The Åsten Chronicles: StarTide 3– What Comes After (Book 20)

 

 

CHAPTER 1

 

 

'What comes next?'

Fintan had been thinking it since they got Home. He wasn't sure when it had started — sometime between the Cave and the Dock, probably, or maybe after, in the quiet that followed when there was nothing left to fight, and no one coming through the door.

He was sitting on the Bench on the Porch of Number 4, Whitecap Hill, watching Aegeas play in the Yard.

He sat with the question for another moment. Then he set down his mug, stood up, and walked over there. Sitting here worrying wasn't going to help. And he wasn't going to let the Kid have all the Fun.

Aegeas was winning, which Fintan was allowing, mostly, with occasional lapses into genuine competitiveness that he couldn't entirely help.

The Game had started as something with rules — Aegeas had explained them at length and with great Confidence — but the rules had evolved several times in Aegeas's favour since then, which Fintan had Decided to find Endearing rather than suspicious. He was seven. The Game should go his way.

"That doesn't count," Aegeas said.

"That absolutely counts."

"You went outside the line."

"There was no line there when I stepped."

"There is now," Aegeas said, with the Calm authority of Someone who had been making this up as he went, and saw no reason to stop. He pointed at the grass. There was, in fact, no visible line. "You can see it."

"I genuinely cannot," Fintan said.

Aegeas looked at him with the patient expression of Someone dealing with limited perception. "It's right there."

Fintan looked at the grass. Then he looked at Aegeas. "Fine," he said. "Point to you."

Aegeas accepted this with Dignity.

The back door opened and Fintan didn't look up immediately — he was retrieving the thing they were throwing, which had landed in the Hydrangeas again — but when he did, Sylvaia was standing on the step with Häli against her shoulder, one hand at the Baby's back, watching them. She hadn't said anything. She was just watching, with the particular expression she sometimes had that he didn't have a word for — something between Soft and Full, the way a Person looked when they were holding something they hadn't expected to be Given.

Fintan handed Aegeas the thing. "One moment," he said.

He crossed the Yard and went to her. Häli turned her head at his approach with the slow, serious Attention of Someone taking inventory. He put his hand Gently at the back of her head — warm, impossibly small — and looked at Sylvaia.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she said.

They stood in the doorway, in the Morning Sun, and it was, Fintan thought, Enough. It was More than Enough. It was Everything.

Swift was grazing at the edge of the Clearing the way she Always did — unhurried, entirely self-possessed, moving a step at a time through the long Grass, as though she had Decided this particular patch of Ground was Worth investigating, and would get to the next one when she was Ready.

Oak was watching her from the fence. Not for any particular reason. He just liked watching Swift. She had been here longer than he had, which he found Interesting in a way he couldn't quite explain.

"She's not going to do anything," Susie said, from behind him.

"I Know that."

"You've been watching her for ten minutes."

"I'm aware."

Susie came and leaned on the fence beside him, which he accepted without comment. After a moment she was watching Swift too, for no particular reason, which proved his point about it being a reasonable thing to do. He didn't say this out loud.

Footsteps on the Path behind them — the particular sound of Ava and Emily arriving, which he could identify at this point without looking. Emily's steps were faster and less even. Ava's were deliberate the way their Father Emrys's were, like Someone who had Decided where they were going, and was going there.

"Swift's out," Ava said, coming to stand beside Oak at the fence.

"She's Always out," Susie said.

"I Know. I like it though."

Emily had already climbed to the top rail, which nobody commented on because Emily always climbed to the top rail, and it had never yet been a problem. She sat up there with her hands on her knees, looking out at the Clearing with the open satisfaction of Someone who had Arrived exactly where they wanted to be.

The four of them stood at the fence in the warm Afternoon, and watched Swift move one unhurried step further through the Grass.

It was a Good Day. Nothing was happening. It was Enough.

The Morning had gone cool overnight and hadn't entirely warmed back up yet, which Aidan had Decided, was fine. He worked better in the cool. He'd Always worked better in the cool, which was something he Knew about Himself, the way he Knew other things — quietly, without making much of it.

He was mending the fence along the East Pasture, the one that had been wanting attention since before the Summer. He'd been meaning to get to it. He was getting to it now.

He heard her before he saw her — not because she was loud, Marina was never loud, but because he Knew the particular sound of her moving through the World, the way certain things settled into you after long enough. He didn't look up immediately. He finished the nail he was setting.

Then he looked up.

She was coming across the Field toward him with her coat on and her hair loose, carrying two mugs, picking her way around the wet patches in the grass with the Focused Attention of Someone who had Decided to do this, and was doing it properly.

"You didn't have to come out," he said.

"I Know," Marina said. She handed him a mug and looked at the fence. "How bad is it?"

"Not bad. Just wanted for time."

She nodded and stood beside him, and looked at the fence the way she looked at most things — fully, without rushing. Then she set her mug on the post and picked up the spare hammer.

Aidan watched her for a moment. "You don't have to—"

"Aidan," she said, with the particular Patience of Someone who had been saying variations of this for a very long time.

He handed her the nails without another word.

They worked in the cool Morning quiet, side by side, and it was the most ordinary thing in the World, and neither of them said anything about it, because some things didn't need saying.

The table in Aster and Ada's Cabin had been cleared after Lunch, and not yet claimed by anything else, which meant there was room for mugs and elbows, and the particular sprawl of four People who had stopped worrying about taking up too much space around each other.

Alva had her hands wrapped around her mug. Ada had one leg tucked under her, which was how she Always sat when she was Comfortable, and she was Always Comfortable Here. Asterys had his chair pushed back slightly from the table, the way he did when he wasn't planning on going anywhere. Emrys was the only one sitting completely straight, which wasn't formality — it was just how he was built.

"Ava climbed the fence again," Emrys said.

"She always climbs the fence," Alva said.

"I Know."

"Has she fallen?"

"No."

"Then it's fine," Alva said, with the settled authority of Someone who had made this calculation many times, and arrived at the same Answer.

Emrys Accepted this. He picked up his mug.

Outside, through the window, the four of them were visible at the fence — Emily on the top rail, the other three leaning on it, all of them watching Swift with the Focused Attention of People for whom nothing particular was happening, and that was entirely the point.

"Oak's been out there for half an hour," Ada said.

"He likes Swift," Aster said.

"He just stands there."

"So do I sometimes," Aster said. "She's a good Horse."

Ada looked at him. Then she looked back out the window. "Fair enough," she said.

The conversation moved on to something else, and then something after that, easy and unhurried, the way it always was when there was nowhere to be and nothing required of anyone, and the Afternoon was long, and the mugs were warm, and the Kids were fine.

It was, all of them Understood without saying, exactly the kind of Day they had been working toward for a very long time.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

 

Fintan had Decided to make eggs for Breakfast.

This was not, he Felt, an unreasonable Decision. Eggs were simple. He had made eggs before. The previous occasions had not gone particularly well, but he had also been less focused on those occasions, and focus was the thing.

He was focused now.

Aegeas appeared in the Kitchen doorway with the particular stillness of Someone who had assessed a situation, and Decided to observe rather than participate. He leaned against the frame and said nothing. Fintan did not acknowledge this, because acknowledging it would require acknowledging what it implied.

The eggs went into the pan.

For a moment it seemed promising. Then it seemed less promising. Then the smell that Fintan associated with previous attempts began to make itself known, and he adjusted the heat, and then adjusted it again, and then stood very still looking at the pan with the expression of Someone trying to determine where, precisely, things had gone sideways.

"They're burning," Aegeas said.

"They're not burning."

Aegeas looked at the pan. Then he looked at Fintan. He said nothing further, which was worse than if he had said something.

Fintan got them onto the plate. They were, technically, cooked. He set the plate on the table with the quiet Dignity of Someone who had Completed a Task.

Sylvaia came in, looked at the plate, and looked at Fintan. He met her eyes. Something passed between them that did not require words.

"I'll get the bread," she said.

She said it the way she said most things — simply, without weight, as though it had just occurred to her, and not as though it was the inevitable conclusion of a sequence of events they had all seen coming. She cut the bread and put out the jam, and sat down, and nobody said anything about the eggs, which remained on the plate in the center of the table like a Monument to Effort.

Aegeas took a piece of bread, and applied jam to it with the particular Consentration he brought to everything he wanted to do well. Fintan took a piece of bread. Sylvaia took a piece of bread.

It was, Fintan thought, a perfectly good Breakfast.

Then Häli started crying from the other room, and Fintan stood up before Sylvaia could and said "I've got her," with the same tone he'd used when he had Decided to make eggs, and Sylvaia pressed her lips together in a way that was not quite a Smile, and was definitely something.

He found Häli in her Basket, expressing her opinion of the Morning, with considerable volume for Someone her size. Fintan picked her up with the careful deliberateness of Someone who had been practicing this, and was aware there was still room for improvement. She was very small and very warm, and smelled like something he didn't have a word for.

"Hello," he said.

Häli paused. She looked at him with the serious, considering expression she sometimes had, as though taking inventory of whether this was an acceptable development.

Then she settled.

Fintan stood in the quiet of the room with his Daughter against his chest, and outside the window, the Morning was doing what it did, and from the Kitchen he could hear Aegeas and Sylvaia talking about something, low and easy, and the bread and jam were on the table with the eggs on the plate. It was, he thought, one of the Best Days. When nothing was required, his Family was Safe, and burning eggs had been the worst of it.

He was, he thought, going to be fine.

Aidan was in the chair by the window with Häli against his chest, which was where he had been for the better part of an hour and showed no signs of changing.

Marina was not going to say anything about this. She sat across from him with her tea and watched and said nothing, because some things did not need commentary.

Fintan was at the table with Aegeas, who was explaining something at length. Fintan was listening with Complete Attention, which Aegeas accepted as his due.

Outside the window, the light had gone the particular gold of late Afternoon, the kind that made everything look like it had been there forever, and intended to stay. Häli had been Awake for most of the Visit, which she indicated by looking at things with the serious inventory expression she'd inherited from somewhere — Marina had a theory about where, but kept it to herself.

Then Aidan made a face at her. A completely undignified face, the kind no one who knew him would believe if told about it later.

Häli Laughed.

It was a small Sound, brief and complete, and it surprised her as much as anyone — she looked up at Aidan afterward with the expression of Someone reassessing the situation. Aidan looked back at her with an expression Marina had not seen on his face in a very long time.

Fintan looked over from the table. Aegeas stopped explaining.

Nobody said anything. The Afternoon light came through the window, and the room held it, Quiet and full, the way rooms did when something was Happening, that Everyone Understood Mattered.

 

 

CHAPTER 3

 

 

 

The Library had a system.

Ben had developed it over several years and it worked. Everything had a place and the place made sense, and he Knew where everything was without having to think about it, which was the point. He moved through the shelves the way he moved through most things — efficiently, without wasted motion, a Book in each hand and a clear sense of where they were going.

He was halfway through the Morning's Reshelving when he heard Someone on the other side of the shelf.

He didn't think much of it. People came to the Library. That was what Libraries were for.

Then he came around the end of the aisle and stopped.

She was standing in front of the Section he had just Organized, head tilted slightly, Reading the spines with the Focused Attention of Someone taking Inventory. Black hair, oval glasses, a white blouse and a grey skirt, and the posture of Someone who Knew exactly where she was, and considered it entirely appropriate that she was there. She reached up and pushed her glasses up her nose with one finger.

She pulled a Book from the Shelf. Looked at it. Put it back two spaces to the left.

Ben looked at where it had been. He looked at where it was now. He Understood, after a moment, why she had moved it. The Logic was sound. It was, strictly speaking, a more efficient placement.

This was profoundly irritating.

"That Section has a system," he said. He kept his Voice pleasant.

She looked at him over the top of her glasses. "It has a Better one now," she said, and went back to Reading spines.

Ben stood holding his two Books and said nothing, because there was nothing to say that would not prove her point by requiring him to defend an inferior system. He was aware this was happening. He was not sure what to do about it.

"I'm Abby," she said, without looking at him. "I start Today."

"Ben," he said.

"I Know," she said. "You Organized this Library."

"I did."

She moved another Book. It was, he Noticed despite himself, also Correct. He turned and went back to his side of the Shelf, and Reshelved his two Books with perhaps slightly more precision than was strictly necessary.

He stayed another hour. The pull came quietly, the way it always did — not urgent, just present, a sense that the Moonlight Wake was where he Needed to be. He closed the catalogue he'd been working through, straightened it on the desk, and collected his coat.

"I have to go," he said, to the Shelf between them.

A pause. "Alright," Abby said.

He left.

On the walk down to the Harbor he thought about the Book she had moved first, and the precise, Correct Logic of where she had put it, and he did not think about anything else.

 

The Moonlight Wake sat easy in the Harbor, which was how she Always sat when she wasn't going anywhere — patient, slightly self-possessed, as though she was doing the Harbor a favor by being there. 

The Ship was made of wood, but Enchanted to be Silver, and it caught the light. She was, as she had Always been, completely Beautiful. Three Masts standing tall and proud against the sky.

