Andras’s house is in the city of Lilou, which I’ve learned is the capital of Cyprien. I stand with him on the threshold to his cherry-red door. Behind us are Rou and Eloise, and behind them, a few guards trying to be inconspicuous. To keep things from being too overwhelming, everyone else is staying with the coaches and remaining guards a block away. On a whim, as we passed through the market to get here, Eloise bought a box of raspberry pastries and a bouquet of yellow and green flowers that drapes over her whole arm.
Andras reaches up and knocks on his door. A few seconds of silence pass, and then the knob rattles. A tall man in wire spectacles appears. Andras shrieks his delight and throws himself forward. The man catches him, momentarily stunned into silence. And then his knees give way and he cries out, a deep-chested, anguished sound, pulling his boy close, alternately holding him out to look at him and then crushing him against his chest, cupping the back of his head just like Rou did to me a few weeks ago in Callais.
A woman flies into the room, startled by her husband’s wailing. And then all three of them are wrapped in a pile in the doorway. Everybody’s crying—they’re crying, I’m crying, Rou and Eloise are crying. Rou comes along next to me and squeezes my shoulder, and Eloise goes to my other side and lays her head against mine. After the first round of shock come the questions, and then the hugging, and then the thanking, then more crying and then laughing—wild, anguished laughing—and then the invitations to come and stay and eat. We politely decline, and Eloise presses the bouquet and the sweets into Andras’s parents’ hands.
Andras gives me one final hug. It’s the latest in a long string of good-byes I’ve made since leaving Alcoro—Rose, Lila, Sedge, and Saiph are all staying in Callais, and I still had to find space to grieve for Whit. Rose has started testing false legs that fit to a saddle, with plans to join the surveyors mapping new sections for the Ferinno Road in the spring. Sedge wouldn’t budge from her side or his new job, and Lila, despite her old convictions about Lumen Lake, elected to stay with them as well and continue at the children’s hospital. They moved into a little cob town home with Arana. Saiph moved to quarters at the university. Between bidding them good-bye, and then Colm and Gemma—which was harder than I expected—I have done more hugging and more damned crying than I can ever remember before.
We’ve all repeated over and over to each other that it’s only good-bye until the spring, when we’ll come back this way to meet Tamsin and Iano in Callais. Still, it’s left me feeling like bits of me keep flaking off, to be left behind. It’s a quiet walk back to the coaches. Partway through the market, an arm slides through mine, and Eloise draws close alongside me. We make an odd couple—she in a pale purple dress with lace at the sleeves and neck, with her curls pinned to one side of her face so they spill down her shoulder, and me in Alcoran boots and trousers, with a new vest and my hair wound high on the back of my head.
The strangest detail between us is probably the least noticeable. In her ears, in place of her fine droplet earrings, are two dingy tin studs. In mine are two small white pearls. We traded a week ago, the last day we spent in Alcoro, and the day we both turned twenty.
I close my elbow more tightly around hers.
Behind us, Rou blows his nose with force.
Back at the coach, Veran is sitting on the running board, scratching Rat’s ears. He’s been patched up pretty well, in a fresh tunic the same sage color as his eyes and boots with fringe flaring down the seams. Even Rat has a new look, after several baths and my red bandanna tied around his neck, which was mostly so the neighbors in Callais wouldn’t try to drive him off for scrounging in their trash barrels.
Veran stands up as we approach, and I catch a flash from the two little silver pins tacking down his collar—he hasn’t taken them off since that day his mother gave them to him.
“How did it go?” he asks. “Is Andras all right?”
“Perfect,” I say, bending to greet Rat. “He’s back home, and he knows how to get in touch.”
Rou makes another pass at his face with his handkerchief—Mona didn’t lie, it’s embroidered—and tucks it back in his pocket. He rests his palm on my shoulder. “You’ve done a world of good for so many people, Lark.”
I let out a short breath. “Not everybody.”
“Maybe not,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “But if you only focus on the people you couldn’t save, you’ll never stop beating up yourself.” He gives me a little shake. “You laid a foundation, one we’re going to build on. I know it’s hard to feel like you’re all right when others aren’t. But we’re going to get there, and we don’t forget the people we lose. And that little boy and his family? You saved them, Lark.”
I curl my fingers into Rat’s fur, my head down. “Thanks, Pa.”
He kisses my forehead and then opens the coach door. There’s a murmur from inside—a quiet one, which probably means Hettie is asleep in Queen Ellamae’s lap. Rou steps up to join the others.
Eloise reaches for my collar and untangles one of my buttons from the cord holding the shard of rock from Three Lines. “You know he’s talking about himself, right?”
