"I'm sorry, I've done what three hundred and forty-nine times?" I asked, blanching.

Sansen grimaced. "Sorry. The oracular trance... I've seen you die here, three hundred and forty-nine times. In three hundred and forty-eight futures that never were."

"Wait." I set down my cup of slurry. "How did I die three hundred and forty-nine times if you only looked into three hundred and forty-eight futures?"

"Necromancer in one of them," Sansen idly said, waving a hand. "Look, the point is this. Remember the Battle of Silentfell?"

I shuddered. "How could I not? I still have nightmares about Odin and his forces tromping up and down the streets and blowing up everything in sight."

"Yeah. Well. I was an oracle trying to keep the people I love safe. I'm not trying to diminish your traumas or anything, but... you only lived through that battle in real time, once. I died through it more times than you can count."

"But you can count them," I murmured.

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Sansen closed his eyes. "Every single one," he agreed.

Put that way... I could totally see why Sansen had hidden his oracular abilities when the draft for the war came. If the poor old man had gone through hell and back just to survive one battle, I shuddered to think what those freaks in the Silent Parliament would do if they got their hands on him for the course of an entire war.

And I could see why Sansen wanted to leave the city.

"This place..." I hesitated, then continued. "It's the closest thing I have to a home. Ever since Sorrowfell was destroyed for the last time."

Sansen tilted his head, and for some reason the old man looked curiously puppyish.

"But..." Memories flashed behind my eyes as I stared around the old, solid wooden house. Here was where I'd hidden in the saferoom with Sansen as Odin's forces entered the mountain. There was the church where I'd been shoved out of the teleportation circle and stranded in the middle of a warzone. "It's getting worse," I finally said. "The only thing that makes this home is my friends and family."

Sansen gave me a tired smile. "You can take those with you," he said.

"I can take them with me," I agreed.

He stood and held out a hand. "I'll be packing. Three days from today."

I raised an eyebrow. "That an oracle's prediction?"

"It's your uncle's promise."

I smiled and took his hand, and the old man hauled me to my feet.

Then I left the house that Sansen and his husband had built with their own two hands, to gather my friends and tell them to flee.