“How’s the little guy?” Essa asks.

Right after the meeting with Valkas, she brought me to a place in the keep I’ve never visited before. It’s not really part of the keep, in fact, but a series of separate buildings that can only be accessed through service corridors or outside avenues. Between these buildings there’s a stone courtyard that connects stables, warehouses, and the servant’s quarters, and which leads to a well-guarded gate, an entrance for merchandise and the lowly Untouched.

The gold and the silver and the rich rugs and the paintings and the priceless armor may be gone, but this side of the keep remains the liveliest and most pleasant of the whole thing. Children run around, getting underfoot of servants coming to or from the city proper. Washers tend assorted clothes on wooden washboards, and sometimes one will hum a tune that someone else will pick up and turn to song. The guards are not apart of the living energy, but instead chat and laugh and cajole the children with the rest.

It’s like a village. It’s like being back in Reach. And just like back in Reach after Katha became my most faithful companion, it’s clear that we don’t belong here. The servants don’t shun us exactly, but there’s a modulation to their voices, a change in the vibrancy of their energy. At first, I think that they’ve mistaken us with Godtouched, but even after I put my hand on display the bland politeness continues, the aloof obeisance whose only aim is to get rid of me quicker.

They know exactly who I am. And they don’t care. To them, and for the trouble it’ll cause them to associate with me, I might as well be Godtouched.

“Hmm?” I ask.

“He’s alright, is he?” Essa asks patiently.

We’ve moved beyond the courtyard, and are sitting on a low wall beyond the gate that borders a long, smooth stone ramp for carts of merchandise, looking down into the city and the ocean.

“Oh. Sorry.” I look down at Rue, a blob as big as an apple vibrating nervously to himself on my knee. “I… can’t tell?”

It’s amazing how quickly I accepted the sometimes serene, sometimes alarming hum of Rue’s presence. Like the past few weeks were a blip of time compared to my much longer stay in the dungeon. Still, there’s something different about him. After a staid and terse reunion under Valkas’ watchful eye, he hasn’t spoken much.

“Did he treat you well, Rue?”

“Did who treat me well, Malco?”

“Valkas,” I say patiently. “He said he taught you songs.”

“Oh, yes.” The hum increases its pace. “He called one the song of quiet and said that if I didn’t sing it all day long he would bury me in the garden. I don’t want to be buried in the garden, but it’s a difficult song to master,” he adds. “Would you like me to try and sing it?”

“No,” I say, more forcefully than I intended. “You can sing whatever you like. No one is going to bury you. I’m so sorry you went through that so soon after the dungeon, Rue.”

His buzz goes up and down in a slow, long wave.

“The dungeon,” he repeats, as if tasting the word. “What’s a dungeon?”

“What?” I frown. “Rue, the dungeon. With the darkness, and the drake, and all the people. Where we met Essa.” I gesture to her. “You don’t remember?”

“Oh,” he says. “The dungeon. Yes.”

I turn a worried look to Essa, who stares back at me blankly.

Oh.

“I’m speaking it, aren’t I?”

“If you mean you’re making noises somewhere between a hesitant avalanche and the wind, then yes, yes, you are. That’s a language?”

“Yes. My Gift. Apparently it’s an old one. So far I’ve only met two people who spoke it.”

Essa nods thoughtfully.

“My Gift is skiing,” she says. “Just found out.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m glad you asked, Malco.” Slowly, like someone who’s just came into possession of this information and isn’t sure at all of what she’s saying, she relates, “In the far North, where ice from the sky during most of the year, sometimes there’s so much that it blankets the ground. The people make special shoes, thin planks of wood expertly carved wood, that slide over the ice and allow them to cover great distances. And I’m excellent at it.”

We stare at each other for a moment, nodding sagely. I last about two seconds before a laugh forces itself through my lips.

“You’re kidding.”

Essa frowns.

“You’re not kidding. I’m… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

She punches my arm. It smarts, but I know it could smart a lot more.

“Don’t worry. This is all true, but I was as surprised to hear it as you are. I’m from the South, where it’s warm. Inland, there’s a mountain where ice does form during winter, but never so much of it that we need to tie planks to our feet to cross it.” Her shoulders shake with a silent, humorless laugh. “How useless is a Gift like that?”

“Well,” I tilt my head. “Maybe it’s useless only if you stayed in the South. As long as you’re out in the world you never know when a big blanket of ice will come out of nowhere. Then you’ll be glad for the Gift.”

