Page 72

Students leave the Academy in small groups through the southern gate. No one wears formal rank insignia. Jackets have been abandoned. Weapons remain behind. Even the Chief Wings Officers pass the gate without their silver markings. That surprises me more than anything.

Dax walks ahead with Soren, dressed in a plain dark shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows. For once, no one stops him to ask a question. Rhyven walks beside them. No officer's uniform. No visible weapon. Only black trousers, a dark shirt and the expression of a man who has already decided the evening contains too many people. A girl catches up beside him and loops one arm through his. He looks down at it. Then at her. She laughs and releases him before he says anything. He continues walking. No smile.

The village beneath the Academy is larger than it appears from the mountain. Narrow streets wind between stone buildings with brightly painted doors. Lanterns hang above bakeries, bookshops and crowded cafés. Students fill every corner, though the villagers barely look twice at them. Apparently Varethia flooding the streets every Friday is normal.

Cassian falls into step beside me. "You never came here before?" He asks.

"No."

"Caelen never brought you?"

I shake my head. "He was under strict instructions not to encourage me."

Cassian smiles. "And he listened?"

I smile too. "Selectively."

He nods. "Good."

There is ease between us now. Not the ease we had at sixteen. Something new. Built from the recognition that neither of us is asking the other to become who we were.

Nyra walks on my other side, pale hair catching the lantern light. She notices everything. The students slipping coins to street musicians. The Medusa woman selling carved charms from a narrow stall. The wolf children racing through the square while their mother shouts at them to avoid the fountain.

"This doesn't look secret," she says.

"It isn't," Cassian replies.

"The tokens?"

"Those are."

"Helpful." Nyra mutters.

"I'm practicing mystery."

She doesn't look convinced. "You're very good at being annoying."

His smile widens. "I've had excellent teachers."

I do not ask whether he means me. Dax waits outside the most ordinary shop in the village. A wooden sign hangs above the door. BRAM & ELSIE'S GENERAL GOODS. The windows display candles, tea, wool blankets, jars of ink and enough soap to supply the entire Academy.

Rowan stops. "This is it?"

Dax opens the door. "No."

He walks inside. We follow. The shop is nearly empty. An elderly human woman sits behind the counter knitting something shapeless from dark green wool. She does not look up as thirty students enter her store without purchasing anything. Shelves line every wall. Bread. Tea. Paper. Small tools. An older man stands on a ladder arranging jars of preserves.

"Token," he says. No greeting. Students drop their brass coins into a ceramic bowl beside the counter. The old woman inspects each face. Not the tokens. The people. When Rowan reaches the bowl, she places hers inside. The woman stops knitting. "Whose?"

Rowan hesitates. "Mine."

The woman looks at her. Rowan lasts three seconds. "Perrin Vale."

The old woman turns toward a second-year near the door. "Perrin."

He raises one hand reluctantly. "She took it." Perrin says.

"I earned it." Rowan argues.