Chapter Two Hundred Fifty-Five: 'Thy bracing constitution...'

Hector had been a little disappointed to realize that Lord Abbas wasn't quite so enthused about the idea of a castle around the Forge as he was. He hadn't actually refused to help build it, but it was clear that he had reservations about it.

Yeah, it would be expensive. Like, obscenely so. And yeah, Abbas probably had a point when he said that the tree served as quite good camouflage and that constructing a giant fortress around it might actually draw more attention to it, not less. And okay, sure, he might've also been right when he said that they would never be able to build a castle that was strong enough to hold back an emperor who had set their sights on the Forge.

But they couldn't just leave it out here unprotected, either, right? It was sitting in a fucking tree. One stray lightning bolt, and the whole thing could go up in flames. He had a feeling that the Forge would survive such a blaze, but its camouflage would be gone, at the very least.

The Sunsmith's arguments did get Hector thinking, though. If the entire purpose of the castle was to protect the Forge, then he shouldn't just ignore those points, Hector felt. He should try to incorporate them into the castle's design, somehow.

And Lorent was full of trees, right? The Imara Forest covered nearly fifty percent of its land. And as skeptical as he had previously been regarding the functionality of Riverton, P.J.'s weird architecture, Hector had to admit that he was beginning to see it a new light now that he was imagining his own sneaky forest castle.

Maybe that had been the core logic behind building their capital here. Despite what a nightmare it must have been to clean up all the leaves and insulate all the buildings with trees growing out of them, the city probably would be pretty difficult to attack, wouldn't it?

Well, unless the enemy used fire, maybe.

Hmm. Come to think of it, he wondered what kind of fire prevention tech the Lorentians had. Maybe he should look into that.

It seemed like Hector was spending more and more time in P.J., lately--and that probably wasn't going to change anytime soon, he figured. He was bouncing back and forth between Warrenhold and Lorent on a daily basis. After telling the Lorentian Secretary of Defense about their lackluster border security, they'd been calling him up constantly, asking him to sit in on more meetings every day.

He tried to attend some, but they were pretty difficult to listen to, especially when he had so much other stuff on his mind. And it felt a little improper for him to even be there, at times, too. If the Secretary of Defense hadn't sounded so... well, desperate, then Hector probably would have politely refused altogether.

The people on the Lorentian Security Council obviously meant well. They wanted to keep their nation safe as best they could. But it also became increasingly clear to Hector that they were a bit overwhelmed by the war. They were constantly talking about trying to recruit more "superhuman soldiers" to their side--a sentiment which Hector didn't necessarily disagree with--but their strategies for actually doing so were a bit lacking, quite frankly.

They seemed to think it was purely a matter of money, that if diverted a large enough amount of government funds, they could hire pretty much anyone they wanted to protect the country. Which, by extension, meant that anyone opposing such an increase in funding was also opposing the safety of the nation.

Apparently, the reason they were under this impression was because, a few years ago, Lorent had a private security company on retainer called Greenworth.

A lesser known mercenary group who used servants, according to Garovel.

And according to Ravi Zaman, Greenworth had been involved in a number of national scandals, not the least of which was the sudden death of a politician. The details were disputed, however, with some claiming that Greenworth had actually been trying to save the man's life, not end it.

Hector wasn't sure what to make of that story. That story sounded pretty shady, but at the same time, he had personal experience with extremely bad publicity. Maybe these Greenworth guys really were innocent.

In any case, President Allen Dance's predecessor had very publicly pushed to outlaw such government contracts with private security companies, and Greenworth had since left the country. Several members of the Security Council wanted Dance to help reverse that decision so that they could either bring Greenworth back or hire a new company to fill their shoes.

For his part, Hector thought this all sounded like a terrible idea, but he could also appreciate how difficult of a situation the Lorentians were in. With the war so close, they wanted to take steps to help keep everyone safe.

His instinct was to not trust any mercenary group with servants in it. Because how were they supposed to be held accountable? If they were more powerful than the government's military, then who could possibly hold their feet to the fire if they broke their contract? And what about the reapers? The Security Council didn't seem to be aware of that wrinkle, but would reapers even care about money? It seemed more likely that they would have some other agenda.