“Optimism, from you? Glad to see it, but surprised.” Essa leans back to catch the sun directly on her face. “But my point is more… If I’d never won a level, I never would have had access to the book of fog, and I never would have known what my gift was, regardless of whether I ever get to use it or not. Do you get it? What a stupid Gift.”

“Would you rather have been born immortal and gaining levels from… doing whatever, really?”

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Essa shakes her head, smiling.

“No. But I would have liked it better if they had never come. Or if they were gone.”

With that I can agree. In fact, I agree so much that the words take on a different meaning, one that hints of something else.

“Essa,” I say slowly, passing my hand over Rue’s slick body, feeling the ever-present hum. “Who did you meet beyond the Silver Door?”

Her jaw tenses as she shoots me a suspicious look. Feigning a stretch, she checks the guards bordering the gate some fifty paces away.

“The Watcher,” she says in a tone only a little above a whisper. “He was… imponent. Like a guard, but not a real one. The idea of a guard. All honor and duty. You?”

“The Arbiter. Short girl, blindfolded. I get what you mean. Arbiter wasn’t really a judge, but… she might have been justice? I don’t know. What do you think they are? Gods?”

“My gods look nothing like that.”

Mine didn’t either. Gods were a nebulous concept in Reach, nameless figures in rough statues with open mouths and laughing eyes. Sometimes mocking, sometimes helpful spirits of the woods. Arbiter was much too… definite.

“What—” I mimick her stretch, trying to look like someone enjoying his victory with time well spent in the sun while actually casting a watchful eye around the scene. “What do you think they want?”

“War.”

A new voice. An old voice. A voice belonging to someone I hadn’t seen, Observant or not.

“Hey, Wyl,” says Essa. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show up.”

The small half-elf is dressed in comfortable, practical, unassuming black which make it impossible to guess her place in the hierarchy of things. Maybe a servant to someone rich, maybe a discrete merchant’s daughter. Only her size stops her looking also like a Godtouched. I tense.

“I thought it was time we had a chat,” Wyl says, approaching with arms crossed behind her back, placing her slippered feet carefully and precisely. “Congrats on squeaking the win, by the by. Wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

“Thanks?” I try.

“Behind the Silver Door I met the Watcher,” Wyl says a bit louder.

I nod.

“Yeah, Essa was just telling me—”

“Hush,” the half-elf says, lifting her hand to stop me. Her hair is a little longer than before, yet still a buzz, still just as rusty red. “This is a test. The magic won’t let you say stuff like this to someone who hasn’t gone through it. It’ll even stop you if you try to say it while you’re being overheard. So say it often to make sure you aren’t.” She crosses her arms behind her back again. “What’d dear guild leader tell you?”

“Well, he gave me Rue back,” I say. “And basically told me I was going to run the Challenge with you guys.”

“’Cause Lysander’s gone.”

“How’d you—”

“Don’t bother,” Essa interrupts with a weary shake of her head. “Wyl is a bundle of plots. She knows too much and says too little.”

“It helps that Paladins have straight, simple minds, like rulers. You lose interest when the conversation veers away from ‘protect this’ and ‘attack that’,” Wyl retorts. “‘S why I like you so much.”

Their jabs betray a deeper trust. I can see that easily. They’ve become fast friends in the time since the Challenge. The ease, the playfulness, lets me at least hope that the unresolved issues between me and Wyl have been put aside.

“What did you get?” I ask her. “What Archetype?”

Wyl levels a look in my direction that wipes away my hopes. I’m painfully reminded of the circumstances in which we last saw each other. It seems to say, tread carefully.

“I have the Inquisitor,” I add lamely. “It’s about Secrets.”

“The Spider,” she offers after a couple of beats. “It’s about Plots and it was a pain to get. The Watcher’s a stiff stick up the arse with a body around and all he had on display was things like Essa’s Paladin. Not my style. Had to remind him that watchers don’t just make good protectors, they make excellent predators too. I wore him down in the end.”

You can argue with them? It surprises me. My experience with Arbiter consisted largely of being bossed around and finally mutilated. But that is less interesting than the other thing Wyl mentioned.

“You said War,” I say. “Before. Did the Watcher tell you that too?”

Essa and Wyl exchange a look.

“That’s sorta the funny part,” says the Spider. “He told me, but he didn’t tell Essa.”

