9
Being away from the city was its own comfort. The constant paranoia of military patrols had been stifling, and being able to relax even for a moment felt nice. Lieve would likely have a garrison of its own, but hopefully one small enough that they could skirt it easily and make good their escape. So long as their escape remained rumors and not news.
Caru closed his eyes, leaning back into his seat and scooting his feet across the cabin floorboards. The train’s steady pulse invited relaxation. His thoughts drifted, but they always returned to his old concerns. Yes, they had escaped claustrophobic Garenesh, but there was still no solid plan in place after leaving Lieve.
He wondered if, perhaps, he could accept his life blending as a human, a man from some faraway land, new to the Seranian countryside and eager to set up shop as a sculptor yet again. Would returning to Edaria be worth it if he would have to live the rest of his life as a wingless beggar? Maybe it would be better to start a new life in a new land as a new person.
While most Edarian sculptors left obvious marks of erman craftsmanship on their works, Caru prided himself in his skill with hands, hammer, and chisel. Working felt more personal, more intimate, when carefully chipping away stone to reveal the structure held within. Most erman sculptors were adept at blasting away chunks of stone with precise aether strikes; Caru had tried that himself for several years off and on, but he felt as though he’d never gotten to know the piece afterwards. Yes, he still did some finishing touches with aether, like joining split seams in the stone and removing small imperfections. Unnatural polish and added hues were usually requested, as well; human buyers expected erman works to have a certain additional flair to them. Working without aether would take longer, but he could adapt. Given a few months, he would have his skill honed well enough to make a living at it again. He could reestablish connections in the stonework industry, open a new studio, adjust to a new life. It seemed possible, a new future within his grasp.
Caru glanced left to Kimke and saw her staring dejectedly at the cabin floor, softly tapping her feet as the train rumbled along. She was a Healer, almost entirely reliant on aether. Could she regain her life so easily? Learning the more mundane variety of that trade would take much longer—years, even. Would she be willing to relearn almost everything again? Humans had taken everything from her, and she would need to learn her craft from the ground up, from nothingness.
Mieta brought her own issue. Caru knew he still didn’t understand everything she’d surrendered by joining them. Kimke was distrustful of her, but he hoped she would soften over time. He admitted to himself that he didn’t really want to trust her either, but he’d seen her several times before this all started, and he did have that flash of memory of an apology and a sip of water. No, she wouldn’t be like the other humans. Couldn’t be. Caru couldn’t make himself believe that she had any ill will toward the ermen, but Kimke likely thought him overeager in his acceptance.
A sound like pouring sand washed over the cramped room. The three looked out the train’s window to see wet streaks of rain dribbling along the glass, barely visible in the fading evening light. Distant lightning flashed with a boom of thunder following several seconds later. As though the lightning was a herald, the rain intensified, sounding less like sand and more like pebbles.
“The Tempest must be in a foul mood tonight,” Caru said. The Eternal Tempest spun like a slow, squat hurricane in the lands beneath Edaria, churning away for as long as history had been recorded. The storm’s edge extended some way beyond the cliffs of Edaria’s borders into western Serana and Chasar, covering an area nearly two-thirds the size of Serana itself. Weather in the Tempest itself wasn’t considered extreme, but it was never-ending, and the storms it sometimes ejected made for fertile farming in western Serana.
“Glad I’m not flying in it,” Kimke said, voice little more than a whisper.
Mieta watched, entranced, as the storm strengthened. Any more interest in it, and she would have her face and hands pressed to the glass like a child. “Storms never get this strong in the capital,” she said. Lightning stabbed in the distance, making a feeble attempt at illuminating the countryside.
Caru eased back more comfortably in his seat, watching Mieta watching the storm. She was so excited. Had she ever left Garenesh? It was easy to take travel for granted as an erman, between the wings and Portal access. Caru could purchase a stone slab in Garenesh’s Trade District at noon and have his next meal on the shores of Curali.
Could have, anyway. Those days were gone.
“Have you ever been out of Garenesh before?” Kimke asked. At least her tone had softened a bit.
Mieta looked away from the window and folded her hands in her lap, meeting Kimke’s gaze with a kind expression. Caru hoped Kimke would believe he had reasons to trust her. “No,” she said. She looked down at her hands. “When I was young, my parents never found a reason to leave, and.by the time I was grown, staying in the city was habit.”
