The carriage was richly adorned and the seats were comfortable. Not as comfortable as the feather bed I had slept on while with the dusk elves, but not by much. It was spacious enough that we could all fit with only slight discomfort. I suspected that if Cecilia wasn’t in her armor we’d even fit comfortably. As the last to enter, I had been relegating to the open seat, which left me pressed against the carriage wall so to provide some distance between myself and Faith for propriety.

  I had only barely settled in when there was a crack, like sharp thunder or shardstorm in tone but much quieter in volume, and then the carriage lurched, carrying us away from the warehouse. Backwards.

  At which point I realized it would only be backwards to those of us on this side of the carriage. Lord Winthrop and Ignas would be looking forward. The novelty of seeing the world fade away and appear from behind me held my attention for a few moments until the curiosity faded and discomfort took its place. The process was just so different from how I normally engaged with the world, trying to follow and mentally reverse the images was not something I wanted to do right now. I turned to the quiet carriage to find Lord Winthrop staring at me with a curious eye.

  “Are,” he inquired with a dramatic pause where he leaned in conspiratorially, “we being followed?”

  I blinked and tried not to think about how uncomfortably close to my face the Lord was. I instinctively moved to lean back and create spacing, and immediately found a wall. I didn’t enjoy the sensation of being pressed into a corner, but I disliked letting a direct question go unanswered more. “No,” I managed. “At least, not that I can tell.”

  Lord Winthrop sat back at that looking gravely concerned, “Hrmm, yes. Yes. Still, I’d imagine they’d have to be very good to escape your notice.”

  “Oh, uh, thank you?” I said after a moment.

  “Of course,” Lord Winthrop enthused, “though, again, if there is any thanking to be done, it is by me to you. You have done a great service for me today. One I am appreciably thankful for. Still.” He let the word hang in the air heavily for a second. He clearly had some training to craft such pointed speeches, probably from an actor or one of, more likely given his wealth a bard’s college, to create such deliberately dramatic pauses.

  Wait… a bard’s … college? What even was a college? Where had I heard that word?

  Unconcerned for my confusion, he carried on, gesturing to me with a descending hand and ending with a flourish. “When I had heard that my warehouse had been beset by vagabonds, I feared the worst. Had I only known one of the Faithful was in attendance, I would have worried not.”

  The attention was uncomfortable, so I did my best to direct his elsewhere. “Oh, no. I’m not particularly faithful. You’d want to talk to one of them,” I said pointing to Faith at my side and then Ignas at his..

  “Ah, yes,” Lord Winthrop declared, “That’s right, you don’t care for that title personally.” He paused and leaned in again, smiling in satisfaction, “You prefer to be called, ‘Stalwart’, do you not?”

  “Um, no. I prefer to be called by my name.”

  His face fell for but a moment before righting once again. “Ah, but of course. That would help with your cover. And you are?” he inquired, offering a hand with his palm upward.

  “Kara,” I responded, looking at the hand curiously. Thuvvik had taught me about shaking hands, but his arrangement was all wrong. Still, I made my best of it, and went to his shake his hand, gripping his hand sideways. However, his face was not what I expected. There was a concern. Not exaggerated stage concerned either. A natural and authentic concern.

  “Just Kara?” He asked, holding my hand gently, “No other name?”

  I shook my head, bringing the lie Thuvvik and I had worked on back to mind. “No, I grew up in an orphanage to the south. Never knew my father to receive a name.” Which wasn’t strictly untrue. I had been young when the fire took Father, maybe five winters or possibly six. Old enough to remember, but not old enough to do so well. The fact that Father, or Mother for that matter, were both commoners and thus without a family name even if I had known him just could be left unsaid.

  He blinked again, his hand lowering and taking mine with it before snapping back to the moment. “Ah, forgive me. It seems I made some fallacious assumptions.” He let my hand go and gave me a winsome, though slightly strained, smile. “Might we complete our introductions?”

