Chapter Fifteen: Return to Wayfair

Unsurprisingly, the Church of the Pale Order was eager to find who was behind the incident at the canal. Nobody had been hurt, per se, and the property damage amounted to one scaffold and a handful of tools, but it had set construction on their project back and might well indicate growing sentiments against the church.

Val wasn't sure the sentiments against the Pale Order were growing, as public sentiment was pretty poor to begin with. And she didn't feel sorry about what she did, just that she'd done it in such a stupid way and disappointed Ette, Ginn, and Sabine so thoroughly. As far as she was aware, those were the only adults who knew about Val's involvement in the incident, though Oestel had intimated that she might know, as well, during her magic lessons. Only three-maybe-four people, but their opinions mattered to her.

Val had gotten away with it for the moment - but the Pale Order had the account of the workers, too, and was on the lookout for the 'four or five youths and two roughs' who had helped the workers escape from the canal. Ostensibly, this was to thank them, but it was clear enough that the church was conducting its own investigation. To that extent, Val had to leave town while they did their investigations and the others had been instructed to avoid any mention of Val or her appearance, lest the Pale Order make the connection between her and the missing girl in Wayfair with the golden blood (not literally golden, obviously).

"You seem to have a talent for getting under the Pale Order's skin. An impressive talent, and one that I suggest you avoid making use of when possible."

"It's not my fault. I told you I was cursed…"

"You're not cursed, Val. You're just headstrong… which, in some ways, is worse. Now finish packing your things - we're already late…"

Val stuffed a few last-minute items into her pack, checked her secret pocket for change, and buckled her boots. "Why are we even going to Wayfair? I'm a wanted woman there."

"True, but they're not exactly actively looking for you anymore and I've got business there. I figure we'd take care of a few birds with one stone. I can keep my eye on you, you'll get some much-needed field training in, and I'll take care of what needs taking care of…"

"What business?"

Ette told her: to see if he could get his son to come to Verdenlecht with them and to arrange for the sale of their old place along Resonant Square. The place would be appropriated when he and Ginn failed to pay taxes on it in the new year in a few weeks, so there was no point in keeping it and they might as well get as much money back as they could.

They paid somebody from the sept to rent a pair of horses for the week and saddled up. Rather, Ette saddled up and Val tried to figure out how to ride a horse. She'd never ridden a horse before, so it was very new and a bit frightening.

Ette was incredulous, squinting his dark, vaguely-feline eyes as if trying to reassure himself that it was still Val. "You've never ridden a horse before? How do you get through twelve years of life without riding a horse?"

Val held up her fingers. "Step one: become an orphan at age six. Step two: never have money nor cause to rent a horse. That's it."

"We should have left earlier…"

Fortunately, Val's horse was pretty well-trained and, after about fifteen minutes of figuring things out, she could just balance herself on top of the animal and let it follow after Ette's mount. They rode past the St. Abulard's Temple (the temple of the Pale God), the big hand-painted sign out front condemning the attack on the canal as an act of religious intolerance. Val almost laughed at that - the Pale Order had a lot of nerve complaining about religious intolerance.

Since Wayfair was only a few hours away, they weren't in a rush. They stopped in a meadow, tawny yellow grass and mostly clear of snow, a few miles short of the border. There, they ate the lunches they'd packed and Ette gave Val some impromptu riding lessons. How to greet her horse, how to ride with her back straight and her eyes forward, and how to issue commands while being gentle with the reins. The balance part she was pretty good at already. Keeping the horse's speed under control was a bit harder.

"I think we've found something you're not a natural at," Ette laughed.

Val frowned back at him. "I'm getting better!"

"True… but there was a lot of room for improvement. Eyes forward, Val!"

Ette also went over their cover stories with Val. She was dressed fairly androgynously, in breeches and her favorite jacket, and had added a cap in the popular style. She could have been a boy or a girl keen on dressing for the road. Today, she was back to being Clyve - it was a fine name to go with, as the Pale Order had never learned much about her cover story, only her appearance. Ette also gave her a false set of papers - one for Clyve that listed 'his' religion as Pale Order and Wayfair as 'his' home city (which was true, even if her actual-official papers suggested otherwise) and started to hand her his little phial of drops for changing eye color.

"No need," Val said. "Priestes Oestel taught us how to change our color and shape… look!" She found a petal from a wildflower, which would make the spell more potent and easier to cast, and crushed it between her fingers. "As I gaze, my gaze changes, and though I do not misdirect, I am hidden as if within a mist…" She said the chanting bit in Old Sudric, of course - the language and specific words didn't matter, but the intent was a lot easier to shape in that language, as if it had been designed for casting magic rather than speech. By the spell's completion, her eyes had turned a misty gray color.

"Very nice… how long does that last?"

"As long as I want it to," Val said. "If I did it to you? Two hours, maybe three? Do you want me to do it so we can look more like blood relatives?"

Ette looked a bit uneasy at the prospect. "This is pretty advanced magic, Val… I'm surprised Oestel is even teaching it…"

"It is advanced, and I'm pretty good at it, and you and Ginn gave me eight whole days of nothing to do but study." Val raised her hands and did the diplomatic thing. "Not that I’m complaining - I deserved it. Wouldn't you rather know whether I can do it right now than wait until you really need it and find out it won't work?"

