The road, Wit finds, is far noisier than she's used to with company. The sorts she bandies about with tend to be more taciturn. Mercenary, even.
In contrast, both of her new companions are full of things to say—even Tear, surprisingly enough, though mostly in relation to Luke's unparalleled verbal output.
Her eyes drift to the side and she smiles wryly. Luke is full of questions. He asks some of them. He thinks he doesn't ask most of them, but his habit of mumbling to himself while writing in his journal is not exactly conducive to secrecy.
Tear, on the other hand, spends a great deal of time lost in thought when she's not being provoked by Luke. On occasion, she'll look at him with an absent frown and stare into the distance; at other times, she'll stare at her feet as she walks, silent and troubled.
That state of affairs, of course, discounts all their many and varied arguments—the ones that spring out of what sounds like a mutual misunderstanding and disdain.
She's still not quite sure about the particulars of what, exactly, happened between them, or why Luke fon Fabre seems to be among the most clueless members of the upper crust in Baticul, but what's clear to see is that it irks Tear like no other, and Luke isn't so much disdainful of her personally as he is what she apparently tried to do to a man named Van. He only brings it (and his apparent apprenticeship to the man) up at every possible opportunity, which has her incredibly curious, because Wit only knows of one man with that name who could possibly move about freely in the nobles' levels in Baticul. If it's the same Van she'd seen fight off successive waves of monsters in Engeve a month ago, well, her life is certainly getting interesting.
Tear, if Luke is to be believed, tried to kill Commandant Van Grants, leader of the Oracle Knights.
Well, then. Something big really is going on in the world if someone so clearly situated in the Grand Maestro's faction decided to take legitimate action against the man with the most power in the Order—but why Tear, who wears the robes of a Melodist and wields the staff of a Locrian Sergeant? What could drive her to make such a suicidal move?
Wit considers this as she sips her coffee and watches Tear teach Luke how to recognize when an arte is being cast. The innkeeper had raised an eyebrow when she'd asked if there was a flat, relatively clear field anywhere nearby, but had let them use the inn's yard regardless. Passerby keep giving the three of them curious glances. Some of the children of the village had been watching earlier, but Luke had gotten embarrassed and threw a bit of a fit, scaring them off. He's calmer now, but not by much.
"Luke, listen," Tear says, frustration crossing her face. "I'm trying to help you. If you learn this, you can heal yourself and us the next time we tangle with a monster like the one in the woods."
"I still shouldn't have to," Luke mutters, kicking the ground with his foot. He hasn't been able to draw fonons in with the efficiency a boy his age should be capable of; to Wit's eyes, it's almost like he's hardly used his fon slots. Strange, considering that he's apparently a seventh fonist and the Order highly encourages the training of all seventh fonists regardless of membership status. Surely things can't be that different in Baticul's upper levels. "It's stupid. I don't need it."
"Very well. Think of it like this: even if you don't need it, we might. What happens when you're the only one left standing on the battlefield, Luke? Things happen. Battle is chaos. Even the best soldier is going to get dropped sometimes, and when that happens, they need to have someone on their side who can heal them—if not revive them." Tear crosses her arms. Her spine is a rigid line of tension and her lips are pulled taut with annoyance.
Wit finds her level of tolerance impressive. Luke looks at her with wide eyes, dumbstruck by the sudden severity and danger in her voice.
"If you want to be angry at the world, do so on your own time," Wit contributes, doing her level best to keep her face and her voice neutral. "Selfishness has no place in combat. Get us killed by being unable to help when we need it and you'll have to find your way back to Baticul yourself."
Luke looks horrified. Wit finds herself frowning. He is only a boy, after all, and he's a soft, untested boy who's never had to do a thing for himself in his life. As far as she knows.
That, she thinks, is the key. As far as she knows. All the signs point to it, but all the signs also point to his complete lack of consideration for others having a deeper root than mere complacence. Who knows? The fon Fabre family was known for its warriors, last she checked, but the status quo as far as they're concerned doesn't seem to have held true for the current generation. While Luke certainly has potential, he is deeply lacking in finesse of any sort.
"…Exactly. You don't have to fight, if you can't take it. We're capable of protecting you. But soldiers can't allow for liabilities. So, what will you do?" Tear asks.
Luke is silent for a long while.
