[ Torvald ]
Last full day. The knowledge sat in my chest like a stone — not heavy enough to crush, just present enough to remind you that tomorrow you'd be back on a horse named Stamp riding into a desert that didn't have rivers or taverns or stairs.
I made the most of it.
Morning: market. The bread stall. My bread stall. The woman who ran it — Hetta, sixty, arms like a blacksmith, smile like somebody's favourite aunt — saw me coming from twenty paces.
"The big one!" she called. "Usual?"
I had a usual. After six days, I had a USUAL at a BREAD STALL. This was the peak of human achievement. This was what civilization was for.
"Usual," I confirmed. "And one for each of my—"
"Friends. I know. The small one, the sharp one, and the ghost."
"The ghost?"
"The girl who appears and disappears. She was here yesterday. Bought a roll. I didn't see her arrive or leave. She just… was, and then wasn't."
"That's Kess. She does that."
"She's either very talented or very haunted. Either way, she has good taste in bread."
Marten found me at the stall. He was carrying a bag — the letter to Kael, sealed and dispatched, plus a small package that he refused to explain. A souvenir, probably. For the bastard prince who had told him to bring stories instead of souvenirs, and who would receive both because Marten was the kind of person who followed instructions selectively and with creative interpretation.
"Last day," Marten said.
"Don't remind me."
"Tomorrow we ride back."
"I said DON'T REMIND ME."
"Stamp will be slow."
"Stamp is always slow. Stamp has been slow since birth. Stamp will be slow until death and then his ghost will be slow. Stamp has achieved a level of slowness that transcends the physical and enters the philosophical."
Marten laughed. I loved making Marten laugh. Not because the laughs were loud — they weren't. Marten's laughs were small, surprised things, the laughs of a boy who hadn't expected to find joy and who was still getting used to the fact that it kept arriving.
Dek appeared with spices. Three new bags. The spice merchant — who had apparently adopted Dek as a professional protégé over the course of six days — had given him a blend that he called "the grandmother special" and that Dek held with the specific reverence of a boy carrying a religious artifact.
"He adjusted it," Dek said. "The coriander ratio. He tried my grandmother's balance and he ADJUSTED it. He said — and I quote — 'your grandmother was right and I've been wrong for fifteen years.'"
"A merchant admitted he was wrong?"
"A merchant admitted my GRANDMOTHER was right. There's a difference. Nobody admits they're wrong. But everyone admits my grandmother was right, because my grandmother was always right, and denying this is like denying weather."
Kess materialised beside us. Torvald yelped. The bread stall woman crossed herself.
"Morning," Kess said.
"WHERE did you—"
"I walked."
"From WHERE?"
"Behind you."
"You were NOT behind me. I checked behind me. I SPECIFICALLY checked—"
"You checked left. I was right."
"That's — you can't — that's CHEATING."
"Awareness isn't cheating. It's survival."
"In the MARKET? What am I surviving in the MARKET?"
"Apparently not me."
Dek made a sound. I think it was a laugh. With Dek it was hard to tell.
We spent the day in the city. All four of us. Together, which was different from the individual wandering we'd done on previous days. Together meant compromises — Torvald's food schedule intersecting with Dek's spice research intersecting with Kess's mysterious errands intersecting with Marten's habit of stopping at random moments to watch ordinary people do ordinary things and finding it somehow fascinating.
We argued about which bridge was the best bridge. Torvald favoured the south bridge because it was near the River Bend. Dek favoured the north bridge because the stonework was older and his grandmother would have appreciated the craftsmanship. Marten favoured the middle bridge because it had the best view of the river. Kess had no opinion about bridges, which she expressed by walking across whichever one was nearest without participating in the debate.
We sat by the river. Watched the boats. Shared bread. Torvald told a story about his father's tannery that was funny and sad and true, the way the best stories were, and Dek told a story about his grandmother that was probably exaggerated and definitely embellished and absolutely real in all the ways that mattered.
Kess told no stories. But she sat with us, and the sitting was itself a story — the story of a girl who had spent eight months behind a wall and who was, slowly, in increments so small they were almost invisible, allowing the wall to have windows.
Marten was quiet. The good quiet — not the thinking quiet or the worried quiet but the specific, full, satisfied quiet of a person who was exactly where they wanted to be and who didn't need to perform happiness because the happiness was performing itself.
Last day. Tomorrow the desert.
But today the river. Today the bread. Today the four of us, sitting on a bridge that nobody agreed was the best bridge, watching the water go somewhere we'd never been.
Good enough. Better than good enough.
Perfect.