By morning, I had learned two things about Cedric's bedroom.
The curtains didn't close properly at the left edge, and the bed was too comfortable for someone who wanted to remain awake.
I had meant to spend the night listing everything I remembered.
Instead, I fell asleep with a pen in my hand and woke with a dark line across my cheek.
I washed the ink off before anyone entered.
Yesterday's paper lay beneath a book on the desk. Three priorities. A few half-finished notes. The Duke's card rested beside them, where I had left it after reading it far too many times.
No summons had arrived. That wasn't the same as safety, but it let me finish washing without dropping anything.
A different servant brought breakfast. A woman with sleeves rolled neatly above her wrists. She placed a covered bowl on the table, arranged the bread and moved one chair a fraction to the right.
I watched the correction.
"Leave it."
Her hands stopped.
I pointed at the bowl before she decided I meant the chair.
"I'll eat here."
"Of course, young master."
Breakfast smelled of onions, soft grain and something roasted. My stomach tightened painfully enough to remind me that I had barely eaten since arriving.
I waited until the servant had left, then pulled the bowl closer.
Steam warmed my face.
For a moment, I was somewhere else.
"Eat while it's warm, Kael. I'm here."
My mother's voice had been low and a little hoarse. A short pause before my name, as if she had needed that moment to finish something else first.
The blue bowl she put in front of me had a chip near the rim. I usually turned it toward the wall so I wouldn't catch my spoon on it.
That evening, I'd been counting money under the table.
Not much money. The same notes, moved between the same two piles as though a different arrangement might improve the total.
My mother sat down beside me.
Or tried to.
"Move your elbow."
I looked up. Her bowl hovered above the space my arm occupied.
"Oh. Sorry."
I moved.
She sat, pulled off the clip holding her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. A pale mark remained where one of her shoes had pressed against her heel. She worked a finger under it, frowned and returned to her soup.
"Long shift?" I asked.
"Long shoes."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Eat."
I did. From the other side of the room, a kettle screamed.
My mother shut her eyes.
"Hana."
"That wasn't the kettle."
"Then stop whoever it was."
Hana sat on the floor with a phone propped against a stack of books. A borrowed microphone stood on a chair in front of her. June's voice came from the speaker, sounding both terribly serious and slightly muffled.
"Follow that signal. I want to know who's out there."
Hana pressed a button.
The scream played again. My mother looked at me. I looked at the ceiling.
Getting involved would make me useful, and being useful would delay dinner.
"We need a cleaner sound," June said through the phone.
"We need you to stop laughing in the middle of your line."
"Because you sound like a broken kettle."
"I'm supposed to sound like a broken kettle."
Hana leaned toward the microphone and made the noise herself.
I nearly swallowed my spoon.
She turned to glare at me.
"Don't start."
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face did."
At fifteen, Hana had very firm opinions about what my face was allowed to do.
The play was called The Kettle at the End of the World. A spaceship captain mistook the whistle for an alien distress call. That was all I understood of it, mostly because every time I asked, I was told to wait until it was finished.
They wanted five minutes for a school showcase. So far, they had three minutes of dialogue and eleven minutes of arguing about the noise.
I took another spoonful.
"Write June's name at the beginning," Hana said, turning back to the screen. "Beside mine."
"You did the editing."
"And you did the captain."
"Badly."
"Yes. We're sharing the blame."
June laughed. Hana waited for her to finish, then moved the recording back a few seconds.
Beside her phone lay a school notebook with a list of people they still needed. Someone for the opening announcement. Someone to hold a sign while the recording played. She had crossed my name out under that one.
"Why am I crossed out?" I asked.
"You said you had work."
"I do."
"Then why are you asking?"
Fair point. I returned to the soup before she found another job for me.
My mother reached for the bread.
"Ask before using my chair next time."
"We asked."
"You asked your brother."
Hana looked at me.
I lowered my spoon.
Apparently, I had become involved after all.
...
My hand remained around the spoon, but the bowl in front of me was white.
No chip. No money under the table.
I looked toward the other chair. Empty.
Breakfast had cooled while I sat there remembering a dinner I hadn't thought about in years.
I put a spoonful in my mouth.
Too little salt. For some reason, that was what nearly undid me.
Not the empty room. Not my mother's face, which I could still picture when I closed my eyes. A bowl of expensive soup with too little salt, and no one across the table to complain to.
I swallowed, set the spoon down and pressed the heel of my hand against one eye.
No. I wasn't doing this now.
I didn't know what had happened to my body back home. I knew what the last moment had felt like. I knew the hand holding this spoon wasn't mine.
That left my mother with a message promising a call I might never make.
I breathed slowly until the pressure in my throat eased.
The Ledger hadn't offered a route home. I hadn't even asked yet, and I knew why. A refusal on a screen would make the question harder to put away.
But not asking wouldn't change the answer.
I opened it without speaking.
"Contact with my previous location."
FUNCTION NOT PROVIDED
I read the words.
"Travel?"
FUNCTION NOT PROVIDED
No insult followed. No explanation either.
I closed it before I asked the same question in six different ways.
Outside, someone knocked.
"The tray, young master?"
I looked at the unfinished breakfast.
"Later."
The woman waited a moment, then answered quietly and left.
I picked up the spoon again.
Hana had been sixteen when she died. I had been twenty, old enough to sign forms, pick up more shifts and convince myself that working hard enough would eventually make the numbers agree.
I still remembered the month I chose rent over another consultation.
Whether it would have changed anything was a question I couldn't answer. I had spent two years treating it as though I could.
Throne of Ruin had been easier.
A failed route showed you where you went wrong. Reload. Buy the item. Arrive earlier. Choose another line.
Even when the game was unfair, it stayed on the screen.
I glanced at the Duke's card.
That arrangement seemed to have ended.
I finished the soup, including the bland bits at the bottom, and took the bread to the desk.
By the time the servant returned, I had cleared a space beside the ink bottle.
"Is there a primer in my rooms?" I asked.
Her eyes moved toward the shelves.
"What sort, young master?"
I had nearly said basic.
An heir expected to possess D-rank power probably wasn't supposed to ask how any of it worked.
"Circulation. One of the older editions."
"I would need to ask the library attendant."
"Then ask. Bring the book, not the attendant."
"Yes, young master."
She gathered the empty dishes. A little tension left her face when she saw I had eaten.
Concern? Relief that the kitchen wouldn't be blamed? I couldn't tell.
The game gave household servants a few interchangeable lines. Complaints about Cedric, nervous answers, information that became available after the right choice.
Remembering those lines did nothing to explain why this woman checked whether I'd eaten the bread before taking the plate away.
I watched her leave.
Then I returned to the paper.
For now, I needed things I could measure.
How long before pain stopped me walking. Whether the ache changed after food. What happened when I drew on the cold beneath my ribs, and how to stop before I fell over.
Knowing the location of a hidden weapon wouldn't help if I couldn't reach the front door.
A book arrived before midday.
Its cover was worn along the lower edge. Someone had written a number inside and crossed it out when the volume moved to a different shelf.
Foundations of Aether Circulation.
I opened it.
The first diagram showed a seated figure with a line running through the chest, down both arms and back toward the center.
Underneath it, the instructions began with posture.
No legendary technique. No shortcut to restoring Cedric's strength. A description of how to sit without putting unnecessary strain on the body.
I looked at the comfortable chair. Then I moved to the floor.
If I had to start there, I would start there.
I wanted to be alive when I found the next answer.