He kept his opinion to himself, however, because this wasn't his area of expertise. He was well aware of how young he was, of how much experience he still lacked. He didn't exactly feel qualified to be telling these heads of state what to do. In fact, he still thought it was pretty weird that they even wanted him to be present for their discussions in the first place.

Garovel seemed to think this was a deliberate bit of political maneuvering on the Lorentians' part. Trying to get him personally invested in the defense of the nation or whatever.

And maybe the reaper was onto something.

More and more, Hector was getting a feel for how these government people operated. What they said they wanted was usually not what they actually wanted. There was more to every action that they tried to take.

It was impressive, in a way. And exhausting, in another.

Hector had enough on his plate already and didn't much care to get involved in their messy political games.

And yet he was. Undeniably. By accepting their land, he'd accepted their problems, too. At least partially. It would've been both irresponsible and delusional to think that he could simply ignore what as going on in the rest of Lorent and expect everything to be fine in the lower Jaga region.

So he tried his best to keep on top of things. He was beginning to think he would need a representative of his own in P.J. soon, too. Someone he could trust to handle most of these meetings in his stead and help him stay informed about what was happening in the capital.

Who that person might be, though... he currently had no idea. A Lorentian insider seemed like the most potent choice but maybe not reasonable one. He didn't really trust this government, so how was he supposed to trust someone who was already associated with it?

There was no need to rush, he supposed. Things were... mostly manageable, at the moment.

He'd been trying to conduct as many of his meetings outdoors as possible so that he could continue taking in P.J. while he was here. His insistence seemed to make a few of the officials uncomfortable, but rarely did any of them say anything.

Perhaps they were afraid of upsetting him. Or perhaps they were simply coming around to the idea that outdoor meetings beat the hell out of indoor ones. He hoped it was the latter, though Garovel didn't hesitate to remind how useful the prior could be.

Ravi Zaman was eager to show him more of the city during his stay, which Hector certainly didn't mind. It was Ambassador Stoutamire, however, who proved to be the most enthusiastic tour guide.

Stoutamire was often traveling, the man explained. He would not stop going on about how nice it was to finally be home for more than just a couple of weeks. He wanted to show Hector this historical building or that one--and to tell him the stories accompanying them all.

Hector tried to be polite and pay attention, but he felt like he wasn't going to retain any of it very well. Garovel could remember it for him, he figured.

If nothing else, though, it was clear that the guy loved his country. Which was probably an important quality in an ambassador, Hector figured. Couldn't really fault him for spirit.

But of course, Stoutamire's trivia was never the actual purpose of their meetings. The purpose was to maintain a steady line of communication between Atreya and Lorent, to help keep each other up to speed on what was going on in the world--or as much as they were willing to share, at least.

And to that end, Hector could not fault Stoutamire in the slightest. The guy was plenty eager to share information with him. The Lorentians had learned quite a bit about the situations in Melmoore and Hoss. They'd gathered a fair bit of intel about Sair, too, but nothing that Hector didn't already know--which was to be expected.

In Melmoore, despite having been invaded by both Corrico and Ostra, the tide was supposedly beginning to turn in favor of the defenders. A recent battle in some place called Trintol had gotten quite a bit of attention on the world stage. Apparently, the Melmoorians had whooped some serious ass there and then gone on to retake a large portion of the northern countryside from the Ostran forces.

After the disaster in Sair, that was welcome news indeed. There was no word yet about who among the Vanguard the victory was being attributed to, which seemed a little strange, but Hector couldn't complain.

As for Hoss, things were looking less great over there. Arida, one of the largest cities on the continent, had turned into a battleground, and civilian casualties were reportedly skyrocketing.

The fact that such reports were making it out at all, though, was a minor comfort. That alone meant that their situation still wasn't as bad as the one in Sair. But yeah, it was still pretty fucking worrying, especially because there were supposedly three Vanguardian marshals in Hoss, at the moment.

Garovel seemed to think that might be old news by now, though. It was quite possible that one or more of those marshals had left to provide reinforcements for Sair, which certainly needed them. If so, then the situation in Hoss was probably only going to get more intense from here.

