Chapter 5: WAYFARER NEXUS 1

Both looked somewhere in their thirties. Neither seemed particularly concerned by the broken wall, fleeing civilians, floating debris, or the stranger currently holding Sio against a wall by the neck.

The man had untidy dark hair and one hand resting casually in his pocket. The woman beside him surveyed the destruction, then turned an unimpressed look toward her companion.

"We leave you alone for one morning," she said, stepping over a chunk of broken stone, "and somehow there’s already a street falling apart."

The man raised his eyebrows when she kept staring at him.

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Experience," she replied without slowing.

He followed alongside her, glancing around at the ruined garden as though the evidence might somehow support his defense.

"I’m not the one destroying public property."

"You’ve destroyed more expensive things."

"That was work."

"It was a restaurant."

"An unfortunate restaurant," he corrected, with enough conviction that Sio almost wondered whether the distinction genuinely mattered to him.

The woman gave him a sideways look.

"You said that about the greenhouse."

His confidence faltered for perhaps half a second before he recovered.

"The greenhouse recovered."

"Half of it recovered."

"Which means," he said, lifting one finger as though presenting an argument no reasonable person could dispute, "there was recovery."

Sio watched them approach while still dangling in the Vessel’s grip, completely unsure what part of the situation was stranger. Something wearing a man’s body was currently trying to kill him, half the street had been torn apart, and these two had arrived discussing damaged buildings like an old disagreement had simply resumed where they’d left it.

Either they’re very confident, or I’m about to be rescued by two complete lunatics.

At the moment, Sio was willing to accept either.

The Vessel’s grip weakened.

The woman noticed immediately.

"It knows us."

Whatever amusement had been in her expression disappeared as her attention settled on it. The man changed with her. His hand remained casually tucked inside his pocket, but his posture settled and the easy look in his eyes vanished.

"Good."

The Vessel shoved Sio aside and thrust its palm toward the woman.

A path flashed across Sio’s vision, bright and direct, and his stomach lurched when he realized exactly where it ended.

"Move!" he rasped, clutching his bruised throat.

She didn’t even look at him.

The invisible force struck hard enough to snap her clothes backward and blast dust away from her boots. Sio expected her to be hurled through the garden wall just as he had been, but her body didn’t move at all. She didn’t stumble or brace herself. Her feet remained planted exactly where they had been, as though the attack had struck something rooted far deeper than the pavement beneath her.

The woman glanced down at herself, calmly brushed a fleck of dust from her sleeve, and then turned toward the man with one eyebrow raised.

"Was that supposed to be yours?"

He closed his eyes briefly, the expression of someone who already knew exactly where this conversation was going.

"Fern."

"I’m asking."

"No, you’re enjoying this."

The corner of her mouth betrayed her before she could hide it.

"A little."

Sio stared at her, temporarily forgetting the pain in his throat.

Okay. That was cool.

There was really no respectable reason for that to be his first thought. He had blood running from his nose, his shoulder felt half broken, and the Vessel that had caused both problems was still standing directly in front of them. Yet Sio couldn’t stop wondering what Fern had just done. She hadn’t blocked the attack. At least, he hadn’t seen her block anything. It had struck her directly and simply failed to move her.

Had she anchored herself? Increased her weight? Was that a Claim or a Scar?

Apparently being nearly strangled wasn’t enough to stop his brain from trying to take notes.

The Vessel attacked the man before Sio could think through any of those possibilities. Another path raced across his vision, and Sio opened his mouth to warn him.

Then the path bent.

Sio forgot to speak.

The invisible force curved around the man as naturally as water dividing around a stone. He hadn’t dodged. He hadn’t blocked it. As far as Sio could tell, he hadn’t done anything at all. The attack simply refused to reach him, sweeping past his shoulder before smashing into the pavement several metres behind him.

The man glanced back at the fresh crater.

"Rude."

Sio’s eyes moved between him and Fern.

No. That one was even cooler.

He immediately felt disloyal to the woman who had just helped save his life.

Fern didn’t give the Vessel another opportunity. She moved, and Sio almost lost her completely. One instant she stood beside the man; the next, she’d crossed most of the street in a burst of speed that sent loose leaves spinning behind her.

She can do that too?

Apparently, nearly dying had done absolutely nothing to cure Sio’s curiosity.

The Vessel seemed considerably less interested in finding out what else she could do. It launched itself backward with its own force, touched down several metres away, then propelled itself again between two buildings before Fern could reach it.

She stopped at the mouth of the passage instead of following.

Sio watched the Vessel disappear, then looked back at the two strangers. Yesterday he’d been celebrating successfully transporting a pencil three metres across his bedroom.

I have some catching up to do.

The man wandered up beside Fern and looked into the passage where the Vessel had vanished.

"You could’ve caught it."

Fern turned her head toward him.

"So could you."

"I got here first yesterday," he replied, immediately dragging the conversation into what sounded like an entirely different argument.

Fern started walking back toward Sio, and the man naturally fell into step beside her.

"You took the transit halfway," she reminded him.

"That’s called efficiency."

"You stopped for breakfast."

