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“Yes, it’s possible,” Luna agreed, although she sounded doubtful.
“Do you think we should try approaching someone directly?” I asked as we neared the fountain at the center of the square. Whatever damage the feature had sustained during the storm had been expertly fixed, and several groups of people lingered around its enormous rim.
I eyed one of the groups whose members appeared around our age. One of the girls caught me looking and stared openly back. I was about to look away when her expression changed, her eyes going round.
She tugged at the arm of the boy beside her, saying something I couldn’t catch.
“We might want to move on,” I murmured nervously to Luna, but before we could do so, the girl called out loudly.
“Delphine? Luna?”
We both turned to stare at her as the entire group surged toward us. My eyes jumped from face to face until one of them triggered a memory, bringing the identities of all of them rushing to my mind.
“Oh!” I said. “From the hospital!”
The first girl laughed delightedly. “Don’t worry if you can’t remember our names. I don’t know if we even got introduced. But of course we couldn’t forget you—our own sleeping beauty.”
I winced, flushing painfully while Luna laughed.
“Have you graduated yet?” Luna asked the girl. “Weren’t you nearly finished with your apprenticeship last time we were here?”
The girl smiled. “Only ten more days!”
I frowned, confused by their familiarity, and Luna grinned in response. Prodding me lightly in the side with her elbow, she explained, “We worked together while you were slumbering, Hero.”
I winced again while the others all jumped in, clamoring to know if Amara was with me and what we’d been doing since our departure from the city.
We answered as evasively as we could, Luna turning off many of their inquiries with questions of her own about the hospital and their work there. She couldn’t shield me completely, however.
“Did you marry your prince?” one of the girls called from the back of the group, and most of them laughed.
I froze, remembering how they had exaggerated their own stories, making the tale more and more outlandish until they accidentally stumbled on the truth regarding Nik’s identity.
Luna jumped into the gap on my behalf. “Not yet,” she said breezily. “She’s been too busy single-handedly holding off an epidemic.”
I glared at her as the healing apprentices exclaimed among themselves. I didn’t need her spreading more false rumors about my exaggerated heroism.
She just grinned back at me, clearly unrepentant. But her expression changed as the first girl began to press us with questions.
“There’s been an epidemic? Where? We haven’t heard anything about that.”
Luna shot me a concerned look, recognizing her mistake.
“It wasn’t near here,” I said vaguely, and the girl looked relieved.
The boy next to her shook his head disgustedly, though. “An epidemic? If it’s not one thing, it’s another. The kingdom isn’t what it once was.”
My ears pricked up at his comments, and I tried to think how to keep him talking. But another boy jumped in immediately making any response from me unnecessary.
“Some days I think we really should just shut the gate completely,” he said, and several voices murmured agreement.
When I frowned, the first girl jumped in quickly. “Not against you, of course! You’re one of us now! The heroes of Eldrida will always be welcome in the city.”
The rest of the group murmured their agreement, and one of the boys generously added, “You, too, Luna. Everyone who helped us in the storm is welcome here. Those are our true friends.” The last was muttered with enough feeling to make me blurt out a question.
“What do you mean? Did some people not help?”
“Where was the capital when our city was being destroyed?” one of the girls said with feeling. “Not here, that’s for sure.”