"…I'll fight," he says eventually, looking at both of them with an earnest expression that Wit hasn't seen on his face before. His fingers twitch toward his hair; he stills them by curling them into fists. "I won't be a burden. I'll learn this. Just tell me what I need to do."
After a tense moment, Tear nods. "Alright. First, you need to understand that seventh fonons are incredibly important because they make up the building blocks of life…"
Two more days until they reach Chesedonia. Wit stares into the dark liquid in her cup, thoughts bent on the shadows, the green-haired boy among the passerby she'd pointedly ignored earlier, and the double-take he'd done when he'd seen Luke.
I have a bad feeling about this, she thinks, and glances up. Despite his best efforts, Luke's face has already gone vacant.
…Called it.
The setting sun casts the plains on either side of the road in fierce shades of golden reds and oranges, and the grass stretches out in the wind blowing in from the desert on the other side of Chesedonia, painted a dull sienna by dust and the darkening sky. Wit glances out to the left, where the horizon sits just above the cliff line, and smiles. The ocean stands tall in the distance—indomitable as ever. From the road, it's impossible to tell how choppy the waves are.
A shame, she thinks, turning back to the path ahead of them. I would've liked to see how rough the water is before we set out from the port.
"Is that the ocean?" Luke asks, having followed her line of sight. "It looks… different. From Baticul, I mean," he adds, a tad too quickly.
"You think so?" She nods in the direction of Chesedonia, where dark shapes are visible in the waters. "Might be the way the city looks. The port is in the lower areas over there. We'll probably find an inn and rest for the night, restock on supplies in the morning, and find a ship to Baticul after that. It'll be nice to get a bit of a break from all the fighting."
"It will, yes," Tear says. She had bowed to the need to escape the heat at about noon and pulled her hair up into a ponytail; more of her face is visible, revealing the clear blue of both her eyes and the exhaustion in them.
Luke glances at Tear. He doesn't seem to notice anything amiss. "I thought you liked fighting."
"I'm a soldier. Fighting is my duty… I don't necessarily enjoy it," is all Tear says with a shrug of the shoulders, weary from both the long day and the many, many times she'd been forced to sing what Wit suspects is a Yulian fonic hymn.
Even the monsters have been uneasy about the world lately. There's little else to explain the skittishness and the odd behavior that's been present in so many of their encounters with them on the road-monsters that she's never seen outside of a pack, like the chimeraelings usually found north of Engeve, were practically throwing themselves into battle on the road south out of Port Tatarise. It had gotten Luke a crash course in the effects of mild poisons, but to see chimeraelings so far out of their natural habitat on their own? Unheard of.
Luke kind of humphs, unimpressed, and turns back to the road. "What sort of city is Chesedonia, anyways? It looks dirty, except for that shiny place over there."
"That'd be Aston's mansion," Wit says. "He's a merchant. He made Chesedonia what it is today… a successful city-state sponsored by the Order of Lorelei. The city is the center for most of the world's trade because of its independence, and there are many ways to disappear into its depths, if need be."
"Huh? That sounds creepy!" Luke's expression is almost comical. He looks at the city with new eyes. "I could disappear in there?"
"I wouldn't recommend trying it," Wit warns with a little smile. The implication earns her a scowl.
Tear nods, looking thoughtful. "In the course of my studies, I've been told that it's rough going. The ones who would help you do that don't take too kindly to nobles of any sort, thanks to a minor diplomatic spat that happened a few years ago. Something about a Malkuthian nobleman and a Kimlascan lady?"
"The nobleman's son was actually Kimlascan," Wit comments. "The story always gets mixed up. According to a friend of mine who was there at the time, they fell in love, to the displeasure of their respective communities. The son got himself killed in a local fight for her honor."
Tear hums in acknowledgment of the new information. She pauses, then forges ahead. "And… the girl?"
"She lived, but she moved to Malkuth at some point afterward. Last I knew, anyways. Regardless of the exact facts, the way the boy's father handled the situation was… less than tactful. It took a representative from the Order of Lorelei and a reading of the Score to calm him down and keep him from trying to take action against the girl, and the community had a rough time of it while those proceedings were going on. They had far more attention than they wanted."
"That's all too complicated, and they sound stupid anyways," Luke says dismissively. "I just want to get to an inn and sleep already…"
Wit and Tear exchange an exceedingly dry glance. "Give it time," Wit advises, not quite able to prevent a hint of sarcasm from leaking into her tone.
Tear reaches back and adjusts her ponytail. "We have to keep walking to get there."