When it came to reciprocating intel, however, Hector found himself reluctant. Stoutamire just sort of volunteered all this stuff, so Hector felt it would be improper if he didn't return the favor for the Lorentians, but still...

Sharing details gathered by the active teams in Callum and Vantalay was a big deal. He didn't want to say the wrong thing and potentially endanger them. Plus, all of this stuff was treading awfully close to sensitive information regarding the existence of reapers and how they fueled the strength of all those "superhuman soldiers" out there.

He was uncertain how much he should reveal.

Garovel wasn't, though. He didn't want Hector to say shit, other than the most vague things imaginable. "Sair is trying to regroup" or "the conflict is intensifying." Stuff like that.

Which was what Hector ended up doing. Maybe that was a little unfair to the Lorentians, but Hector saw the wisdom in Garovel's thinking. For the time being. Their government hadn't really earned that level of trust yet, he felt.

But he'd probably have to come to a clearer decision about that sooner or later, he figured.

As for the treasure hunting teams, they still hadn't made much headway, but the Vantalay team was able to tell him about one "John Wright," a.k.a. Donald Elias.

Hector had asked them to find out what they could about the man's status, but considering how busy they already were with keeping the residents of Miro safe, he hadn't been expecting much.

Donald Elias was an undercover operative of Atreya who used to work for Hanton Gaolanet. The Sparrow had asked King William to see about securing the man's release, but Hector, already having people in Vantalay, couldn't help being curious about him, too.

Plus, Hector kinda doubted that the King or Queen would be able to do much in this case. With Vantalay in the middle of a war that it instigated, that country probably wasn't going to be in the mood to negotiate with some tiny nation on the complete other side of the continent for a random prisoner.

But heck, maybe the Belgrants would prove him wrong. They'd certainly surprised him before.

In the meantime, though, he was interested to learn more about this spy that Hanton had talked up so much. From what the Vantalay team was able to gather, Donald was being held at a rather infamous prison deep in the heart of the country. If they were to mount a rescue, they said, then it would first mean a long and difficult trek through multiple heavily fortified locations.

Hector definitely hadn't intended to ask them to do that, but he appreciated their forward thinking. Hector wanted to be mindful of overstepping his bounds here. They were already playing with fire by having a team of wanted fugitives infiltrate the country. Having them attack a military installation and stage a daring rescue would've been seriously pushing it.

...Unless he got the Queen's permission, maybe. But he figured that could wait until after the team had finished dealing with the Killer of Krohin, at least. They didn't need more distractions from that objective right now, Hector felt.

In fact, Hector was debating sending them more reinforcements. It was a tough situation, though, because who would he send? If this Thaddeus guy was such a problem that even Leo and Melchor working together were having difficulty putting him down, then it'd probably require someone pretty damn powerful to actually provide assistance. Sending the wrong person or group of people might just make things even worse.

That, and he had the impression that they wanted to finish this themselves. Like a pride thing. They hadn't expressed a desire for reinforcements to be sent, and from the way their reapers were talking, they sounded fairly confident that their victory was inevitable.

But still. Not long ago, Hector had been quite confident that the Sandlords would kick the crap out of Abolish.

He didn't want to make that mistake again. True, the Vantalay team was strong as hell, but this war was full of surprises so far.

He wished he could go to Vantalay himself. And indeed, he found the notion more appealing with each passing day. Yeah, he was busy with meetings and shit, and it definitely wouldn't look good for Atreya--and now Lorent, too, perhaps--if he got caught up in that mess publicly, but...

Apparently, the Vantalay team had gotten their hands on some aberration-made rings that could render them invisible. So if he were to go over there personally, it would be a lot easier to lay low...

But getting into the country would still be a big problem, of course. It wouldn't be like Lorent. Vantalay was an active war zone, with battlegrounds shifting constantly. Any number of things could go wrong. It'd be a huge risk.

Or so Garovel kept telling him.

And he was probably right. As usual.

But there was another reaper whose opinion greatly concerned him on this particular issue. Ericoros, Leo's reaper.

