LVI.

"Try to pretend just for a moment that I am a princess," Ashe said, but Balthier was not deterred.

"Try to pretend just for a moment that you're not." He nudged the cloak at her again. It was coarse and brown, and smelled like livestock. "We may have an arrangement, but that doesn't mean the city watch won't still stop us to keep up appearances."

"My name may be notorious," Ashe said, "but my face is not exactly far-known."

"She's got a point," Penelo added, and then turned to the princess. "I didn't even recognize you."

"I noticed."

The wheel of their carriage hit a bump then, and they all clung to the crates beneath them. It was a cargo wagon—covered, but cramped—the driver separated from them by only a ratty curtain, and everything around them rattled incessantly: gold candle sticks, silver cutlery, a few sacks of foreign currency, and several boxes that most likely contained jewels. "Tribute," Balthier had called it, but in truth it was plunder: a tax paid to Vayne by the pirates of Balfonheim port in exchange for their continued independence from the law.

"I still say you should have stayed behind," Balthier growled.

"I still say it's not going to happen," Ashe shot back, but she snatched up the cloak anyway and threw it over her shoulders, drawing up the hood.

It was well enough that they wouldn't be traveling on foot—to the city or in it. Though her "lovely little nose," as Balthier had called it, had not broken under the weight of Bergan's blow, both of her eyes had blackened below the lashes for the first two days of the journey down the mountain. She had held snow to it as Basch advised, minimizing the swelling—and sparing her much taunting from the others—and the bruises had nearly healed, but violet half-moons remained beneath her eyes, along with a noticeable red splotch across the bridge of her nose. It was enough to garner unwanted attention in a cultured city like Archades.

And she had to go—Balthier and Fran were professionals, but she couldn't trust either of them with the Dusk Shard. Nethicite—a literal gift of the gods, mythical and long-lost and now here, right in her hand. Imagine what such a weapon would do, unleashed in the center of Archades. Imagine how many would consider it naught but justice. But how would she even use it if she wanted to? Zecht had used it, and so had Ghis, albeit unintentionally, and both of them had paid with their lives. And at the temple—she had raised the blade to cut the shard, and the Mist had moved, shifted, brought her a vision as real as the man himself, right down to the lay of his hair, right down to the tiny lines at the corners of his mouth when he smiled, right down to the smile that was so small and so subtle as to be indistinguishable from his countenance at rest. She hadn't told anyone what she had seen—what she had felt—but all the same she kept the Midlight Shard near, tight against her, and hoped in some dark shadow beneath her thirst for justice that the Dusk Shard might offer a vision even more solid, more concrete.

But first they had to get into the city, and then they had to get into the lab. Balthier and Fran had succeeded easily in getting them into the country: avoiding or sneaking through every Imperial checkpoint along the way. They had let Penelo take the reins once or twice, the haphazard flight lessons providing more entertainment than the mere company of each other offered, but Ashe had spent much of the two-day journey in the cabin. The occasional hum of the stone—so similar in thought and presence to her name—wore on her patience, and as the strength of her woes began to grow and the shadow of the Empire began to darken, she found herself unable to entertain her comrades' antics for more than a few minutes at a time. When she slept, she dreamed of Rasler, and when she woke, Balthier let Basch update her on their progress, focusing instead on the fast-flying ocean beneath the Strahl, honey-eyed and solemn.

The nefarious Reddas did not greet them as Balthier assumed he would when they arrived at the port.

"Odd," he had told them after clearing their approach with the dock manager. "He seemed pretty keen on our business with Ghis when we left."

"Perhaps he's keeping to his own business," Fran had replied.