  “The tone implies an insult,” Rin commented with an undercurrent of hostility that was I not used to from her. I didn’t quite share Rin’s anger, but I didn’t disagree with her assessment of Winthrop’s tone. Still, I didn’t know what the insult was about, so getting angry myself would be foolish. Taking the opportunity of his distraction to discretely pull my hand away, I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and gave him my best polite smile.

  “Introductions seem that they would be wise. As I said, I am Kara.”

  “With no surname, and no knowledge of your father,” he reiterated, though in an inquisitive tone. “Would you at least provide the village you hail from?”

  “Imardos,” I responded before remembering that the orphanage I hailed from was supposed to be in Tsuruga. The Academy and its surrounding villages didn’t have an orphanage.

  “Too late. Correcting yourself would be more suspicious. And besides, given the distance the odds he knows anything about the Wood is exceedingly unlikely.” She had a point, so sat back and continued to smile.

  “Kara of Imardos,” he said with a smile, “A pleasure.”

  There was a pause as I waited for the others to introduce themselves while Lord Winthrop looked on expectantly. Just before it started to get awkward, Faith discretely stepped on my foot. I spared them a glance out of the corner of my eye and saw them moving their hand in small circles, insisting I continue.

  I had no idea why I was expected to do the introductions, but if Faith was insisting I do so, I wasn’t about contradict them here. Keeping an eye on Faith’s hands for further instructions, I cleared my throat, and spun an excuse for the pause and began to point to my fellow Starborn in turn. “My apologies. It’s been a long day and my throat is dry. These are my compatriots. Ignas, the eldest of Warlord Merbren Mountain Breaker, Sergeant Cecilia Duskborn, Dorekilik of Northern Wrananalts, and…” I stumbled. Was the model number more appropriate, or the given name? I shook my head, these were just introductions. We could clarify later. “An android who goes by the name Faith.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Lord Winthrop nodded thoughtfully, looking at each of us again before carefully speaking, offering a hand to shake as he went. “Well, it is a pleasure to meet all of you. Though, if you’ll forgive the bluntness, how is it that you found yourselves so far from your homes? The Myrnwood isn’t an easy journey from what I understand, but Nethotam and Shivva are even harder.”

  Myrnwood? Rin and I asked in practical unison. I had to assume he meant my home given that they referred to the land as a whole as Myrnos. A small panic started to form that maybe I had underestimated Winthrop’s knowledge.

  “Feh,” Ignas snorted, distracting me from my thoughts, “Try coming from the Stone Teeth.”

  “Yes,” Lord Winthrop agreed amicably, “There too. The point being is that you’ve all come from very far away, unless I’ve very much missed my mark for the second time, and you all ended up together defending my warehouse of all places. How?”

  We all looked at each other at that, uncertain how exactly to explain. Revayne had been rather adamant about not drawing attention to ourselves, but she had also pointed us to Lord Winthrop. One by one, their looks all fell to me.

  Oh, endless abyss, why am I the one who has to explain?

  “Because you’re the one who has shown that they are willing to talk to outsiders, have done so well at least twice, AND are the one Winthrop has been talking to.”

  Well, that was a wonderfully logical set of reasons, but endless abyss, why was I the one who had to explain? I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut.

  “Whining is not becoming of a mage.”

  Sometimes, I really hated Rin.

  Nonetheless, with a heavy sigh and the building disappointment of inevitability, I reached up and pulled my tunic’s neck aside, revealing the row of stars on my collarbone.

  Lord Winthrop’s eyes widened and his voice fell. “Ah,” he whispered, “That would explain some things.”