Hector had been trying to make time to talk to Ericoros whenever he was at Warrenhold. If he and Garovel were ever going to change the reaper's mind about Leo, about joining their side in earnest, then it was crucial to keep talking to him on a regular basis.

It might never happen, of course. Even Leo didn't think it was possible to change Ericoros' mind about releasing him and rejoining Sai-hee. But Leo was a valuable enough player on the board to warrant the potentially wasted effort.

That was how Garovel put it, at least. Hector wasn't terribly comfortable thinking of it in terms like that, like this was all a big game. He understood what Garovel was saying, but still... these were people with lives of their own. They were definitely valuable in the grand scheme of things, but they deserved to be treated like free individuals, didn't they?

Despite the fact that Ericoros was currently their prisoner.

There was no getting around that, Hector knew.

He'd been trying to come up with a way to make Ericoros more comfortable, to feel included in what they were doing, without giving him too much freedom. This was a two-way street, after all. He wanted Ericoros to trust them, but they also needed to be able to trust Ericoros. If the reaper somehow escaped and brought Sai-hee here to Warrenhold...

Ugh.

As Melchor's reaper, Orric, had mentioned, this was going to take a long time. Many years, most likely.

Which was kind of a strange thought. As a servant, Hector was a little over a year old now, and yet he was making plans for quite far into the future. It really wasn't that long ago when he felt the future wasn't even worth thinking about.

If this next year was as crazy as the last, then he wondered if Warrenhold would even be standing by the end of it.

Regardless, even if he couldn't go himself, Hector was hoping to send more reinforcements to Vantalay soon; and with a sudden influx of new servants at Warrenhold from Hahl Saqqaf, there were a few more candidates to consider now. Hector had been trying to familiarize himself with the structure of Hahl Saqqaf, but it was quite a bit different from the Rainlord Houses that he'd become accustomed to.

Because of Abbas, mainly.

None of the Rainlord families had such an old and powerful patriarch. The only person even remotely comparable to him was Melchor Blackburn, who, for whatever reason, was not the acting head of House Blackburn. Abbas' influence within Hahl Saqqaf was unlike anything else Hector had seen from these warrior families.

The guy had so many freaking kids. And his kids had kids. Who also had kids, too. And so on. Even after spending time among them for a few days, Hector still wasn't quite sure how many living generations of Hahl Saqqaf there currently were.

But there were definitely some noticeable gaps.

And while it was a bit early to be drawing too many conclusions about their family dynamics, it had quickly become apparent that many of Abbas' sons were standing in his shadow in more ways than one.

Not only was Abbas the most powerful warrior among the Sandlords, he was also a genius. Even in their battered state, everyone's reverence for him was apparent. As was their deference.

None of them wanted to make a big decision without first consulting him--a decision like heading off to Vantalay to support the Rainlords.

Hector hadn't actually asked any of them about that himself, but several of the Rainlord reapers had, and each time, the Saqqafs deflected in an identical way.

"Ask adabbi," they said.

Maybe they just didn't want to do it and were trying to find a way of politely saying no, but that wasn't the impression Hector was getting, especially because of how incredibly old some of Abbas' sons were. A couple them were apparently in their early eighties.

Which, on the one hand, was kind of nuts. Asad Najir was only like forty-five or something, Hector thought. And yet he'd been a member of the Golden Council, while these guys weren't. And for all Hector knew, there could've been other council members who were even younger than that. Hasan Duxan hadn't seemed all that old, either--but looks were also deceiving, of course.

Still, Hector had to wonder if that kind of age disparity caused any kind of resentment or bitterness from these guys. It'd be understandable, if it did. Hector wondered how the Sandlords handled it. Maybe Abbas' sons had their own important positions in their government.

But on the other hand, the fact that Abbas' oldest sons were only in their eighties also left some lingering questions--questions that were too awkward to even ask.

If Abbas was a hundred and fifty-four years old like he'd said he was, then did that really mean he didn't start having children until his mid-seventies?

Or...?

Did it mean that he'd lost the ones who were born earlier than that?

Not a pleasant thought, to be sure--and made all the more so because of how much sense it made. The younger Abbas was, the more difficult it would have been for him to protect his children.

It made Hector think of Zeff.