“Never even beyond the city walls?” Caru asked. A life without travel seemed strange, almost alien. He really had taken his life of convenience for granted. Aether more so than travel.
“I’m afraid not. I had plans to leave, but those always got pushed back. And now, well…”
“You’ve missed so much of the world,” Kimke said. With luck, her civility would continue.
“We’ll try to remedy that,” Caru added.
Mieta smiled, but to Caru it seemed somewhat forced and he realized his impulsive words implied they would have some sort of future together, which seemed foolishly optimistic at this juncture. To his relief, Mieta replied in the same vein. “I would appreciate that. I’m glad to have such experienced guides.”
They chatted idly in the cabin as the train continued westward, countryside dimming further as the sun finally set. Another day and a half before they reached Lieve, or so the tickets claimed. Caru planned to explore the train the next day. The walls of the small room were starting to encroach after his time spent imprisoned at the armory.
With the sun down, they unfolded the cabin’s beds, two to a side with one over the other, chairs collapsing away beneath them. Caru took the bed under Kimke’s, and Mieta slept on the top bunk across the room. He stared at the bed above him, reminding himself that he was in a cabin on a train, not locked in a prison cell between beatings. Sheets of rain and peals of thunder made for a rapid lullaby.
It felt good to have a mattress again.
—
The train whistle shrieked as sunlight crested the horizon, obscured by feathery cloud cover remaining from last night’s storms. The sharp report roused Caru from his slumber, leaving him blinking lazily at the bunk above him. No one barged into the cabin and carried him away.
At least one thing was going right so far today.
He rested a moment with his fingers laced behind his head. If there were no delays, the train would arrive in Lieve tomorrow. From there, they could… What?
He hoped some answer would come to him in the night, but there was no such luck. Lieve did have a Portal, opening to somewhere else on Edaria, a smaller city several dozen miles from his home in Detrina. Returning to anywhere on Edaria would be a start.
That then raised its own questions. Even if they could convince the Sentinels on duty that they were ermen, where would that leave Mieta? So far as Caru knew, the only humans allowed onto Edaria were military officials, diplomats, and the occasional human family member. There was supposed to be some kind of mental enchantment imposed on human spouses before marriage ceremonies, but Caru never really understood the details. Without that, he knew they wouldn’t offer any special treatment to Mieta. The Edarian government was perhaps not the most gregarious institution, but Caru knew firsthand the lengths some humans would go through to learn their secrets.
Mieta had given up so much already, her livelihood and her normal day-to-day existence, possibly her family and friends, and Caru hated to think of her loss wasted. If only he’d gone home during that damned Void Moon, he would still be whole, and she wouldn’t be a fugitive. He had stayed one night and upended both their lives.
Knuckles rapped against the cabin door, and Caru jerked himself upright. He almost cracked his head on the bottom of Kimke’s bunk, and he whispered a curse as he stood.
He froze.
The top two bunks were empty, blankets pushed into small piles against the walls. Memories of his imprisonment flashed in his mind again. Had the women been taken in the night? Why hadn’t he been taken as well? His heart fluttered. No, if anyone had taken the women, they would have taken him also. Caru straightened himself, stepped forward, and cracked the door open. Kimke stood with a tray, one side with a plate of food and the other with a cup of orange juice. She laughed softly as she pushed her hip against the door and edged her way into the cabin.
“Sorry,” she said. “My hands were full, and I couldn’t open the door.”
Caru exhaled. No nighttime abductions, after all. He wondered when the paranoia would finally end. “Why didn’t you wake me up when you left?”
Kimke motioned for Caru to take a seat on his bed before handing him his breakfast. Cured ham, fresh fruit, and thin slices of hard spinecorn bread set his mouth to watering. The orange juice was sweet, some of the pulp strained. “We thought it best to let you sleep,” she said.
He swallowed and popped a cube of apple into his mouth. “We?” he asked. “You and Mieta? Together?”
“Maybe not exactly together,” Kimke said, plopping down on the bed across from him.”Caru?”
The ham was exquisite, the first properly prepared food he’d eaten in weeks now. He swallowed a bite with more orange juice before looking at her again. “Yes?”
“You really trust her?”