"I know that! What do you think I am—stupid?" Luke asks with a profound look of derision. He starts moving ahead of the two women. "Come on. If we walk faster, we'll get to an inn faster, right?"
"Sure," Wit decides. Tear quietly shakes her head.
Fon Master Ion may look like a stiff breeze could and would blow him over in the wind, but when it comes down to it, he's one of the most determined people Guy has ever met.
It'd been a strange set of circumstances that had led to the meeting itself, really, which seems only fitting—it isn't every day your dumbass friend teleports himself halfway across the world and you get sent to retrieve him, like he's some sort of lost pet.
Guy catches himself in the thought—hey, it's not quite like that, he reminds himself, striding from the village gates as the Fon Master trots beside him. Luke was going to be out of the mansion in a few years anyways, and I put that sort of bitterness aside for his sake.
Even if I still wanted it, holding onto it wouldn't help. 'You can't move forward if you keep looking back', right?
He knows that now, though a few years ago, he wouldn't have seen the point. But bitter or not bitter, he'd still been sent to retrieve Luke, so off he'd gone to where Van had suspected the hyper-resonance (damn the uncertainty Van had tried to convince him he had, Guy's done enough reading to know what a hyper-resonance is supposed to look like—and also known him long enough to tell when he's lying through his teeth) had taken him and Mystearica. He's heard stories about her for years, but that day in the manor was the first time he actually saw her.
What a meeting, he thinks dryly.
There was nothing in Tataroo Valley to suggest that Luke had been around, which was disappointing with how much effort Guy had put into getting there quickly.
It just... felt a little uncool.
Luckily, his visit to the local port across from the valley had revealed that yes, there was a strange red-headed boy with two companions who had come through, and yes, he was absolutely clueless until his companions—both women, one older, one younger—had informed him about the basics of economic exchange.
Nobody knew where they were headed to, though a local doctor guessed that they'd be going to Baticul. Apparently she knew the older woman. Nice, quiet, saved her daughter a while back.
"Your friend is in good hands," the woman told him, a smile in her golden eyes. "Wit tries hard to live up to her words."
Who names their child 'Wit'? Guy wondered to himself. The thought immediately reminded him of Luke, who would totally ask something like that and piss the wrong person off, so he thanked her for the information and absconded.
He ultimately decided to try to catch a coach to Chesedonia… and that was when Ion had quite literally tumbled into him, taking them both down.
"Guy?" Ion says, drawing his attention. Ion looks down. "My apologies for forcing you to take the long road. I know you were planning to take a coach when I ran into you…"
Man, kids these days. Guy smiles and shakes his head. "No worries, Ion, though I appreciate the thought. I was free to refuse Jade's offer. I didn't refuse because as far as I can tell, you're right. It would be worse if my friend got himself tangled up in all this business before I found him, and I've got a feeling that he's headed for the same place we are, you know? He wouldn't know where else to go."
"Your friend sounds like a very interesting person," Ion says, smiling, and there's something about him that tells Guy that he actually means it.
Guy hums a bit, feeling more optimistic about the journey that seems to lie ahead all of them. If Luke has more than one person he can get along with, it'll be much less of a pain to travel with him. "Well, interesting is one word for it… hey, let me know if you get tired, okay? I'm more than capable of carrying you."
"Oh, I don't want to be more of a bother," Ion insists.
"You're not a bother. I decided to help you of my own free will, remember? There's no need to try and be cool." It's a gentle needling, but Ion's face goes a little pink anyways. Poor kid isn't Luke by any means. Makes sense. Since he's the Fon Master and all, he's probably not used to a bit of good-natured ribbing. "Everyone is made differently; we all have different strengths. The kind of power you wield doesn't need a sword to be effective, and personally, I think that's pretty valuable itself. It may not be much, coming from someone you just met, but that's how I see it."
His words seem to get through to Ion; his head tilts as he absorbs the information, and the tight smile gentles into something a little less embarrassed. "Thank you, Guy," Ion says eventually. "You're very kind."
Sometimes, when people say things like that, Guy wonders what they'd think of him if they knew what he'd done as a young, angry teen. "Hey, don't worry about it. Let's see how far we can get today, alright? When I was in Chesedonia last, I heard that a sandstorm was going to hit. It wouldn't be fun to get caught up in that."