Hector wanted to spend more time with the Elroys, to see how they were all doing, but it was difficult enough just finding the opportunity to keep up his training with Zeff. Hanging out with the Elroy kids was tough to justify when he had so much other stuff constantly competing for his attention.

Garovel had been telling him that it soon wouldn't be a matter of "finding" the time for things, anymore. It would only be a matter of "making" time for them. And Hector was beginning to understand what he meant by that.

With so much going on all the time, so many people requesting meetings with him in both Atreya and Lorent, everything was just totally different now. If he wanted to, he could book every hour of every day for the next month with one thing or another. A meeting or training or maintenance or patrolling or reading paperwork for the Bank or listening to reports from various reapers--there was, quite literally, always something that he could be doing.

Free time simply didn't exist, anymore.

Unless he went out of his way to create it, was Garovel's point.

At this rate, he wondered if he would ever watch another movie or play another video game again.

Right now, his "free time" was all going to patrolling Gray Rock. It used to stress him out so much, but now he looked forward to how relaxing it was. Compared to facing down some insanely powerful servant or monster, it was quite pleasant to be dealing with regular ass criminals.

He could use the time to multitask, too. He could read up on various subjects that interested him while en route to wherever Garovel sensed the next "doomed" person. Or he could just mull things over in a background thought process or two. It was nice to just take time to think about shit.

Unfortunately, Garovel was having an increasingly difficult time finding people with the "aura of death" around them. Well, okay, that wasn't actually unfortunate. It was obviously great that crime seemed to be on the decline in Gray Rock, especially after the spikes that it had seen after his return from Sair.

But if crime kept going down, then he wouldn't be able to justify going out on patrol very often, and then his free time really would disappear. He'd have to find some other way of unwinding while still feeling like he was being productive. Soaking in the hot spring was great for the prior, but not so much for the latter.

Hmm, maybe he could find a hobby that included the Elroy kids, somehow. That, alone, might make it feel more productive. He felt responsible for all the Rainlords in Warrenhold, of course, but when it came to Marcos and Ramira, that feeling was... magnified, in a way.

Perhaps it wasn't quite accurate to say that he was "closer" to the Elroys than with the other Houses, but there was definitely something different about his relationship with them. Between the familial link of Garovel and Chergoa, Zeff teaching him so much about materialization, and Axiolis being the one who introduced them to all the other Rainlords--he couldn't deny their special status in his mind.

And even aside from Emiliana, there were more Elroy kids out there whom he hadn't met. Francisco and Gema Elroy, wherever they were.

Regarding Emiliana, she'd been fairly quiet, recently. She must've been busy doing... whatever it was she did. Research under Gohvis or something. She hadn't tried to contact him, as far as he'd been able to tell. He wanted to think that no news was good news, especially with the war going on. If she was getting roped into the conflict, he hoped that she would tell him, but maybe that was foolish.

He hadn't exactly volunteered information about his own, insanely dangerous adventures, either. He didn't see much point in giving her cause to worry about her family any more than she probably already was.

Either way, if this radio silence kept up for much longer, he would try to contact her again soon. Apart from just wanting to check up on her, she might've come up with new treasure hunting clues for him. He hadn't wanted to dispatch a fifth squad, as the reapers all seemed to agree that it would mean spreading their forces too thin, but now that Hahl Saqqaf was here, that might have changed.

With so many teams out looking for these artifacts of power, at least one of them would have to find something, right? It hadn't been looking great so far, but he was trying to think positively for a change.

Hmm.

Yeah, it didn't suit him, he concluded. Better to just plan on everyone coming back empty-handed.

And to that end, Hector's greatest concern at the moment was motivating him to spend the majority of his time differently than usual.

That concern being Ivan.

If the Salesman of Death returned, perhaps with Bloodeye in tow, then the entirety of Warrenhold would be endangered. Everything that he and Garovel had been working so hard to build over the last several months could be destroyed overnight.

More than anything, he couldn't allow that to happen. If he was truly the Lord of Warrenhold like everyone said he was, then protecting this place was his responsibility.

Which was why he decided to start taking an even more active role in the castle's reconstruction.

The one thing he had right now was time to prepare.