Fintan came up the Gangplank and stopped at the top, and looked at all of it for a moment. Sylvaia was at the Stern with Häli, sitting in the good Afternoon light. Häli was Awake and conducting her usual inventory of the Sky. Pell was crouched on the Deck with Aegeas beside him, a length of rope between them, showing him something with his hands — Aegeas was watching with the focused Attention he brought to things he had decided were Worth Learning. James was somewhere Forward, doing something with the Rigging that didn't need explaining, the quiet Competence of Someone who Pitched In, because that was simply what you did.

Mari was at the table they'd brought up from Below, plans spread out in front of her, a pencil behind her ear, and another one in her hand. Kyle was leaning over beside her looking at something she was pointing to. Whatever she was explaining, Kyle was nodding slowly in the way of Someone who was following approximately half of it, and had Decided that was enough.

Ben was sitting on a crate near the Mast with a Book, which meant he had come for the same reason Fintan had — not for anything specific, just for this. Just to Be Here.

Fintan crossed the Deck and sat down near Mari without interrupting her. She didn't look up.

"It's not finished," she said.

"I Know," Fintan said.

"I'm still working out the Third problem."

"Take your time."

She went back to her plans. Kyle looked up at Fintan with the expression of Someone who was Grateful for the interruption, and then looked back down at the plans because Mari had started explaining again.

Across the Deck, Aegeas held up a completed Knot for inspection. Pell looked at it and said something. Aegeas undid it and started again, with no visible frustration, just the Patience of Someone who Understood that some things took as long as they took.

Fintan leaned back and looked up at the Mast and the Sky beyond it, and felt the Wake move Gently under him, the Harbor doing what Harbors did, and it was Enough. It was More than Enough.

It was, he thought, exactly where he was Supposed To Be.

 

CHAPTER 4

 

 

The Classroom smelled like chalk and the particular staleness of a room that had held too many Children for too many years. Aegeas sat in the Third row, which was where he always sat, next to Jorin, which was also where he always sat.

The Teacher was explaining Tides.

Aegeas listened. He had his own thoughts about Tides but kept them to himself, which was something he had Learned to do in the way Children Learned most things — by doing the other thing first, and observing the results.

"The Sea pulls back," the Teacher said, drawing an arc on the board, "and then it returns. Does anyone know why?"

Several hands went up. Aegeas did not raise his hand.

The Teacher called on Someone who said something about the Moon. The Teacher said that was Correct.

Jorin leaned over slightly. "You Knew," he said, not as a question.

"Mm," Aegeas said.

Jorin nodded and faced forward again. This was one of the things about Jorin.

The Harbor Road curved along the Water on the way Home, and Aegeas always took it, even though it was slightly longer. He didn't think about why. He just always had.

He stopped at the Shore the way he sometimes did, setting his bag down on the dry rocks. The Afternoon was mild, the water grey-green and Easy, small Waves coming in at regular intervals the way they did when nothing was asking anything of them.

He stood there for a Moment.

The Water came in. It reached further up the Shore than it should have, further than the Wave behind it had any reason to push it, and it stopped just short of his boots and sat there for a moment, quiet, before it pulled back.

Aegeas looked at it.

The next Wave came in normally. And the one after that.

He stood there a little longer, his hands in his pockets, the Wind off the Water moving through his hair. Then he picked up his bag and kept walking Home.

He didn't think about it. Or he did, a little, the way you thought about something you had Decided not to examine — aware of it at the edges, not looking directly at it.

The Harbor Road curved back toward Town and he followed it, and by the time he could see the rooftop of Home, he had mostly put it away again, in the place where he kept things that weren't ready yet.

 

The Boat went out before the light was fully up.

Emrys, Fintan's Eldest Brother, didn't say much on the way out of the Harbor, which suited Fintan fine. The Morning was cold and quiet, the Water dark, the Town still mostly Asleep behind them. Fintan sat where Emrys pointed and did what Emrys told him, and didn't ask questions, which was the right way to be on Someone else's Boat.

The Lines went in. The Boat settled. The light came up slowly, the way it did in Autumn, taking its time.

For a while there was nothing but the Water and the Sound of it, and the occasional adjustment of a Line. Fintan had forgotten how much he liked this. Not Fishing specifically. Just being on the Water with nothing that needed doing.

"How are the Girls?" he said, eventually.

"Good," Emrys said. "Emily lost a tooth. She's very proud of it."

"She should be."

Emrys Smiled at his Line. They were quiet again for a while.

The light finished arriving. The Water went from dark to grey to the particular green of a Calm Autumn Morning, and Fintan watched it and Felt something in him settle that had been slightly unsettled without his noticing.

"After everything," Fintan said. He wasn't sure how to finish the sentence so he didn't. Emrys waited. "What do you think comes next?"

Emrys considered this with the same Attention he gave everything — Unhurried, Genuine. "Don't know," he said. "Good Things, probably. Bad things eventually. Same as Always."

Fintan nodded. The Line moved slightly and then didn't.

"You're Always so Steady," Fintan said. "How do you do it?"

Emrys looked at him then, briefly, the way he looked at things he found straightforward that other People seemed to find complicated. He looked back at his Line.

"Just by Being, I guess," he said.

Fintan sat with that.

The Water moved under them, Easy and indifferent, and somewhere behind them StarTide was Waking Up, and the Morning continued the way Mornings did.

The Town and its People, just Being.

Entirely Themselves.

 

CHAPTER 5

 

 

The Blue Bird hit the window at full speed and the World went sideways.

Kyle was aware, distantly, of falling. Then of ground. Then of nothing for a little while.

When he came back the light was different — warmer, interior — and he was on something soft, which was not where he had been. His Wing was wrong. He Knew that without moving it, the way you Knew things that were simply True, and not worth questioning.

He was in a small space. Wooden ceiling, dried Herbs hanging from the beams in tied bundles, the smell of something Green and faintly Medicinal. A window across from him with a very clear pane of glass that he now had strong feelings about.

Footsteps. Then a Person crouching down to his level, hazel eyes behind a composed and Attentive face, short brunette hair, the general air of Someone who had found injured things before, and Knew what to do about them.

She looked at him for a moment. Not the way People usually looked at Birds — at the surface of him, the Feathers and the small quick Heart — but as though she could see slightly further in than that.

"There it is," she said quietly, to herself mostly. She went away and came back with things. Gentle hands. The Wing was set and bound before he fully understood it was happening. She put him somewhere warm with water nearby, and left him to it.

He slept.

When he Woke the light had moved. He lay there for a moment in the particular stillness of Someone who has just Remembered everything, and then he Shifted back.

It happened the way it Always happened — a Breath, a Decision, the World reorganizing itself around a different shape of him.

Human. Blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Kyle was a Young Man in his early 20s.

The tiny splint fell away. His arm announced itself immediately, sharp and clear, and he sat up and found a wall to put his back against, held his arm against himself, and took stock.

Cottage. Herbs. Window. Right.

Footsteps in the other room. Then she appeared in the doorway.

She looked at him. He looked at her. She looked at the place where the Bird splint had been and then at his arm with the same Attentive Clarity she'd had before, Seeing straight to where it was wrong.

"That Needs proper binding," she said.

"I can explain," Kyle said.

"You can explain while I bind it," she said, and went to get what she Needed.

He explained. She listened without interrupting, winding the Bandage with practiced hands, her eyes occasionally going to his arm in a way that wasn't quite looking at the surface of it. He got to the end of the explanation and stopped.

"You're not surprised," he said.

"I'm a little surprised," she said, making a neat knot. "You hit my window very hard."

"I miscalculated."

"Clearly." She sat back and looked at him properly for the first time. "How does that feel?"

"Better," he said. It did. Considerably. "Thank you."

She nodded. Then, the way Someone mentioned something they had Noticed and Decided not to keep to themselves — "There's something else. Not the arm."

Kyle went still.

"You don't have to tell me," she said. "I just see it. It's there. Like a dark cloud." She stood and smoothed her skirt and picked up the leftover bandaging. "I'm Olivia."

"Kyle," he said.

"I Know," she said. "StarTide is a small enough Town, and everyone knows the Names of White Fire and his Crew." She paused at the doorway. "Are you hungry?"

Kyle sat on her Cottage floor with his arm properly bound and the faint sense that something had just happened that he hadn't been prepared for, which was unusual. He was generally prepared for things.

"Yes," he said.

 

CHAPTER 6

 

 

Lena's Place was Warm in the way of somewhere that had been Warm for a long time — the kind of Warmth that lived in the walls and the worn wooden booths, and the particular smell of Good Food and Familiar Company. The Evening Crowd was settled, the noise at a Comfortable level, and their usual corner booth was waiting.

Ada got there first, which was how it Always went. Ofcourse a Teleporter Always Arrived first, when they Decided that Arriving was the thing to do.

Sylvaia Arrived two minutes later and slid in across from her, and Alva came in behind her still unwinding her scarf, and then they were All There. Lena's Daughter came by and they ordered without really looking at the Menu because they Knew it and had Known it for years.

"So," Ada said, before the drinks had even arrived. "The Wedding."

Sylvaia looked at her.

"I'm just saying," Ada said.

"You're always just saying."

"And I'm usually right." Ada leaned her chin on her hand. "Have you thought about it? Date, Venue, Flowers, any of it?"

Sylvaia was quiet for a moment. The drinks arrived. She turned her glass once on the table.

"Honestly?" she said. "No. Not really."

Ada waited.

"It already Feels like we're Married," Sylvaia said. "It has for a while. I wear the Ring every day, and Aegeas calls him Dad, and we Built — All of it, Together." She paused. "I Know that might sound a little silly."

"No," Alva said. Quietly, without hesitation. "It doesn't."

Ada was quiet for a moment, which was not always her Natural State. Then she said, "That sounds a bit Romantic actually."

Sylvaia looked at her.

"What?" Ada said. "It does."

Sylvaia Smiled. It was the kind of Smile that didn't need anything added to it.

They sat with it for a moment, the Three of them, the Comfortable noise of Lena's Place around them, the Evening, Easy and Unhurried.

"But you are going to have a Wedding eventually," Ada said. "Right?"

"Probably," Sylvaia said.

"Probably," Ada repeated. "The Woman has a Ring and Children and a House, and she says probably."

"I said eventually."

"You said probably."

"Alva," Sylvaia said, "back me up."

Alva considered this with Genuine seriousness. "I would Need to know more about the Invitations," she said, "before I take a side."

Ada pointed at her. "See, she's Thinking practically. That's what you need."

"She's Thinking about the paper quality," Sylvaia said.

"I do have Thoughts about the paper quality," Alva confirmed.

Sylvaia Laughed, and the Conversation moved the way Conversations did at Lena's — Easily, Warmly, from one thing to the next, no hurry and nowhere else to be.

The Sun was most of the way down, the Sky going amber and cold, and Fintan had told himself he'd go in when it finished Setting. Häli was warm against his chest, bundled to her ears, already most of the way to Sleep, with the particular dense weight of a Baby that had Decided to go and was going. He kept one hand on her back and watched the light change over the Water.

Aegeas was in the Yard doing something with a stick and a complicated system of rocks that had occupied him for the better part of an hour. Fintan hadn't asked. It looked Important.

"Getting cold," Fintan said. "Five more Minutes."

Aegeas did not look up. "I Know."

Then Fintan Felt something at the edge of his awareness.

Fintan looked out at the Hill Path.

There was someone on it.

He watched for a moment. The figure moved with the particular quality of someone who was not out for an evening walk — too deliberate, too direct, coming exactly this way.

"Aegeas," Fintan said. Quietly, same tone. "Go inside."

Aegeas looked up at him. Then he looked at the Hill Path. Then he looked at Fintan again.

"Go on," Fintan said. "It's getting cold."

Aegeas gathered his stick. He went inside. He looked back once before the door closed, which Fintan noted and set aside.

The figure came up the Hill and stopped at the low Garden Gate. Medium height. Lean. Brown hair going grey at the edges, short and neat. Stubble. A face you could pass on a street and not look twice at.

Until you got to the eyes.

Dark, peircing eyes that Fintan would never Forget.

Cassian Ruin. The Sever.

Fintan stood. He held his Daughter a little tighter. Häli shifted slightly against his chest and settled.

The Wolf inside of him hadn't told him this time that danger was coming. The wrongness was still there,  but not quite as heavy as it had been before.

"You got through the Wards," he said.

"Your Enchanter is good," Ruin said. "The Concealment Woven into it — that's Elegant work. Whoever did that Knew what they were doing."

Fintan said nothing.

"I told myself I meant no harm," Cassian said. "That's all it takes. The Concealment holds against Intent. You have to Genuinely Believe it when you say it." A pause. "I find it straightforward."

The last of the Sun slipped below the Water. The Yard went grey and cold.

"I came to have a little chat, and to return something of yours." He reached into his coat and held it out over the Gate — a small blue clay ball on a cord, turning slightly in the evening air. "You left it behind."

Fintan looked at it.

The Amulet Emrys had made him, Enchanted with the same Concealment that kept the Town Hidden.

"Wear it if you want," Ruin said. "It won't matter. I'll still be able to find you." He set it on the gatepost. "I thought you should Know that."

"Why?" Fintan said.

The Sever considered this as though it were a genuine question deserving a genuine answer. "Because you'll Sleep better Knowing than not knowing," he said. "People like you Always do."

He turned to go.

And then something shifted — some flicker of thought, some moment where the Intention slipped — and StarTide went out like a candle.