"I was already passing the stall."

"You made me wait twelve minutes."

He frowned as though she’d finally reached the part of the story he considered unfair.

"I brought you one."

Fern stopped and looked at him.

"You ate mine."

"I ordered another."

"After eating mine."

"I corrected the problem," he said, apparently satisfied with the logic.

Fern folded her arms.

"You created the problem."

He actually considered that. His gaze drifted upward, lips pressing together as though he were checking the argument for some hidden flaw, before he gave an unapologetic shrug.

"And then corrected it."

Sio watched them from beside the damaged wall, one hand rubbing his bruised throat. Less than a minute ago, he’d watched Fern stand perfectly still against an attack powerful enough to launch him through stone and this man somehow make the same attack bend around his body.

Now they were arguing over stolen breakfast.

Maybe attempted murder becomes less interesting when you’re this strong.

Either that, or these two were simply strange.

Sio was beginning to suspect both.

Fern finally abandoned the argument and crossed back toward him. She crouched in front of Sio, and the joking expression she’d worn moments earlier softened into concentration as her eyes travelled over the bruising around his throat, the blood beneath his nose, and the shoulder he’d struck against the wall.

"Hold still," she said, reaching for his chin.

Sio blinked at her.

"I’m sitting against a wall."

"And somehow I still don’t trust you to manage that." Fern caught his chin between two fingers and tilted his face toward the light. "Look at me."

"I am looking at you."

"With both eyes."

Sio resisted the urge to point out that he only owned two. Something about Fern’s expression suggested she’d already reached her recommended daily amount of Sio.

He focused on her face while she checked his pupils. Her hands were surprisingly careful for someone who’d crossed half a street fast enough to nearly disappear a minute earlier. Sio found himself looking at those hands and wondering again how she’d stopped the Vessel’s attack.

Maybe a Scar.

Then he reconsidered.

Claim?

That was the problem with meeting actual Wayfarers after spending most of his life learning about them academically. Knowing the categories wasn’t remotely the same as watching someone stand in front of an attack and treat it like an inconvenient breeze.

Fern touched the bruising beneath his jaw.

"Can you breathe?"

Sio tested it before answering. His throat hurt, but air reached his lungs.

"Apparently."

"Dizzy?"

"Several kinds."

Fern stopped examining him long enough to give him a flat look.

"That’s not a useful answer."

"It’s the most accurate one I have."

Her lips tightened slightly. Sio couldn’t tell whether she was irritated or suppressing a smile. Possibly both.

Without looking away from him, Fern extended one hand toward her companion. When nothing appeared in it, she flexed her fingers once, then again. Sio glanced past her and found the man staring at the open palm as though she’d handed him a particularly difficult puzzle.

Fern’s patience lasted another second.

"Cloth."

Understanding finally reached him.

"Oh."

He searched one pocket and then another before producing a neatly folded handkerchief. Fern took it from him with the tired efficiency of someone who had apparently experienced this exact kind of problem before.

"How do you function alone?" she asked.

"I function extremely well alone," he replied, sounding genuinely proud of that assessment.

"You just forgot what an open hand meant."

"I didn’t forget. I was considering the possibilities."

Fern turned back toward Sio.

"There was one possibility."

"There are always several," he said behind her.

Something quiet escaped Fern under her breath. Sio couldn’t make out the words, but judging by the pleased look the man wore afterward, whatever she’d said had somehow been interpreted as another victory.

Fern pressed the folded cloth into Sio’s palm and gestured toward the blood beneath his nose.

"Hold that there."

Sio did as instructed.

"Thanks."

"Fern," she said while returning her attention to the bruising around his throat.

Sio’s eyes dropped instinctively toward the handkerchief she’d just given him. For a moment he wondered whether there was something unusual about it before realizing that made absolutely no sense. When he looked up again, Fern was staring at him with an expression halfway between confusion and amusement.

"My name," she clarified.

"Right." Sio adjusted the cloth beneath his nose, deciding that perhaps being thrown into walls had affected him more than he’d thought.

Excellent. She’s been here five minutes and I almost thanked her handkerchief by name.

The man crouched beside her and tapped his own chest with two fingers.

"Caspian."

Sio looked between them. Names were useful, technically. Names were also nowhere near the information he’d expected from the two people who had just sent a Vessel running for its life.

"So those are names," he said.

Caspian nodded with ridiculous seriousness.

"Usually."

Sio waited for him to continue, but Caspian apparently considered his contribution complete while Fern went back to checking his injuries. After another moment, Sio lowered the cloth slightly.

"Not explanations."

Caspian glanced toward Fern, his mouth beginning to twitch.

"I like him."

"Give it a minute," Fern replied, running careful fingers along the bruising beneath Sio’s jaw.

There was something almost reassuring about the way Fern and Caspian talked to each other, but Sio’s attention kept drifting back to what he’d seen during the fight. Caspian hadn’t dodged the Vessel’s attack; the path itself had bent around him. Fern had taken the same force directly and hadn’t moved an inch, then crossed most of the street so quickly Sio’s eyes had struggled to follow her.