At that, Ion frowns. "That's odd. I hadn't heard anything about it in the cathedral…"
"Oh? Maybe it's the Planet Storm again," Guy says, tone light, glancing up at the sky. It's a clear blue as far as the eye can see, with the fonstones floating faintly in the atmosphere, the sun shining brightly overhead, and absolutely nothing to indicate that there'll be inclement weather any time soon. Part of that is that they're still a ways away from Chesedonia (the ocean isn't even in view yet), but the other part… Pere's kept his ear to the ground in their time in service to the Fabre household, and when Guy had left, the last news from their old friends was that the Order was dispatching research teams not only across Auldrant, but specifically to the Absorption and Radiation Gates. "Hasn't it been acting a little funny recently? There's been some out-of-season storms in Baticul, the past few months."
"Perhaps that's it," Ion murmurs, shifting the staff of his office from his right hand to his left. He seems troubled.
Guy finds that he can't blame him.
"A storm, a sandstorm… what's the difference?" Wit asks a shadow in the alleyway next to the inn, mindful of the way that the sky has begun to darken to brown instead of the orange of a desert evening. She shakes her head. "I'd leave soon, if I were you. There won't be much room for dancing, not with this sandstorm." Her hand tightens on the nondescript letter in her pocket. "Or with the storm of Knights that's come through recently."
Laughter sounds from the shadows, low and smooth. "My, are you worried about us, dear Wit? You might've made quite the Knight yourself; you're looking quite handsome right now, you know."
"I'm just keeping it short for convenience," Wit says, rolling her eyes at the pointed glance in the direction of her hair. She resists the urge to finger the choppy brown strands at her neck. There's no point in adding fuel to the fire. The woman she's talking to has a penchant for teasing the unwary, and Wit's walked into enough of her verbal traps to know very well what will come if she gives in to the bait offered. Noir's running theory has always been something along the lines of well, if you're going to call yourself Wit, you might as well be deserving of the name, hon.
Nosy, nosy. She's not one of Noir's flock, not really. Not in the ways that matter.
"That so? It suits you. Grim… mysterious… you'll break someone's heart if you're not careful." Noir smiles at the way Wit shifts. "It's nice to see you like that sometimes. You're too serious, you know? Kinda like someone else I know…" A beat passes. Wit does her best not to react. Noir sighs and shakes her head. "I'll be seeing you later, hon. Same time?"
She nods. "Thank you, Noir. I appreciate it."
"Appreciate it by coming by and playing with the kids again sometime," Noir tosses back at her, already sashaying down the alleyway to where York and Urushi are waiting. "They miss you."
"I'll think about it," Wit calls after her. "I've got a feeling I won't have time for a while…"
"Excuses, excuses."
With that, the Dark Wings fade into the shadows, leaving Wit standing alone, staring into the alley, a letter in her hand and foreboding in her heart.
"Wit?"
The voice comes from behind. She turns and her heart nearly seizes in her chest.
"Oh, good," says the green-haired boy from the village, leaning heavily on his staff. His very ornate, official-looking staff that confirms all the suspicions she had the last time she saw him. He looks winded, and for a moment a bizarre thought strikes her—surely he couldn't have run the whole way here?—before it's swept away in the ensuing flood of alarm bells ringing in her mind. "That is your name. I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but your friends wanted you to come inside before the storm hits. I volunteered to come get you…" He trails off and coughs, covering it with his arm.
He pulls away too quickly for her to be sure, but she thinks she sees flecks of red.
"Sure," Wit says, a tad bewildered and privately more than a little suspicious as she tucks her letter away. Even if he is staying incognito in the same inn you're staying in, you don't just tell the Fon Master, religious authority of all the known world, to fetch a companion. But here Ion stands with a gentle smile, waiting for her to come in, and niceties get you further in life than bared teeth. Doing her best not to let the panic in her veins show on her face, she bows her head lightly. "My apologies… may I ask what your name is?"
"Ion," he says. Smiles again, like the name itself doesn't resonate with fonons and whispers of foundations and secrets.
"Ion, then. Nice to meet you. I have to admit, I'm a tad curious… Might I ask why you volunteered?"
"Well, you see… your friends are having a little argument…" Watching him, she thinks his smile grows a little strained. It's gone too quickly for her to be sure. He's good. "I tried to calm them down, but it seems the matter can only be solved with advice from someone much older than I. They did want you to come inside because of the storm, but I thought maybe you could also help, ah, resolve the issue. I don't think they'll listen to anything I have to say like this."