He stopped. Looked around. The Path was gone. The Gate was gone. The Garden was dark and uneven and completely unfamiliar, and he was standing in the middle of it with no sense of where the ground was about to change.

He stumbled, took a step, and then his foot found the potted Plant before he did. He went into it fully, no grace at all, one foot catching the rim and the other finding nothing useful, and he went down hard in Sylvaia's Garden. He did not catch himself quickly enough, and the pot scraped across the stone with a sound that was not quiet.

He landed in the potting soil. The pot he'd knocked over had knocked over a few more. His face went in the dirt and he took a moment to spit the dirt out of his mouth.

He stood, found his footing, and his Intention, and StarTide came back — the Path, the Gate, the Hill falling away below — and he straightened up without looking back, brushed dirt from his jacket, straightened his collar, and walked down the Hill and into the dark until he was gone.

Fintan sat back down on the Bench, with Häli asleep against his chest, Sylvaia's pots ascew on the ground, the blue clay ball on the gatepost, and he waited for her to come Home.

 

She Noticed the pots before she Noticed him.

That was how he Knew she was already paying Attention — she came through the Garden Gate the way she Always did, and she stopped, and she looked at the pots askew on the ground, and then she looked at him on the Bench with Häli still against his chest, and she didn't say anything yet.

She came and sat beside him. Close. Her shoulder against his.

"The Girls Night was Good," she said, after a moment. Not a question. Just giving him a a something soft to start from.

"Good," he said.

Häli stirred slightly between them and settled. Sylvaia put one hand on her back, next to his.

"Tell me," she said.

So he told her. All of it — the figure on the Hill Path, Aegeas sent inside, the Gate, the eyes, the Wards and how he'd gotten through them, the Amulet set on the gatepost like a courtesy. He told her what Ruin had said about finding him. He told her about the pot.

Sylvaia listened the way she Always listened. All the way through. Her hand stayed on Häli's back and her shoulder stayed against his and she didn't interrupt once.

When he finished she was quiet for a moment.

Then she looked at her pots on the ground.

"He fell in my Garden," she said.

"Face first," Fintan said. "He spat dirt out."

Another silence.

"Good," Sylvaia said.

It wasn't funny, quite. But it was something. She leaned her head against his shoulder and they sat there in the cold dark with the Baby between them and the pots still on the ground and the blue clay ball on the gatepost turning slightly in the Wind off the Water.

After a while she stood and righted the pots, one by one, setting them back where they Belonged with quiet, deliberate hands. She didn't rush it. When she was done she stood and looked at them for a moment.

Then she picked up the blue clay ball from the gatepost and turned it over once in her hand and set it back down.

"Come inside," she said. "It's cold."

Fintan stood, careful with Häli, and followed her in, and the door closed behind them, and the pots stood where they Belonged, and the Amulet sat on the gatepost in the dark.

 

CHAPTER 7

 

 

The Morning had gotten underway by the time he heard them on the Hill Path.

Fintan was in the Yard when they came into view — Uncle Tim first, in his capacity as Captain of the StarTide Patrol, with the particular expression of a Man who had heard something unsettling, and come to hear more of it. Behind him, Deputy Johnny, notebook already in hand, pen tucked behind his ear, making the climb with the Cheerful Determination of Someone who had not yet been told what he was walking into. And behind Johnny, making the climb on her own terms with her cane and her agenda, Mrs. Chenry.

Fintan opened the Gate.

"Morning," Tim said.

"Morning," Fintan said.

Mrs. Chenry arrived at the top still talking, something about her depth perception and the particular injustice of losing one's glasses at her age, and then she looked at the pots — righted now, back in their places — and at the gatepost, and at Fintan, and pursed her lips as though filing something away.

Tim looked at the gatepost too. At the blue clay ball on its cord.

"Tell me," he said.

So Fintan told him. The figure on the Path. The Wards. How he'd gotten through them. The Amulet. The pot. All of it, the same way he'd told Sylvaia, except this time with Johnny's pen moving steadily in the background and Mrs. Chenry listening with the focused Attention of Someone at a very good theatre performance.

When he got to the Name, Tim's jaw tightened. Just slightly. Just for a moment.

"Cassian Ruin," Fintan said.

Tim was quiet for a beat. Then he looked at Johnny. "You have that?"

"Yes, Sir," Johnny said, writing.

"All of it?"

"Yes, Sir." Johnny squinted at his notebook, reached into his pocket, produced a pair of glasses, put them on, looked back down at his notes with evident satisfaction. "Got it all."

Tim looked at the glasses.

Johnny looked up. Looked at the glasses. Looked at Mrs. Chenry.

A pause.

"I found these in Mrs. Chenry's Yard," he said, "on our way out." He held them out to her with the straightforward satisfaction of a problem solved.

Mrs. Chenry took them. Put them on. Looked around with the Relief of Someone Restored to Themselves.

"Well," she said. "There we are."

Tim looked at Fintan.

Fintan looked at Tim.

Neither of them said anything.

"Right," Tim said, after a moment. "I'll Need to Speak to Steve Taylor about the Wards."

 

 

CHAPTER 8

 

 

 

He told Sylvaia in the Kitchen the next Morning, while she was feeding Häli, and Aegeas was still Asleep.

"I want to take the Wake out," he said. "A few Days. The Fara."

Sylvaia looked at him over Häli's head. She Knew what he meant. Not an emergency. Not running. Just the Sea, because he Needed it, because the Sea had Always been where he put things back in order.

"How long?" she asked.

"Four days. Maybe five."

She considered this. "I'll go ask your Mother if she wouldn't mind watching the Children."

He crossed the Kitchen and Kissed her, and she let him, one hand still steady on Häli's back.

Marina arrived before Noon with Aidan behind her carrying a bag large enough to suggest she intended to move in, which was more or less accurate. She went straight for Häli with the Focused Intent of a Woman who had been waiting for this particular Grandchild for some time, and intended to make the most of every available Moment. Aidan put a hand on Fintan's shoulder, looked at the gatepost, looked at Fintan, and said nothing, which was its own conversation.

Aegeas took the development with the equanimity of a seven-year-old who had just learned he was getting his Grandparents to himself for five days.

"Will you bring me something back?" he asked.

"Depends what I find," Fintan said.

Aegeas considered this a reasonable answer.

 

The Moonlight Wake left Harbor mid-Afternoon with the Tide running right, and the Wind coming off the Land, cool and steady. Ben had her Ready. Pell was already at his post. James coiled Rope with the unhurried efficiency of Someone who had been doing it for years. Kyle stood at the rail, watching the Water with the expression he Always wore when the Ship was moving — not quite a Smile, just a Rightness about him.

Mari was on Deck with a wooden box the size of a small loaf of bread, a set of tools laid out beside her with great precision, and the look of Someone who had been waiting for uninterrupted time and intended to use it.

Fintan took the Helm and felt the Wake move under him, and said nothing for a while because there was nothing that needed saying.

The Harbor fell away behind them. The Fara opened up ahead, grey-green and wide, the Horizon clean and uncluttered, and the Moonlight Wake ran for it the way she Always had — eager, certain, like a Dog let off a lead.

Mari had the Music Box half assembled by the time the Coast was properly behind them.

It was a small thing — a cylinder of precisely notched brass on a hand-turned axle, a comb of metal tines, a wooden case she'd shaped herself. When it worked, which it would, it would play eight notes in a sequence she'd Chosen, because they were simple and clear, and the kind of thing a Baby might follow with her eyes. She had Three of the four gears fitted. The fourth was the smallest, the most particular, and she was fitting it now with a Tool no wider than a toothpick while the Moonlight Wake moved beneath her with long, rolling swells.

Pell sat nearby mending a Line, not watching, which was different from not paying attention.

"You could do that Below," he said, after a while.

"I could," Mari said, not looking up.

The Wake rose on a Swell and came down the other side. Mari's elbow compensated automatically. The gear stayed where it was.

"Hm," Pell said.

"I've got it," Mari said.

She did, for another few minutes. The gear sat in its housing. She reached for the setting Tool.

The Wake found a Cross Swell — just a small one, just a momentary disagreement between two directions of Water — and the Deck tilted two degrees to Starboard, and the gear described a small arc across the wooden case, bounced once off Mari's knee, and went through the rail gap and into the Fara Ocean.

The sound it made hitting the Water was barely anything at all.

Mari watched the place where it had gone. The Water gave nothing back.

The crew did not say anything. Fintan, from the Helm, watched the Horizon with great Attention, and a slightly lopsided Smile that he tried to hide, and was not succeeding.

Pell set down his Line and came to look at the Music Box.

"Which one was it?" he asked.

"The drive gear." Mari's voice was even. "The small one."

Pell looked at the remaining assembly. He picked up the case, turned it, set it back down. "Could you drive it directly? Cut out the intermediate step?"

Mari looked at him.

"The axle's already sprung," he said. "If you had something to catch the tension—"

"I'd need a pin." She was already looking at her tools. "Something that could take the load without—" She stopped. Picked up a small brass pin she'd brought as a spare for something else entirely. Held it against the housing. "That might work."

"Might," Pell agreed.

"It'll work," Mari said, and picked up her toothpick Tool again.

Fintan finally gave himself permission, and Smiled at the Horizon. The Moonlight Wake ran on across the Fara, Easy and Unhurried, and the Afternoon opened up around them like something that had been waiting to be gotten back to.

 

CHAPTER 9

 

 

It was the first Night out, after the Crew had gone below and the Fara had settled into its dark, easy rhythm. Sylvaia was sitting on the rail with her back against the Rigging. Fintan was at the Helm. The Stars were out.

"Ada and Alva were asking," she said, "about the Wedding."

Fintan looked at the Horizon. "Hm."

A pause.

"Fintan."

"I'm Thinking."

"About what?"

"About—" He stopped. He looked at her. "We haven't had it yet."

Sylvaia's expression was the one that meant she was Amused, and had Decided not to show it completely. "No," she said. "We haven't."

"I forgot," he said.

"So did I," she said. "Until Alva started talking about Invitation paper."

He was quiet for a moment, recalibrating. Five Years. A Ring. A House on Whitecap Hill. A seven-year-old who called him Dad without thinking about it. A Baby who was going to Grow Up thinking the Sea was just Part of the Family, which it was.

"When do you want to?" he asked.

Sylvaia looked up at the Stars and considered this the way she considered things — not quickly, not for show, just actually Thinking about it.

"Spring," she said. "Late Spring, maybe. Or early Summer, if it comes to that."

"Before Häli walks."

"She'll be fourteen Months by then."

"So probably just after she walks."

"Probably," Sylvaia said. "She'll want to be involved."

Fintan Smiled at the Horizon. "Aegeas will have opinions about his jacket."

"Aegeas already has opinions about his jacket."

The Wake moved under them, steady and unhurried. The Fara stretched out dark and wide in every direction, and the Stars sat where they'd Always sat, and Fintan held the Helm and Felt the particular Quality of a Life that had somehow, without him entirely noticing, become exactly what he wanted.

"Spring," he said.

"Spring," she agreed.

Neither of them said anything else for a while, because there wasn't anything else that needed saying.

 

 

CHAPTER 10

 

 

 

Oak found Aegeas first, the way Oak usually found People — directly, at the door, with Susie behind him and no particular preamble.

"We're going to Play in the Feild," he said. "Do you want to come down?"

Aegeas looked at his Grandfather.

Aidan looked at the book he'd been reading. He looked at Aegeas. He looked at Oak, who was thirteen and had the Energy of Someone who had already been Outside for some time. He looked at Susie, who was eleven and watching him with the patient expression of someone accustomed to waiting for Adults to make Decisions.

"Give me a minute," Aidan said, and put his bookmark in.

Jorin was waiting at the bottom of the Hill, kicking a ball against the Garden wall with the focused repetition of Someone with nothing else to do, and all Afternoon to do it. He fell into step beside Aegeas without ceremony.

 

The five of them crossed to the Field behind Aidan and Marina's House, and the Game sorted itself out the way these things did — sides established by some wordless negotiation, goals marked by jackets, rules agreed on in under a minute.

Aidan Played. This was the thing about Aidan — he did not stand at the edge of Fields when he could be in them. He tucked his jacket under a rock for a goalpost and Played, and he was good in the unhurried way of Someone who had been Good at things for a very long time, and no longer needed to prove it.

Aegeas Scored once and Celebrated with his whole Body. Jorin disputed it on grounds that were not entirely clear. Oak said it counted. Susie said it counted too, which settled it.

 

Aster saw them from the Tree-line.

He stopped walking. Ada came up beside him and stopped too.

In the Field: his Father, running. Aegeas, running after him. His Son, Oak, cutting wide to the left. His Daughter, Susie, calling for the ball with complete authority. A Boy Aster didn't recognize giving everything he had to a lost cause on the right flank. 

"Is that your Dad?" Ada asked.

"I Believe so," Aster said.

They watched for a moment.

"Are we Playing?" Ada asked.

"Yes," Aster said, and climbed the fence.

Ada watched him go. She looked at the Field. She looked at her good boots.

She climbed the fence.

The Game did not stop exactly — it absorbed them, the way a good Game absorbs things, sides reshuffling without discussion, the Field suddenly Fuller and louder. Ada lasted four minutes on the sideline of her own Team before Someone passed to her, and she was simply Playing, boots and all, with the focused intensity of Someone who does not do things halfway.

