Chapter 34: BEAUTIFUL TOWN

The first hour passed without anyone trying to enter the room, which somehow made Sio more restless. Arch remained near the table with the brass instrument half concealed in one hand, checking it whenever footsteps crossed the corridor or voices rose from below. Angle stretched across one of the narrow beds with his boots still on, though his eyes opened whenever someone paused outside their door.

Eventually Arch rose and slipped the instrument beneath his coat, saying he wanted another conversation with the innkeeper before the common room emptied. Angle asked whether he had noticed anything useful, but Arch only said several details might become useful if they repeated. Sio asked whether that meant Arch was finally going downstairs to accuse half the town of following them.

"If I ask whether he’s watching us, all I learn is whether he’s capable of saying no," Arch explained as he moved toward the door. "I’d rather let him talk about something else and see what he gives me accidentally." Sio muttered that normal conversation appeared to be Arch’s greatest enemy, and Arch ignored him with practiced ease.

After the door closed, Sio asked whether Arch ever simply asked someone what he wanted to know. Angle admitted Arch had once spent half an hour discussing saddle leather because he wanted to know whether a caravan had passed through two days earlier. Sio said his childhood sounded exhausting, while Angle replied that there had been long stretches of silence. The faint movement at the corner of his mouth told Sio that was probably a joke.

Downstairs, only a handful of travelers remained over drinks. The innkeeper stood behind the counter sorting papers and arguing with someone in the kitchen about missing meat. Arch took the empty stool opposite him and continued their earlier conversation about the western roads, letting the man complain about rain, broken wagon wheels and careless merchants.

When Arch casually asked how peaceful the town usually was, the innkeeper mentioned that Old Tanner’s roof had collapsed the previous winter. The Baron had sent workers before Tanner had even figured out where he would sleep that night, and when Arch called that generous, the innkeeper laughed and said the Baron would probably remind him Tanner had repaired the south well for twenty-seven years.

The innkeeper kept talking while searching through papers, mentioning that the Baron’s father used to walk through the market every third morning. His son still did much the same, only earlier because he liked catching merchants before they had time to prepare their complaints.

A lodging sheet appeared between them, but Arch was more interested in watching two men leave through the reflection in a dark window. The innkeeper tapped the first empty space while talking, and Arch wrote the same alias he had already given. Another tap came lower down, so Arch filled that section while asking whether anyone had been asking about three travelers.

"Not that I’ve heard." The innkeeper turned the sheet slightly and continued talking about outsiders causing trouble. Arch followed another tap of the man’s finger, filled the next space and kept asking about bounty hunters. By the time the innkeeper pointed beside the final line, Arch’s attention was entirely on the man’s face, so he signed without reading the paragraph above his name.

The innkeeper tucked the sheet beneath the counter and asked how long they intended to stay. Arch leaned against the counter and said the town was beautiful, peaceful enough and apparently safer than the roads outside. If it kept treating him this well, he added with an easy smile, he might stay forever.

The innkeeper laughed and told him to stay through one dust season before promising forever. Arch watched for hesitation or recognition, but the man simply returned to his papers. Several more questions produced nothing useful, so Arch went back upstairs.

He told Sio and Angle that the innkeeper had given him nothing worth acting on. When Sio remarked that their investigation had successfully established they were being watched by people who might not exist, Arch ignored the sarcasm and said they would remain inside for the night rather than wander unfamiliar streets after dark.

Angle asked what they planned to do tomorrow, and Arch paused briefly before saying they would decide once morning came. Sio noticed the hesitation but had no chance to question it because two hard knocks struck the door. A man’s voice claimed the innkeeper had sent fresh water upstairs, making all three of them glance toward the washbasin where their existing jug remained half full.

Angle was already on his feet when Arch raised two fingers for silence and told the supposed servant to leave the water outside. Several seconds passed before the latch burst inward, throwing splinters across the floor.

The first bounty hunter charged through the doorway with a short iron baton. His forearms thickened as he moved, muscle swelling beneath his sleeves while pale veins rose across the skin. The baton cracked the wall where Angle’s head had been a heartbeat earlier. Whatever his Scar did, it gave him short bursts of increased strength.

Angle slipped aside before the second strike and looked directly at him. Heat snapped through the room, and flames erupted across the bounty hunter’s chest and shoulders so quickly that he dropped the baton before understanding what had happened. He screamed and threw himself backward into the corridor, beating at his burning coat while rolling across the floorboards.

Sio stared and asked whether Angle had genuinely set the man on fire merely by looking at him. Angle corrected him with complete seriousness, saying it had been his eyes, which Sio decided somehow made it worse.

A second bounty hunter rushed through the smoke, thin metal plates covering both gloves. He thrust one palm toward the broken door, and the slab jerked sideways as though caught by an invisible rope, nearly clipping Angle. When his other palm turned toward Sio, Sio’s backpack scraped across the floor. The ability became obvious enough: he could pull nearby objects toward whichever hand he aimed.

