I shook Branneth and his justified suspicions off and stopped by Assistant Oxenden to inform him of my plans. I couldn’t think of any convincing argument for how this was part of the investigation, so instead I implied that I wished to contribute to the well-being of the dragons. I was shocked myself when it worked. Assistant Oxenden was entirely too naïve for his position.

One of the new-section staff he was with grumbled about the whole idea.

“The students are doing the harvesting in their own personal time,” replied Assistant Oxenden. “It’s only right that they get to keep the flowers afterwards.”

“Except there’s more of them per dragon, so they strip it completely before we get a look in. It’s a bit much that they get the lion’s share of the imported produce, and on top of that, the best opportunities to harvest fresh stuff.”

“This is an academy,” reminded Assistant Oxenden. “It makes sense that they prioritise the student’s dragons while we’re going through this temporary shortage.”

“Who told you about the shortage and prioritisation?” I asked. “House Holder Fairbanks himself?”

“Yes,” said Assistant Oxenden. “How did you know?”

“Oh,” I said. “Just a guess.”

Much too naïve for his position.

I caught up to Assistant Altengart before he slipped away. He was more than willing to let me join in the harvesting team. To be fair, it would have been difficult to politely turn me away, but he seemed genuinely pleased. I think the time I had been spending with Assistant Oxenden, even for the reasons involved, was making the old-section folk feel a little insecure. We met up with the group of older students as we waited to cross the bridge. Once we were up the stairs, they led me to a changing room. They changed into their own speciality harness robes. I was handed a spare from a pile on a shelf. I looked around carefully. The changing room was not locked in anyway. It looked like I might have found another source of clothes that was not bright white. They didn’t put on any other layers, and I resisted the temptation to do otherwise. We’d shortly be doing physical labour after all. The group grabbed backpacks from a long row, and readily handed me one when I indicated I was willing to carry it. The backpack didn’t feel particularly full, but it was too heavy to be empty. Clothing and a backpack. I should have trialled this option first. It would have saved me so much time.

Once we were geared up, we walked outside again. Outside was still quite bright, and my eyes were starting to adjust. We walked through the door in the wall. As I passed, I noticed something odd about the door itself, but it would have been too obvious to look. The field immediately outside looked like it had been weeded and ploughed. Perhaps fresh sand added to the top. It was glittering in the moonlight. The margins were a little more chaotic than they had probably been in previous years, but it was an impressive change in a very short amount of time. No dragonets, but I imagined they’d only be transferred at the last minute. It was still outside the academy’s new fortifications, after all. But importantly in the circumstances, the viewing area was back on the other side of the wall, with no risk of anyone committing suicide from it.

The initial walk was smooth and easy and cold. But then we had to climb to get to the ledges where the plants were. That was where the contents of the backpacks were revealed – ropes and attachments and anchors. To my relief, we would be roped up for safety. To my dismay, we also divided into groups of three ‘buddies’ to monitor for problems. I would need to find some way to distract them when the time came the next night.

The dread I’d felt for the process seemed a little silly. The harness robes weren’t comfortable, but they were secure. And while the individual tools were magical, the process of the rope-work was very familiar. We confirmed the security of the anchors, clipped on before clipping off, having the belay in place when the slip risks increased. It didn’t take long to adjust to the minor differences to what I was used to. I chatted to a student as we waited for our turn to ascend.

“With all this equipment,” I said, “I’m surprised that you don’t also use it for some recreational rock-climbing.”

“We do!” replied one student. “When we aren’t harvesting, there’s a bunch of us that go out every Sunday. Well, while the weather holds, anyway. There are some excellent routes on some of the nearby hills. You should join us next weekend.”

“I look forward to it,” I said, not letting him know I’d probably be forced into doing solo climbs much earlier than that.

> We can add rock-climbing as something His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator, is inexplicably good at. Another ‘safe’ and ‘comfortable’ pursuit for a man who doesn’t like taking risks or working hard.

Once we were all firmly on each ledge, we swapped to longer lines to do the harvesting. That came with an additional warning about the increased risks and to watch for tangling. The first ledge was reasonably wide and flat, so like teenagers everywhere, they ignored that entirely. They listened a little more seriously to the warning that if any flowers ended up in inappropriate hands, then severe consequences would come down on everyone.

I followed the example of the others. Reach up and carefully twisted off the flower heads, dropping them into the prepared bags, then step along. It was more than enough effort to keep me warm. Every time they shook, they gave off a scent that was both sweet and citrus. Assistant Altengart came next to me to see how I was doing. It was the first chance I’d had a chance to talk to Assistant Altengart since that first tour. It’s always vaguely uncomfortable talking to someone when you knew more about them than they were aware of. After he was reassured that I was well, and not doing to terrible a job with the flowers, we had some time to talk.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Are the flowers dangerous in some way?” I asked.

