A weighted silence hung in the room.
Then Thom spoke. “What’s our timeline looking like?”
When everyone stared at him in confusion, he continued, “I mean, say Blountisheaded for the Terrae Relic first: How long would it take him to get there?”
Deckard shifted beside Evylin, his hand rubbing his jaw in thought. “The Alliance’s spies reported that he was headed to Carrickbrack to rally with his new men,” he reminded them. “How long would it take him to get there from Keale?”
Auden screwed up his face in thought. “Probably...five or six days, depending on his speed.”
“We should assume five, then,” Deckard said. “And what about the Mages coming to join him? How long will it take for them to arrive?”
“If he sent out letters yesterday after arriving at Renaul’s estate, then...” Auden’s lips moved as he calculated the time on his fingers.
Ilain reached over, setting her hand upon his. “If they’re coming from the Doorstunds, Sutterlund, and Verlund Reaches, they’ll be in Carrickbrack within a minimum of a week.”
“A week?” Thom huffed. “We can be back in Loclight in a week, right?”
Deckard pursed his lips. “Eh, that’s a bit generous. I’d say closer to nine or ten days.”
“Which is essentially a week,” Thom returned. “At which point, we’ll head down to Estshire, and we could make it there in twelve days tops.”
“But,” Deckard added, “we have to account for the days we’ll lose releasing Hewitt and any wasted time in Loclight.”
“Why would we spend any longer than a day in the city?” Vayden asked.
“Like I said, Ephren will want to meet with us. Wemaybe able to get out in two days, but what if he requires a longer debriefing or wants us to linger for some other reason? He could potentially cause us a serious delay.”
“We just tell him we’ve got to get a move on to get the rest of the Relics,” Rafferty offered.
“But he isn’t aware of any pressing timeline,” Deckard said. “And we can’t exactly tell him that we’re in a race with the Waulden heir when we’ve been lying, saying that everything is fine for the past two months.”
They all nodded.
“To be safe,” Deckard concluded, “we should allot two or three days in Loclight. Which puts us at an arrival in Olbury after an additional thirteen days of travel.”
“Which means,” Evylin realized, “three weeks and two days at the worst for us to retrieve both the Space and Terrae Relics.”
“Assuming we can even cross the border,” Deckard said. “Blount still has his writ out, remember? The Waulden border will be crawling with guards looking for us.”
“That’s not an issue,” Brea said suddenly.
The Ephrians looked at her, confused.
She smirked and glanced at the Calders. “We have a secret passage through the mountains, which is how we got our lovely friends into Ephria in the first place.”
“Right,” Deckard said.
Thom jumped back in without lingering on this revelation. “And how long will it take for Blount to get to Olbury from Carrickbrack?”
Auden turned to Ilain. “He’ll go to Virwoud first,” he said thoughtfully. “It’ll be the safest place in Ephria to restock before going into the countryside. And that will take him...”
“Nine days,” Ilain supplied.
“And then from there, it will only be—”
“Four days.”
“So all said and done, he is likely to arrive—”
