“Been a while since we shared a room like this, hasn’t it?” Svanda chuckled as she looked over to Reina who lay in the bed on the other side of the room, a grumpy expression on her face. “Rise and shine.”

“Bring me breakfast,” Reina mumbled before she closed her eyes again and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “Eggs.”

“No.”

“Mmm… that’s an order.”

Svanda laughed as she swung her legs off the bed and stretched her arms over her head one at a time. Wearing a loose grey t-shirt and a pair of plain black shorts, she pushed herself up before quickly taking two steps across the room and snatching at the end of Reina’s blanket. Unable to react in time, Reina was helpless as it was quickly whipped up into Svanda’s arms.

“That isn’t fair,” Reina complained with a pout as she wrapped her arms around her set of white pyjamas that were now exposed. “I said it’s an order.”

Svanda ignored her comment and simply smiled as she tossed the blanket at the foot of the bed before quickly changing into a pair of olive green pants. “That might work on anyone else here, but not on me. I know you too well, and I also know that your current attitude will be nowhere to be seen by the time you step out of the bedroom.”

Reina sighed as Svanda left the room before rolling onto her back and opening her eyes. Svanda was right in that it really had been a long time since they last shared a room. It had been a long time since she had shared a room with anyone. The thought caused her mind to wander back to the past as she tried to recall when it had been, but the details escaped her. It had been years, at least. Back then business wasn’t so good, and together with Trim they had just been a few young women trying to find a foothold on the gigantic pile that was Neo Luesan society.

They had come a long way.

After tossing her pyjamas on the bed, she slipped into a comfortable pair of cream three quarter pants that she had hastily picked from a shop the previous day before throwing on a casual black shirt, ignoring the top two buttons as she went which left her collar exposed. She didn’t need the pair of shoes by the door as she wasn’t planning on leaving the house, so she quickly ran her hand through her hair to straighten it up slightly before pushing the door open and stepping out into the hall.

Underneath the living and dining area upstairs there were four bedrooms, the back two of which were built into the side of the steep slope that the house was built on. Usually Reina would take the first bedroom for herself and let the rest of the team pair up, but this time she had left it for Nina so that whoever was on duty could have some peace and quiet while they attended to her. She found that Trim was the person who was currently filling that role when she pushed the door open, although she currently looked to be just as vegetative as the person who she was supposed to be watching over.

“You alright?” Reina asked. The question startled Trim who was leaning back in an armchair beside the bed with her eyes closed, which led Reina to believe that she hadn’t heard her open the door. Sleeping on the job? She wouldn’t be surprised really, Trim hadn’t taken the whole ordeal very well and a decent sleep continued to escape her. Reina knew that she felt responsible for what happened, but there wasn’t an easy way to console her. Unfortunately, she would just have to hope that Nina recovered enough to do the talking herself.

“Better than her,” Trim mumbled as she looked over to Nina who lay motionless under the blanket which was pulled up to her shoulders. The fact that there was hardly any creasing in the sheets led Reina to believe that she had hardly moved since it had been put over her, but she didn’t know if that was a positive sign or not.

“Should I send Svanda down?”

“Just ask her,” Trim replied with a yawn. “If she doesn’t want to, I can stay.”

“I’ll do it,” Jade chimed in as her head appeared in the doorway. “I feel like sitting down for a while anyway.”

Trim looked at the fresh bandages that were wrapped around Jade’s shoulder before looking to Reina with a questioning gaze. Reina didn’t see the issue, so she nodded in approval. “Show her how the equipment works. Jade, let me know if you want some food sent down later.”

Leaving the two of them to organise the equipment that they had borrowed from the doctors, Reina left the room before heading up the stairs to the living area. Svanda, who was wearing a red apron that she had apparently found somewhere, stood over a pan in the kitchen as she scrambled a bunch of eggs.

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“A Svanda special, look forward to it,” she smiled as she tossed a handful of something green in the pan. Reina didn’t know if it was spinach, basil, or some other exotic plant she had found in the shop yesterday, but despite Svanda’s joke about her struggling to cook something edible it was well-known that she was good in the kitchen. Better than Nina at least, but Nina’s cooking had come a surprisingly long way from when she had first started. Svanda’s help had probably played a large part in that, but she still deserved credit where it was due.