“Not the way you’re thinking,” he laughed. “They’re entirely harmless by themselves. They just have an odd property. If you take water that has had the petals soaking in it, and mix it with the essence of dragon lure, the combination turns into the most lurid red colour until it dries. So, well, it gets used for pranks. Splash something with dragon lure, then later, pour over some glory-water. Instant blood. Not natural looking blood, by any means, but enough to give someone a scare. In the past, previous leaders have turned a bit of a blind eye, but this year, we can’t. We just don’t have the essence of dragon lure to waste.”

“Surely people can smell it?”

“The glory-water, sure,” he agreed. “That’s why you start with the dragon lure. To humans, it’s odourless and colourless. There isn’t any give away smell until after the ‘blood’ shows up. Your victim is hopefully too shocked to notice.”

We spent a little time discussing that and other pranks. I had intended to keep the conversation entirely harmless, but in the end, I couldn’t contain myself. I asked about the process of becoming an assistant. The explanation left me a little horrified. It was compensated, but it wasn’t at anything approaching fair pay for the work involved. It was an implied path to a proper staff position, but without the guarantees to make that worth it on that basis either. Assistant Altengart laughed at my expression.

“It’s better than nothing,” he said with a shrug. “Unfortunately, I’m in somewhat of an unsteady position with my family background. Any backing the family has built up has gone towards other enterprises. I need to make myself too useful to easily discard.”

I resisted the impulse to tell him that his efforts had been in vain. The very person he was doing so much to assist hadn’t even waited a day to lay him out as a sacrifice. I somehow thought that it wouldn’t come as any great surprise to him.

It was a long night. By the end of it, my arms were aching as much as my legs had that first day. I could only hope they recovered as quickly, and didn’t damage my ability to climb the next day. On our way back through the wall, I intentionally hang back so I was the last one through. I swung the latch back and forth a few times. I had been right. It looked like a key was necessary to open it, but in fact, it wasn’t. Just the motions alone with a hard snap would open the lock, with or without the key. Was this an example of a very bad lock, or was this an intentional fake lock? Neither seemed a sensible approach when this whole wall had been built with the intention to keep out a hostile force. I’m aware that a lock’s primary purpose is to keep honest people honest, but it should at least slow down an enemy, or force them to make noise, or some such. Otherwise, they might as well replace the whole thing with a welcome mat.

> This is another common truism across worlds. While locks can reliably serve to prohibit access against children or curious animals, they often have limited value against anyone willing to use brute force. They then serve more to indicate that something is private than to make them so. But as His Devotion, Saint Percival the Investigator, states, better ones should help draw attention to the intruder.

Or, more appropriately to my circumstances, a ‘thank you for visiting’ mat. Because now I didn’t need to wait until the following night to ‘go missing’. I could walk out in the middle of the day. I didn’t have to risk walking off a cliff, or have to huddle in some hiding spot for the next day’s dawn, all while people were actively looking for me. I could leave and be a long way away before anyone even knew I was missing. And without even a missing backpack to give me away.

“Anything wrong?” called the person in front of me.

“Do I have to do anything special to lock this?” I asked, both as camouflage and to double check.

He came back and repeated the ‘lock’ steps I’d already done and undone multiple times.

“Nope!” he said cheerfully. “You just have to give it a bit of a thump sometimes.”

“Good to know,” I said. Very good to know.

Being able to escape the academy wasn’t the complete solution to my entire life’s problems, naturally. But those were tomorrow’s problem. Quite literally.

Memo to Self

Stuff to avoid

· Becoming a dragon rider Joining the official dragon rider forces

· Participating in bonding

Information gathering

· Find out about alternative occupations and opportunities

· - Speak to Minister Greenfield in private [not useful]

· - - Find out when he is due to leave before he leaves in four three days tonight, to fix injury

· Investigate other countries and cultures to see if they’re a better fit

· - Determine just how far heroic independence goes

· - - Legally, very far: complete diplomatic immunity

· - - Practically: assistance can be withdrawn

· Track down itinerary [no point]

· Check safety / security of funicular [useless]

Opportunities

· Sneak out when harvesting night flowers [7 6 5 days] [not needed]

· - Walk out down dry river bed towards Cammions while everyone else distracted

· Deliberately failed bonding [not an option]

Preparations

· Beg, borrow or steal clothes of a different colour

· - Use investigating embroidery as excuse? [Meeting planned with artisan] [done]

· - Use grey waterproof cloak

· Delay the bonding ceremony as much as possible

· - Extend investigation

· - Imply maximum psychic pollution [useless]

· Acquire or fake travel documentation?

· Find way to transport food and water

· - Talk to House Holder Fairbanks about food [done]

· - Book a packed lunch for Monday [done]

· Acquire backpack [done]