We left Stonecross without Berden. He remained under Orra’s soldiers’ supervision at a service lodging beside the examiner’s office.
Aoi visited him before we departed. I waited outside.
When she came out, her expression was unreadable.
“What did you say?”
“That I’d tell him.”
“What Kaito says?”
“If Kaito wants him told.”
I nodded.
She climbed onto the cart.
Gerren had repaired the axle, reinforced a split board, and attached a metal step. He claimed the step was necessary because our method of boarding offended him.
I paid. It hurt.
Aoi used the step without comment.
The upper road climbed away from the river through orchards. Beyond them, the trees thinned and the ground turned pale.
Quarry country. White dust lay in the grass beside the wheel ruts. Low walls divided abandoned workings from the road. In one pit, rainwater shone green beneath sheer-cut stone.
We passed a shrine built into a rock face. Small hammers had been hung from its lintel.
Our driver touched his forehead.
“What god?” I asked.
“Depends who’s asking.”
“Quarrymen?”
“The one who keeps the roof up.”
A practical theology. I approved.
Aoi held Senn’s directions in her lap, though there was only one road. I did not tell her that.
At midday, the driver stopped beside a spring. We watered the team.
Aoi tried to climb down without assistance, failed to conceal the pain, and looked at me with immediate hostility.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You were about to.”
“Yes. Move your left foot first.”
She did. It helped. Her resentment became less specific.
We ate bread, cheese, and the fruit I had bought in Stonecross. The fruit was sour enough to make my jaw ache.
Aoi watched my face.
“You picked those.”
“The woman described them as refreshing.”
“They are.”
“I had not understood the threat.”
She laughed. The sound was easier than yesterday.
For a few minutes, she asked the driver about the quarry railway: wooden tracks used to roll stone carts downhill toward the river. He described a braking mechanism with ropes, weighted arms, and a history of accidents that made me grateful I had not been invited to inspect it.
The road narrowed again.
By late afternoon, we reached Bell Quarry.
It was smaller than I expected. A dozen cottages stood along a shelf beneath the cut stone face. Smoke rose from four chimneys. A vegetable patch occupied what had once been a cart turning area.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
The quarry itself was silent. Not abandoned. Paused.
Laundry hung between two sheds. Someone had painted a crude blue bird on a door.
A girl carrying kindling saw us and ran indoors.
Our driver stopped before the largest cottage.
The woman who emerged carried no weapon. She did not need one to appear unwelcoming.
Her sleeves were rolled. Grey hair escaped its knot. A scar crossed the back of one hand.
“Deliveries?”
“Visitors,” I said.
“That’s generally worse.”
I handed her Senn’s introduction. She read it.
Her expression changed at Aoi’s name. She looked up. Aoi stood beside the cart, one hand on its board.
“I’m looking for Kaito.”
The woman folded the letter.
“I’m Leth.”
“Is he here?”
Leth studied the bandage beneath Aoi’s collar.
Then the walking stick.
Then me.
“No soldiers?”
“No,” I said.
“No order?”
“No.”
“What are you to him?”
Aoi answered.
“A friend.”
The word came out with none of the certainty she had used in the examiner’s office.
Leth looked toward the cottages.
“He’s working.”
Aoi’s hand tightened on the board.
Alive. Here.
The information arrived without ceremony.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Leth stepped aside.
“Leave the papers in the cart.”
I did.
“All of them.”
I took the inner packet from my coat and placed it beneath the seat.
The foam crown remained wrapped in my bag. For once, nobody needed to instruct me concerning it.
A boy sat at a table beneath the side window of the smallest cottage.
He was writing.
That was my first impression. Not hiding. Not wounded on a bed. Not waiting beside a window for the people who had failed him. Writing.
Several wooden tally boards lay beside his elbow. A stack of claims had been weighted with a chipped cup.
His hair was too long. A narrow pale scar marked the side of his neck.
When our shadows crossed the window, he looked up.
