Aili's viss was all over the place. It didn't help that she had to stay awake at night and feel her anxiety grow instead of sleeping. She couldn’t even ask Rabam to deactivate her, since he had the day before with the task of delivering to Zeles the letter with the instructions on how to protect himself from her plan.

Besides, she needed to stay awake in case the monks decided to pay her a visit. She had requested a meeting by waving a blue flag at the top of the clocktower’s pole, arranging it so it looked like a piece of cloth got stuck there, but she hadn’t received an answer. That could mean they were busy with something more important, like the attack on Zeles.

She read again his letter, abandoned on the table inside Rabam's cell:

I appreciate your worries. Believe me when I say that my intention for acting as I did was never to add more problems to solve. I just want to protect the people of Suimer like Saia has asked me to do. They don't deserve to be lied to again, so I won't do that. I won't lie anymore about who I am, and if the monks will destroy me for that, so be it.

I didn't follow your plan, but you'll be pleased to know that Lorin is on our side. I told her the truth about Vizena and what she did, about Saia and what she wanted to accomplish. She's still uncertain about some things, but for now she will hold off from attacking.

She didn't trust his report at all. Maybe Lorin had earned his trust only to betray him, maybe she hadn’t been swayed from Zeles's words and would have attacked anyway. But she was too far to do anything. She could only hope that Dore wouldn't attack either, and that Zeles would be strong enough to fend off Lorin in case she did. She hated not knowing what was going on, but she could only pace on the pedestal and check that everything in Lausune was going on as usual.

She kept mulling over the situation for the entire day, until finally she noticed someone approach her borders from the forest. A group of five sentinels, Maris walking at the front. She observed their stern expression, trying to guess their thoughts. She had hoped to meet with Riena again, or even someone she didn't know. Anything was better than a prior who was completely on the abbot's side.

“What do you want?” they asked, stopping some steps in front of the border.

“Thank you for coming here. I was told to find a solution to bring Vizena back under our control.”

She created a breeze to lift another closed envelope left on Rabam’s table and carry it up to the border. Maris didn't have a reaction in seeing it drop to the ground. Aili wanted to ask them whether the monks' attack had worked, but she wasn't sure she was supposed to know about it.

“This is the plan I came up with,” she said, nudging the letter forward with a gust of wind. “Unless you have already dealt with it?”

Maris waited until the letter was well on the other side of the line of stones before bending to pick it up.

“We didn’t,” they only said.

Aili stopped pacing. She felt her viss slow down in knowing that Zeles was probably safe.

“I don't trust you,” Maris added, tearing away the top of the envelope. “You're too involved with Saia and Daira not to be part of this.”

“As I told Riena, she was my friend, but I wasn't on her side. That letter will prove it to you, if you'll give me a chance.”

“And Daira?”

“She was my mentor, nothing else.”

She wanted to defend her further, telling Maris that Daira hadn't planned to betray the abbot, she’d just wanted to avoid the death of such a big number of completely innocent people. But that meant revealing that she knew exactly what had happened when Saia became a goddess.

“Why?” she asked instead. “Is she suspected too?”

“She didn't obey a direct order of the abbot, putting the whole village in danger.”

She wanted to protest, but her situation was precarious enough as it was.

“Was she punished?”

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“She’s not a prior anymore. The abbot didn't think it right to do anything more.”

Aili realized from their expression that they didn't quite agree, but there was something else. Sorrow? She remembered the meeting in the tent, all the time the priors spent together. It was likely Maris considered her a friend, and now felt like she had betrayed them.

The prior opened the letter and started reading it in silence. Their eyes shot up at some point during the beginning, looking at the temple in the distance.

“Why such a long trip? They could just board in Kivari and enter Suimer when the ship stops at the next harbor. They would be inside in two days. Not…” They read the lines again. “Not after weeks of voyage.”

“Yes, but then Vizena would immediately find out they're not part of the crew. They need to be familiar with it and behave like actual sailors.”

Maris kept reading without giving her any sign of acknowledgement.

“Stir a discussion in the temple?” they asked after a bit.

“I left it vague because I'm not sure what kind of situation they'll find once inside the village, but I know from visitors that came from Suimer that the shape of Vizena’s statue has changed.”

“It's Koidan’s,” Maris said. “We saw it with our binoculars.”