“Definitely talking about himself,” Veran agrees.
I half-smile to them. Eloise smooths her skirts and steps up into the coach after Rou. Veran, though, leans against the varnished wood paneling beside the door, watching me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I let out my breath. “I’ll miss Andras—I’ll miss them all, even though I know it’s only for a few months. And . . .” I glance at the open door and then come around to his other side. I set my back against the carriage and lower my voice. “I don’t know, I just feel like . . . this is all the good I’ve ever done, rescuing kids, bringing them back to family. Once Hettie’s back home . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”
“You’ll find something,” he assures me. “Something that fits.”
I look sideways at him. “Like you, huh?”
“Well . . .” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “We don’t know if it fits yet. But Mama said her quartermaster is fixing to retire. Master of gear, you know, the one who oversees all the stuff the scouts use, and who keeps the remote caches in working order.”
“Start with what you have,” I say with a grin.
“Something like that. And if that Winderan fellow Papa wrote to has dogs that can be trained to buffer me . . .” He looks down and scratches Rat’s head again, making his big ears flop.
“You might be all set,” I agree.
“We’ll see.” I can hear the smothered smile underneath his measured words.
“Honestly, you tramping around the wilderness and nitpicking about gear, with a big dopey dog following you—it’s only what you did all through the Ferinno, anyway.”
He rolls his eyes, his grin breaking through. “Thanks.” He turns to face me, leaning on his shoulder. “You’ll find something, too.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ll sneak up and steal things from your caches.”
“Outlaw.” He glances over my shoulder, where the guards are all standing with their backs to us, waiting for us to get in the coach. Then he lifts his fingers and traces the line of my vest down to the first button. He slides the lapel of my shirt sideways, baring the skin just above my heart, where it’s still pink and tender from the Alcoran tattooist’s needle.
His gaze moves over the three wavy parallel lines in crisp black ink. “How’s it feel?”
“A lot better than Rose’s old butcher knife.” I crane my head to look down at the ancient symbol that led Rose and me into Three Lines, the symbol for water, the symbol for life in the desert. Rose came with me and got a matching one in exactly the same place.
My gaze wanders from the little scar bisecting his eyebrow, to the burn mark taking a divot out of his hairline from the fire at Utzibor, to the fresh scar on his cheek from broken glass. Before he can look up from my tattoo, I tilt forward and press my lips to his. His breath hitches, his fingers tightening on my lapel.
“Lark,” he murmurs without actually pulling away. “There are people watching.”
I plant my palm on the back of his head, sliding my fingers through his glossy hair. Between the topsy-turvy days in Alcoro—full of long conversations over meals with family, along with meetings at the capitol to plan our return in the spring—and then the trip in the coach with the others, it seems like months since Veran and I were last truly alone together. When he and I first set out into the desert to find Tamsin, I’d rather have been with anyone but him. Now I think longingly of that lonely, wide-open wilderness. It may be a terrible place to keep a camp of kids . . . but there’s no denying it’s private.
He winds his hand behind my neck and pulls me forward, so his back is against the coach. I lean against him, my thumbs on his cheeks. Down at our feet, Rat leans against our knees, panting.
There’s a rustle at the coach door. I slit my eyes open.
“You know there are windows in this thing, right?” Eloise asks, her head poking out.
Veran starts and breaks away, dropping his hands to his waist. I grin and give a leisurely stretch before pushing myself away from him. He quickly smooths his tunic front, his face blazing red.
“Come on,” Eloise says, beckoning. “So our parents don’t have to keep pretending to ignore you.”
I gesture for Veran to go ahead of me. He picks himself off the side of the coach and shakes his head.
“I swear,” he mumbles, passing me for the door. But when I brush his fingers, they close around mine, quick and tight.
Inside, the coach is dim after the sunny market. Veran’s parents sit on the rear-facing seat. Hettie is asleep in Queen Ellamae’s lap, her little legs swallowed by the queen’s fringed boots, and the queen’s bare feet crossed at the ankle. She quirks an eyebrow at Veran as he slides into the seat next to her, but she doesn’t say anything. I coax Rat inside and then sit next to Eloise on the forward bench with our parents.
That’s still such a dizzying thought. Our parents.
My parents.
The guards shut the door. Orders are given, and we lurch forward. It’s only a short ride, now, to the port, where we’ll get on a boat, and then sail north.
