“Marrowstone is so quaint,” Zola said as the three headed to the main shopping district, where Ghost planned to buy items for their journey including incense and scarves that doubled as hoods. “ I really like it here.”

“I have only been once,” Alistair told her as they came to a long cobblestone street.

“Really? When?”

“Um, before. Before I was an orphan,” he lied. The last and only time he had been in Marrowstone was for Ghost to surprise Alistair with the fact that Ghost planned to murder his adopted mother, which he succeeded in doing.

“Right,” she said, “I keep forgetting your old assassin-master backstory. After your parents died.”

“Look, Zolchaa, you may not want to admit it, but Alistair has always been a badass. Actually, I haven’t really thought about his master-assassin storyline and how that works with what happened to your family. Huh.” Juno paused to let a carriage pass in front of him.

“It’s not necessary at the moment,” Alistair said to Juno. “Not with what we plan to do.”

“Personally, I wonder when we can tell everyone.”

“What?” Zola and Alistair asked as they both turned to Juno.

“You know, if this works, we will have done something truly heroic. I don’t want to be paraded through the streets, even if it would likely get me some babes—”

“Juno.”

“Sorry, Zola. What I’m saying is it is probably good for people to know what happened so the proper authorities can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Ghost: He’s not wrong.

Alistair: Hold the hell on. You actually agree with Juno?

Ghost: When all of this is over, the three of you need to tell the Provost what happened. Even better, have Juno’s father set up a meeting with the Provost, which I’m certain he can do, and tell them all.

Alistair: All of it?

Ghost: You know what? Sure. All of it. Including the part I played. Come clean, Alistair.

Alistair: What about you?

Ghost: Don’t worry about me.

Alistair: If I come clean, you’ll be there too. They’ll know. If I come clean, you come clean, and that could cause a lot of issues for both of us.

Ghost: Don’t worry about me. Tell them what I said, or I will.

Alistaur huffed. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this.”

“What’s up, bro?” Juno asked, whose attention had gravitated toward a stand selling candied fruits. He licked his lips. “What part of this journey do we get to stuff our faces before we head across the border?”

“The next part,” Zola said. “I think. Right, Alistair? I might be hungry too.”

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“Sure, supplies first, including incense. And yeah, yeah.” Alistair tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible. “This is going to sound crazy. But Juno is right—”

“Of course, I am.”

“—And once we do what needs to be done across the border, we can have your father arrange a meeting with the Provost. At that point, we tell them everything. We can break our pact together.”

“What? We could get expelled,” Zola said.

Juno laughed. “Hell, no, Zolita, we won’t be expelled. We did what had to be done. My father will understand it. The Provost will, I think. You have more experience with her than I do. What do you think, Alistair?”

“I don’t know. Provost Weaver is tired of seeing me in her office, but I think it’s best if they know what we prevented.”

“I’m not getting expelled,” Zola said. “If that happened… I would… I’d…”

“Zola, you won’t be expelled, I promise,” Juno assured her. “And if you are, I’ll get my family to adopt you so that you never have to go back to the orphanage.”

She glowered at him. “Juno, you don’t know how any of this works. You don’t know what would happen to me, and you can’t get your parents to do anything like that.”

“I can, actually. My father will understand. Trust me, Zola, I know it sounds ridiculous, but he’ll get it.”

“The other option,” Alistair said, interrupting the two,” would be to leave you out entirely, Zola. But we’d have to deal with the pact we made if we did that, because it would prevent Juno and me from telling them anything.”

Zola threw her hands down. “Ugh.”

“Ugh?” Juno asked her.

“Ugh. I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I really don’t want to get expelled.”

Ghost: She should be more worried about dying across the border, but that’s a teenager’s mind for you. Wrap this up. We need to get supplies, eat, and get on our way.

“We’ll finalize plans after we actually pull this off,” Alistair said. “How’s that?”

“Deal,” Zola said. “I guess.”

“Works for me,” Juno told the two. “Let’s get shopping.”

****

The food Ghost had them buy wasn’t exactly delicious, much of it dried meat cut into squares, the assassin insisting that protein would be what they needed most, if they needed anything.

“That’s the thing about the wind that will guide us,” Alistair told Juno and Zola over breakfast at a tavern, the three now done with their shopping. “According to my former master, sometimes it leads a person trying to cross on a shortcut; other times, it sends them in a circle for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Juno asked as he shoveled scrambled eggs into his mouth.

“A while could be…” Alistair waited for Ghost to give him the answer. “Up to a day. Maybe longer. Hopefully not.”

Zola gawked at this answer. “You mean we could miss some school next week?”

“I mean exactly that,” Alistair said.

“Don’t worry, Zolconer, I’ll tell Humbutt that we all caught a nasty cold.” Juno laughed at the way she looked at him. “Good one, right?” He faked a sneeze. “See? I’m convincing.”

Zola didn’t say anything and continued eating her breakfast.

Later, they slipped out of Marrowstone on foot, Ghost leading the way. The three walked in relative silence, only pausing every now and then for Juno and Zola to take in the views, which were especially powerful the deeper they moved into the mountain range.

After walking for two hours, the three Fledglings stopped to have a quick break.

“I’m surprised we haven’t run into any potential summons for Zola,” Juno said. “I figured there would be something along the way.”

Yet again, Alistair repeated the words Ghost fed him: “This area used to be heavily guarded by battledeck mages. They cleared out most of the dangerous ones and they never came back.”

“That’s kind of sad,” Zola said as she turned to a beautiful vista, one that presented a view of two large hills and a bubbling brook beyond.

Ghost: No need to respond there. She’s still worried about being expelled. But she won’t be. I don’t think the three of you understand how much heat and praise you’re going to get if and when we pull this off. And praise always trumps heat in the end.

“Hopefully,” Alistair whispered as they continued on.

“How much further until we reach the wind?” Juno said. “You’ll know, right?”

“No, you’ll know,” Alistair told Juno as Ghost assured Alistair in his head. “Not much longer now.”