“Then they could pretend like they had no idea of what's going on and ask for explanations. I suggest they do it during the ceremony too, when it's likely to cause more problems.”

Maris nodded, and Aili took it as a sign that they didn't hate her plan completely. Until they read forward and frowned.

“Someone concealed as Saia. Explain.”

“The monks creating problems at the docks and in the temple are likely not enough to distract Vizena from the attack. We need to find someone that resembles Saia as closely as possible and make it look like she's arriving from the sea on a boat. This way we'll capture Vizena's attention.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

“We know they're somehow connected, right? We don't know whether they were actually enemies or allies, but we know that when Saia became a goddess, Vizena's shard disappeared.”

“And yours. Replaced with a useless piece of glass.”

“I’ve already told Riena that we were friends and she wanted me on her side. She thought I'd have accepted to help her if she destroyed my shard. Regardless, Saia leaving was either part of their plan, in which case seeing her coming back would mean something went wrong, or a very unpleasant sight if they are enemies like Saia declared.”

“It's all guesses. What if there isn't a connection?”

“Then we'd have bigger problems to solve, like two separate attempts at attacking the monks that are both succeeding independently.”

Maris's hand twitched, crumpling the paper a bit.

“They are not succeeding.”

Aili struggled not to contradict them.

“No,” she managed to say. “For now they're not, but we can't risk it.”

Maris resumed reading, then began again from the top. Aili waited, trying to anticipate possible questions.

There were none. Maris folded the letter and put it inside their pocket.

“I’ll bring your plan to the abbot's attention.”

They turned, gestured for the other four sentinels to follow them, then started their ascent toward the village.

Aili observed them as much as she could, both to make sure they were actually going away and to catch some revealing expressions or gestures about what Maris thought. She saw them argue with another sentinel, but couldn't expand her domain further to listen. They soon disappeared behind the trees.

She returned to her pacing, even if it was less frantic than before. Maris wouldn't have accepted the letter if the monks didn't desperately need a new plan, or so she hoped. She wouldn't be sure until Rabam was back, hopefully with an update from Zeles or his own observations about what had happened.

She had to wait until evening for him to finally cross the border on the forest's side. He stopped before leaving the tree's protection, since it wasn't yet dark enough for him to safely return to his cell.

“What happened? Why did it take you so long?” Aili asked.

He slumped down against a tree, breathing hard.

“Suimer's side of the forest is full of sentinels. I've tried for the whole day, but I couldn't get close to the border.”

“So you didn't deliver the letter?”

He shook his head and took the envelope out from his worn-out backpack.

“At least I saw the attack. There was a lot of wind along the borders, every time the sentinels tried to enter they found resistance.”

“So the attack failed?”

Rabam smiled.

“Yes. Completely.”

“Good. I gave the monks my plan, though, so we really need to deliver that letter to Zeles. He needs to know all of the details, otherwise…”

She let the sentence hang, but Rabam nodded anyway. They had conceived a perfect plan at the scope of ensuring that the monks would have followed it. It was good enough that it would actually succeed, if Zeles didn't know what would happen in advance.

“I’m going tomorrow, hopefully the sentinels will have left by then.”

“Sure, but don't take unnecessary risks. If they'll actually go through with the plan, it’ll take at least twenty days before they'll be ready to act, likely more. We have a bit of time.”

Rabam nodded.

“And then you'll go to live in a proper house,” Aili added.

He sighed.

“Eventually I will. You're right, I can't keep going like this. But I do think staying in a cell is the best solution, for now.”

He looked at the twilight in the distance.

“Can I ask you a favor?” he said after a bit.

“Sure.”

“Could you bring me my carving tools? I miss it.”

Aili obliged immediately, making them fly from Milvia's house to his hand, keeping them away from people, behind the buildings or into the shadows as they crossed the village.

“Thank you,” Rabam said, setting out to carve.

He didn't create animals, this time, but waves and swirls. Aili observed in silence, wondering what he was trying to accomplish.

“What are you doing?” she asked after a bit, incapable of holding back her curiosity.

“I’m experimenting with patterns.”

“Please don’t explode.”

He laughed.

“I’m being careful. I’m just tweaking the patterns I already know.”

“Can I watch?”

“Sure,” he said, chipping away a piece of wood.

Aili set out to observe what he was doing, wondering at the back of her mind which rules made the patterns work as they did.