And heck, maybe it wouldn't even be Ivan. Maybe it would be some other invader. And maybe it wouldn't be for many, many years.

But he felt in his bones that it would happen eventually. One way or another, Warrenhold would definitely come under siege, one day. With all the shit he'd gotten himself involved in? All the fugitives and refugees he was accepting?

It was inevitable, Hector thought.

And when that day came, he aimed to make sure that the attackers got a lot more than they bargained for.

He figured that a good first step was to materialize a kind of rough "false castle" aboveground. As long as it was all materialized, it wouldn't matter as much if it got obliterated. Plus, since nobody would actually be living in it, he didn't have to worry about things like insulation and heating and plumbing.

It was mainly just to help conceal the doorway to the Entry Tower. The longer the enemy spent wandering around on the surface, trying to locate the way inside, the more time they would have to organize their real defenses.

And it was kinda fun just creating entire towers out of his iron. He found himself spending perhaps a little too long on them, comparing them against pictures of real buildings from around the world and trying to make them look as believable and cool as possible.

He'd never been to the beach before, but maybe this was what building sand castles was like. He'd always wanted to give that a try.

He couldn't go quite as nuts with it as he might've liked, though. It required a gigantic amount of iron, after all. Multiple buildings, each with multiple floors. And all that iron that he devoted to this project would count against his volume limit while he was in the area. He had to exercise some restraint, unfortunately.

His preliminary results were looking pretty alright, though, Hector felt. Nothing as visually impressive as Stasya Orlov's work, of course, but it was a decent start, at least.

It helped that there was already some aboveground construction going on in the first place, so he could weave the iron buildings into and around them. The only real issue was making sure that his phony iron castle didn't get in the way of any of the real buildings that were still going up. Sure, the ones up here weren't as important as the eight towers underground, but they would probably still get used eventually, one way or another. He didn't always want to receive guests underground, especially with all the Rainlords down there.

It wasn't quite the majestic iron fortress that he'd envisioned in his mind, but maybe he could keep adding to it as his volume limit increased. Slowly. Over a period of many years.

Tch. Okay, he was kinda disappointed with this humble collection of metal towers. They were shinier than the others, which was sort of neat, but he couldn't help wanting more of them. There was still so much empty ground left to fill.

Maybe he should go out and try to achieve emergence again. That was the fastest way to increase his volume limit. Sure, it would mean risking his life--and probably endangering the whole country, come think of it--but a nice, big, shiny castle would make it all worthwhile, right? Garovel and the Queen and everyone else would understand, surely.

Nevermind the fact that actively trying to achieve emergence was supposedly counterproductive and might actually prevent it from happening. That was beside the point.

Dammit. Well, at least he would have something to look forward to in the years to come. In the meantime, he could focus on refining the towers and making them look pristine. Come to think of it, he'd probably have to remake them a lot, wouldn't he? They might start to rust after a while. He wondered how long--

"What'cha doing?" came a feminine voice from below him.

The interruption made him blink. He'd been perched atop an iron platform, inspecting the crenellations on his southernmost tower and trying to decide if a tiled roof with a high apex might look better. When he looked he down, he saw a woman with long blond hair and unfamiliar face, staring back at him.

His confusion lingered for a few moments more, first because she was quite pretty, and second because she wasn't actually there.

He could sense it with the Scarf. She was an illusion.

He connected the dots. "...Pauline?" he said.

"Aha, hello," she said with a nice smile. "I was wondering if you would be able to tell it was me. What do you think of my avatar? Nice, right? I'll be honest--if you don't tell me it's nice, I'm going to be upset."

"...It's nice." In another thought process, he was reaching out with the Scarf, trying to locate her invisible avian body. With so much open air out here, though, it was difficult. She might've been too far away.

"Your enthusiasm could use a little work, but I suppose that will do. So what are you doing?"

He slowly destroyed his platform and let himself back down to the ground. He supposed he could tell her the truth here. In fact, he'd been wanting to share a bit with someone. Beyond the fact that it was to prep for a potential siege, Garovel hadn't demonstrated much interest in his iron castle strategy--perhaps because it was taking a while. Probably thought it was tedious or something.

