Daphnis didn’t see them out. In fact, it seemed like he barely even noticed that Uther had been gone.

Something about the situation was still bothering Will. He felt like he was being watched, and more importantly being judged.

He had no way to verify the suspicion and so didn’t voice it, but he was beginning to feel like he was being tested in some way.

The mood of the party was as different as could be. Dio and Rex and Skullcrusher were chatting excitedly as they planned out how to spend their money, and while Virgil wasn’t as forthcoming with his excitement, he still seemed to be pretty pleased with himself.

Glory had vanished, claiming that he was exhausted. Will was beginning to wish he could do the same.

Finally they boarded the overnight train back to King’s Hollow. Nobody had really said anything, but it was clear that Skullcrusher intended to follow the party back, and presumably officially join up.

Will didn’t really know how he felt about that, but he didn’t feel the need to shut the hyena-man out without due consideration.

A cynical part of him countered this by reminding Will that the longer the gnoll stuck around the harder it would be to get rid of him.

In the sleeper car that night, Will bunked with Rex and Virgil. Skullcrusher and Dio shared another bedroom, with Dio taking up two beds.

Rex snored loudly, which was something Will was used to from when he slept next to Julia. It was strangely familiar, he felt, to be honest.

Will hadn’t ever really loved sharing a bed with someone, but the rhythmic sound of snoring was comforting in a different way.

He was homesick, which he realized late at night as he drifted between sleep and waking. But he wasn’t homesick for just earth; he missed his bedroom in the estate in the same way he had missed his real bedroom after a long trip.

He didn’t want to miss the homely little room. He had built up a layer of detachment from the world; it was one he was grudgingly obligated to protect, not one he was supposed to be missing.

And yet he did. He missed the supremely comfortable bed, and the privacy, and he looked forward to using the nice blanket Virgil had given him.

He missed the weird not-refrigerator and the little not-sea stars in the rivers that flowed from the estate’s central spring.

He missed this all more than he missed his own apartment, the one he shared with his friend, roommate, and ex-girlfriend Julia. Did she miss him?

She had to, of course. Everyone must have been worried sick. Virgil had said that time would probably flow differently, and that it would probably not have been weeks or months from the perspective of anyone on earth. But even if it was only a week or two…

Christ. She’d be freaking out. Somehow the thought comforted him in a selfish sort of way.

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“Hey,” Virgil said from the bed above Will’s. “Can’t sleep?”

Will thought about saying nothing. “I can’t,” he admitted. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Virgil’s tail, which dangled from the side of the bed like a cat’s, curled as he spoke, and Will wondered idly if that was a voluntary or involuntary movement.

“You want to talk about it?” Virgil asked.

“Not sure,” Will said truthfully as he watched the tufted end of Virgil’s tail sway. It was enough like a pendulum that he found it relaxing to focus on.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” Virgil asked.

Will thought about this. “Can I ask you a… weirdly personal question?”

Virgil’s tail briefly went rigid as he laughed. “Sure, you can ask.”

“I wanted to know about your…” Will stopped himself from saying ‘backstory’ which he felt was inappropriate to use for someone metaphorically right in front of him. “Childhood? Did you even have a childhood? Like, did you come into existence fully formed or—“

Virgil laughed good-naturedly. “Seven Scribes, yes I had a childhood. I grew up from a baby just like… mostly everyone else here.”

“Well I had no way of verifying that!” Will said defensively. “I haven’t seen any children anywhere so, you know, it’s not unreasonable to not jump to conclusions.”

“You know, I guess you wouldn’t have. At this time of the year most kids are in boarding school.”

“Did you go to boarding school?” Will asked.

“For a few years, yes,” Virgil said. “But once I was old enough to work at the estate I had to do that full-time.”

“And you didn’t take to child labor very well, I’m guessing?”

“I took to it very well, actually,” Virgil said, his tone dimming. “So well that by the time I was sixteen I was basically running the place all on my own.”

“And then what?” Will prompted.

“I ran the whole business at sixteen, alone, getting none of the credit or the money.”

“Okay, that’s not cool,” Will said. “I can see why you don’t like it. So what happened? How’d you end up getting out?”

“One day I decided I’d had enough. I told my fathers that I was done doing it all myself and that if they didn’t hire someone or get off their asses then there'd be no more Staccato Bed and Breakfast.”

“And what happened then?” Will asked, examining the tension in Virgil’s tail.

“They left. They took half of the money and left. They write sometimes, but I haven’t seen them in person since.” Virgil paused, disgusted at the memory. “They live somewhere on the coast now I think.”

“What the fuck, that’s crazy,” Will said. “They make you do all that and the second you put up any resistance they bail. What the fuck.”

Virgil laughed, trying to shake off some of the tension. “Yeah, it’s not a fun story. I guess it worked out in the end, at least. I do like sharing my home with people, it’s just now I do it with friends instead of customers.”

“When did you learn magic?” Will asked, after he yawned widely. “Before or after the… I don’t know, strike… thing?”

“Some before, when I tried to figure out how to do some basic animation to help with work. But mostly after, especially once I met Glory.”

Virgil waited briefly for Will to ask for more details, as he had been conditioned to expect.

There was no response. Below him, Will had fallen into a dreamless sleep.