Caru sat the plate on the bed at his side and held the half-emptied cup loosely in his hands. “I do,” he said in a level tone. “I know you’re having trouble accepting that, but I really do trust her. She’s had plenty of time to turn us in, if that was her plan.”
“Weren’t you against all humans two days ago?”
Caru laughed. “Didn’t you chastise me for that?” He sighed, reconsidering as he looked out the window to the endless plains beyond. “I was,” he said after a moment. “Maybe I still am. But I know she’s not going to harm us, or she would have done so at the station yesterday.”
Kimke shook her head. “I’m sorry, Caru. I still expect a trap to spring on us when we get to Lieve.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
“Oh?”
“I remember now what she did during the… During the surgery. She was kind, even with my screaming. I remembered that somehow during my escape. I think she Calmed me.”
Kimke’s eyes widened slightly. “Really now?”
Caru recalled sitting in circles for the Calming with his family as a child, with friends or lovers later in life, Calming as he was Calmed. It was meant to be a thing shared between those you were closest with, those you would have done anything not to harm.
Caru nodded. “I was nearly spent anyway, but she grounded me.”
Kimke grinned at the implication.
“Come on,” Caru said. “It’s not like that. I think maybe it didn’t take as much to Calm me, since I was already running out of aether. I wasn’t able to draw as much, so maybe it took nothing more than simple kindness to bring me down?”
“Perhaps,” Kimke said, still smiling. “I guess we’ve never missed a Calming before, so it could be possible we were doing more to prevent it than was needed.”
“I think we were the first to miss a Calming in… I don’t know. Centuries, maybe.” Even prisoners were given extremely limited and monitored access to friends and families during the Soulless Moon. Caru wondered what happened to the ones without connections. He’d never known anyone that had turned Soulless before, and it never made the newspapers. Odds were likely that the Sentinels would find them at the first sign of a disturbance and deal with them harshly, maybe lethally.
“They must have thought we were weakened during the Soulless Moon like we are during Void.”
“They probably know now.” Suppressing the shiver took a strong will. Three military complexes nearly destroyed and slated for months of repair from three supposedly powerless ermen. That his body still had enough aether filaments to absorb anything was the greatest miracle of all. “We still don’t know why they took our wings,” he added.
Caru lifted the plate again and took a bite of the crisp spinecorn bread. Amazing that such a bristly plant could make such a sweet bread with a natural spice. They might not know why the Seranians had taken their wings, but there had to be some greater purpose. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been beaten and interrogated for two weeks. Wanting to know how wings interacted with the moons, simple lessons children learned about weaving aether, questions about the mental enchantments placed on human spouses when marrying ermen, so many others. There was a use they couldn’t see, or else they would have been left for dead.
—
Mieta stayed behind on the top floor of the dining cart. Two sets of stairs led downward, one from either end of the cart. One was marked for staff, leading to a section on the bottom floor that housed the kitchens, and the other for passengers, leading into a broad hallway with wider windows facing the south.
She had initially wanted to go back to the cabin with Kimke, but she knew Kimke wouldn’t approve. Besides, there were probably things they would need to discuss in private. At least Kimke seemed a bit softer today than yesterday.
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She sat alone at her table, eating breakfast as the scenery drifted by. The world outside of Garenesh was strange in ways she had never considered. Everything was so big and so far away. As she watched the fields and plains, she realized it was the first time in her life she had seen an unbroken horizon. Truly otherworldly.
The plates rattled quietly as she ate. Pork again, as it was a common staple in Garenesh.
A handful of people littered the dining car, some of them still in the process of waking up, apparently. At any given time, it seemed that at least three of them had fists to their mouths to stifle a yawn. As Mieta took another bite of her spinecorn bread, she wondered if Caru was even awake yet. He probably was by now, with as much food as Kimke had taken back to their room. Food that Mieta had paid for, and she knew that unspoken debt likely grated on Kimke.
She wished Kimke would trust her. The two of them had endured nightmarish atrocities, and she really did want to help them. She understood their distrust, though. The previous two weeks had been cruel for her, as well, forced to live and work beneath the constant eyes of monsters that would do such things to innocents. Best to quell those thoughts before losing her appetite. Were humans truly capable of such evil? She knew they were, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on it.
Mieta had been so close to finally achieving a step forward to advance a career in the city, and then the dark side of the government had taken everything from her in an instant. And she still didn’t know why. With a team of bloodmages, surgeons, and at least two military officials, it was impossible for this to go unnoticed by the government. How high did this reach? Why?