With the ship anchored, they had set out on foot, the boards of the dock rough but strangely solid beneath Ashe's boots. Balthier had made it clear—with some embellishment, she suspected—that the Strahl could not hope to elude the memory of the means by which he had first acquired it, but the princess had feared that the locals might pose as great a risk as the security of the royal city's aerodome. None of them seemed too interested in the new arrivals, however, too busy drinking, singing, and brawling, or else tending fervently to capers that they seemed just as pleased to leave undiscussed as Ashe was about her own. All the same, Basch walked tight at her side, the heat of his body radiating against her whenever a stranger passed too closely or a scuffle grew too loud.

Balthier led them to a wooden storefront with papered-up windows. The sign hanging slightly askew above the entrance called it a shipping company, but the façade offered no indication that the sign ought to be taken at its word. The interior was as nondescript as the exterior: a map on one wall, a pricing chart on the other, a nonchalant teenaged girl standing at a splintery counter, absorbed in a book and willing to draw her eyes up from it only briefly to recognize Fran and Balthier before waving them wordlessly toward the door at her back.

The loading station beyond was more lively, workers hauling crates and barrels in and out of caravans, oxen munching contentedly in a stable that stretched beyond the work floor. The foreman recognized Balthier immediately.

"Where the hell you been, boy?"

They bumped shoulders and slapped each other's backs.

"Oh, you know," Balthier told him. "The end of the world and back—a few times, actually."

"Fran!"

The man stretched out his arms for an embrace, but Fran gave him only a glare and a nod. "Jules."

And his hands fell limp, his arms hesitating and then drawing inward to his sides as he rocked back a step. "Always a pleasure."

"Is Reddas about?" Balthier asked.

"Afraid you just missed him. Got some big job going on."

"How big?"

"Big enough he didn't wanna share with any of us!"

It was all in Archadian, and Balthier glanced at Ashe as Jules spoke, but Ashe gazed back at him as placidly as she could. She wasn't sure whether or not he knew she spoke the language. She'd prefer he didn't.

"Look," he told Jules, "we're kind of in a hurry. We need to get to Draklor without drawing too much attention. I was hoping we could hitch on the weekly tribute."

"Looks like a lot of extra weight," Jules replied.

"We can pay, of course."

Basch stood close enough that his arm pressed against Ashelia's. Penelo had edged closer as well, but kept studying the area behind them. Ashe wondered if Basch had instructed her to keep watch on their backs, or if she had picked it up on her own.

"Who are your friends?" Jules asked.

"Clients," Balthier replied.

"And their business?"

"None of yours."

"Fair enough. But it'll be ten percent extra."

Ashe tried not to let her eyes widen when Balthier pulled out several Archadian bank notes.

"Business is so bad not even an old friend can catch a break?" he asked.

"Son, everything we steal goes to Vayne these days."

"Haven't I always said that arrangement is doomed to a bloody end?"

And so they ended up in the back of a cargo wagon, rattling and rumbling their way through the short stretch of countryside that separated them from Archades, Penelo staring out the slatted window at the hills that passed, Basch staring at Penelo as though no one else would notice. The foothills were green and gently rounded, the road well-worn, but also well-maintained. Archadia lent itself well to foliage of all types, its temperate weather varied enough over the course of the seasons to coax a wide array of flowers and trees out of its land, and with them the countless creatures they attracted.

But Ashe watched only for a few minutes before an odd sickness overtook her—a tightness to her stomach, an inexplicable heat within her head. Not motion sickness, surely—she'd faired too well on the Strahl. The land was similar to Nabradia, but she could not be homesick for a place that wasn't really home. It was disgust, she told herself: disgust for the country that had conquered hers. That settled her.

"What happened to the Rabanastre job?"

The driver was trying to chat up Balthier, and he had given in to responding when his own companions proved poor company.

"Let's just say it went decidedly downhill," he said.

And the driver straightened in her seat. "Alright," she said. "We're getting to the gates. Nothing personal." And she drew the curtain between them shut.

Penelo shifted on the crate beneath her, rising up onto her knees to face out the slats, fingertips fitted neatly into one long aperture. Basch smiled faintly—a dreamy, unconscious sort of smile.