Sio responded with the trick he trusted most. A dark opening formed beside his fist while the exit appeared close to the hunter’s jaw, but the man twisted before Sio’s hand emerged and caught his wrist with both hands.

"Close exits. Usually the right hand," the hunter said with a grin. "Reports were good."

Pain tore through Sio’s shoulder as the man yanked him forward. Sio collapsed both portals before he could be dragged farther and stumbled back, more disturbed by the words than by the failed attack. Someone had not merely seen him fight. Someone had written down his habits carefully enough for strangers to prepare against them.

The hunter used his ability again and pulled the washbasin sharply into Sio’s path. Sio ducked and created the next exit low, sending his foot through and striking behind the man’s knee while his attention remained fixed on Sio’s hands. When Angle stepped toward him, the hunter immediately ducked behind the wall to avoid meeting his gaze.

Sio pointed out that even the bounty hunter considered the eye-burning ability terrifying. Angle replied that the man simply possessed functioning survival instincts, but a sharp whistle from the corridor ended the argument.

A woman stood near the stairs with a compact crossbow braced against her shoulder. Pale lines shimmered around the bolt before she fired, and it curved around Angle toward Sio. He ducked, but the bolt corrected its path and followed him. Her ability was simple enough to understand: once she marked someone, her projectile could track them for a short distance.

Arch stepped between them. A thin layer of Siphon Aegis formed over his forearm, and the bolt struck it with a metallic tremor before its force vanished into the armor. Arch called the ability cheap but irritating as his other hand curled into a fist, yet before he could return the stored impact, shouting erupted downstairs and several sets of boots hammered against the steps.

Sio expected more bounty hunters. Instead, the innkeeper appeared first, followed by the serving woman, two men from the common room, an elderly stable worker and several guests from nearby rooms. None carried proper weapons, and none looked nearly frightened enough for ordinary civilians approaching armed Wayfarers.

The woman with the crossbow warned them to stay back, but the group continued climbing. She fired toward the innkeeper, and every person on the staircase stopped at exactly the same moment. Their bodies became perfectly still for a fraction of a second before the innkeeper leaned aside, allowing the curving bolt to bury itself in the wall behind his shoulder. As soon as it passed, the entire group resumed climbing together.

The stable worker seized the hunter’s weapon arm while the serving woman caught her wrist from the opposite side. One of the men struck behind her knee at the exact moment her balance shifted, and the innkeeper tore the crossbow free as she fell. Nobody shouted instructions or checked what the others were doing. Their movements simply fit together.

The first hunter, still smoking from Angle’s attack, staggered toward the opposite end of the corridor while trying to escape. An elderly woman stepped from her room carrying a lantern, saw him coming and calmly placed one foot into his path. He tripped, struck the railing shoulder-first and was pinned by two residents before he could regain his footing.

The pulling hunter glanced from Angle to the stairway filling with townspeople before slowly raising both hands. His surrender ended the fight almost embarrassingly quickly, and within minutes all three hunters had been disarmed.

The innkeeper straightened his shirt and gave them until sunrise to leave town, warning that another fight would cost them that courtesy. None argued, and once the hunters were taken downstairs, someone wedged the broken door back into place.

Sio remained near the doorway, replaying the staircase in his head. When Angle said the townspeople’s coordination had not been normal, Arch picked up the brass instrument and answered that they had simply been protecting their town.

Sio reminded him that everyone on the stairs had frozen simultaneously, while Angle added that none of them had needed instructions before attacking from different directions. Arch’s expression tightened, and instead of examining the discrepancy the way he normally would, he said groups sometimes reacted strangely under pressure when everyone wanted the same outcome.

That answer made Sio watch him more carefully. Earlier that day, Arch had refused to tell him which kingdom they were in because even harmless information could become dangerous, yet now an entire group of ordinary residents had moved with impossible coordination and Arch was treating it like unusually effective neighborhood spirit.

Sio pointed that out, and irritation crossed Arch’s face faster than usual. He reminded them that three bounty hunters had found their room and the townspeople had helped drive them away, so he was not interested in inventing another threat simply because the result had benefited them.

Angle remained quiet for a moment before saying they should leave in the morning anyway. Arch looked at him with genuine confusion and asked why they would abandon the first place they had found where the locals actively prevented strangers from dragging them away.

Neither Sio nor Angle answered immediately. Arch turned the brass instrument once between his fingers, but instead of checking its markings, he placed it back on the table. He suggested they remain another day, learn more about the town and decide once they actually had a reason to move rather than fleeing because of a feeling. The argument sounded reasonable enough that Sio almost accepted it, which somehow made the unease in his stomach worse.

Arch glanced toward the dark window overlooking the town and quietly added that it really was a beautiful place. There were worse places, he thought, for the three of them to disappear for a while.

Before either Sio or Angle could say anything else, the damaged door opened again and someone stepped inside.