She finished her meal but remained in the car to stare out the window. Sounds of conversations and rattling utensils filled the cabin with a low cacophony, reminding her of home. She savored the wordless tones.
Travel itself had always felt like an alien concept to her. Mieta had never thought it was strange to stay within Garenesh’s walls for her whole life until Kimke had mentioned it the night before. Everything was so much more convenient in the city. Yes, she had read of the lands outside the walls, but most of them were so far away. She had certainly never given any serious thought to actually visiting any of them. Why bother? The city had everything she needed, and everything beyond the walls could be left to mystery and imagination.
Actually seeing the world now, though; that was something else entirely. Everything was so vast, seemingly endless. What would the floating Edarian continent look like? Did the people of Curali really live in huts made of straw and reeds? Were oceans really endless, covering entire horizons in miles and miles of blue waves?
She would ask Caru more about the world later. Or Kimke. Anything to bridge the gap.
Motion in the chair across the table tore her eyes from the window. The man sat down across from her fast enough that Mieta had to suppress a surprised squeak.
He looked out her window to the scenic vista. “A lot different from Garenesh, eh?”
He looked short, but that could be an illusion created by his width. The stubble of his hair was barely long enough to see that his hairline was receding. Where his head was almost bald, his beard was thick but pressed tightly against his features. His arms were banded with thick muscle. Mieta remembered to check for sleeves. His arms were bare and free of scarring. At least he was no bloodmage.
“Very different,” she said. “Not like anything I’ve seen before.”
The man grinned before chuckling and leaning back more comfortably into his seat. He wasn’t especially attractive, but at least he was amiable. “The world’s not as big and scary as you might think,” he said.
Mieta wanted to tell him that it was more fascinating than frightening, but thought better of engaging the stranger in more conversation than needed. “Good to know,” she said.
“What’s your name?” he asked, leaning forward and stretching a large open hand across the table. “I’m Gault.”
She reluctantly pressed her slender hand into his. “Tenka,” she said, giving the name of her youngest aunt. “Nice to meet you.” He gripped her hand with slightly too much pressure. Not a painful grip, but one that showed he was potentially unaware of his own strength.
“A pleasure,” he said. He exhaled and looked about the cart at the remaining diners. He turned back to Mieta with an obvious effort to appear friendly. “What brings you away from the big city?”
Mieta shrugged and studied her empty plate, trying to think of a graceful way to exit without calling attention to herself by being rude. The conversation was moving into deeper waters than she wanted, but she guessed it was a common question today. “After the attacks and the reopening of the rail lines, I thought I might get out of the city for a few days. I lived near the armory, and the city suddenly feels unsafe. I had enough money put away for a short trip, and my mistress at the seamstress shop gave me leave to see the countryside for a few days. She said trade would be slow anyway since she was expecting a delayed fabric shipment from Edaria. She told me to enjoy myself.” She felt she might be talking too much, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “She’s really nice, my mistress.”
“I see,” Gault said.
“I should go check on my… cabin.” Mieta got to her feet and offered a quick, informal bow as she backed into the narrow passageway between tables. “It was a pleasure meeting you, though.”
Gault returned her bow with a warm smile. “I look forward to speaking with you again, should I be so lucky.”
She grinned back, hoping to hide her panic as she made her way to the passengers’ stairs. “We’ll see,” she said, somehow keeping herself from breaking into a sprint as she returned to cabin 327.
—
Dusk came with a light drizzle.
Mieta had returned hours earlier and told Caru and Kimke of her chat with the strange man in the dining car. Caru had tried convincing her that Gault was only interested in chatting with a pretty young woman. Mieta had said she wanted to believe that, but that some of his questions had been too pointed.
Caru weighed their options silently, wanting to treat them all with equal caution. Then again, leaping away from any shadow in their path would be counterproductive in itself, and would eventually draw its own attention. He knew Mieta would be restless until they investigated, though, and he felt the same.
His stomach felt empty, and he knew it would be only a short time before it began growling. He stood. “I’m going to get us some food before we all starve,” he said. They had skipped lunch while discussing various ways to investigate Gault without being noticed. Also it would do Mieta some good to see that she hadn’t frightened the two ermen into hiding.