Aster found himself back to back with his Father for a moment, both of them watching the ball arc across the Field.

"You could have told me," Aster said.

"It just sort of happened," Aidan said, and went after it.

Inside, Marina sat in the good chair by the window with Häli against her shoulder, warm and milk-drowsy and mostly Asleep. The Autumn light came through the glass at a low angle, the way it did in the Afternoons now, and lay across the floor in a pale rectangle.

Häli's eyes were open. They were tracking the light, the way Babies tracked things — slow, Wondering, not quite focused.

The light moved.

Marina went still.

Not the shadow of a cloud. Not a shift in the Afternoon angle. The light bent, caught, separated into a thin band of color across the floorboards — red, amber, gold, the faintest blue at the edge — and held there, and moved again, very slightly, the way a living thing moves when it Breathes.

Häli made a small sound. Content. Unaware.

Marina looked at the window. Clear glass. Nothing that should do that.

The Light had refracted into Rainbows, and Marina looked at them for a moment.

She looked down at Häli.

"Well," she said quietly, to no one in particular. "There you are."

Outside, Someone Scored and the Field erupted, and Marina held her Granddaughter in the Afternoon light, and said nothing else, and tucked it away somewhere Safe, the way she had Always Known how to do.

 

 

CHAPTER 11

 

 

 

He had been in StarTide for two hours and had covered approximately forty feet.

The principle was simple enough. He had proven it himself at the House on the Hill — hold the Intention clean, mean nothing harmful, and the Concealment holds you in. Let it slip, even for a moment, and the Town goes out like a snuffed candle, and you are standing in empty air on a Hillside with no idea which direction the Path runs.

Simple. Manageable. He was a man of considerable discipline.

The Tavern had been a mistake. Not the drink — just one drink— but the conversation at the next table, two Men discussing Someone in terms that had caused something to stir in him that was not, technically, benign. He had controlled it. He had controlled it very well. But the Town had flickered twice during the Conversation, and he had spent the last ten minutes on a bench outside, performing the mental equivalent of smoothing a tablecloth.

He stood. Straightened his jacket. Thought, with great deliberateness, of nothing in particular.

StarTide held.

Good. He stepped forward.

His toe found the raised cobblestone at the exact moment a Woman came around the corner, and he registered her as a potential variable, and the Town vanished again. He walked directly into the side of the Chandler's Shop with his full forward momentum and the impact was not quiet.

StarTide came back. He was nose-first against the whitewashed wall. His toe throbbed with a focused, personal intensity.

The Woman had stopped walking. She looked at him with the expression of Someone recalibrating their Afternoon.

He straightened up. Brushed the whitewash from his jacket. Lifted his chin.

She shook her head once, the way you shook your head at something that was not your problem, and walked on.

He stood on the cobblestones of StarTide and thought, with extreme care, about absolutely nothing at all.

The Town stayed.

For now.

 

 

CHAPTER 12

 

 

 

The fog came in on the second Night, which was not unusual for the Fara in Autumn. What was unusual was the speed of it — one moment the Stars were out and the Water was dark and clear, and the next, the Wake was moving through something close and white that swallowed the Bow lantern and turned the World to ten feet in every Direction.

Fintan slowed her down. The Crew came up without being told, the way Crews did when the Sea changed its mind.

They were standing at the rail — all of them, without quite deciding to — when the Lights appeared.

Below the surface. Deep, and then less deep, rising slowly toward the Hull. Not one light. Several. Moving together the way a School of Fish moved, but these were not Fish, and the color was not any color that Fish produced — a blue so pale it was almost white, with something underneath it that was almost green, almost gold, almost neither.

Nobody said anything.

The Lights passed under the Wake from Bow to Stern, unhurried, taking their time the way things took their time when they had no reason to hurry. The Hull timbers did not creak differently. The water did not change temperature. Nothing happened except the Lights, moving through the dark water beneath them, as though the Ship was simply something they were passing under on their way to somewhere else.

Then they were gone, continuing out into the Fara, and the fog began to thin, and by the time it had cleared, the Stars were back, and the Water was dark and still, and entirely ordinary.

The Crew stood at the rail a moment longer.

"Right," Ben said, to no one in particular, and went back to what he had been doing.

One by one the others followed. Fintan stayed at the Helm and watched the Water where the Lights had gone, until there was nothing left to watch, and then he watched it a while longer anyway, because the Sea had Always been Worth watching, even when it was only the Sea.

The Moonlight Wake ran on through the dark, and the Fara Ocean kept its Secrets close. 

 

 

CHAPTER 13

 

 

 

They didn't often get much time alone Together. The rest of the Crew had gone Below. Honestly, if they thought about it, they wouldn't have known what to do with it.

This was not one of those times. 

The Water was Calm, the Ship moved easily beneath them. Fintan borrowed one of Mari's Blankets from her Command Station. He would return it later. He and Sylvaia sat with their backs against the rail and the blanket around them both. The Ship Knew where she was going, but just incase Ben had the Helm.

Ben manned the Wheel and Kyle took the Night Watch at the Crows Nest, but there was enough room that Sylvaia felt they were the only two People on the Ship. She had her head against his shoulder. Fintan had his arm around her.

They didn't need to talk. The silence was the Comfortable kind. Neither needed to fill the quiet, because just being close was enough. The creak of the Ship and the sound of the Waves against the Hull was the Music that filled the Night. They were warm, and Together, and that was Everything.

After awhile Fintan and Sylvaia went to the Captain's Quarters. They said Goodnight to Ben and waved up at Kyle. Kyle waved back. The door closed behind them.

 

Fintan locked the door. Not because he didn't feel Safe, it was just a habit now. He turned around and she was there. She was Always There. And for a Moment, all he could think of was Her.

Sylvaia stepped closer, and he went the rest of the way between them. She put her hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, like he usually did. He wrapped his arms around her. She Kissed him, and then there was no distance between them at all.

It was warmth, and the Night, and just the two of them. He Kissed her cheek and then her neck. Slowly. Gently. Time wasn't there, just Love.

Sylvaia closed her eyes and she lingered in the fact of Him. She Knew it was Him. Really Truly Him. He was Hers. She was His. Married or not, they Belonged to Each Other.

Neither of them thought about Tomorrow. It was only this.

Just the two of them.

Just Being.

 

 

CHAPTER 14

 

 

Aegeas saw her first.

He had been watching the Harbor on and off all Morning from the upstairs window, the way he had been watching it on and off for four days, and he saw the Moonlight Wake come around the Headland with her Sails catching the Morning light, and he was down the stairs before he had finished the thought.

"They're Home!" he announced to the House, loud enough for everyone in it. "They're Home, they're Home —"

He had his boots on the wrong feet and didn't notice, and didn't care. The front door opened and he was gone.

Marina appeared at the top of the stairs with Häli against her shoulder. Aidan was already at the door. He had heard the Ship before Aegeas said anything — some part of him Always did — and he had his coat on and was waiting for his Grandson to finish the announcement before he moved, on the grounds that Aegeas had Earned it.

"Don't run on the Dock," Marina called after both of them, which neither of them was going to pay any attention to, and she Knew it. 

Aidan caught up to Aegeas at the gate and they went down to the harbor together, the boy setting the pace.

Marina stood at the door and watched them go for a moment, a quiet Smile on her face, then she went too, at a much more reasonable pace.

 

On the Wake, Fintan saw them coming.

Aegeas was unmistakable at any distance — seven-years-old and moving at full speed, boots on the wrong feet, arms going. Aidan was behind him, longer-strided but not hurrying, the way of Someone who had time and Knew it.

Fintan brought the Wake in and made her fast, and was on the dock before the Gangplank was fully down.

Aegeas hit him at speed. Fintan caught him and lifted him without thinking, the way he had been doing since Aegeas was small enough to carry without noticing. Aegeas was getting heavy. Fintan Noticed and did not put him down.

"Did you bring me something?"

"I did."

"What is it?"

"Something from the Sea."

Aegeas leaned back to look at him with serious evaluating eyes. "A shell?"

"Better than a shell."

Aegeas considered this. "Okay," he said, satisfied, and put his head on Fintan's shoulder.

Aidan stopped beside them. He looked at his Son for a moment — just looked, the way he sometimes did, taking stock — and then he put his hand on the back of Fintan's neck briefly, the way he had done since Fintan was small.

"Good trip?" he asked.

"Good trip," Fintan said.

Aidan nodded. That was enough.

Mari gave Fintan the Music Box when the Crew was unloading. She put it in his hands without ceremony and went back to work. He turned it over once, looking at it. You would never have known a gear was missing.

He brought it Home to Häli.

 

CHAPTER 15

 

 

Ben had developed a system.

It had taken him years to develop it, and it was a good system. Logical. Intuitive, once you understood the underlying principles. History Shelved by Region first, then Era, then Author — because if you Knew where something happened you could find it, and if you Knew when, you could narrow it further, and if you Knew who wrote it you had it. Simple. Effective. His.

Abby had been at the StarTide Library for eleven days.

The Natural History Section was now Shelved by Subject, then Chronologically within Subject, then Alphabetically by Author within that. It was, objectively, more efficient. Ben had stood in front of it for four minutes when he first Noticed, and had then gone to make tea and not said anything, because he was a reasonable Person.

He was still being reasonable about it Three days later when she reorganized the Maritime Records.

"The previous system made it difficult to locate items within a specific Era," she said, when she Noticed him standing behind her. She said it the way Someone said something they had already thought through completely, and were now simply reporting.

"I Know where everything is," Ben said.

"You do," she agreed. "But no one else does."

Ben opened his mouth. Closed it. Went back to the front desk.

The clash happened on a Thursday.

Abby had moved the Lending Records from the Cabinet beside the Front Desk to the Shelf behind it, on the grounds that they were Reference Material, rather than active Administrative Documents, and therefore Belonged with the Reference Materials. This was technically correct. It was also the Cabinet Ben opened approximately forty times a day without looking, because his hand Knew where it was going.

"It makes more sense there," Abby said.

"It made sense where it was," Ben said.

"To you."

"I work here."

"So do I," she said, and looked at him with the expression of Someone who was being very Patient and Knew it. "The system should work for both of us."

Ben looked at her. She looked back. She had grey eyes, which he had not particularly noticed before, and she was not going to move the Cabinet.

"Fine," he said.

 

He moved the Cabinet back himself that Evening after she had gone Home. He Felt entirely justified. He also put it back where she had moved it to after about ten minutes, because she was right, and he Knew it, and, somehow, it grated on his nerves more than the rest.

He found himself watching her work, which he noticed and didn't particularly Know what to do with. She moved through the stacks the way she moved through everything — with a kind of quiet Certainty, like Someone who had already thought three steps ahead, and found them all satisfactory. She didn't ask him where things were. She figured it out. This was, he had Decided, irritating.

He was watching her reach for something on the top shelf — she was shorter than the shelf, which was a problem she was solving with a footstool she had located and appropriated without asking.

'I'm watching to make sure she doesn't reorganize anything else,' Ben thought to himself.

He Knew it was not, infact, entirely True.

 

He ended up on the Wake that Evening, which was where he usually ended up when he Needed somewhere to put himself. Fintan was at the Helm, going nowhere in particular. Kyle was on Deck. Pell was coiling Rope with the focused air of someone doing something simple on Purpose.

Ben told them about the Cabinet. And the Maritime Records. And the Natural History Section. He was, he explained, not bothered by it. He simply thought it was worth mentioning that she had been there eleven days and had reorganized half the Library.

"She sounds efficient," Kyle said.

"She's relentless," Ben said.

He talked about it for a while longer than he meant to. At some point he Noticed Pell had stopped coiling the Rope.

"You Like her," Pell said.

Ben looked at him. "I'm describing a professional frustration."

Pell picked up the Rope again. "Right," he said.

Nobody said anything else. Ben stayed on the Wake longer than he needed to, looking at the Harbor, and did not think about grey eyes.

Kyle was walking down the Forest Path, and would get more Familiar with it as Time passed by. He Knew where the roots of the surrounding Trees protruded out of the Path. He Knew where the large stone was, which sat at a particular angle, and could be a tripping hazard if one were not properly paying attention. Kyle had not tripped. He had been Observant, as he usually was in the Forest, in whatever Shape he Chose– 

Although this apparently didn't apply to clean glass windows on a Herbalist's Cottage, while he was in the Shape of a fast-flying Blue Bird.

At that moment Kyle was Human, carefully walking the Path, while also being mindful of the broken arm he kept in a sling against his chest. He hadn't Shifted since it had happened. It wasn't because he couldn't, just that Kyle didn't know what would happen if he did, and didn't feel too particularly keen to try it.

Olivia's Cottage came into view, and with it the scent of Herbs. Kyle walked up to the door and knocked.

"Come in."

Kyle opened the door and stepped inside.

"Hello," He said. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Olivia said. "Take a seat please. I'd like to take a look at that arm."

Kyle sat.

She carefully removed the sling and unbound his broken arm. It was somewhat bruised and swelling.

"Has it been bothering you?" She asked, looking at it.

"A little," Kyle said Honestly, "But it hasn't been particularly terrible."

She nodded.

"Hold still. I can apply a Poultice that should Help."