"Ah… that again. My apologies." Wit sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. She can already see what must've happened: Luke said something insensitive to Tear, who gave him a dry look and a reprimand. Luke got offended over her correction and quickly descended into lobbying personal accusations at Tear, who would have at first tried to let it go but ultimately let herself be provoked to a response when Luke started in on what Wit is now sure is the account of how they ended up transported halfway across the world from Baticul. Luke just can't let it go, it seems.
"They're very interesting," Ion says, rather diplomatically.
Wit's smile is wry as she holds the door open for him. "That's one word for it."
"So…"
"So," Guy says, sitting backwards on the lone chair in Luke's room. With only lamplight and dim brown outside to light the room, it's hard to tell if there's any real color to the wood at all—the varnish is some sort of indiscriminate dark brown. The bog-standard maple-colored varnish he's seen in carpentry workshops, if he had to guess. He knows this because he's been sitting here for the past five minutes, waiting for Luke to finish up with his lesson.
His lesson on fonic artes.
Hmm.
Guy tilts his head. They've only been back in each other's company for a day or so, stuck in the inn as the sandstorm hit overnight, but they've only been aware that they booked the same inn for about eight hours. In that time, Luke has managed to start three arguments and throw one hissy fit. "Had fun on your little adventure?"
Luke scowls up at the ceiling and uncrosses his arms from behind his head in order to cross them over his chest.
Tantrum incoming, Guy thinks, bracing himself. Luke's scowl isn't an uncommon sight around the manor, but there's an angry light in his eyes and a shadow beneath his frown that belies the stress of the bewildering journey he's had so far. He stopped feeling sorry about Luke's idiosyncrasies long ago, but this is a little bit more than the natural consequences of Luke being obnoxious coming back to bite him in the ass.
"This whole thing has been terrible! Two weird women with brown hair boss me around from the middle of nowhere to halfway to somewhere. One tried to kill Master Van and the other is quiet and weird and gives you this look when you voice your opinion like you've just kicked her dog or something! Nobody gives you a straight explanation! I'm tired and sore and my whole body hurts, except it's not just my body but my mind, and I'm still having those damn headaches…"
"Really?" Guy asks, taking care not to appear too sharp, too interested. Van had mentioned once, offhandedly, that there would be side effects from the procedure—what side effects exactly he'd never bothered to mention, and Guy hadn't ever been able to find an answer, despite wondering at some of the things that happened when he'd been caring for the newly-returned Luke. Like his eyes flashing gold, for one.
He still wonders about that, but he kind of hopes he never finds the answer. That's one of the freakier memories he can recall.
"Yeah." Luke rubs his knuckles into the furrow between his brows. He sighs, all the anger and edgy irritation seeming to drain right out of him, leaving behind a very young, very exhausted teenager. "Man… this is lame. I want to get back home already…"
"Well, you can't do much about a sandstorm," Guy points out with a shrug. "Even with the Planet Storm, you can't control the weather. Think of it like how the out-of-house maids can't make it to the manor on typhoon days. They're always back when the typhoon is over, you know?"
"I should be able to go back now. This shouldn't have happened in the first place," Luke grumbles, but he's tired enough that there's only a little bit of heat in it. He's struggling not to drift off.
Guy stands. "I should let you sleep, huh? You've had a long few weeks."
To his surprise, Luke shakes his head and sits up. "Nah… stay for a while. No stuffy old guy's here to kick you out."
Huh. Now there's something that almost sounds like sentiment. It seems like Luke has already started to change, even if he hasn't noticed. Guy sits back down and sends Luke a quick smile, and even though the kid doesn't exactly return it, the fainthearted half-smirk definitely counts as an effort considering the mood he's in.
"Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you tell me what you've seen so far?" Guy suggests, resisting the urge to just lean his head on his arms and take a nap himself. It's been a long few days, and it's been a very long time since Guy traveled anywhere. The stress on his body seems determined to manifest now, but it'd be better if he could just keep smiling, both to calm Luke down and to put everyone else at ease. It's not easy being stuck inside any one place for a couple of days—
Oh. Oh.
That's pretty damn ironic, he thinks. "Stuck inside any one place"—like Luke has always been stuck in the manor.
That can't be helping the situation.
Luke frowns. "Can't you just read it all in my journal like you always do?"
