The reply came the night before we left, tied to the leg of a very tired pigeon.
I read it under the kitchen lamp while Noctavia was upstairs arguing with a trunk. It was three lines long, in a blunt, heavy hand that I knew at once, because I had once read it on the back of a ration sheet.
Elise. Yes. There's a house. Don't argue. Come. —Brandt
I folded it into a small square and put it in the dictionary, between "logistics" and "fine, for now." I hadn't told Noctavia I'd written. For three days she had stood at a map with a coffee ring on the Ashen Plains and explained the valley to us, the stream, the hill, the barn, like a child showing off a drawing. I couldn't make myself say, I've sent a letter to a friend.
I told myself I'd say it once I was sure. That's the kind of thing I tell myself.
On the first morning, Valeria took hold of the wagon's front rails with both hands, spread her black wings, and rose into the air with the grim face of a woman lifting a house. The wagon swayed, lifted, and hung there. Our crate with the tomato plant, our six hens, our sack of flour, and one very small rabbit with no eyes all rose with it.
Toby screamed with joy. Clara gripped the side rail and said "Oh no" in a very calm voice. Dumpling clicked in wild, delighted bursts.
"Is everyone secured?" Valeria called down, without looking back.
"Yes!" I shouted.
"Is the plant secured?"
"The plant is secured," said Noctavia, who sat beside the crate with her arms wrapped around it like a woman guarding a crown. "If you drop it, I will have a conversation with you."
"I will not drop it, my lord."
"A very long conversation."
"I understand."
A hen had settled on Valeria's shoulder somewhere during takeoff. She had decided not to mention it. The hen looked deeply at home.
Flying is quieter than I expected. The road unrolled below us like a brown ribbon. Millbrook shrank to a handful of roofs. I could see the cathedral spire far back to the east, small and pale in the haze, and I waited to feel something large about it.
What I felt was that my stitches itched.
"Don't scratch," said Noctavia, without turning around.
"I'm not."
"Your hand is moving."
"My hand is thinking about it."
"Then tell your hand no." She reached back and, without looking, lifted my fingers off my ribs and set them on my knee. "I'll check them tonight."
"Yes, Doctor."
"I'm not a doctor. I'm a person who sewed you shut." She frowned at the horizon. "...Perhaps a little bit a doctor. Don't tell anyone."
By noon, Toby had run out of questions about clouds and begun naming them. One was a dumpling, which made Dumpling click with deep satisfaction. One looked like a loaf of bread, and he went quiet and said, "I miss Harlan."
"He'll visit," said Clara.
"Will he?"
"He said so."
"He said he happened to be passing."
"That means yes," said Noctavia.
Toby blinked. "It does?"
"It's a very common phrase. I'm told I've used it."
Clara looked at her. Noctavia studied the sky with great interest.
That night we camped beside a stream, and Valeria set the wagon down so gently that none of the hens woke. Then she stood there with her wings drooping, staring at nothing, like a bridge at the end of a long day.
"General," said Noctavia. "Sit."
"I am fine, my lord."
"Your wings are shaking."
"They are vibrating with readiness."
"Valeria."
She sat, very suddenly, on a log. Noctavia unwrapped a cinnamon bun from a cloth and held it out.
"I didn't make this for you," she said.
I held my breath.
"...It is tolerable," said Valeria, after the first bite, in a voice that wobbled.
I have never seen a general cry into a bun. I did not see it then, either. I was busy with the fire.
Later, with Toby asleep in Clara's lap and the stars coming out, enormous, Noctavia sat beside me with her tail curled around both me and the crate, and didn't seem to notice she was doing it.
"It's a very large sky," she said.
"It is."
"I have never really looked at it. I was always looking for something in it." She watched it a while. "It's much nicer when you aren't."
I kissed the top of her head. She said, "Don't touch me." I waited. One second. Two. Her hand found mine in the dark.
"It's a very large sky" means I'm not afraid of the quiet anymore.
On the fourth day, we reached the river.
It was wide and brown and slow, with a stone bridge across it, and on the far bank a town spread out in a tangle of red roofs and silver lines. The lines were water. Canals, dozens of them, threading between the houses like ribbon through a braid. The last bell tower of the Church stood at the end of the bridge, thin and white. Beyond it, there were none.
"That is not the valley," said Noctavia.
"No."
"The valley is two days further."
"I know."
"The barn is there."
"Noctavia." I took a breath. "I wrote to someone. Before we left. I didn't tell you, because you were so happy about the barn, and I wasn't sure he'd answer."
She turned around slowly.
"You have a connection."
"I have a few."
"You never told me."
"You never asked."
"...I am asking now," said Noctavia, and I had to put a hand over my mouth, because that is exactly what she'd said in the kitchen the day Tomas told us about the bridge.
"His name is Brandt," I said. "Odo Brandt. He was the man I dragged behind me at Greywater. He says there's a house, and he says not to argue."
"Is it a barn?"
"I don't think so."
"Because I had a plan for the barn."
"I know you did."
"We will keep the barn as a contingency," said Noctavia, with great dignity, and faced the river, and her ears were pink all the way to the tips.