That, and he'd been thinking about asking one of the Sparrows for help on this project, anyway.

"It's a decoy castle," he explained. "Not terribly unlike your family's estate, actually."

"Oh?"

"I'm just trying to, ah... have a bit of forethought, I guess. In case Warrenhold is ever attacked."

She was quiet a moment as her avatar gave the nearest tower another look, the expression on her human face looking abruptly more serious than a second ago. "...Are you expecting an attack to arrive soon?" she asked.

Ah. Difficult question. "Not sure. Maybe. Better safe than sorry, though."

She gave an admissive nod.

"Hey, uh... I don't suppose you could work some of your illusory magic and help spruce it up a bit for me, could you?"

Her brow furrowed. "Excuse me? 'Illusory magic?' What do you think I am? Some kind of sorceress?" A whisper of a smile was creeping across her lips, however.

Hector took that as a cue to double down. "...A little bit, yeah."

That pulled a laugh out of her. "Well... hmm. I wouldn't mind helping, but in order to maintain the illusion, I would have to remain in the area. Unfortunately, I can't just create a permanent illusion here for you and leave."

"Ah..." Hector looked at his surrounding work, sizing it up again and thinking. "So... I should create, like, a 'nest' for you around here, is what you're saying."

Her avatar's eyes bulged a little. "I... uh... you'd be willing to do that? To just give me a place of my own in your castle?"

Oh, maybe that was a bigger deal than he'd thought it was.

Yeah, it definitely was. What was wrong with him?

He'd done this before with Gina, too, he suddenly recalled. Just inviting people to stay in his home as long as they wanted.

Gina had probably been more deserving it, though. When it came down to it, he still didn't really know all that much about the Sparrows or Pauline herself.

Eh, but it would be aboveground. After all that craziness they'd been through together in Lorent, he felt like she was pretty trustworthy.

Hmm.

He scratched his neck. "Well, if I were to give you your own, er, spot here, what would you need in order for it to be comfortable?"

"Ah, wait a minute. Trying to use my desire to leave home as a means of learning more about my kind, is that it? That's rather underhanded of you, Lord Goffe. I thought you were the more straightforward and earnest type."

Um. That hadn't been it at all, but now that she mentioned it, it didn't sounded like a terrible strategy. She obviously found her father a bit stifling, and he did want to learn more about the Wrobels.

Still, though, that wasn't his priority. "...Look, I just want my castle to be as impregnable and cool as possible. And having a Sparrow around seems like it would help with that."

Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, eyes seeming somehow sharper, almost as if they'd turned into her true avian ones. "My father would not be pleased to hear any of this, I'm sure."

Hector gave a shrug. "I'd be happy to make a place for him here, too."

She frowned, then sighed. "Of course you would..."

He couldn't help chuckling a little at that reaction. "Did I just cause you to decide against it?"

"Perhaps."

He pressed his lips together flatly, not sure how else to convince her. He kinda doubted that Hanton would actually want to stay here, but he also didn't want to promise not to let him do so. Warrenhold was a fortress, after all. If Gray Rock was ever invaded, the Lord Gaolanet might have need of the protection that this place could afford him.

As would many others, Hector suspected. And in such circumstances, he didn't intend to turn anyone away without a good reason.

Her avatar straightened and took a deep breath. "I guess you'll have to entice me with an especially nice room, then."

Uh-oh.

"First of all, it has to have a good view. I want to be able to see really far away. Most of Gray Rock, preferably. Secondly, I want a nice, big cushion to sit on. It should conform to the shape of my body without being too squishy. And definitely don't just throw together a pile of sticks, okay? I'm not that kind of sparrow. My feathers are too big, and branches will just get stuck in them. Third, I want an open ceiling that also has a hanging perch. Sometimes I like to sleep like that. Fourth, I want a steady supply--"

"Should I be writing this down?"

"--of seeds. The good stuff. Safflower, sunflower, golden millet--oh, and walnuts. I like those. Even if they're still in the shells, that's fine. I also like my water slightly below room temperature. Cold but not too cold. Brisk, I would say, not icy. And yes, I would be writing this down if I were you."