That Mieta stood at all was a surprise, but Caru was taken aback by her speed. “I’m going too,” she said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I need to see if he really was suspicious, or if it’s my imagination going crazy.”
“Sounds good to me,” Caru said. “Kimke? Care to join us?”
“I think I will,” she said as she stood.
With another thirty minutes behind them, they sat around another table in the dining car, idly picking away at the remaining crumbs on their plates. The evening meal had been chicken and potatoes with a few fruits added on the side, all served with chilled wine. Perhaps not the best meal he’d ever eaten, but a sight better than what his Seranian captors had given him. If nothing else, it appeased the beast in his belly.
They kept conversation light as they scanned the car for the mysterious Gault. Mieta wanted to know of the ermen’s travels, especially interested in the tropics of Curali to the south and the frozen mountains of Chasar to the north. Dresk she also found fascinating, that being Serana’s eastern neighbor, a land where towering trees blocked the view of the sky in places, sometimes even over the cities. She seemed to find her homeland dull by comparison, but Caru knew how others spoke of the nation’s endless panoramas. Nowhere else in the world could people see for such long distances, a land where you could sometimes watch a storm roll in for hours ahead of time from a perch high atop the occasional mountain.
He wanted to tell her what Dresk looked like from the sky, the endless sea of green with cresting waves frozen in the rise and fall of tree tops. Cities were often difficult to find in the dense forests, so the locals had constructed tall towers to serve as markers for the sakes of erman visitors. They knew ermen brought trade and wealth, and it was important to be noticeable. He wanted to tell her of such things, but it would be foolish to speak of flying where others might overhear.
Caru sat with Mieta to his left, away from the aisle and frequently looking out the window. He sat across from Kimke, who sat on the aisle seat with an open seat next to the window.
A broad man appeared from the passengers’ stairwell at the front of the car and made his way down the aisle. Mieta looked away from the window, and Caru suddenly felt her hand on his thigh, fingers digging in. “That’s him,” she whispered.
Caru watched as Gault approached. Surprisingly, he stopped behind Kimke, rested his hands on her shoulders with disturbing familiarity, and leaned forward to whisper in her ear.
Kimke appeared astonished, and then…relieved?
Gault left her and came around to the aisle, to plant his large hands on their table and lean forward slightly. Kimke put a hand to her mouth. “Martel?” she whispered.
Gault nodded faintly, but didn’t respond out loud. “You seem well-traveled,” he said.
Caru reined his shock and forced himself to look the man in the eyes. “Oh,” Mieta said from his side. “Gault, is it?”
“At least you remembered,” he said, grinning.
“Of course,” she said, her tone bringing a sense of innocent charm. The charade was obvious to Caru, as her grip along his leg tightened. She was obviously wary of the wide man, and Caru wished he didn’t feel the same.
“We try to travel when we can,” Caru said, gesturing across the table to Kimke.
She blinked and joined the routine. “Yes,” she said. “We wanted to share our love of travel with our friend, Tenka.”
Gault’s grin widened, and he put a hand on the back of Caru’s chair. “Yes, she did say she had never left the capital before.”
“It’s already quite an adventure,” Mieta said. “I haven’t even seen Lieve yet, but I already want to see so much more.”
Gault took a step the side and planted both hands on their table as he leaned forward slightly. “If anyone could tell you of travels, I suspect it would be these two.” Something felt off about the man as he spoke. Was he nervous? Afraid? He spoke confidently, but he was blinking too much for a man at ease. Caru wished he could speak openly to Kimke; she obviously knew something about the man. Gault cocked his head toward Caru. “Although I think they’re holding back on their tales. They’ve definitely seen more interesting lands than Curali. Perhaps you should ask them about the diamonds on the moon sometime.”
Caru’s pulse quickened, and his throat went dry. He glanced across the table to see Kimke’s blanched face, mouth opened slightly as she sought words.
“I—“ Caru said before swallowing. “I’m not familiar with them, myself.” His voice nearly cracked, and his vision narrowed as his periphery dimmed into a tunnel. Had it really come to this, being taunted and captured on the train? He knew leaving by train had been a bad idea from the beginning. If they were caught now, there was nowhere to run. They were trapped in boxes, and that was that.
Things were definitely bad.