"That's a good point."

Ette let Val change his eye color to match hers, as well as making his skin color two shades darker to match her own. Changes in color were a lot easier than changes in shape, and the only difficulty was in getting him to overcome his internal resistance. It was possible to transform somebody against their will, but it was extremely difficult and wouldn't last nearly as long. Val had to try five times before Ette released his resistance enough that she could slip in and change his coloration. He looked down at his arm, turning his hand up and down.

"I'll be damned. Ginn's got the gift, but she's never been this good." His expression suddenly became very serious. "Don't let anybody see you doing this. Do you understand me, Val? Nobody can know."

"Oestel already said. She also said our group is the most talented she's ever seen and that it means the gods see troubled times ahead."

Ette nodded. "She's a wise woman, our priestess is. Now let's get a move on so we can get ourselves situated before sundown."

+++++

They rode into Wayfair without issue, handing their counterfeit papers to the guards at the Bolearan border two hours outside of the city and passing into the city proper without the guard so much as glancing at them. After stabling the horses, they made their way to the house on Resonant Square, where the broken front door had been boarded up by one of Ginn's friends.

Being a bondsman, Ette was no stranger to getting into buildings in all kinds of unusual ways. He climbed right up to the third floor with the aplomb of a monkey and jimmied open a window that he knew to be infirm. Then he motioned to Val, who also clambered up with primate aplomb - but she, at least, looked like somebody who might climb like that. Ette looked like somebody you might employ to keep unruly drunkards out of a high-class pub. Engaging with Ette in a physical alteration was a bit like engaging with an angry gorilla with the reflexes and climbing skill of a cat and the brains of a clever man, which was part of why he was so good at his job.

They slept in the old Vinzenno residence that night. It was a strange experience, at once familiar and unusual, and something of the old life in the place was gone from their weeks of absence. Val tossed and turned and eventually read herself to sleep with one of Galvan's leatherworking books.

The next day started with Ette waking Val up, setting her breakfast on the beside table, and telling her he was going off on business. He wanted her to stay behind and look after the place. Val sighed - he wanted her to look after a house that nobody had been living in for over a month. What did he want her to guard it from? Dustbunnies? No, it was clear that Ette just wanted Val out of the way. But, if he had personal business to attend to, then so did she. Val had friends she hadn't seen in practically forever.

The first order of business was visiting Penny at Mrs. Hornswal's shop across the square since it was so nearby. Obviously, Penny didn't recognize her when she walked in - she was incognito after all. And, after she did, the her friend dropped her pestle and yelped.

"Val?"

Val shushed her and then told her everything that had happened since her tumultuous escape from the city. Penny was especially excited about Val getting the Gift, and she admitted that she was still hopeful that she'd get it, too - such a skill might elevate her from herbalist-in-training to renowned alchemist in a few years' time. Val had to break it to her that, if Penny was a mature young woman (and she certainly appeared to be), then she'd have already gotten the Gift if she was going to get it.

"Maybe I have it and I don't know it?" Penny said.

"If you had it, you'd know."

Penny was disappointed to hear that, and Val wondered if maybe she should have fibbed a little to leave the door open for pointless hope. But Penny was smart, pretty, and a few years away from being a professional herbalist. She didn't need the Gift.

Whenever somebody was doing magic around Val, she heard and felt the whispers of it - this was, apparently, a very rare talent, even among magic-users, but it wasn't unheard of. They weren't the whispers of voices so much as the whispers of thought as the user's spirit influenced the world around it. Val found had come to find the 'whispers' instructive, as they suggested how another practitioner was shaping their spirit to achieve an affect, and after only a little practice she could copy it. All magic-users had a similar talent, though usually to a far lesser extent - they could tell when magic was happening and about where it was coming from. And all of the unGifted people of the world were seemingly unaware of this dimension of reality that Val had come to think of as her seventh sense.

Val helped Penny with her mortar and pestle work and found that she'd picked up quite the skill at making pastes and powders while being punished. As she ground medicinal leaves and roots into a fine dust, Penny filled her in on the happenings in the city. The orphanage was still doing well, and so was business in the shop. A new grippe had been spreading around since the fall and people were coming in for remedies. Oh… and two of the seven members of the council had been replaced by Pale Order fanatics. One member had left for the countryside rather suddenly, and the other had wound up dead. Also very suddenly.

"Do they think foul play was involved?" Val asked.

Penny shook her head. "No. I'd move out to the countryside, too, if I could."

"Are people still looking for me?"

Penny shook her head again. She was even prettier than Val remembered her, her tight coils of coppery hair tumbling like the spray of a waterfall. "There aren't any flyers with your mug on them anymore, though as far as I know the five crowns are still on the table."

When it came time to leave, Penny wished Val well and said goodbye by kissing her once on each cheek. This, she said, was how they said goodbye in Ostrogrod. Some of her customers were from there. The kisses left Val blushing and flustered, which in turn made Penny a bit flustered.

"I'm reading a book about the cultures of the west, too," she muttered. "Come back soon!"

"I will!" Val said. "I'll stop by before I leave the city!"

At the time, Val had no idea that her visit back to Wayfair was about to get much, much more exciting.