Kylara left the council meeting in a bit of a daze. That had been the best meeting in months. Malyun had not wasted the session blaming her for the bushfire. She hadn’t tried to pin their current lack of warding on Kylara. Malyun hadn’t even complained about her general demeanour or lack of discipline.

Okay.

Some lies.

But it hadn’t dominated the entire conversation. They had actually talked about something else for once. Kylara felt practically ecstatic.

So much so, in fact, that when she noticed a bit of a skip in her step on her walk home, she had to hold back her glee and restrain herself.

Maybe, if Yalmay was still asleep, she could even take a nap. Council meetings were usually absurdly early (because old people), so it barely past mid-morning.

Kylara found Yalmay already up when she arrived. She was getting dressed, but paused in the middle of buttoning her blouse to greet Kylara as she entered. “Hey,” she said. “How’d it go?”

“So much better than usual,” Kylara said.

“Really?” Yalmay asked. “Cool. Was Malyun not there today or something?”

Sometimes Kylara forgot that Yalmay had never been to a Council meeting before. She knew so much. Admittedly, most of what she had heard was Kylara’s ranting, but at least it was true ranting. Yalmay knew that Pemulabee could sometimes be slow and indecisive, Joe got easily distracted, Leger had a habit of not taking things seriously, Bevan was just dumb, and Wawiriya sometimes didn’t voice her opinion even when it was needed. Town politics were complicated.

“No, Malyun was there,” Kylara said. “But the whole thing with Dhaligir meant that Pemulabee didn’t let her talk about me for too long. There were other things to discuss.”

She didn’t mention Saltsbury. The city felt too taboo to talk about at the moment. It was the place where Yalmay had been born and she was immensely proud of it and her heritage. But if Malyun pulled some strings and Saltsbury banned Yalmay from travelling in their warren… Kylara wasn’t sure why, but the whole place just felt like a topic she wanted to stay as far away from as possible.

“Aw,” Yalmay visibly pouted at the news that Malyun was still around. “I had a dream last night about her being hit by a random log and then exploding and turning into a bunch of mini, baby Malyuns that were also onions. Shame it’s not true.” She finished buttoning her sweater.

“Where are you going?” Kylara asked. Those were her sister's best clothes. If she was wearing them, she was off to somewhere special. Yalmay never wore her best clothes. Not even on dates with Joontah.

Especially the patterned orange shirt. Kylara had not seen that one in months. It was one of those shirts that were incredibly expensive because it had so much extra fabric on it. It practically wrapped itself around Yalmay’s waist twice over before being tied in a little bow. Kylara had bought it for her the birthday before last.

“Oh, nowhere really,” Yalmay said. “Just Footcross Field. But I’ll be out of hair if you want to take a nap or something.” Kylara usually did, after council meetings.

Then Yalmay turned around, curtsied, and did another little swirl. “How do I look?” she asked. “Besides the clothes. I mean me.”

Kylara looked at the dark circles under Yalmay’s eyes and her slightly puffy skin.

“You look…” not good was left unvoiced.

Yalmay threw her hands up and spun around. “I know!” she growled in frustration, mostly talking to herself, Kylara through. She turned back around. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I was too excited about the whole lessons things. I left to go for a walk and I’m really glad I did but on the other hand, now I look like shit.”

Oh no, Kylara thought. She thought she knew why Yalmay was getting dressed up.

Yalmay had a smile to her eyes.

“Please don’t tell me you woke up Multhamurra,” Kylara said. Was that why he was at the council meeting? Had he been complaining about how annoying Yalmay was? “You already have lessons scheduled for him today.”

“Yeah but those are scheduled lessons. Scheduled equals boring.”

“Did you really wake that poor man up?”

Yalmay stuck her tongue out. “No, for your information. He was already up.”

Just then, there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Yalmay called.

Joontah walked in. “You’re up too?” Kylara asked him. He just nodded.

“So Multhamurra was already up and outside, waiting for you?” Kylara asked. “You’ve haven’t even had one lesson with him.” They had had one scheduled yesterday, but that was their first.

“Actually, for your information, he came up to me.” A pause. “And Joontah. Joontah was there too. I did wake him up, I’ll admit to that. But I think I already made it up to him.”

“I’m always up,” he said.

“What did you think of him?” Kylara asked him. She wasn’t sure if Joontah had met the magsman yet, but she was curious what he thought. He tended to be the rational one in the relationship, especially when it came to topics like the University.

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Yalmay interrupted before he could answer. “I think he might be able to read minds,” she said.

Kylara just stared. Gods, Yalmay was going to need to get her act together if she wanted to go to University. Did she have no idea what warblers did? They couldn’t read minds. Not most places, anyway.

“Why?” she said simply.

Because seriously, why would you think that?

“Well I wake Joontah up because I’m excited, right?”

“I was already up,” Joontah insisted.

“And I want to practice some more before lessons. You helped me last night, but Joontah is frankly er…”

Kylara smiled. “What?” she asked, knowing it made Yalmay uncomfortable.

“Er, he’s better at it than you. Like, just the quizzing part. You’re good at other things! Are you okay with me saying that? Because I can definitely take it back if you want.”

“I am absolutely fine,” Kylara said, now feeling slightly sorry she asked.

“So, mind reading?” Joontah said. “I can finish the story if you want.”

Yalmay smiled at him but brushed it off. “Nah, I’ve got it,” she said.