He wanted to ask how Caspian had bent the attack. He wanted to know whether Fern’s impossible stability and speed came from the same ability or two different ones, whether either of them had been using Scars, Claims, or something Sio hadn’t even heard about yet. Yesterday he’d been thrilled because he could push a pencil through one hole and pull it from another. Today he’d met two people who made his achievement feel considerably less impressive.

Priorities, Sio.

The reminder was necessary. The thing that had nearly crushed his throat was still somewhere in the city, and curiosity about spectacular abilities probably shouldn’t outrank finding out why it had hunted him down.

Probably.

That didn’t stop him from wanting to ask.

Sio pushed himself higher against the wall and winced when his shoulder complained.

"That thing knew about my Claim," he said. "It called me Veyr."

Fern’s fingers stopped against his throat.

The pause was tiny, perhaps small enough that Sio would have missed it if he hadn’t already been watching both of them so carefully, but he saw it. Her attention shifted toward Caspian before she could disguise the reaction.

Sio continued.

"Then it called me Riven."

Neither of them answered immediately, and that silence told him considerably more than a quick denial would have. Caspian’s casual expression had faded as well. The two exchanged another of those brief looks that seemed to contain far more conversation than Sio was being allowed to hear.

There it is. They know something.

He wasn’t sure whether that made him feel safer or considerably more nervous.

"I don’t know what happened to me," Sio continued, lowering the bloodied cloth enough to speak clearly. "That thing apparently does, and whatever I Claimed recognized it before I even knew what it was."

Something changed in Caspian’s face at that. It was barely noticeable—a slight tightening around his eyes, the smallest pause in his breathing—but Sio caught it because he had already started looking for reactions instead of answers.

Definitely something.

Great. Apparently he had gone from seeing mysterious paths to learning how to interrogate people through facial expressions, because nobody around him seemed particularly interested in explaining anything directly.

"So if either of you understands why I’m apparently two kinds of Wayfarer at once," Sio said, allowing some of his growing irritation into his voice, "this would be an excellent time to stop communicating entirely through suspicious eye contact."

Fern glanced toward Caspian again, and he studied Sio for another moment before murmuring,

"He’s definitely yours."

Her head turned sharply.

"What does that even mean?"

Caspian opened his mouth as if an explanation were already waiting, then paused. His brow furrowed slightly while he apparently searched for one after the fact.

"I haven’t decided."

Fern stared at him.

"Then maybe stop saying things before you decide what they mean."

"That would remove most of my conversation," he replied with such easy acceptance that Sio couldn’t tell whether it was a joke or a genuine admission.

Sio looked between them, the cloth still pressed beneath his nose.

At least he knows.

"As fascinating as this entire relationship appears to be," he said, raising the bloodied handkerchief slightly to remind them that one participant in this conversation had recently been strangled, "I’m still waiting."

That finally returned both of their attention to him.

Fern studied Sio for several seconds. Something in her expression had changed. She no longer looked like the woman casually arguing about breakfast after frightening away a Vessel. There was caution there now, and perhaps something Sio couldn’t quite identify.

She rose and offered him her hand.

"Not here."

Sio looked at her palm without taking it. After everything that had happened since yesterday, following two absurdly powerful strangers to an undisclosed location ranked somewhere between questionable and how people disappear permanently.

"That’s not particularly reassuring," he said, looking back up at her.

Fern didn’t withdraw her hand.

"It wasn’t meant to be."

Sio studied her expression, searching for some hint that she realized how terrible that sounded.

"You know that somehow makes it worse, right?"

One shoulder rose in a small shrug.

"Probably."

Excellent. Very convincing.

He still didn’t take her hand. Fern had helped him and Caspian had done the same, but Sio knew almost nothing about either of them. The Vessel had been afraid of them, which was certainly useful information, though not necessarily reassuring information.

"Then where are you taking me?"

Fern looked toward Caspian. By now, Sio had learned that this was usually where the man inserted an unnecessary comment, restarted an old argument, or somehow made the situation stranger.

This time, he remained silent.

That unsettled Sio more than another joke would have.

The easy amusement had disappeared from Caspian’s face, and when he gave Fern a small nod, the weight behind it made Sio straighten despite the pain in his shoulder.

Whatever came next, apparently even Caspian thought it was serious.

Fern looked back at Sio.

"Somewhere you’ll get answers."

Answers.

That word did considerably more work than everything else she’d said.

Sio looked at the hand she was still offering. He thought about the creature inside him. The impossible city. The Scar that shouldn’t exist. The paths he’d seen this morning. The Vessel recognizing him. Fern standing unmoved beneath its attack. Caspian making the same force bend around him.

He had spent thirteen years wanting something extraordinary to happen to him.

Apparently, he’d forgotten to specify how much.

Sio finally took her hand.

Fern pulled him carefully to his feet, keeping her other hand near his arm until she was certain his legs intended to cooperate. Sio steadied himself and looked between the two of them.

"And this mysterious place with all my conveniently missing answers has a name, I assume?"

Fern released his arm.

"The Wayfarer Nexus."