Kyle waited as she went about the room, searching drawers and grinding things with mortar and pestal. She used water to turn it into a paste. She brought it over. All in all it hadn't taken too long. She'd clearly Known where everything was kept, and hadn't needed to use time for searching.

The paste had a strong smell, but it wasn't a bad smell. It was actually quite pleasant.

"Please bear with me," she said quietly. "And I apologize if this hurts at all."

She applied the paste to his arm, Carefully and Gently, with the efficiency of Someone who had done something like this before. Though Kyle was fairly Certain it hadn't been a Shifter who had flown into the glass of the window.

He suddenly became very aware of how close she was standing. She was looking at his arm, concentrating on what she was doing. Her hair smelled Wonderful.

The thought made Kyle gasp slightly. Just a quick intake of Breath. She looked up. Her hazel eyes met his blue.

"Are you alright?" She asked. 

"I think so," he said, quietly, drawn into her eyes. "Yes. I'm alright."

"That's good," Olivia said.

For a moment neither of them said anything.

They just looked at each other.

Then Olivia blinked and looked away and went back to taking care of his broken arm. She wrapped it in new clean bindings and reset his sling.

Kyle was surprised by how Gentle and Mindful she was. The entire time. It hadn't hurt once.

"Alright," she said finally, "That should do it. I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask that you try not to Shift into your Bird until it Heals. I think Changing would cause it to set wrong."

"You don't have to be sorry," he said. "Thank you for the Help. Truly."

She seemed not quite to know what to say. Finally she settled on, "You're Most Welcome."

 

Kyle found himself walking the Forest Path again and again. The Fall Leaves fell from the Trees and crunched beneath his feet.

 

He once used the arm as an excuse. She examined it. Declared it was fine, and seemed to be Healing well.

Then they were talking about other things.

Kyle told her more about his Gift– that it didn't just allow him to Become a Bird. That being a Squirrell was his favorite, because he Loved the view from the top of the Trees. She didn't seem surprised. It was almost as if she already Knew.

Olivia told him about different Plants and their uses. That different parts of the Plants did different things. She told him about her favorite one:

Yarrow. White or pale yellow flowers, with feathery leaves, that grew anywhere it wanted to.

"Most people pull it out of their Gardens without thinking," She said. "But it's been used for centuries as a wound Herb — stops bleeding, can be used as a mild antiseptic, and reduces fever. It's the kind of Plant that Rewards People who actually look at it."

Then she said that she found it Beautiful, even if no one else did, and that she had some Growing outside her Cottage window.

"I hope you don't think that's too strange," she said.

"Not at all," he said.

He thought it was Wonderful.

He didn't say it.

But he thought it.

 

Another Day he went to her Cottage and hadn't thought to knock. He opened the door and she was sitting on her sofa with a book.

"Thus, the Light shall not waver,

For the Dark cannot stand against it. 

And though the Moon holds Night's favor,

It Illuminates the blackest pit."

She was reading Poetry.

Kyle stopped where he was and listened.

"The Rose that says I Love You,

Is red and never blue.

It speaks of Love, Constant and True,

And that which one must pursue.

So whatever you do–"

She stopped. Turned.

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you come in."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was the one who forgot to knock."

"No worries," she said, "Was there something I could Help with?"

"I didn't really need anything," Kyle said. "I didn't mean to interrupt. You don't have to stop."

She was blushing slightly, and a Thought crossed Kyle's Mind. That she was actually quite Lovely. She nodded, and went back to the book. He settled himself at the end of the sofa. Far enough to be Polite about it, but not too far.

"Where was I," she said to herself. "Oh yes. There we were. So whatever you do, Find the red rose and the Love that it Grew."

She read the next Poem and the next.

Kyle found he Liked listening.

 

 

CHAPTER 16

 

 

Veil Night came the way it Always came — all at once, the way things did when you had been waiting for them without quite admitting it.

The Baking Competition was held in the Afternoon in the Square, the same as Always. Fintan had entered with Confidence and produced Muffins that were, structurally speaking, impressive. The Judges were very polite about it. Aegeas ate one anyway, because he was Loyal like that, and then was very quiet for a few minutes and didn't ask for another one. Häli Slept through most of it against Sylvaia's chest, Seven Months old and entirely unbothered by the World, which was the correct response.

Fintan came in Last Place. He was unbothered by this. He had entered on principle.

At Dusk the Candles went out along the Docks and the Shore. One by one, the Living lighting the way for the ones who were not.

Fintan lit his Candle and set it at the edge of the Dock. He stood there a moment looking at it — the small steady flame, the dark water behind it.

He had not done that before. Not in years. 

He left it burning and walked up the Hill.

The Hilltop was quiet. StarTide spread out below him, candlelight all along the Shore, the Fara dark and wide beyond it. The Stars were out. Fintan sat in the grass and looked at them for a while, and didn't say anything to anyone because there was no one there yet.

Then Brave was there.

He hadn't heard him come. He hadn't called him. Brave simply was There, the way he had Always simply Been There — grey muzzle, steady eyes, settled in the grass beside Fintan with the particular ease of a Dog who had been doing this his whole Life, and saw no reason to stop, even after that Life had ended.

Fintan put his hand on Brave's back. Brave leaned into it.

"Hey, Boy," Fintan said quietly.

Brave said nothing, because he was a Dog, but his tail moved once.

Then Fin was there too, sitting in the grass on Fintan's other side, looking out at the Water the same way Fintan was. No explanation. No preamble. Just Fin, the same as Always, settling in like he had simply been somewhere else a moment ago, and now he was Here.

They let it be what it was.

Below them the Candles flickered along the Shore. The Fara moved the way it Always moved, Patient and indifferent and enormous.

 

"Do you Know what comes next?" Fintan asked after a bit.

Fin was quiet for a moment.

"I think that's the wrong question," he said. "I think the Better one is, what comes after."

Fintan looked at him. "What's the difference?"

"Next is the next thing," Fin said. "The next fight. The next hard year. The thing that's coming that you can't see yet." He paused. "After is what comes when the fighting is done. When it's over and you're still standing, and you get to find out what you Built." He looked at Fintan. "I think you already Know the Answer to that one."

Fintan looked back out at the Water. At the House on Whitecap Hill with its light in the window. At the Candle he had left on the Dock, still burning.

He Thought he did.

After a while he said: "What happened to Corwin? After he Saved me in Åst."

The Stars were out now. He had looked for Corwin's among them, the way he sometimes did. The small Constellation had been gone from the Sky since the Light Fountain went out, just after, like one thing following the other. He had not said that out loud to anyone.

Fin was quiet for a moment.

"I can't tell you that," he said.

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't." He said it gently, without apology. "But you'll find out. That's not nothing, Fin."

Fintan nodded slowly. It wasn't nothing. It was enough to hold onto, which was different from being enough, but it was what there was.

Brave shifted in the grass and put his head on Fintan's knee. Fintan kept his hand on him.

They stayed on the Hilltop a long time, the Three of them. The Candles burned along the Shore below. Some People had Gone Home at Sunset. Some Stayed until Dawn.

Fintan Stayed.

 

CHAPTER 17

 

 

Ruin had been in the Bollards' Barn before.

He Remembered the Barn. He had been methodical about it — the layout of the Farm, the Outbuildings, the distance from the House, the angle of approach from the Tree-line. He had notes. He was always very thorough about his notes.

What he had not noted, apparently, was the Pig Sty.

He lost the Town in the middle of making his way through the dark interior, which was inconvenient, and when the World came back to him he was standing in something that yielded unpleasantly underfoot and the smell hit him approximately half a second later.

Ruin stood very still.

The Pigs regarded him with the mild incurious eyes of Creatures who had seen stranger things, which was unlikely, but they seemed unbothered.

He looked down at his shoe. He Decided not to look at his shoe again.

He reached up and removed a piece of hay from his hair, which drew his attention to the hay that had found its way inside his collar at some point, and the hay inside his sleeve, and the hay that had located what appeared to be a gap between his jacket and his shirt and considered it an excellent opportunity. He pulled at it. More hay. He pulled at that. The hay situation did not improve.

He considered, briefly, whether this was Karma.

He dismissed the thought. He did not believe in Karma. Karma was a superstition for People who needed the Universe to be fair, and the Universe was not fair, and Ruin had never had any patience for comfortable lies.

He extracted his shoe from the Sty with a sound he would not be repeating to anyone, and began the work of determining where he was relative to where he Needed to be.

His shoes would need to be thrown out.

Above him, in the particular way of those who exist outside the usual requirements of Space, Kismet watched.

She was not a large presence. She did not need to be. She had the quiet Satisfaction of Someone doing exactly what they were Built for, in exactly the Right Moment, and finding it Sufficient.

Uriel was there too, which she had not expected, though perhaps she should have. He had that quality — of Arriving where things were Interesting without quite explaining how he had Known.

"It's Good to see that you're Enjoying your work," he said.

Kismet watched Ruin attempt to locate the Barn door in the dark, hay still emerging from his collar with each step.

"It's Best when you Love your job," she said. "Then it doesn't feel like work."

Uriel considered the scene below them with the expression of Someone who had witnessed centuries of serious and consequential things, and found this, specifically, to be a very Welcome change of pace.

Neither of them said anything else for a moment.

Below, Ruin found the door. He did not find it gracefully.

Kismet noted this with quiet professional Approval.

 

CHAPTER 18

 

 

BEN

Winter came to StarTide quietly, the way it usually did — fog first, then frost on the windows in the Mornings, then the kind of cold that settled in and made itself at Home. The Library was warmer than outside, which was reason enough to be there, and Ben had stopped noticing how often Abby was already at her Desk when he Arrived.

They had found a rhythm. He wasn't sure when it had happened. The Cabinet was where she had moved it. The Maritime Records were where she had reorganized them. The Natural History Section was, objectively, Better. He had stopped thinking about it, which was either Acceptance or defeat, and he had Decided not to examine the distinction too closely.

He found the Book on a Tuesday.

It was on the Returns shelf, which was where things ended up when they didn't have anywhere obvious to go — items left on tables, things found between other things, objects that Needed to be assessed before they were Shelved. He picked it up the way he picked up anything on the Returns Shelf. Black hardcover. No Title on the spine. No Author. He opened it to find the Title Page.

There wasn't one.

There was a Story.

He Read the first paragraph before he Understood what he was holding, and by then he had Read the second, and by the Third he had sat down without noticing he was doing it.

It was very good. Not good the way something competent was good. Good the way something True was Good — the kind of Writing that Knew exactly what it was doing, and did it without announcing itself. The Characters moved and Spoke, and wanted things. The World they moved through had weight and texture, and cold Morning light. He Read four pages before he caught himself and closed the Book.

He sat with it for a moment.

Then Abby came in from the Back Room, saw him, and saw what was in his hands, and went very still.

Ben looked at her. "I thought it Needed Cataloguing," he said. "There was no Title."

She didn't say anything.

"It's Very Good," he said. "I only Read a few pages. I'm sorry for Reading without asking." He set it on the Desk between them. "It's Genuinely Very Good, Abby."

She looked at the Book. Then at him. Something moved across her face that he didn't quite have a name for.

"Thank you," she said, quietly, and picked it up and went back to her Desk.

Ben went back to his work. But he Thought about it for the rest of the Day — the cold Morning light in those pages, the way the Characters Spoke to Each Other, the Person who had Written it sitting twelve feet away reorganizing his Library with perfect professional composure.

He thought he was beginning to Understand something. He wasn't quite ready to say what.

KYLE

The Forest Path was frozen now, the mud turned hard underfoot, the roots he Knew by Memory glazed with frost in the Mornings. He walked it anyway. He had been walking it for Weeks and he had stopped pretending he needed a reason.

Olivia had Yarrow drying in bundles from the ceiling and a fire going most of the Day, and the Cottage smelled like Herbs and woodsmoke, and something underneath both of those things that Kyle had stopped trying to identify.

His arm had Healed. She had declared it so herself, Three Weeks ago, turning it carefully in her hands and nodding with the Satisfaction of Someone whose work had come out Right. He could Shift again if he wanted to. He hadn't particularly wanted to.

He came anyway.

They had stopped needing topics of Conversation. He sat at one end of the sofa and she sat at the other, and sometimes she read, and sometimes they talked, and sometimes the fire settled and neither of them said anything, and that was fine too. It was more than fine. It was the most Comfortable Kyle had been anywhere in longer than he could Remember.

He was watching her read — not intently, just the way you watched a fire, because it was there and it was warm, and it was pleasant to look at — when she Laughed quietly at something on the page. Just a small sound. Private, not performed. She hadn't been aware she was going to make it.

Kyle looked at the fire.

He Liked her, he thought. He had Known that for a while. But sitting there in the warm Cottage with the frost on the windows, and the Yarrow drying overhead, he Understood that he Liked her a little more than very much, and had for some time, and was not particularly distressed by this. It felt like something that had been True for a while and had simply been waiting for him to notice.

He didn't say anything.

The fire settled. Outside the frost held. Olivia turned the page.

Kyle stayed until it was late enough that he had to go, and walked the frozen path Home through the dark, and felt, on the whole, very well.

JAMES

Ben told him about Abby on a Wednesday. Kyle told him about Olivia on a Thursday, which was not something Kyle said outright but was something James understood from the way Kyle talked about the Cottage and the fire, and the frost on the windows.