The adults pick up the threads of a conversation they seemed to have been having before. Veran’s father, King Valien, has a tiny lap desk open on his knees and is making notes with a pressed charcoal stick. They’re discussing what they’re calling longitudinal illicit suppression, which, from my time listening to the Senate in Callais, I now know means stopping a black market of human labor from springing up again in the wilds of the desert. I lean back, sliding my palms between my knees. I still feel out of my depth during these conversations, with all kinds of unspoken etiquette and a hundred different ways to put a diplomatic spin on something. I’d stayed mostly silent during the Senate discussions about hosting the Moquoians and planning the funding for the Ferinno Road.
“The road can be patrolled, but slavers will find other routes to move wagons,” Queen Ellamae says, and King Valien scribbles with his charcoal stick. “We’ll never be able to monitor the whole desert.”
“A key factor is going to be eliminating their havens,” Mona says. “Cutting out the places they can resupply and water their stock.”
“You might find that difficult,” Veran says, glancing at me meaningfully. “People out in the Ferinno already turn in runaway slaves to Pasul and collect bounties. The desert towns would be prime places for slave runners to pick up escapees. If you’re trying to eliminate havens, you’re going to need to outlaw collecting a bounty first. Maybe set a prison sentence for anyone who’s found to have turned in runaways . . .”
“Don’t do that,” I blurt out. “Punish people for collecting bounties? That’s a terrible idea.”
Everyone in the coach looks at me. Veran stops midword, his lips parted. King Valien pauses with his charcoal stick in the air. The coach jostles off a bump. Queen Ellamae cups Hettie’s head so it doesn’t hit the door.
I flush, wishing I hadn’t said anything. But this—this—is what always set my stomach boiling about nobility. They’re good at finding problems, but they don’t know how to fix things.
At the end of the bench, Mona leans forward, her face turned to me. I look down at my knees, feeling her gaze out of the corner of my eye.
“Why is that a terrible idea, Lark?” she asks, her voice cool.
I take a breath, glancing up at Veran. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But all you’d be doing is making desperate families even more desperate. All those towns started hurting when Alcoro shut down the mines and opened the university. You want people to stop taking advantage of a twenty-key bounty, you have to fix it to where twenty keys isn’t the difference between going hungry or not. Open up survey teams in the towns, offer folk positions on the road crews, train new stagecoach drivers—something, anything, to get some real, long-lasting income in those towns, or nothing’s going to change. Fix the reason for the problem—don’t just put a patch on it.”
I expect a response similar to the handful of measured, false-smile arguments I heard before leaving Callais, where a bad idea was insulted in the mildest possible terms and redirected. But that’s not what happens. Rou props his boot over his knee and leans back against the seat with a full-fledged grin, teeth and all. Eloise gives a satisfied little hum. Queen Ellamae checks to be sure Hettie’s still asleep, and then plants her palm on her chest.
“Blessed Light,” she says. “Somebody finally gets it.”
“Valien,” Mona says. “If you please, make a note of Lark’s suggestions. Lark, my dear, once you’ve had some time to get settled at the lake, and when you feel ready, I would very much like you to meet my council. I think you’ll have comments they should hear.”
I’m struck by how she says my dear—not as a throwaway phrase, but as something she actually means. I look down the seat to her. Her face has changed very little from a moment ago, but all the same something strange and deep stirs inside me, some little pocket of memory. Somehow, instinctively, intuitively, whether through the subtle change in her lips, or the shift in her eyes, or some invisible signal I understood as a child, I can feel her warmth. It feels familiar, comfortable—feels not like friend or sister or rest or full belly . . . it feels like mother.
I look at Veran, wondering if he’s pissed that I cut him down, but he’s grinning, too.
“Told you,” he says.
My cheeks blaze. “Told me what?” Any number of things spring to mind, smug sureties he’s now justified in—his comment that I’d find something to do at Lumen Lake, or his long-ago convictions that these people would surely love me, or simply his stubborn insistence that I belong with them at all. It doesn’t gall me that he’s right, only that he’s pointing it out in company.
But he shakes his head. “Not you.” He gestures at the rest of the carriage. “Them. Told them you were smart.”
“Inconceivably brilliant were the exact terms you used, I think,” Eloise says, and now it’s his turn to flush.
“I’m not,” I say. “I just . . . I’ve been there. That’s all.”
“It’s not all,” Mona says. “But, should you want it to, it’s what’s going to make the difference.”
She reaches across Rou and lays her hand in Eloise’s lap, palm open. I slide my hand out from between my knees and set it in hers. Her fingers curl over mine. Without hesitation, Rou closes both hands over ours, and Eloise sets hers on top. It’s a simple gesture, almost alien in its familiarity, but I don’t pull away. I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes, wrapped deep in that sensation, as we continue toward the harbor.