“Joe, it is absolutely crucial that you do not practice while I’m gone, okay?” Florian stood in a small garden, surrounded by vegetables and an army of children that worked the fields and made sure that the plants were able to grow properly. He had found Joe hard at work, showing Jake and Ellie how to pull weeds out of the dirt.

“Did you know it was my birthday last week?” Ellie announced, interrupting Joe before he could even respond.

“No I did not,” Joseph patted her head. “I promise to bring back something from my trip, okay?”

“Okay!”

“It’s my birthday in a month…” Jake murmured, kicking a rock at his feet into the nearby plants.

Florian guffawed. “I’ll bring something back for you too, buddy.”

With both of the smaller children satisfied by the promise of presents, they rushed away to join another group of their peers who looked like they were more of a liability to the crops around them than proper help. Joe focused on him.

“Why?”

“I just saw someone die yesterday because they used magic too much.”

“What if I only use it a little?”

“I don’t want you to risk it for now, Joe. It’s not safe unless you’re practicing with someone else, okay?”

Joe frowned, but he didn’t argue with him. Instead, he surprised Florian by walking up to him and wrapping him in as big a hug as he could manage. “Will you be back soon?” his voice quivered.

Smiling, Florian returned the hug. “Of course, Joe. There’s no need to worry. Before you know it, I’ll be back and I’ll have presents for everyone, okay?”

Though Joe acted much more mature than other kids his age, it was an inevitability that the twelve-year-old would fall for the promise of presents. Like magic, Joe was wearing a huge smile and saying that he wanted something, in his words, “awesome.” Florian agreed that whatever he brought for Joe would be awesome, though he had absolutely no idea what qualified as awesome anymore. It’s not like he could go to the local toy store and buy video games or even action figures. Still, Tonbridge surely had to have something that would interest the boy.

With his goodbyes said, Florian turned to the practice yard, hoping to catch Hornbeck and Anna as they left the wall following their night shift. He had no such luck, the wall already being largely empty except for a few Warriors who were lucky enough to get placed on the day shift.

Florian watched them patrol up and down the wall, and he felt he had to revise his opinion. Almost all of the Warriors currently up there had suffered some kind of grievous wound, most missing limbs or walking so unsteadily that Florian doubted they’d be able to last more than a minute or two against a real threat. Clearly, these were the unlucky few that had been pulled off the night duty because they had no more fight left to give.

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Disappointed that he couldn’t find the pair, Florian figured that he had no more goodbyes left to say. Despite being here for a considerable amount of time, there were few that he had managed to develop a relationship with. Poor work-life balance, Florian thought as he walked back to the gate where the caravan of pickups waited for him. Their beds were full of interesting knick-knacks no longer, that space occupied instead by mountains of preserved Hellwolf meat. This amount of food would be able to tide a few families over an entire winter. Impressed by the traders’ returns, Florian found the only pickup that had an empty seat next to the driver.

Before he could get in, however, he was intercepted by Terry and Jerry, the two guards who typically stood at the foot of the keep. Jones was with them, wearing his finest clothing and looking like some kind of hybrid between a modern businessman and an old aristocrat with a jacket resting over leather pants, a cape and tie completing the bizarre ensemble. Jones motioned him over.

“I don’t think I need to tell you this, Florian, but you need to return as swiftly as you can,” Jones whispered to him, infiltrating his personal airspace.

Florian would have asked why, but he got the feeling that Jones wouldn’t answer the question. And anyway, anyone with a little bit of grey matter could tell that the growing rift between Theo and Jones was a cause for concern for both men.

“I’ll leave as soon as I’m able,” Florian promised. “I’ve got things to do here, and I don’t want to be away from the castle for long.”

Jones nodded in understanding, the worry that lined his face visibly disappearing at Florian’s words. That was all the man had wanted to say, and Jones and his entourage quickly left back to the keep, no doubt partly to get away from the ridiculous humidity of the early morning. The cab of the pickup truck was looking particularly enticing now.

He opened the door without waiting on ceremony, tossing in his bag underneath the seat and leaning against the side of his seat between the headrest and where the door would be. Getting himself in was a test of his acrobatics, but he succeeded with no small amount of effort. The driver, a slender man wearing a leather jacket and jeans, kept his right hand on the pistol at his waist.

“Calm down, man. It’s not like I can use my spear in here,” Florian put his hands up in mock-surrender. The driver didn’t respond, focusing instead on their surroundings.

“So how about the weather?”

Nothing.

“How’s Tonbridge?”

Nothing.

“Do you like driving?”

“Would you just shut the fuck up?” the driver responded, not bothering to swivel his head from its forward position, almost as if it were locked like that.

Taking the cue, Florian just sat there in silence as the gate opened and the caravan of three trucks rumbled past them and across the thin strip of land that connected Leeds Castle to the forest around them. The forests, the trees, they reminded him of the last, ill-fated time he’d been here.

Forcing his worry and fear to the side, Florian wondered what Tonbridge would be like, and he hoped that the people there had it better than in Dover or Leeds. It would be nice if there were a group of people out there that were doing well for themselves.

And so the trucks rumbled on, their engines the only noise in the otherwise silent morning. They crossed vast tracts of land on an abandoned highway, swerving from their trajectory only to dodge damaged and empty vehicles or to avoid potholes.