"Wow," the girl cooed, then whipped her head around quickly to see that no one else was looking. "Princess, don't you want to see it?"

One corner of Ashe's mouth twitched upward in a poor attempt at optimism, but Penelo was already looking back through the cracks. "I've seen it already," she said.

"On your wedding tour," Balthier added. "Quite the peace parade. You wore blue, if memory serves."

Ashe blinked. "You saw me?"

And he huffed, smirking. "Everybody saw you. Granted, from a distance, and for about thirty seconds. Half the country assumed you'd take the opportunity to surrender before the war came to your front."

And her mouth tightened again—this time resisting a frown instead of attempting a smile.

Balthier continued: "You were there, too, weren't you, Captain?"

Basch had been roused from his latest staring session when Penelo had spoken, and had turned slightly to peer out the slats behind him. "Me and half an army's worth of security," he confirmed. "That tour was the closest Nabradia or Dalmasca ever came to invading the Empire."

"So I'm the only one who's never been here?" Penelo pouted.

The wagon rumbled to a halt, voices flitting beyond the front curtain.

"Only until we pass through those gates," Balthier told her.

She smiled, glancing through the cracks once more before settling back onto her crate. Shadows were passing outside, guards asking for shipping manifests, inspecting each wagon in the caravan.

They did not ask to inspect the cargo—if they had, the group would pass as loading workers; shipments from Balfonheim to Draklor received little attention on the Emperor's orders, and Ashe beamed at the thought of infiltrating the heart of Vayne's operations through his own back channel.

Her thoughts turned abruptly when the wagon jerked back into motion: "Is your exit plan as smooth as the entrance?"

Balthier gave her a glare that seemed more playful than perturbed. "Did you think I'd weasel us into this much trouble with planning an escape in advance?"

"Yes."

Basch made a huffing sound—biting back a laugh. Penelo had a similar response, but made no effort to hide it, and Fran—Fran, of all people, granted Ashelia a smile, and Ashe had to withhold her own surprise at having achieved such a rarity. Fran did not smile often, and when she did, it was only a mystifying smirk, usually accompanied by a wiggle of her tail. Her tail was out of view at the moment, but Ashe reveled in the triumph all the same.

"Well, as it happens," Balthier went on, "I do have a little something up my sleeve. I trust you won't complain about the smell when the time comes."

"It's the sewer, isn't it?" Ashe asked, and Balthier released a sigh, turning his gaze to the ceiling.

"It's the sewer."

Penelo rose to her knees once more as the shadow of the city gates passed. It was just past noon, and sunlight pierced every crack in the wagon's sides, but the girl squinted against the glare and watched on undaunted. Ashe, finally, turned and peered through the cracks.

White columns passed by through the slats of wood, clean cobblestone streets reflecting the sunlight in shades of lavender and indigo. The farther they passed into the city, the higher the storefronts stretched, and the busier the sidewalks grew. Glass doors shone with rising frequency, iron scrollwork adorning gates and window boxes, and everything was covered with flowers and vines, everything was covered with color.

The architecture conveyed the same refinement evident in the Archadian accent, everything tall and straight and gently arching at the peaks. Towering skyscrapers ornamented with rounded windows and finely scrolled balconies lined the main streets, seeming to raise gently on their shining shoulders a horizon laden with unending abundance. Their roofs adorned the clear sky, their windows alight with fluttering draperies and clear, gleaming panes. Sunlight glided down every surface in smooth lines, glowing behind the luminous silhouette of each building as though it rested there, at leisure along with the rest of the populace.

The streets were of course alight with the activity, but the citizens streamed at an unhurried pace, spaced apart from each other in twos and threes, the couples arm-in-arm, the children anchored to their parents' hands. It was an extravagantly quixotic culture, even the merchants well dressed, even the teenagers bowing and curtseying. And the Imperial Palace towered above all, gilt and glowing beneath the sun's rays. Ashe felt it like a shadow even as they passed by the university, even as they drew away from the bay it overlooked and toward the far end of the campus near the city's center.

