy’s.

"I was told the diners were visiting dignitaries," he finished faintly, staring down at the second bowl.

The second bowl slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor and spraying broth across half the room. A hush fell over the Lantern, broken only by a spoon rolling slowly away under a distant table.

"I was told the waiter’s name was Piers," Isolde said, her face going white, then red.

He turned toward the window, "Yukine did this... I will never forgive her."

On the rooftop Yukine gave a precise thumbs-up through the glass, scoring the disaster like a judge. Isolde buried her face in both hands, shoulders shaking, while Riven reached helplessly for the nearest napkin.

Then a sound burst out of her, a real laugh, loud enough to turn heads at every table.

Half the inn stared while Cassen stood in the soup, listening to a sound he never earned. Isolde wheezed into her napkin, tears streaming, her shoulders shaking harder than any sword ever made them.

Isolde wiped her eyes with the napkin, "I am so sorry, I have not laughed like that since I was seven."

’Seven years old... and nobody noticed she stopped. I’d settle that bill for free.’

She straightened, tucking a strand behind her ear, then studied the crumpled itinerary lying open between them on the cloth. When she spoke again her voice was much smaller, stripped bare of every layer of armor she wore in public.

"I never learned what I like," she said, "I was always the acceptable option."

Riven picked up all four pages, folded them once, then tore them cleanly right down the middle. He dropped the halves into the spilled soup, leaning back in his chair to hold her gaze.

"No more itinerary," he said, "where do you want to go next?"

Isolde considered it for a moment, "The night market, with a terrible sweet at the end of it."

---

The night market glowed with a hundred paper lanterns, the air thick with frying oil and burnt sugar. Isolde walked half a step ahead of him, then half behind, until her fingers finally caught his sleeve.

"You’re holding my sleeve," Riven said, "was that on the itinerary?"

"You tore up the itinerary, I am improvising," she said, not letting go.

She bought a boiled sugar fish from a one-eyed vendor, biting it in half with great ceremony. The fish tasted of soap, her whole face scrunching, yet she chewed every scrap with fierce determination.

"It is awful," she said, chewing with great determination, "I intend to buy another."

"Fiscal irresponsibility," he said gravely, pretending to write it in an imaginary ledger.

"I invented that phrase, you may only quote me."

Mara trailed them at a distance of exactly forty paces, pretending to inspect melons.

"Roses for the lady," Nix whispered, appearing from nowhere, "complimentary, I will bill him later."

’A rooftop sniper, a flower girl and a panther with melons... best-defended first date in history.’

A noble in plum velvet stepped from behind a stall, two lackeys at his shoulders, lip curling. He looked her up and down the way a man appraises a spoiled fish at the stall.

"The Inquisitor’s traitor daughter, shopping for sweets," the noble sneered, "how very brave of you."

Isolde set down her half-eaten fish and wiped her fingers on a napkin, one at a time. Then she smiled, a smile polished to a diamond’s edge, primly folding her hands like a governess.

"Good evening, my lord, I believe you funded my father’s pamphlets," she said.

"You wrote that his methods were the only honest ones left in all of Solace."

The noble’s smile slid sideways, his lackeys suddenly studying the lantern ropes.

"I kept every letter, they are filed beside the receipts and the unpaid invoices."

"I would be delighted to receive your apology, my lord, before morning."

The noble’s mouth opened and shut twice, his lackeys backing away one careful step at a time. He bowed so low his hat fell off, mumbling a hurried apology before fleeing into the crowd.

"Four sentences," Riven said, impressed, "that was surgery."

"Courtesy is a blade," Isolde said, retrieving her sugar fish, "my mother taught me to hold it."

’She took a lord apart without raising her voice once... I’m taking notes.’

She was still holding his sleeve when they passed the last lamp stall, though neither of them mentioned it. Her thumb moved in one small circle against the cloth, as if testing whether the sleeve was truly real.

Archivist Pell shouldered between the stalls, a map tube under his arm, out of breath and covered in chalk.

"A seam in the western hills is leaking," Pell wheezed, "farmers found their cows frozen mid-step."

"Frozen how?" he asked, stepping closer to the map tube.

"Standing, chewing, mid-stride... even the grass around them stopped growing."

Isolde let go of his sleeve slowly, a finger at a time, her face sliding back into the Parliamentarian.

The evening was clearly over, a fact they both understood without either of them needing to say it aloud.

---

At dawn Headmistress Ro’s office smelled of cold tea and old paper, the window rattling in its frame. Riven stood before her desk beside Isolde, a large map of the western hills pinned open between them.

"A seam of the Orchard is leaking in the western hills," Ro said, "the farmers lost eleven cows."

"This year’s field exam will be held there," she added, "for every class at once."

"Participation is mandatory," Ro said, "the Crown has asked for observers."

The door opened without a knock, admitting a gray clerk with a sealed case no bigger than a loaf. Routekeeper Ivo quietly set it on the desk with the gentleness of a man placing a sleeping child down.

"The Bindery is deploying a replacement for the Gilded Line," Ivo said.

Inside the case, something tapped three times against the lid, as if asking politely to be let out.