James listened to both of them the way he listened to everything — Fully, without interruption, without the particular kind of smiling that would have made either of them uncomfortable.

He was not worried about himself. He had thought about it, the way you thought about things that were worth a moment's consideration, and had arrived at the conclusion that it would happen when it happened, as these things tended to do. He was not in a hurry. He was not afraid of waiting. He Trusted the timing of things, which was not the same as being passive about it — it was more that he understood there were things you moved toward and things you let come to you, and he had Always had a sense for which was which.

In the meantime there was the swordwork.

He Practiced in the Yard behind the Gull most Mornings, early enough that the light was still thin and the frost hadn't lifted. The sword was not a common weapon anymore — most People had set them aside for newer things — but James liked the motion of it. The way it required all of him. You could not think about something else while you moved through the forms. You could not be distracted or partial or somewhere else in your head. The sword asked for your whole attention and James gave it, the way he gave everything his whole attention, because he had never seen the point of doing things by halves.

Pell watched from the doorway one Morning without saying anything.

Then Fintan was there too, leaning on the frame with his tea, watching.

James moved through the sequence — step and turn and extension, the blade catching the thin Winter light — and did not perform it for them, because he never performed anything, but he was Aware of them the way he was Always Aware of People he Trusted.

When he finished, Fintan said, "I've never seen anyone move like that."

"It's just Practice," James said.

"No," Fintan said, "it isn't."

James considered that. Then he toweled off the blade and went inside for Breakfast, and that was the end of it, and it was a Good Morning.

CHAPTER 19

 

They were on Deck when it happened.

Mari had been working at her station since before Breakfast — the kind of focused, self-contained work that meant she had forgotten anyone else was there. Pell had been nearby doing what Pell did, which was whatever Needed doing, quietly and without announcement. Ben was coiling Rope at the Stern and not particularly thinking about anything.

The Wrench hit the Deck with a sharp sound, spun once, and stopped.

Pell picked it up without thinking. Mari had already turned to retrieve it and found it in his hand, held out toward her. She took it. Their fingers touched for a moment on the handle.

Pell didn't look away from her face.

It lasted only a second or two. Then a Gust came off the Fara and the Rigging moved, and Mari looked up at it automatically with the assessment of Someone who Knew every sound the Wake made and could tell the difference between fine and not fine. Fine. She looked back down at her work and went Below without ceremony, the Wrench in her hand, already Thinking about something else.

Or appearing to.

Ben had Observed all of this from the Stern.

He waited until the Hatch had closed.

"You Like her," he said.

Pell didn't say anything. He went back to what he'd been doing, the same unhurried competent motion as always. His face gave nothing away, which was usual, but he didn't deny it either, which was its own kind of answer.

Ben went back to the Rope. He thought that was probably fair.

Below Deck, Mari set the Wrench down and looked at her plans. The numbers were the same as they had been twenty minutes ago. She looked at them anyway.

She Thought, without particularly meaning to, that Pell was actually quite Handsome. In a sturdy sort of way. The kind of Handsome that didn't announce itself.

She picked up her pencil and went back to work.

 

 

CHAPTER 20

 

 

 

The Morning Market in StarTide ran along the Lower Street on Thursdays, which Fintan Knew because he had Grown Up here, and also because Sylvaia had told him twice this Week that they Needed eggs.

He had Häli in the sling against his chest, which had taken him four attempts to get right, and which Sylvaia had not offered to help with, on the grounds that he Needed to Learn it, and she Trusted him to figure it out. He had figured it out. Mostly. Häli seemed Comfortable, which he was taking as Confirmation.

The Morning was mild for the Season. The kind of Spring Day that reminded you Winter had actually ended, not just paused. He had his list in his pocket — eggs, the good bread from the second Stall, whatever looked right in the vegetable section, which was Sylvaia's instruction verbatim, and which he had Decided meant whatever looked fresh.

He was passing the Church when the door opened.

Steve Taylor came out wearing robes, carrying a small stack of texts under one arm, with the expression of a Man who had somewhere to be, and was taking his time getting there anyway.

Fintan stopped.

"You look different," he said.

Steve looked up. Something in his face settled into the particular Calm of Someone who had heard this before, and found it accurate. "I've Decided to join the Priesthood," he said. "I'm Father Taylor now. I've been Helping People." A brief pause. "It's a Good Life."

Fintan looked at him for a moment. At the robes, at the texts, at the expression of a Man who had found the thing that Fit, and put it on and stopped looking.

He Smiled. "I'm Happy for you."

Father Taylor nodded, the way of Someone receiving something Genuine and Knowing what to do with it. Then he went on his way down the steps and Fintan went on his way toward the Market, and that was the Whole of it. 

He didn't notice the man at the far end of the Street who had stopped when he stopped.

Ruin had been careful. He had been very careful — maintaining the particular quality of attention that kept harmful intent from the surface, thinking, as much as possible, about nothing at all. It required concentration. It was exhausting. It was also, he had found, not especially compatible with actually observing anything useful, because observation required thought, and thought had a tendency to arrive with opinions attached.

He had been following Fintan Bollard at a distance for twenty minutes. He had Learned that Fintan Bollard walked to the Market on Thursday Mornings and carried the Baby in a sling arrangement, and appeared to find this entirely unremarkable. He had Learned nothing else of strategic value.

He watched Fintan stop at the Church. Watched the brief exchange with the Priest. Thought nothing about it, carefully, because thinking things led to wanting things, and wanting things led to StarTide disappearing.

He began to close the distance, carefully, one measured step at a time.

Deputy Johnny came around the corner.

He was not moving quickly. He was, in fact, pausing to look at something in his notebook, walking at the unhurried pace of Someone doing his Rounds on a Thursday Morning with no particular urgency. He was simply there, on the Street, between Ruin and Fintan Bollard, close enough that Ruin's careful concentration registered him as a variable before he could stop it from doing so.

StarTide vanished.

Ruin stood in empty air for a long moment.

When the Town came back, he was alone on the Street. Fintan Bollard was gone, absorbed into the Market Crowd. Deputy Johnny was half a block away, still reading his notebook, having not noticed anything at all.

Ruin straightened his jacket.

He thought, very carefully, about nothing.

StarTide stayed.

He turned and walked away from the Market, and the Church, and the Lower Street, and Deputy John Paul Ringo, who had just ruined twenty minutes of careful work without ever once looking up from his notes.

The Fountain was nobody's fault but his own, which was the worst part.

He had been doing well. Three careful blocks from the Market Square, maintaining the particular blankness of Mind that kept the Town Present, when Deputy Johnny had come around the corner of the Chandler's Shop with his notebook open and his head down, and Ruin's careful blankness had immediately produced the thought: Law Enforcement, followed immediately by, 'why I am here', followed immediately by nothing, because StarTide had gone.

He had been mid-stride at the edge of the Fountain.

The water was very cold.

He stood in it for a moment, both feet submerged to the ankle, and thought carefully about nothing at all until the Town came back. A Woman with a basket walked past and did not make eye contact, which was the StarTide way of dealing with something you had Decided was not your business. He stepped out of the Fountain. His shoes made a sound he did not care for. His socks were wet.

Deputy Johnny had continued down the Street, still reading his notebook, and had not looked back once.

Ruin walked back to his lodgings with great dignity and changed his shoes and socks.

The second day was the ball.

He had nearly made it to Whitecap Hill — close enough to see the Road beginning to rise — when Johnny appeared at the end of the Lane, doing his Rounds with the unhurried thoroughness of a Man who had nowhere particular to be, and intended to check everything on the way there.

StarTide vanished.

It came back Three seconds later. In those Three seconds Ruin had apparently stepped sideways into the path of a Child's Game, because the ball arrived before his eyes had adjusted and caught him squarely in the face.

He stood very still.

The Child who retrieved the ball looked up at him. Ruin looked down at the Child. The Child said sorry and ran back to her Friends. Ruin straightened his jacket, touched his nose carefully, and Decided that Whitecap Hill could wait until Tomorrow.

Deputy Johnny had already turned the corner. He had not seen any of it.

The Third Day was the Goose.

The Goose lived near the Lower Path that ran along the edge of the green, which Ruin had not known when he Chose that Route, and which he had no time to Learn before it made its position clear. It came around a gatepost with the Purposeful Energy of something that had Decided that this was its Territory, and Ruin was a trespasser, and these two facts required immediate resolution.

StarTide had not vanished. There was nothing about a Goose that produced strategic thought. This was simply a Goose and it wanted him gone, and it was prepared to make that happen, physically if necessary.

Ruin walked faster.

The Goose kept pace, hissing and flapping.

He turned onto the Upper Road at something that was not quite running, and the Goose stopped at the corner with the Satisfaction of something that had made its point, and had other business to attend to. Ruin straightened his jacket. He was Breathing slightly harder than he would have preferred.

He was at the base of Whitecap Hill.

He had lost the Road somewhere in the commotion. The Path was uneven here — old ground, grass over stone, the kind of terrain that looked flat until it wasn't. He took Three steps toward the Hill and his foot found a shallow dip in the ground he hadn't seen, and his ankle went one way while he went another and he was on the ground before he had fully registered falling.

He lay there for a moment.

Above him the sky was the particular blue of a Morning that had no interest in his situation. Somewhere behind him, at the bottom of the road, he could hear Deputy Johnny's footsteps making their steady Rounds. Not close. Not a problem. Just There, the way Johnny was Always just There, like Weather.

Ruin looked at the sky.

He thought, with complete clarity, that he was done with StarTide.

He got up. He tested the ankle. It held, barely, with the specific complaint of something that was going to make itself known for the next several Weeks. He straightened his jacket for the last time on Whitecap Hill and walked back down the Road, slowly, away from the Town he had never managed to properly enter.

He framed it, privately, as a strategic withdrawal.

The Goose watched him go from the corner.

Kismet, in her way, felt that this had been one of her better Weeks. Not her best — that remained the Pig Sty, which had a classical elegance she found hard to surpass. But the Fountain and the ball, and the Goose and the ankle, taken together, had a cumulative quality she appreciated. A composition rather than a single note.

She had always preferred the longer pieces.

 

 

CHAPTER 21

 

 

 

They were in Olivia's Front Room when the Deer appeared.

It had come out of the Tree-line at the edge of the Garden, moving with the particular unhurried Certainty of something that had Decided that the cold was not a problem, and that the Garden was Worth Investigating. It stood at the fence line with its breath steaming in the Winter air, looking at nothing in particular, Belonging entirely to Itself.

Kyle had stopped mid-sentence.

Olivia looked up from the thing she had been doing at the table — something with dried Herbs, some preparation she had been working through while they Talked — and followed his gaze to the window. She looked at the Deer. Then she looked at Kyle.

His face had not changed. That was the thing. It had not done anything visible. But the quality of his stillness was different from his usual stillness, and Olivia Knew the difference by now.

She set down what she was holding and waited.

The Deer moved along the fence line, unhurried, and Kyle watched it and said nothing for long enough that the silence became something else.

Then, still watching the window — "He had a post. In the center of the room. Concrete floor." A pause. The Deer stopped, lifted its head, went back to moving. "Chains."

Olivia did not move. Did not speak.

"He would put me there and watch." The Voice Kyle used was his ordinary voice. That was perhaps the most difficult part of it to hear — that he had found a way to say it in his ordinary voice. "Like I was — something he'd collected. Something interesting." A Breath. "He forced the Shifts. Not just asked for them. Took them. When he wanted to see it happen."

The Deer reached the corner of the fence and paused again, Breath clouding.

"There were other People," Kyle said. "While I was there. He'd bring them in." A long pause. "When he was done with them–"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

"I Learned to be very still," he said. "Very calm. It Helped. If I was calm it was — less interesting. Less worth the effort of the post." He was quiet for a moment. "I got good at it. I'm still good at it."

The Deer moved back into the Tree-line and was gone.

Kyle looked at the empty Garden for a moment. Then he looked at Olivia.

Her expression had not arranged itself into grief, or horror, or careful handling. She was simply looking at him the way she Always looked at things — Completely, without flinching, with the particular Attention of Someone who Believed that Seeing a thing Clearly was the first, and most Important thing you could do for it.

"You've never told anyone," she said. Not a question.

"My Parents. My Sister, Mari. They would carry it," he said. "I didn't want them to carry it, and I didn't want anyone to look at me differently. I just want to be Kyle McTiernan without all that."

Olivia nodded once, slowly. Then she picked up what she had set down and went back to her work at the table, which was not dismissal — he Understood immediately that it was not dismissal. It was her giving him back the ordinary air of the room. Letting the conversation be finished on his terms, not hers.

After a moment he picked up his own thread of what they had been Talking about before and continued it. His Voice was steady. It had Always been steady.

But something in the room was different than it had been, and both of them Knew it, and neither of them said so, because it didn't need to be said.

 

The Cliff Path ran along the Eastern edge of StarTide where the Land dropped away toward the Shore, and in Winter it was not a comfortable walk — the Wind came off the Fara with opinions about it and the ground was hard with frost — but Olivia walked it regularly regardless, because several things she Needed Grew only here, and the Season did not change that.