“Well, no,” Essa interrupts. “He did tell me. Kind of. He said that great things were about to happen, and that a…” she blushes a little. “A protector of the innocent would be needed soon.”

“Bit cryptic of a warning, innit?” Wyl says. “To me he said, ‘Wyl, old girl, there’s a war coming and you better get your tiny arse in shape afore it arrives, ‘cause complete bastards like yourself will probably come in handy. Now chop-chop, off with you, I’m expecting other people.’”

Me and Essa stare.

“He did notsay that,” Essa says finally.

“He may not have said it like that, but he definitely said it.” Wyl shrugs, then turns to me. “What about you? I know Hilde’s Archivist also went the secretive route. But you heard about the war. How?”

I hesitate only a moment before slowly, haltingly, I begin to unravel my first encounter with Arbiter. About how the old powers were going to war, how they were making soldiers of their own. After a beat, and before they can ask questions, I tell them also of my second meeting with the blind woman on the road to Olvion. Trust the elf, she’d said then.

When I finish, Essa’s brow is furrowed further than I’ve ever seen it, and even Wyl’s mouth has drawn a little O. For a moment, the only sound is Rue’s slow hum, a tiny core of activity on my lap.

“She came to you in the real world,” Essa repeats, doubtful.

“Well, sort of. She said we were connected because I’d taken her gifts. And the bandit leader said they’d heard me talking to myself. I don’t think Arbiter was really there. She just made me think she was.”

Wyl is thoughtful, and her eyes betray her toeing the wall between acceptance and mistrust.

“Trust the elf,” she says finally.

I nod.

“I assume she meant Lysander. He’s found a Dungeon. A real one.”

Wyl’s eyes open wide at this.

“You’re sure?” she prods. “Have you seen it? Could he have lied to you?”

“I…” I hesitate, looking down into the city. “No. I haven’t seen it, and I suppose it could be a plot of some kind.” I trail the coming and going of people, the incessant march of everyday life. A laden cart begins the slow ascent of the slope that leads to the gate behind us. “But I’ve made my choice. I decided to trust the elf, like Arbiter said.”

“Except your elf is missing,” Essa notes.

“We’ll find him. Sooner or later, we’ll find him.”

Wyl has resumed her pondering stance. She pinches her lip absent mindedly while her eyes remain fixed in the distance. Do we all look so small, so child-like?, I wonder. If I was just another person in the street, just a kid doing a job and happened to cross her path, would I ever take her for a Champion?

Yes, I realize as her eyes turn to me, bright and fiery as if lit from behind. Yes, I would.

“Lucia is looking for you,” Wyl tells Essa. “To congratulate you, no doubt. We should go.”

Recess is over, it seems. Essa dismounts off the wall with a rapid swing of her legs.

“Good job today, Malco,” she says. “Hopefully in the future I’ll be more helpful.”

I wave her worries away.

“You almost had Rao. I should have let you go on.”

She nods at that, then starts making her way to the gate.

Wyl stays behind.

“I want to be clear,” she says, arms clasped again behind her back. “What happened in the dungeon isn’t behind us. I still think you’re a selfish bastard who can’t see past his own nose. But whatever’s coming will apparently be needing people like you.”

“And I still remember you killing a desperate kid who only wanted a chance at making it out of there.”

“Yeah,” Wyl nods. “I should have said people like us. Truce?”

“Truce.”

She slaps her hands together, satisfied with the brief diplomatic foray.

“Where can I find you in the next few days?” she asks, all business again. “Essa will be in the practice yard, I’m sure. What happened in the arena shook her more than she lets on.”

“The rooms in underground. Same corridor as Hilde’s, third door from the last. “

Wyl smiles, and that’s it. Suddenly she’s halfway to Essa and the gate, walking at a brisk pace.

“Wyl!” I shout after her. She turns. “Thanks for the help today. I wouldn’t have found Rao’s room without your note.”

She gives me a long, hard look. Before disappearing completely, it turns into a quick, darting smile. And she’s gone.

I sigh as I look back into the city. My body aches from the fighting of the day, but between Rue’s subtle massage and the levels’ regenerative gifts, I can feel the pains ebbing away like fog under the sun.

“I missed you, Malco,” Rue buzzes suddenly.

“And me you, buddy,” I tell him.

Then, breathing in deep, I summon the misty pages.