"Let's just say I'd prefer to hear it, not read it. It's been a while, you know." Guy keeps his smile firm. He doesn't relish going through Luke's personal thoughts in order to figure out whether he's going to have a relapse, if because he knows that a relapse is quite literally impossible, but Luke's nonchalance about it sends a little sliver of guilt straight into his heart. Kids shouldn't have to be required to record their days for later psychological examination.
"Eh… Whatever. It's a pain, but I'll do it."
Guy resists the urge to raise his eyebrows at the easy compliance. Even he's never fully safe from Luke's quick temper. "Well, let's hear it. Or are you planning to fall asleep in the middle of the day?"
"Bah, it wouldn't change anything. Alright. So it started that day, right before you came to visit me…"
It takes five minutes of staring at the unopened letter before she actually manages to convince herself to break the seal on it.
This is ridiculous, Wit thinks, eyes flicking to the dwindling candlelight and Tear's inert form on the bed opposite hers. It's just a letter.
A very useful letter, but a piece of paper nonetheless. It only determines the next step—nothing big, not really…
The edges of her mouth curl at that. Nothing terribly important. Right.
Still, she finds that she can admit (at least to herself) that the truth of the matter is less that the letter is going to change her course for at least the next six months and more that she'll have to sit in this inn with a bratty noble, a certified Melodist who apparently tried to kill the Commandant, a gynophobic man, and the bloody Fon Master of the Order of Lorelei for the next few days without being able to do anything about the information contained in the letter.
She isn't sure what's worse for her health: being stuck in a building with the Fon Master or being stuck in a building with Luke fon Fabre. It naturally follows that she would end up stuck in a building with both of them.
Tear shifts in her sleep, murmuring incoherent nothings that hover just below hearing level. Wit stares at the letter some more, debating the merits of singing the edges with the candle.
Just open it, she tells herself, tired of building it up in her head. With a swift motion she breaks the seal and draws the letter from the envelope; her eyes seize on the dear Wit that the letter starts with as if the phrase, normal as it is, will answer all her questions in one fell stroke. An amused noise escapes her when she notices her own silliness. She stops, breathes in, and breathes out—one, two, three. Slowly, now. There you go.
"…Huh," she says out loud as she reads it, glad that Tear is a heavy sleeper. "Huh."
Aran Adami is a man with connections. She's known it for as long as she's worked for the man; for a simple blacksmith, he has a lot of friends who know things that aren't exactly common knowledge. The Dark Wings—Noir in particular—are prime examples of that.
Wit has never gotten an explanation for the exact nature of the Dark Wings' relation to Aran, but she's got her suspicions. Especially considering what little she knows of Aran's life before he settled in Baticul. A wandering adventurer, a soldier of fortune; such a romantic, noncommittal spin on such a long life can only hint at secrets important enough to be buried in the past he left behind.
Even with that in mind, though, this letter is… a bit much. Aran wants her to return to Baticul as quickly as she can to discuss the deals she's worked out with the smithy's customers and suppliers—but more important than the instructions and the remarks about old friends he wants her to meet is the message he's spelling out between the lines: the Order has officially declared its Fon Master missing and would very much like him back. The Commandant is searching even now, starting near the Malkuthian border, but a few God-Generals are caught up in some business near St. Binah.
Be careful, Aran warns her. Like it's easy to avoid entanglements with Oracle Knights.
And Ion just so happens to show up in Chesedonia with Luke's servant in tow, claiming he has a very important mission to fulfill and that he must go to Baticul. Wit sighs. Something is afoot; that much is evident. I've known that for long enough that it isn't surprising.
She frowns, setting the letter down on her lap and brushing her thumb over the scar below her lip. I guess it's more the confirmation. The Order is definitely experiencing internal strife over something that drove the Fon Master to, well, go rogue. Ion mentioned wanting to talk to the three of us about something in the morning, and apparently Luke's servant—Guy?—is already involved in some capacity. Ion's a nice boy, but more than that, he's looking more and more like a shrewd political leader… one who actually wants to use his power well. So maybe, just maybe…
The thought that begins to take shape in her mind shakes her to her core. She stares at the dimly-lit wall, beyond which Luke, Guy, and Ion sleep, and hears nothing but the beating of her heart and Tear's soft snores.
…I should go to bed, she decides, shaking her head. And see what the Fo—what Ion has to say in the morning. I'll decide based on that.
Even so, she stares at the wall for far too long before sleep finally takes her.