Kyle had fallen into the habit of walking with her on these Mornings without either of them having decided that he would. It had simply become True over the Weeks since the Deer, the way some things become True — through repetition, through the ordinary accumulation of Time spent in the same Direction.

She stopped at a point where the Path narrowed and the Cliff dropped steeply to a lower ledge, and looked down at it with the focused Attention of Someone taking inventory.

"There," she said, to herself more than to him.

The Syraxia Grew in a cluster on the ledge below — silver-blue against the grey rock, small Flowers that had no business Blooming in this cold and did it anyway. Kyle looked down at them. The ledge was perhaps twelve feet below the Path, accessible in theory by a route that involved trusting the Cliff face with more Faith than it seemed to warrant.

Olivia was already looking for footholds.

Kyle took a step back from the Path's edge.

Then he was a Crow.

It happened the way it Always happened when he let it — quickly, without ceremony, between one moment and the next. He dropped from the Path's edge and caught the air, and was on the lower ledge in Three wingbeats, and he took the Syraxia carefully in his beak and came back up. He landed, and was Human again, standing on the frost-hard path with the small silver-blue cluster in his hand.

Olivia had turned around.

She was still half-positioned for the descent she had been planning, and she looked at him — at the Syraxia in his hand, at his face — with an expression he hadn't seen on her before. Not surprise exactly. Something quieter than surprise. The particular look of Someone recalibrating without distress, simply adjusting what they Knew to include something New.

He held out the Syraxia.

She took it. Their fingers were both cold. The contact was brief and neither of them moved away from it immediately.

"You didn't have to," she said.

"I Know," he said. "I wanted to."

The Wind came off the Fara and moved her hair, and she looked at him for a moment longer than she usually looked at things, which was already longer than most People. Then she looked down at the Syraxia in her hand, turning it once, carefully.

"Thank you," she said.

It was a simple thing to say. It landed differently than simple.

They walked back along the Cliff Path without hurrying, and the Wind was cold, and the frost cracked under their boots, and somewhere between the ledge and the Town, Kyle became aware that something that had been shifting for Weeks had finished shifting, and that Olivia Knew it too, and that neither of them was going to say so yet, and that this was entirely alight.

 

The Path back into Town passed her Cottage, which meant there was no decision involved in walking her Home — it was simply the direction they were already going. Neither of them mentioned this.

At her door she turned, and stopped.

Kyle stopped.

The Wind had dropped somewhere between the Cliff Path and the Town, and the air was very still and cold. The frost on the step caught the flat Winter light. Olivia was looking at him the way she had looked at him on the ledge — that same recalibrated Attention, Clear and Unhurried.

He had Always been good at reading a room. He had Always Known, with reasonable accuracy, where he stood with People. He Knew where he stood now.

"Olivia," he said.

"Yes," she said. Not as an answer to a question he hadn't asked yet. Just — yes. As a fact. As a thing that was already True and she saw no reason to make him work for it.

He closed the distance between them and Kissed her, and she Kissed him back with the same directness she brought to everything, and the frost sat undisturbed on the step, and the Winter air stayed cold and still around them.

When they broke apart she looked at him for a moment.

"Come in," she said. "I'll make tea."

He followed her inside and the door closed, and that was that, and it was exactly enough.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 22

 

 

 

Midwinter came to StarTide the way it Always did — quietly at first, in the smell of Pine and woodsmoke and something Baking that had been Baking since before anyone was awake, and then all at once in the particular brightness of a House that had been decorated by People who Loved it.

Aegeas had been up since before the Sun. This was not unusual.

The front room of Whitecap Hill was warm and smelled of the candles Sylvaia had set in every window the Night before. Häli was on a blanket near the hearth, nine-months-old and deeply engaged with her own hands, occasionally looking up at the candles with the focused Interest of Someone conducting research. Sylvaia sat close with a mug, watching both Children with the particular ease of a Midwinter Morning that had nowhere to be.

Aegeas was sitting cross-legged on the hearthrug in the posture of Someone practicing Patience and not quite succeeding at it, when Fintan came in from outside still wearing his coat.

Aegeas looked up.

Fintan's coat was moving in a way that coats did not generally move.

A small brown nose appeared at the collar. Then a pair of ears — soft, slightly too large, not entirely decided on their final position. Then two dark eyes that took in the room with the complete and serious attention of something encountering the World for the first time, and finding it very large and very Interesting.

Aegeas did not move. He appeared to have stopped Breathing.

Fintan reached into his coat and lifted the Puppy out, and set her down on the hearthrug in front of his Son.

She was golden-brown and slightly too big for herself in the way of Puppies who were going to be something substantial eventually, with long legs that had not yet reached an agreement with the rest of her. She looked at Aegeas. Aegeas looked at her. She crossed the distance between them in Three unsteady steps and put her front paws on his knee, and looked up at him with an expression of Complete and immediate Trust.

Aegeas put both hands around her very Carefully, the way he handled things he Understood to be Important.

"She's yours," Fintan said. He crouched down to Aegeas's level, elbows on his knees. "Though you'll have to Share her someday." He glanced toward Häli on the blanket, who had abandoned her hands in favor of watching the Puppy with enormous eyes. "When she's old enough. She'll be a Family Dog."

Aegeas followed his Father's gaze to his Sister. Häli looked back at him with the Serene and Total Attention of a nine-month-old who had Decided this New Creature was the most Interesting thing in the room, and intended to continue looking at it indefinitely.

Aegeas looked back down at the Puppy, who had Decided that his coat was an acceptable thing to chew on, and was doing so with great concentration.

"Alright," he said, with the gravity of Someone making an Agreement they intended to Keep.

"What's her Name?" Sylvaia asked.

Aegeas was quiet for a moment. The uppy abandoned the coat and put her nose against his chin, and he went very still the way he did when something Mattered.

"Fara," he said.

Fintan looked at him. Then at Sylvaia.

Neither of them said anything. It didn't need anything said.

The Puppy — Fara — turned Three circles on the hearthrug and lay down across Aegeas's feet, as though she had Always been there, and had simply been waiting to Arrive. Häli watched this with great Interest and then returned to her hands, Satisfied.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 23

 

 

 

The Library in Winter was the best version of itself — the smell of the fire Ben kept going in the corner grate, the particular quality of the light through the tall windows when the sky outside was the flat white of a cold Afternoon, the shelves standing in their new order that he had, eventually and without announcing it, Decided was Better than the old one.

Abby was on the ladder at the far end of the room, working through the upper Shelf with the focused efficiency she brought to everything. Ben was at the table with something he was supposed to be Reading and was mostly not reading, in the way of Someone whose Attention had migrated across the room without his permission.

He Noticed the ladder shift before she did.

It was a small thing — the feet on the stone floor, a fraction of movement, the wrong kind. Abby reached for the next Book and the ladder went, and Ben was on his feet before he had Decided to stand and his hand was out and she stopped.

Just — stopped. Three feet off the floor, one hand still extended toward the Shelf, completely suspended in the Winter quiet of the Library.

Ben crossed the room and set her down the way he set things down when he was being Careful — Gently, without drama, feet finding the floor. He lowered his hand. She was standing.

They were very close. The ladder was leaning harmlessly against the Shelf behind her.

Abby looked at him. Her expression had not arranged itself into alarm or gratitude — it was doing something more Careful than either, the particular look of Someone taking accurate stock of a situation.

"Telepathy," she said. Not a question.

"Yes," he said.

A pause. Ben became aware that he had not yet stepped back and that stepping back now would be its own kind of statement, so he stayed where he was and Hoped his face was doing something reasonable.

She looked at him for a moment longer. Something in the room that had been Present for some time was very Present now. Then she looked up at the Shelf. "I still Need that Book."

Ben looked at the Shelf. He held out his hand and the Book came down from the Shelf and landed in it and he held it out to her.

Abby took it. Their hands did not quite touch. She looked at the Book and then back at him with an expression that was almost — not quite — a Smile.

"Useful," she said.

"Occasionally," he said.

She went back to the table with her Book and Ben went back to the table with his, and the fire crackled in the grate, and the flat Winter light held steady through the tall windows, and neither of them said anything else about it.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 24

 

 

 

The River to Regalis took most of the Morning.

Aster had arranged a Boat small enough to manage the Current without difficulty, but wide enough that Swift had room to stand without making everyone nervous about it — a flat-bottomed thing with a covered section at the Bow, and a reliable enough Sail that they didn't have to row the whole way. Swift, for her part, had opinions about Boats that she kept to herself once Underway, which Fintan considered Admirable.

Regalis came up on the Port Side in the particular way of River Cities — gradually and then all at once, the Smell of it preceding the Sight, the Docks busy with the ordinary commerce of early Spring. They left the Boat at the quay and walked Swift through the Lower City to the Stables Aster Knew outside the Eastern Gate, where Fintan negotiated a Horse without much difficulty — a solid grey with a sensible expression who Fintan Decided immediately he Liked.

 

The Organization's Headquarters was on the North side of the City. They went there first.

The Entrance Hall was Familiar to Fintan in the way of Places visited enough times to stop noticing them. Percival's door was open, which meant he was in. They went past it toward Al's room, and it was on the way that Fintan heard his Name from the far end of the Corridor.

BryKae was coming down the stairs — tan skin, black hair, the easy unhurried movement of Someone who had Learned to be Comfortable in a space he hadn't originally come from. Years at the Organization. He still looked like Someone who was facing a particular direction and waiting for the right moment to start walking.

"Fintan." He said it Warmly, the way BryKae said most things. "You look the same."

"You look like you're Thinking about leaving," Fintan said.

BryKae Smiled. "I'm always Thinking about leaving. It's the Ship that's expensive."

"I could get you there," Fintan said. "The Moonlight Wake goes where I point her."

BryKae was quiet for a moment, the way Someone is quiet when they've considered something before, and arrived at the same answer. "I Know," he said. "I Appreciate it. But I want to make my own way there. I want to earn the Crossing." A pause. "Does that make sense?"

Fintan nodded once.

"Soon though," BryKae said, and the word carried the weight of Someone who meant it. "I've almost got enough."

They left him on the stairs and found Al in his room, which was exactly as it Always was — decades of organized Archaeology across every surface, the single lamp at the far end of the worktable, Al himself not looking up when they came in.

They told him they were heading out to something Aster had heard, somewhere in the Countryside East of Regalis. A Tower, collapsed, old. Al made a sound that meant he was listening. Fintan looked at a glass paperweight that contained something moving slowly inside it and Decided not to ask.

 

The Tower was not hard to Find once they were close enough for Aster to Feel it Clearly.

It had been something substantial once — the remaining walls suggested height, ambition, a certain Confidence in the Future that the Future had not honored. Now it was a useful Landmark for Birds and a source of good Building stone for the Farms nearby, which had helped themselves freely to the lower courses over the years. What remained stood in a Field gone soft with early Spring, the ground uncertain underfoot, new Green coming up through the old.

Swift waited at the Field's edge with the Grey, both of them exhibiting the Patience of Animals that had done this before.

Aster moved through the rubble with the particular Attention he brought to this work — not searching exactly, more like Listening. Fintan followed at a slight distance and watched the way he did it, the way he Always watched Aster work, because there was something about a Gift operating cleanly that was Worth seeing.

It took perhaps ten minutes.

Aster crouched near a section of fallen wall where the stones had come down in a way that had created a small Protected hollow, and reached in, and came out with a Wooden Spoon.

It was Old. Worn smooth with long use, the handle darkened where hands had held it for Years and Years. Simple and entirely unassuming, the kind of thing you would not look at twice in a Kitchen. Aster turned it in his hands and his expression did the thing it did when he was Feeling something from an Object — a brief internal Attention, like hearing a note from another room.

"Well," he said.

"What is it?" Fintan asked.

"I don't know yet," Aster said. "But it's very Pleased to be Found."

He wrapped it in the cloth he carried for this Purpose and put it in his pack, and they walked back across the soft Spring Field to where the Horses were waiting.

 

Al looked at the Spoon for four seconds.

He turned it once. Ran his thumb along the handle. Set it down on the worktable between a Clock in pieces and a Child's Shoe.

"Soup Spoon," he said. "Sir Bumble's." He glanced up briefly. "Stir with it. Makes Soup. No apparent limit." He picked up what he had been working on before they came in. "You'll want a pot."

Fintan looked at Aster.

Aster looked at Fintan.

 

They found a pot in the Organization's Kitchen — a decent sized one, the kind used for actual cooking — and filled it with nothing because it turned out you didn't need anything in it, just the pot itself, and Aster stirred once with the wooden Spoon and the Kitchen filled with the Smell of something Extraordinary.

The Soup was perfect. It was the kind of Soup that suggested it had been thinking about being Soup for a very long time, and had finally had the Opportunity. Rich and warm and completely inexplicable, steaming in the pot in the Organization's Kitchen on an early Spring Afternoon.

Fintan found two bowls without being asked.

They stood at the Kitchen counter and ate Sir Bumble's Soup in Companionable Silence, and outside the window Regalis went about its business, and somewhere in the Stables Swift and the Grey stood Together with the Patience of Horses, and it was, Fintan thought, an Extremely Good Day.

He thought about the Road. The River. BryKae on the stairs facing his particular Direction. The Spring Fields outside Regalis going soft and Green.

The World was still out there. He still Fit in it.