  ************************************************************************************************************

  The rest of the, thankfully short, carriage ride was mostly done in silence as our host spent his time processing the information. When the carriage finally stopped, we all climbed out and he went into the house without another word. The driver apologized for his Lord and explained that a servant would be down to fetch us shortly, leaving us standing awkwardly in the middle of a large stone patio in front of a house that made the Academy look small. I tried my hardest not to just stare at, well everything, in awe and was failing. The green grounds surrounding the building could have easily fit my entire village inside it, albeit rearranged and was fenced off from the nearby streets and buildings with solid metal beams instead of wood. There was more metal and wealth that I could see from where I stood than had seen in my entire life prior to leaving the Wood. Materially at least. Factoring the scrolls in the library and the comparison might be…

  “I think that went well,” Dorekilik said, interrupting my musings.

  “What makes you think that?” Cecilia responded.

  “Well, for first he didn’t kick us out and is still offering dinner.”

  “Smells like trap,” Ignas said.

  That drew my attention. I fought the urge to sniff and try finding what Ignas was smelling and instead quietly asked, “Trap?” Rin’s voice echoed in my head, nearly in unison with my own, but thankfully that was only for me to hear.

  Ignas started to point around, first to the house, then the open expanse, and finally the street. “Isolated area they have notable control over, removed from potential witnesses or allies by both distance and physical barriers. Perfect area for a trap.”

  Ah, so not a literal smell, just an idiom that I hadn’t heard yet and Thuvvik never taught me. Rin’s ruminations about Ousanos Scorchbeak sprung back to mind.

  “You’re just being paranoid,” Faith chided him, “He invited us back here as guests. I don’t know how you savages do it, but the guest right is pretty important among nobles.”

  Ignas bristled and hands splayed, bringing their claws to bear. “Savages? He one who say us guests but not offer hospitality. And remind me, who fired first during the Dan’Ut wars?”

  Faith’s hand went to their weapon, “Remind me, what was the peace offering you all gave at the start of the Enelian Conference?”

  Oh, merciless spiders, not now. Putting on my best chastising face, I stepped forward. “Is this an appropriate time or place for this? We are guests and neither of you are acting like it.”

  There was a moment where I worried they would try to attack each other, whether or not I was between them before both turned and skulked away.

  “Ah, ahem, Madam,” came a voice to my left. Oh no.

  I turned, and found a very scared looking man standing at the door. He wore a nice suit, but was far thinner than Winthrop, and based on his face, he had just seen everything. I was ashamed, not for myself, but rather that two of the people I was willingly associating with had gotten so improper in public. It was a new shame to me, and I was suddenly grateful that Kyomi was both so well behaved and also younger than me, where such behavior was easier to excuse.

  “Yes,” I said as politely as I could.

  “If you’d follow me, your rooms are ready.”

  I nodded, not certain what to say, and slowly we followed after him. I made a point of making sure that Ignas went through the door first and when I went to put myself between him and Faith, was pleasantly surprised to find Cecilia doing the same.

  “Thanks,” I said quietly.

  She nodded back and then we carried on, following the clearly uncomfortable man.

  We were shown to the guest wing, or one of the guest wings as it was explained to me, where there were five rooms. We were told we’d have our choice of rooms and that a servant could be assigned to them if desired. I thanked the man for his assistance and made no effort to stop him from hurrying away, keeping his eyes on Faith and Ignas the entire while.

  Thankfully, they were pointedly not looking at each other and seemed quite amenable to being led to room as far apart as we could imagine. Ignas took the first room on the left while Faith took the one at the end of the hall. The rest of us took a moment to inspect the rooms, with Cecilia and taking the simplest of the remaining three. Of the two that remained, one was decorated in deep greens and the other in ocean blues, but neither appealed to Dorekilik or myself. Unable to decide, and uncaring, Dorekilik took a coin from his pouch, flipped it, and then took the blue room, leaving me with the green room between him and Faith. I smiled, said goodbye and then shut myself into the green room.

  Immediately, I removed my boots, loosened my binder, dropped my pack. The bed was a few steps to the door, but I managed to make it across the room before collapsing into the bed, taking that nap I had needed since we finished our fight.