Chương 64: 27-1.Vigil, Housekeeping, and Lady

I barely slept. More precisely—I never had the chance. By the time I stepped out of Matilda's chambers, the sky was already beginning to lighten. That particular Northern pallor that has nothing in common with sunrise—more like someone had taken a blade to the darkness and scraped it thin, exposing the frost-blue void underneath. I made it back to my room long enough to drag cold water across my face, shove a few things into my pack, and get pulled back into reality.

Reality, this morning, went by the name of logistics. I gnawed on bread hard enough to serve as a blunt instrument while directing a servant to bring out a large ceramic crock. Conrad's head couldn't simply ride openly in the back of the cart—undignified, unsanitary, and if it began to decompose mid-journey, the smell would probably evacuate everyone's stomach before we reached the first waypoint. So we did the practical thing.

We placed the former Duke of Iron Mountain into the crock, packed it in salt, sealed it, bound it with several rounds of rope, and secured it firmly to the flatbed. The educational value of this tableau was considerable. At minimum, it offered a useful lesson to anyone watching: no matter how impressive you were last night, there exists a meaningful probability that by the following morning you will have become preserved traveling condiments.

I had just straightened up from this task when I noticed a second carriage being brought around on the other side of the courtyard. Nothing like the battered flatbed we usually commandeered. Dark lacquered body. Iron-banded wheels. Thick glass in the windows. The decorative trim along the door alone was worth more than our entire party's combined net worth.

And according to what I'd heard, the floor inside was fitted with a heated platform—meaning its occupant could contemplate the meaning of life in perfect comfort while we engaged in the traditional Northern pastime of arguing with the wind. Naturally—"Hey, young master." I'd barely registered the carriage before a voice materialized behind me with the reliability of a recurring injury.

"What." I turned. Jessi stood there with her arms crossed, wearing the expression of someone who had suffered a grave injustice at the hands of an indifferent universe.

"Why can't we ride in that one?" She jabbed a finger at the carriage in question, her tone sour enough to preserve a second duke's head.

"It has a heated floor." I took a bite of bread and kept my face neutral.

"Slapping yourself twice will warm you up just fine."

"Hey—that's favoritism." Jessi immediately puffed up, her lower lip extended to a degree that suggested she was considering lodging a formal complaint with the snowdrift. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"First there's the elf lady, and now we're adding a noble young lady to the collection? Someone's building quite the portfolio." The bread nearly left my hand at velocity.

"... Who exactly have you been talking to?"

"I have excellent sources." She straightened with visible self-satisfaction, snapping off a salute that managed to look simultaneously professional and completely disreputable.

"Intelligence chief Jessi, at your service." I stared at her for two seconds and arrived at a sincere conclusion.

"You are a genuinely alarming individual."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment." I shoved the last of the bread into my mouth, dusted the crumbs off my hands, and turned away.

"Right, master intelligence broker—are you riding or walking? Keep stalling and the sun will make that decision for you." Jessi made a vaguely affirmative noise and went to find her horse. I watched her go and reflected that a woman who had witnessed a dungeon feeding ground at midnight and was operating at seventy percent capacity by dawn wasn't running on resilience. The gods had simply decided she wasn't worth collecting. Across the courtyard, Matthews was helping Lucas into the cart.

When I walked over, Lucas's complexion still had the approximate color of something recently exhumed.

"Still feeling it?" Lucas nodded, one hand pressed against his stomach, his voice muffled.

"It feels like something's been pulling at my insides since last night." I winced sympathetically. Matthews steadied him from the side and offered: "He's been like this since he released the technique. The higher the tier of the spell, the worse the backlash. Some people don't survive it." I raised an eyebrow, looked at Lucas, and thought of someone else who used magic like breathing.

"That doesn't track. By that logic, Alvira should have been in pieces years ago."

"Who exactly are you calling in pieces, Cedric?" The voice materialized directly behind me. I came genuinely close to leaving my body entirely. I turned. Alvira was standing there, one arm cradling a bundle of supplies, tossing several more onto our flatbed with the other hand. Her expression was the particular variety of mild, sustained grievance that indicated she was keeping score.

"Do you not make any sound when you walk?"

"Your hearing is poor. That's your problem." She was in a good mood today. Her insults had an unusual energy to them. Alvira produced a dark, irregular object and threw it at Lucas. He fumbled it into both hands, examined it with the expression of a man who had just been handed a suspicious lump of coal, and looked up.

"Eat it," Alvira said.

"I'd prefer not to be vomited on before we reach the first waypoint."

"What is this?"

"Chocolate."

"... Chocolate?"

"Extract from a southern plant." She pushed the last bundle into place and elaborated without particular interest.

"Mild relief for magical exhaustion. Though in your condition, the optimal treatment is three days of complete bed rest." Lucas sniffed the object with the expression of a man weighing the relative risks of consumption versus continued suffering. I took the opportunity to raise the more pressing question.

"Speaking of which—why are you over here at all?" Alvira paused, turned her head, and looked at me with a smile that had no business being as unsettling as it was.

"Thanks to a certain someone, my contract with Valdorin has been dissolved." The warning bells in my head were immediate and loud. Sure enough.

"A man's word is his bond." She pushed the last piece of luggage into the cart, dusted her hands, and said with the breezy detachment of someone discussing weather patterns: "You'll be providing for me going forward, yes?" I nearly choked on nothing.

"Absolutely not!" I recovered immediately.

"What I said was that you could join the company—nobody said anything about providing for you!"

"Young master, don't forget about me." Jessi had materialized from somewhere, leading her horse, wearing a grin of extraordinary obnoxiousness.

"I'm also available. Accepting applications for patronage."

"You, be quiet."

"So aggressive."

"I can be considerably more aggressive. Would you like a demonstration?"

"Oh my, that sentence has a lot of dangerous potential—""Jessi." Even Alvira had run out of patience. She said the name once. Jessi shrugged with the universal gesture of fine, fine, I understand, retreated with her horse, and maintained a smile that suggested she found the entire situation deeply satisfying.