Still, there was a beauty in the city's vastness, in the chatter of students they passed, the distant sounds of industry from the shipwrights' yards. It was a harbor city, while Rabanastre and Nabudis were both centered on rivers, and the smell of the water bore a different sort of freshness, but it nevertheless stirred memories that were best forgotten. The Midlight Shard buzzed in her pocket.

When she turned from the crack, she found that Balthier was looking out of it, eyes distant not in the far-reaching way they looked when fixed on the horizon, but in a misty and weighted way, a way that spoke of unrequited familiarity and an almost painful nearness. He must have felt her eyes on him, because he cast her a glance and then started, turned inward toward the crates of cargo, shifting on his seat.

"It's good to be home?" she asked.

"Something like that," he replied.

Penelo was still glued to her view, fingers gripping the plank. "I'm glad Larsa taught me some Archadian," she said. "I mean, I knew a little, but they've got bigger words than the soldiers ever used in Rabanastre."

"It's not an easy language to learn," said Basch.

"I hear Landisian is harder," Ashe replied.

He smiled. "I seem to remember you and Rasler trying."

"I seem to remember us failing."

"Dalmascan's more useful, anyway."

It was true. Dalmascan possessed its share of beautiful words, but its simplistic structure and practical minimalism left many of them unused in casual conversation. The language held the propensity for impressive precision, but one could speak it efficiently with only a small vocabulary.

And suddenly, she remembered: Basch had always called Rasler by the Landisian word for prince. Only to his face—never in the third person. She had forgotten it entirely, and had never asked either of them how the habit came about. Penelo spoke up before she could mention it:

"I had trouble picturing Larsa here. But it's not how I thought it would be."

"What were you expecting?" Balthier asked. "A dungeon?"

"Well," she replied, still looking out from the gap in the boards, "nobody from around here ever seemed all that happy."

Ashe smirked, and caught Basch doing the same.

"But I see it now," Penelo went on. "I see why Larsa doesn't want the Resistance to hurt this place."

"And Larsa gets what he wants," Balthier replied.

For the first time since they entered the city, Penelo turned her face from the window. She leveled a glare on Balthier, but when she spoke, her voice did not sound accusing: "Like this lab?"

Balthier folded his arms and crossed one leg over the other. "So Vayne would have his lord father think, while he was still running the show. The lower floors belong to the university, but everything from the fourth floor up is military. What Gramis wouldn't fund—" He gestured to the boxes and barrels around them. "—Vayne would. Though I can imagine the state coffers will soon be emptied now that Vayne has access to them."

Ashe leaned forward. "It can't be too difficult to infiltrate if students are allowed to come and go."

"Security increases every two floors," he said, "but that's not the problem. Guards are easy enough to get by once you're in, but the fortifications make finding entrances a bit tricky."

"Fortifications?" Ashe asked.

And Balthier took in a breath, hands dropping to the edges of the crate on which he sat. "The last slight glitch involving nethicite put out what Cid called 'sympathetic vibrations' and shattered every window for about six blocks in all directions. It was an excellent ploy to increase funding for toughening up the bulwarks—once the screaming stopped. One can only imagine the gods are well entertained."

"And the same protections that keep any danger contained," Ashe concluded, "also make it impenetrable from the outside."

He nodded. "Not so much as a vulnerable air vent. Three security checks at the front door, with more to reach the upper floors—and only one stairwell, in case you're wondering. And the loading bay, where we're going."

The wagon slowed to a stop, voices sounding outside once more—Imperial voices: soldiers.

"Where we are, by the sound of it," said Basch.

"Stay calm and try not to rush," Balthier told them. "They're used to unsavory types on the tribute wagons, but they know nervousness when they see it." He stood and gestured to the cargo again. "And we'll have to unload all this."

"Only polite?" Ashe asked.

He shrugged. "And I may have shorted Jules on our fare."