And yet Kimke seemed oddly at ease. Caru met her eyes, and she inclined her head in a nod. He relaxed, but only slightly. Mieta slid her hand to Caru’s knee and released, moving to hide both hands in her lap.
“I think we both know you know more than that,” Gault said in a whisper. “But this is not the place for that discussion.” He drew a scrap of folded paper from a hip pocket and slid the sheet in front of Caru. “Be safe,” he said. With that, he walked away toward the passenger stairs and was gone. He spoke those two words without irony. Did he mean them, or was that part of his act?
“What just happened?” Mieta asked as the wide man disappeared down the stairs.
“I know him,” Kimke whispered. “We can trust him. He’s—“ She glanced around, but no one else was within earshot. “He’s one of us. Now, what does the note say?”
Eyes are on your back, he read. I’m a friend. Caboose at midnight. Come alone.
—
“Who was that?” Mieta asked.
They were again in cabin 327 after Gault’s disappearance. Caru struggled to maintain his composure and was pleased to see his hands had finally stopped shaking. Everything had been advancing as expected, and now he had to face the possibility that everything was crumbling.
“Martel Moonshroud,” Kimke said. “I know him. He’s a Sentinel. Well, was, I guess, since it looks like he’s the third erman. We were together the night I was caught, but I never imagined they would catch him as well. I’m astonished they would risk taking a Sentinel.”
“What happened that night?” Mieta asked.
Kimke laughed, but it felt forced. “Martel and I would meet up sometimes at a bar in the southern part of Garenesh. A lot of the Sentinels like to go there for the wine, and Healers and Sentinels run in a lot of the same circles.”
“A date?”
“No, not yet. We know each other, and I guess we were warming up to each other. I was waiting for him to finally grow a spine and ask me for something more, before I had to do it myself.”
Mieta grinned. “He does have good shoulders,” she said.
Shoulders? Caru thought.
“He really does,” Kimke said. “At any rate, we had too much to drink that night, and ended up staying too late. There were still a few ermen there willing to miss the call home for Void, but they were mostly in groups. Martel and I, well, we decided that nothing was happening that night. So we left, said our goodbyes in front of the tavern, and then left to return to our rooms for the night. Alone. I…guess it was stupid, now that I think about it. Anyway, I guess the tavern was being watched, and they caught us after we were separated. I hate to think he went through what we went through.”
Mieta nodded and looked out the window, up into the western sky. “What was that about the diamonds on the moon?”
“It’s imagery you’ll find in a lot of erman literature. During the warm seasons, we get eclipses on Edaria every day around noon. You can see the eclipses in Garenesh twice during the year, late in the evening if you’re looking for them. But during those warm seasons, there are weeks where Cirellias eclipses for us every day on Edaria.”
Mieta nodded. “Yes, dusk is longer during the warm months. We’re taught not to look at Cirellias then. They say people can go blind that way.”
“The sun flashes brightly as it moves into and away from Cirellias,” Kimke said. “It’s dark for about thirty minutes as the sun moves behind it, but those flashes are blinding if you look at the right time. That blindness can be Healed pretty easily with a knowledgeable erman, though it’s not advised that anyone look. Especially for humans, I suppose, though I imagine ermen Healers would be willing to help.”
Mieta sat in thought for a moment. “Those flashes, I take it they look like the diamonds Gault mentioned?”
“That’s what we call them,” Kimke said. “Twin diamond tiaras on opposite sides of the moon; one at the beginning, and one at the end. You can see them safely if you know how to bend some of the light away from yourself, which, sadly, isn’t an option for either of us any longer. You can also use tinted goggles. They look like the kind that the Gliders in Garenesh wear, but they’re so dark that you can see the sun and nothing else through them.”
Caru opened the note again. The note mentioned eyes on his back. That much he already suspected, though he hoped those eyes remained in Garenesh. Perhaps that was too much to hope for. “It says to come alone to the meeting tonight.”
Kimke snorted. “Muscleheaded idiot, is what he is. He doesn’t know either of you, so he’s trying to get you sorted while I’m not involved. I should go, just to teach him a lesson.”
“But you won’t?”
“I won’t. I assume he means it to be something between you and him. He revealed a lot when we saw him earlier, so he took a risk. Yes, I want to see him, but that can wait. Go get him sorted, send him my regards, and then let’s make a plan to leave Lieve together.”