He had another bowl of Soup.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 25

 

 

The Morning of the Wedding was cold and clear, the way Spring Mornings at Dún Rí tended to be — the Sky a pale, washed blue, the Grass still carrying the Night's chill, the Fara glittering at the base of the Cliffs with the particular Brightness of Water in new light.

Fintan stood at the Shoreline. He looked Entirely Himself. He had been sure to wear a nice shirt. His hair was as managed as it would ever be. He stood in the Grass wearing his usual coat, his dark dramatic Hat, and his boots, and tried to Remember if he had ever been this Calm about anything.

He thought probably not. But it was the Right kind of Calm. The kind that came from Certainty rather than the absence of feeling.

Aegeas stood beside him with the Rings in his coat pocket, which he had checked Three times on the walk down from Whitecap Hill, and would check at least once more before the Ceremony began. He was seven-years-old and he was taking this seriously, which Fintan found quietly Moving.

The Others had Gathered — the Crew, Family, the People who had Earned the Right to be here by Virtue of having Stayed. Aidan and Marina, Marina with Häli against her shoulder, Häli regarding the proceedings with the openness of Someone for whom everything was still New and Interesting. Uncle Tim. The Lamonts. The Bollards. What remained of Fin's Crew: Swing, Lena, Marcus, Kenna, and Tanner, as much Family as anyone. They had brought their Families. Lynore Helped with the Catering. Tarsus was there with Arthyn by his side.

Kyle and Olivia standing close Together in the way of People who had recently Become Something, and had not yet Decided how much to show it. Ben and Abby, not standing quite as close, but in the particular orbit of two People trending in a Direction. 

Alva, who had ensured the Invitations were printed on paper of appropriate Quality, and had opinions about the table settings that she had largely kept to herself.

Uriel stood at the edge of the Gathering with Serevane beside him — Unhurried, as he Always was, wearing the mild expression of Someone who had seen a great many things, and found this one Worth Attending. He had a glass of something. Beside him, Kismet had appeared at some point without anyone quite seeing her Arrive, which was generally how Kismet operated.

Lyra was there. She stood quietly near the Cliff Path, her hands folded, watching with the expression of Someone who had been Present at the very Beginning, and was watching something Begin again.

Father Taylor stood at the Water's edge with his Book and his Patient expression, and said nothing about the Hat.

 

Then Sylvaia came.

She came down the Path from the Cliff alone, walking herself across the Spring Grass with the Unhurried Certainty of Someone who had Always walked herself, and Always would. Her dress was silver, almost white, catching the Morning light in a way that made her look like something the Shore had produced Naturally. She carried nothing. She needed nothing.

Fintan watched her come and forgot briefly how to arrange his face into something ordinary.

She stopped in front of him and looked at him — the coat, the Hat, the boots in the cold Grass — and something in her expression said she would not have had it any other way.

Father Taylor opened his Book and said the Words that opened the thing, and then he nodded to Fintan.

Fintan had not written anything down. He had Thought about it, and had Decided that if he couldn't say it from Memory, then it wasn't ready yet.

"I have not always been easy to Know," he said. "There have been times I've Traveled far from Home, and likely will again someday. I've come back from Places that changed me in ways I didn't always know how to explain. I have been afraid. I haven't always been certain." He looked at her. "I have been Certain about You. Since the Beginning, and before I knew what to do with it. I am not going to promise you a quiet Life, because I don't entirely know how to have one. But I Promise you this one. Whatever it is. I Promise you, I will Always come back to it."

Sylvaia looked at him for a Moment before she Spoke.

"You are the most Yourself Person I have ever met," she said. "It is one of the things I Love Most about You, and occasionally one of the most challenging things about you, and I would not change either of those facts." A pause. "There was a time I thought I would never have any of this. Then you said my Name and the World changed. There's been times that you Surprised me, and I would not trade that for anything. I am Grateful for that Every Day." She took a Breath. "I am not afraid of the Life we are going to have. I am not afraid of any of it. That is because of you. I Promise to tell you the Truth, Always. I Promise to Stay."

The Fara moved against the Shore behind them.

Aegeas checked his pocket, and produced the Rings at exactly the Right Moment, with the Focus of Someone Completing a Mission of Genuine Importance.

When Father Taylor said the Words that finished it, Fintan Kissed Her and Sylvaia Kissed Him. 

They were Husband and Wife. They were Married.

Someone behind them made a Sound that was either Uncle Tim, Asterys, or Cade.

 

The Reception moved up from the Shoreline to the flatter ground near the base of Dún Rí, where the Grass was dry enough and the Wind Gentle enough that being outside remained a reasonable Decision. Someone had brought Tables. Ada had been involved in the Decorations, which meant things were hung in Trees and from the Cliff face in a way that looked effortless, and had not been.

The Soup Spoon came out when it was time to eat.

Aster produced it from somewhere about his person and found a large pot Someone had thought to bring — because Aster had mentioned there might be a Soup situation, and People who Knew Aster tended to take these things seriously — and stirred once, and the Smell of Sir Bumble's Soup moved through the Spring air at the base of Dún Rí in a way that made everyone stop what they were doing.

It was, as it had been in the Organization's Kitchen, Perfect. People came back for more. Häli had some, mashed, and Approved of it. Aegeas had Three bowls without apology.

 

Later, when the Tables had been pushed back and Someone had produced a Fiddle from somewhere, Fintan Danced with Sylvaia on the Grass at the base of the Cliff, with the Fara behind them and the Spring Sky overhead, and the People they Loved around them.

He was not a particularly accomplished Dancer. She Knew this already and had Married him anyway.

At the edge of the Gathering, Uriel turned to Kismet.

"What brings you here?" he asked. Pleasantly, the way Uriel asked things.

Kismet looked at him. Then she gestured — at the Dancing, at the Tables, at Aegeas counting his remaining Soup, at Lyra standing quietly by the Cliff path, at all of it.

"This," she said. "You Know my Business isn't only bad Karma."

Uriel considered this and nodded. He offered her his glass.

She took it, held it for a moment, and looked out at Fintan and Sylvaia turning slowly in the Grass.

"I can't linger," she said.

Across the Gathering, Fintan said something that made Sylvaia Laugh — her Real Laugh, when she put her Whole Self into it — and she looked up at him with the expression she reserved for very few things.

Kismet watched this.

"My work here is finished," she said.

She handed the glass back to Uriel and was not there anymore, the way she tended to not be there — between one Moment and the next, without ceremony.

Uriel stood with his glass and watched Fintan and Sylvaia Dance, and said nothing, and looked entirely unsurprised by any of it.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 26

 

 

 

The Game had been going for two hours and the outcome was, by this point, a matter of significant dispute.

Emrys's House in the Summer evening was Warm and loud in the way of Houses that had Children in them, and had made their Peace with it — the windows open to the Garden, the long table in the Sitting Room covered in the board, its pieces, and Three separate arguments about the rules that had been running in parallel since approximately the forty-minute mark.

Oak had the most pieces. This was not in dispute. What was in dispute was whether the method by which he had acquired them was technically permitted, a question on which he and Ava had strong and opposing views, and had been expressing those views at length.

"It's in the rules," Oak said, for the fourth time.

"Show me where," Ava said, for the fourth time.

Susie, who was twelve and had Decided early in the Evening that winning was less interesting than watching everyone else fail to win, was eating the last of the biscuits with the Serenity of Someone who had made Excellent Life Choices.

Emily had fallen Asleep against Alva's shoulder sometime in the last half hour. Alva had not moved, and was Playing her remaining pieces one-handed with an economy that suggested she had been doing this for years, which she had.

Emrys sat across the table from Aster with the expression he wore when he was winning and preferred not to draw attention to it.

Aster was aware of this expression. He had been aware of it for years.

"You're winning," Aster said.

"I'm Playing," Emrys said.

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

"No," Emrys agreed pleasantly.

Ada put a piece down on the board in a position that caused both of them to look at it, and then at her. She looked back with the expression of Someone who had been paying Attention to everyone else's strategy all Evening, and had been waiting for exactly this Moment.

The argument about Oak's pieces stopped.

"When did you—" Aster started.

"A while ago," Ada said.

Emrys looked at the board for a long moment. Then he looked at Alva. Alva, without looking up from her own pieces, made a small sound that meant she had seen it coming and had Chosen not to mention it, which was its own kind of thing.

Aster looked across the table at his Brother — at Emrys in his own House on a Summer Evening, Emily Asleep against his Wife's shoulder, Ava still making her case to Oak about the rules with the Focused Energy of Someone who intended to win this argument, even if she couldn't win the Game.

He Thought about everything he and Emrys had Been Through and Done. That they had Talked about Everything and Nothing, with the sound of the Fara Ocean as background Music. The Years they had been apart, and the Years they'd been Together. And now it seemed that he had Always Been There.

Emrys caught him looking and raised an eyebrow.

"Your move," he said.

Aster looked at the board. Then he moved his piece, not because it was a good move but because it was the move that would make Emrys Laugh, and Emrys Laughed, and the Summer Evening continued around them Warm and loud and Entirely Ordinary, which was Everything.

 

Across StarTide, in the House they had kept for Years, Aidan and Marina sat on the Cliff-facing Terrace in the long Summer light.

The House was quiet. The Evening was Theirs.

They sat with their tea and the particular Comfortable Silence of two People who had run out of things they needed to say, and had arrived somewhere Better on the other side of it.

Marina watched the light on the Fara. Aidan watched Marina.

He Remembered centuries of waiting, though the Memory sat quietly now, more like Weather than wound. He Remembered the Ledge at Starlight Cove, and her Voice, and Learning her Name again as though for the first time, and then Finding Her again.

She turned and found him looking.

"What?" she said, the way she said it when she already Knew.

"Nothing," he said, the way he said it when it was Everything.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her, and they watched the Summer light move on the Water. The Fara glittered below them, and the Evening was long and Warm and Unhurried.

 

In the Garden of the House next door, Quint sat in the last of the Afternoon Sun.

He was very old now, in the way that arrived gradually and then all at once — the hands that had once been quick and certain moving more carefully, the long bones of him settling into the chair with the patience of Someone who had Learned to be still. Kaida sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched, the way they had sat for more Years than he could easily count.

He was Smiling at something. She had Noticed.

"What is it?" she asked.

He was quiet for a Moment, looking at the Garden — the Summer Green of it, the light coming through the Leaves in the way it did at this hour.

"I was Thinking about how I got here," he said. "From where I started." A pause. "Lamont who hunted Fin. Quint who became his Son." He shook his head slowly, still Smiling. "Marina's Brother. Uncle to Emrys, Asterys, and Fintan. Great Uncle to Aegeas. A Father– Collette and Kasahn. My Family and Friends. All of them — they just — Accepted me. Most of them, Knowing everything." He looked at his hands. "I didn't deserve it."

"No," Kaida said. "They Gave it anyway."

"They Gave it anyway," he said.

She put her hand over his. He turned his palm up and Held it.

The Garden was quiet around them. The Afternoon light was long and gold, the way Summer light was when it Knew it had Time.

They sat Together in it, as they had sat Together through Everything, and did not say anything else, because there was nothing else that needed saying.

 

At Whitecap Hill, the Evening was Warm and still.

Fintan sat on the Porch with his boots off and his coat on the chair beside him, a cup of something hot going cold in his hand because he had forgotten to drink it, which was a thing that happened when the View was like this — the Town of StarTide below, the lights coming on one by one as the Summer dark settled, the Fara beyond it catching the last of the Sky.

Fara was in the Yard.

She was not quite a Puppy anymore but she was young enough that the Yard still required thorough Investigation every Evening, and she was conducting that Investigation now with the systematic Attention of Someone who took her Responsibilities seriously. She had Found something near the Garden wall that warranted extended examination. Fintan watched her without concern.

Sylvaia came out and sat beside him, and he handed her the cup without looking because he Knew she would take it, and she did, and drank it, and made no comment about the temperature.

Häli was Asleep inside — just over a Year-old, recently and Triumphantly Walking, currently defeated by the Hour. Aegeas was still up, probably. He was eight and considered himself old enough to determine his own Bedtime, a position he held with great conviction and moderate success.

Fintan looked at the Town. The lights. The Water.

He Thought about the River to Regalis in early Spring, the rented Horse, the Tower in the Field. He thought about BryKae on the stairs facing his particular Direction. He thought about Grandpa Fin and Grandma Char's Graves at the base of Dûn Rí and the way the Fara had moved against the Shore while Father Taylor said the Words that finished it.

He Thought about all the Places he had been, and all the things he had faced, and the long unlikely Road that had brought him here, to this Porch, on this Summer Evening, with this Woman beside him, and his Children inside, and a Dog Investigating the Garden wall.

Sylvaia leaned against him and he put his arm around her.

Fara abandoned the Garden wall, came up onto the Porch, and lay down across his feet with a Satisfaction that suggested she had completed her work for the evening, and was prepared to Rest. She was warm and solid and entirely Certain of her place in things.

Below them, StarTide settled into its Summer Night.

Fintan looked out at all of it — the lights, the Water, the long dark Horizon where the Fara met the Sky — and Felt, with a Completeness that required no words, and no witnesses, that this was exactly where he was Supposed To Be.

It was, he Thought, Enough. It was More than Enough.

It was Everything.

 

 

THE END