Aoi stopped. The boy did too. For several seconds, they stared at each other.
Then he stood so quickly that the chair struck the wall.
“Aoi?”
She nodded. Once.
He came to the door. Stopped before reaching her. His eyes moved over the bandages, the walking stick, the careful way she stood.
“What happened?”
She laughed.
It was a terrible little sound.
“That’s what I came to ask you.”
He looked at me.
Everything in his face closed.
“Who is he?”
“Solvane,” Aoi said.
“From the castle?”
“He was summoned.”
“When?”
“A little over a week ago.”
Kaito stared at me.
I said, “I’m not here to take you anywhere.”
The words did not reassure him. I had known they might not.
He looked past us toward the cart.
“No soldiers?”
“No.”
“Berden?”
Aoi’s face changed.
“He’s in Stonecross.”
Kaito stepped back.
Not far.
Enough.
“Why?”
“He had documents. We found him at Rook’s Watch.”
“We?”
Aoi turned toward me.
I understood. Not because I had read her perfectly. Because she asked.
“Can you give us a minute?”
“Of course.”
I walked back toward the cart. Leth stood beside it, examining one of Gerren’s repairs.
“Well?” she asked.
“They are talking.”
“Good.”
She handed me a basket.
“Then carry these inside.”
Potatoes.
Apparently every refuge in this country had reached an agreement concerning the proper use of my hands.
I carried them.
The main cottage smelled of herbs, boiled linen, and fresh-cut wood.
Three men sat beside the stove. One had an empty sleeve pinned against his chest. Another wore a brace from hip to ankle.
The youngest carved a spoon. He glanced at me.
“New one?”
“Visitor.”
“Shame. Roof needs doing.”
“I am beginning to suspect every roof in this world is organized against me.”
He smiled and returned to the spoon.
Leth showed me where to put the basket.
“How did he arrive?” I asked.
“My brother brought him.”
“Was he badly hurt?”
“Fever. Hunger. A wound on his leg. Bad dreams.”
“Does he still--”
She looked at me.
I stopped.
“I can ask him.”
“Yes.”
Fair.
She poured water into a kettle.
After a moment, she said, “He works because he wants to. If you’ve come with a better use for him, keep it to yourself until he asks.”
“I have not.”
“People rarely think they have.”
She put the kettle over the fire.
Outside, a voice rose. Aoi. I could not make out the words. Then Kaito answered.
Leth kept working. I stood beside the potatoes with nothing useful to do.
The man carving the spoon pointed toward a stool. I sat.
Aoi returned alone nearly an hour later. Her eyes were red. She lowered herself onto the stool beside me.
I waited. For once, waiting required no performance.
“He thought I was still at the castle,” she said.
“I know.”
“He thought if he sent a letter, they’d use it to find him.”
“Yes.”
“I told him I would have come.”
Her mouth tightened.
“He asked how.”
I looked at the floor.
Aoi rubbed at her face.
“I hated that.”
There was nothing to say.
She sat with it.
Then, after a while, “He’s coming in.”
Kaito entered carrying the chipped cup. He sat across from us.
Up close, he looked older than his age in some places and painfully young in others. There was ink on the side of his hand.
He looked at me.
“Aoi says you pretended to be a king.”
“I was already pretending when they took me. Continuing appeared efficient.”
His expression did not change.
Then he laughed once.
A disbelieving sound.
“I thought she was making that up.”
“She has been disappointingly accurate.”
Aoi leaned back. For the first time since we had arrived, some of the tension left her shoulders.
Kaito set down the cup.
“I’m not going back.”
“I know,” she said.
“No. I need you to understand that first.”
“I do.”
He looked at me.
I nodded.
Then Aoi asked the question she had carried from the castle, through the refugee road, the hollow, the grenn, and the watch.
“What happened?”
Kaito looked toward the window. For a long time, he did not answer.
When he did, his voice was steady.
“The first night, I kept the lamp lit.”
Aoi’s hands went still.
“The second night, somebody answered.”