“Anyway, we’re working there and we start to practice Dalmayic, right?”

Kylara nodded. “Right.” Yalmay and Joontah spent most of their free time speaking nonsense. It had started as kids with Animalish, a secret little code Yalmay had invented and they had polished together to perfection. Kylara had been a tad too young to really be involved, but she knew a few phrases. Like “Wallaby magpie wombat wombat” meant “You’re being an absolute arse.”

It was a ridiculous language made mostly of animal, bird, and fish names. They had used it for insults and immature rhymes. And, to the dismay of the adults, it caught on. Most people around their age knew some Animalish, if only to discreetly insult an elder without breaking too many taboos.

Personally, Kylara thought the elders had known more than they let on. You could only point to someone screaming the word cockatoo so many times before they caught on.

In fact, the limit was probably one. Cockies were horrible little vermin. Pretty rats with feathers, she always thought. She’d be insulted if someone called her one, even if it secretly meant something else.

Animalish had grown tired after a while, and Yalmay and Joontah had moved on. Their current endeavour was Dalmayic, a more serious attempt at a language, with real grammar and a more extensive vocabulary. Kylara had used it to speak behind Billy’s back just two days ago when they had been conniving him to take a wash.

“We were reviewing some old phonology,” Joontah said. “We got a bit distracted because Yal wanted to study for real, but we ended up doing Dalmayic.”

“Anyway,” Yalmay said, “we were just talking and–get this–the magsman comes straight up to us and starts going on about cants and conlangs. I was joking with Joontah about him being a sorcerer before, but he really might be.”

Kylara gave Yalmay a look. “But… Dalmayic is a conlang. You two made it up. Multhamurra was right. Why does that make him suspicious?”

“Because he knew about it being a conlang before we told him!”

“Sorry?”

“Look, if you see a couple giggling together and speaking a bunch of gibberish, you don’t immediately assume, ‘oh, those two made up all that gibberish as part of a carefully constructed language effort.’ You assume: ‘those two are speaking some normal language I don’t understand.’ It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Kylara shrugged, “but he’s a magsman. They travel a lot. He could just not have recognised it.”

Yalmay laughed. “Why do I hang out with you? C’mon, when was the last time you read a book?”

That’s a bit harsh, Kylara thought.

“I read the warder’s manual yesterday,” Kylara stated, already knowing that wasn’t what Yalmay was referring to.

“Which you do everyday–yeah, I know,” Yalmay said, slightly exasperated. “I mean a real book. You have no idea how many languages there are, do you?”

“No,” Kylara admitted.

“There’s hundreds and hundreds. So, going by your logic, either he knows them all and can do some sort of process of elimination, or he’s a mind reader.”

“Or,” Kylara said, thinking back to the start of the conversation, “he overheard you and Joontah arguing about phonology. Hence: conlang.”

“Also a possibility,” Yalmay conceded, “but I think I like my theory better than yours.”

“Or maybe we’re just shit,” Joontah said. “And he noticed.”

“Okay, I really like my theory better than that,” Yalmay said.

“So why are you here?” Kylara asked. “Shouldn’t you be talking to the magsman?”

“Well I was, but then realised I was barely wearing any clothes and I want to dress to impress. So I ran back. He said he’s free for the next few hours so I don’t think I need to rush too much but I still kinda am.”

“What are you doing today?” Joontah asked. “You can join.”

“I’ve got interviews,” Kylara said.

“Fun,” Joontah said. Yalmay, at the same time, said, “Ew.”

“I’m not looking forward to it, no.” She had a schedule that the Council had given her, and had to go through each of them in turn. Even the ones who were obviously not candidates to be the next warder.

She was almost done, but it all seemed so pointless to Kylara. She already knew the best candidate. All this was doing was making her more indecisive.

“Are you almost done?” Joontah asked his girlfriend.

“Yeah, just one second,” Yalmay replied, slipping on the last of her shoes. As soon as she was done with that, she went to her desk and immediately began throwing books into a bag. Once she had filled it, she handed the bag to Joontah and grabbed another one. She started stuffing that one too.

“Is this really necessary?” Joontah asked, making a big show of weighing the bag he was holding.

“Yes, now let’s go! Have fun with your nap, Kya!” Yalmay said as she walked out. Kylara waved to them as they left.

I’ll try, Kylara thought. Naps were fun, weren’t they? She could have fun on a nap.

She walked over to the calendar that was pinned to her wall. Wawiriya had made the list. It was a schedule, an interview with every single person in town under the age of fourteen years, three months, and what? Eleven days? Ten? She couldn’t remember exactly how old it was. It was whatever her current age minus five years was. A simple maths problem–the minimum age for the next warder.

When Malyun had pushed for it at one of the Council meetings, Kylara had promised to do this. One on ones with every single potential candidate.

It was all a big act. It did nothing to help, and Malyun knew it. It just wasted her time. The promise had been every single candidate in town. That meant that Kylara had even interviewed several babies. Technically they counted.

It was nearing the end now, but there were still several to go. Kylara found the current date on the calendar and read the two names on it, then groaned.

She hadn’t even realised until about a week ago that the calendar included Wanderers. Only two of the Wanderers in town were under the right age, which Kylara had no idea of before. They didn’t look the right age.

She had already interviewed one, and that had been awkward. He had looked about thirty, acted about eighteen, and seemed to hate every moment of the thing.

At least he had been mostly sane.

The Wanderer she was interviewing today was not.