“Bring it out, will you?” Reina replied with a thin smile as she walked through the kitchen and stepped into the living area. Saela, who had been spending most of her time in the bedroom downstairs, was using the unoccupied sitting area to watch what seemed to be a cartoon on a small LCD screen which was mounted to the wall. Her black hoodie, which she had still managed to keep with her despite everything they had been through, was pulled up over her head to hide her face while a pair of denim shorts popped out from underneath. Reina saw the movement of her head as Saela tracked her across the room, but she paid her no heed as she pushed her way through the door and stepped out onto the balcony.

“Morning,” Aline said after her head had lolled to the side to see who it was. Lying in the white hammock which was hung up across the far corner of the balcony, one of her arms dangled down while the tips of her fingers slowly dragged back and forth along the floor. Reina could see that she was wearing a tight pink tank top and a pair of pale orange shorts under the white sheet that she had draped over herself, so she smiled when she thought about how everyone had already adapted to the casual summer climate.

Besides Saela, that was.

“How’s Jade?” Reina asked her as she sat down on the sofa and stared out across the ocean. A cool morning breeze caused the loose strands of hair which dangled around her face to sway about, but she welcomed it. It was refreshing, not only because it blew the cobwebs from her mind that had still been lingering about after her sleep, but also because it was just nice to experience something different. Zaffre’s Moat, as nice as it was, was a little bland. Anyone could become familiar with the city which was just an endless pile of stone in a short while, and it wasn’t like there was anything to see outside of it. Usually they didn’t spend much time there at all, but from now on she was thinking that the time that they spent there would be even less.

For The Cloud Orchestra, burning their bridges on any of the seven plates could be disastrous. To do what they did for a living required them to pass through the plates regularly, so naturally she was concerned about what had happened. It was true that the deal she had cut with the Farmer’s Guild had left a bridge standing, but she had already paid dearly to ensure that it hadn’t been lost and from here on it would only continue to become more expensive. Anyone with a shred of intelligence would understand how poor their negotiating position would be now that their relationship with the nobility had been destroyed, but there was little choice but to suck it up and smile.

At least they wouldn’t have people chasing them, as citizens of Zaffre weren’t allowed to leave the plate. Ormain’s group had already proved to be difficult to manage, and that was before Trim had gone and killed one of them.

“Eventually,” Aline said. “We will see.”

Reina frowned when she realised that she had tuned out after asking about Jade’s condition. If it wasn’t something particularly important she would have just glossed over the fact that she hadn’t been listening, but this was information that she truly needed to know.

“I tuned out, sorry,” she admitted. “There’s a lot on my mind, could you repeat that?”

Aline didn’t seem fussed to repeat herself as she explained how Jade had been faring once more. Apparently she was more concerned about how the wound would look once it had healed than anything else, and she had also been asking a lot of questions about Nina. The problem was that nobody could really tell her anything more than what she already knew, and it seemed to be causing her to stress just like Trim.

Reina didn’t need to put many clues together to see that Jade and Nina’s relationship was different after what had happened in Zaffre, even if Nina herself wasn’t aware of it. She was tempted to ask Aline about what exactly had happened on the other side of the wall that night, but at the same time she knew it could wait. Jade would talk about it when she was ready, and it would be poor of her to circumvent that by giving into temptation and asking Aline. Saela had made a couple of brief remarks, but at the same time she too had been relatively tight lipped. It made her curious, and although it would be within her rights to demand a report, she didn’t want to do it that way.

“Sorry for the wait,” Svanda said as she pushed the door open. In her other hand was a plate of scrambled eggs, tendrils of steam still rolling off it. Once she had set the plate down before Reina, she dropped some cutlery onto the placemat before looking up to Aline. “Want some?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Svanda smiled. “I’ll bring some more out.”

Reina’s gaze dropped down from the horizon to examine the plate before her as Svanda stepped back inside. She could see that it had been cooked well, and the fluffy parts of the egg mingled with the reds and greens of the other ingredients that Svanda had added in. It looked great, and so without waiting for Svanda to return with the other plates she picked up the fork and began to dig in.

“Can’t get much better scenery than this for breakfast, can you?” Aline smiled as she walked over and sat down next to Reina.

As she had a mouthful of food, Reina nodded instead of replying before a small smile cracked her expression. Everything had been so gloomy since they had arrived, but maybe it was time for that to change. She had a good feeling for a reason that she couldn’t put her finger on, but optimism was something that she would welcome with open arms right now.

Maybe today would be the day when things finally started to turn around.