It wasn’t until Town Rose was far behind them, past tinted blue graveyard dirt mounds and smatterings of grass that may as well have not grown at all with how prickly and gray they were that Loretta spoke up.

“Good riddance. I hated that town.”

“What?” said Felix with his eyes on the jagged horizon. “Too much torture for you? Before we left I was beginning to think you a masochist with how often you put yourself in troublesome situations by breaking your father’s rules.”

“I only broke them because they were authoritarian and stupid in the most shortsighted way. Anyway I rarely got caught.”

Rusk walked on, glancing over his shoulder at the two of them. They had an ease he envied. He hadn’t even achieved that level of conversational intimacy with Mandy. Or maybe distance was making her memories hazy.

Etoile walked with grace, poise, and silence.

They came upon a fork in the dirt road. Snakes hissed along the path that would take them to Porttegat.

“Ew,” said Loretta.

Felix sighed and checked his boots.

Etoile stomped through fearlessly, hissing down her nose at any of the serpents in her way.

Rusk followed her example and felt oddly guilty about it the whole time. There were albino snakes amidst the slithering mass, and some of them reminded him of the great stormy sky serpent. He made a point not to hiss at those with the most remarkable resemblance to the storm maker.

No one was bitten, though a snake with a diamond-shaped face did slither up Etoile’s leg. She simply leaned down, took it by two different points in its middle, and unraveled it. Then she deposited it back on the ground.

The Elva twitched respectfully at that.

The diamond-headed snake slithered away through wheatgrass that sprung almost abruptly from the earth into thick clusters beside the path.

Slowly the landscape went from gray to brown to green and tan. Rusk saw yellow flowers poking up in circular formations and told the others not to step in the centers of them. The next few towns were woodsy but not forested, and farmland eventually gave way to longer, more rugged pastures. Horses and even carriages sometimes populated the roads near the coastal regions, and when they reached Porttegat it sprawled before them in woven cobblestone roads that spiraled erratically and intersected each other in unexpected places between buildings of multiple stories.

Rusk and the others stopped at the gates in awe. All except Felix, who brandished the blue scrap of fabric at an official-looking armored man, who immediately granted them all passage into the city with an elaborate, respectful bow. The rest of them skittered past the welcoming party, which consisted of more armor-clad soldiers, and Rusk felt the full weight of his humble upbringing. He didn’t know how to carry himself here and wound up giving nervous grins to everyone they crossed paths with.

“Welcome to my home city,” said Felix with a widening of arms. “Behold.”

“If you grew up here then how were you recruited to work for my father?”

“Cleverly.”

Loretta huffed.

Rusk was too much in awe to care about the conversation, and Etoile had lingered behind by the gates.

“Wait,” said Etoile. “I can find work in a place like this. I think this is where we part ways.”

“As you will,” said Rusk.

They exchanged farewells. It was clear no one ever expected to see Etoile again in their travels. Loretta cried, but somehow managed to do so in a dignified manner. Felix was very polite and understanding.

Rusk was awkward.

“I’ll give word to Sneak not to steal from you,” said Etoile. She forced one small smile, spun on her heel, and exited their lives forever. The crowd ate her up and there it was. Her exit. A million things Rusk could’ve said before she was gone but hadn’t found the nerve to came to the forefront of his mind all at once.

“I hope she makes it out there,” said Rusk, because that condensed them all.

“I’ve got connections here,” said Felix. “If they haven’t staled by the years I may be able to negotiate you a boat to Sanctuary Island.”

Rusk and Loretta followed him through Porttegat to all his supposed old haunts. Most weren’t official establishments or even buildings. They were intersections of the convoluted roads or specific areas of common foot traffic. Some were abandoned on first glance but if navigated correctly turned out to be places of sporadic trade. Rusk got the feeling not all of Felix’s connections were legal, but then why would every guard and soldier tolerate it? They’d been seen plenty as they shuffled around the city. Maybe things just worked differently in such a large, unfamiliar place. Culture had to be different just based on labor and goods distribution alone.

The smell of salt and sand was everywhere. Gusts of wind off the water invaded their trek through Porttegat and threatened to knock all of them over. Rusk occasionally stumbled at the strength of that wind, but Felix even with his lankier frame stood tall and sure of himself no matter what the weather threw at them.

The cloth Felix carried granted them access to everywhere, including the trade center for the coordination of boats that crossed the sea to Sanctuary Island and a slew of other places. Inside a spacious stonework building which from the outside looked to be three stories but which in actuality simply had a very high roof and windows placed high on the walls to let the sun stream in in vibrant yellow washed blocks, Felix presented his scrap of cloth to the receptionist at the only decoration present within the large, cavernous room. On a wall behind the receptionist was a tally of sorts, with scraps of colored fabric arranged in a pattern of inbound and outbound routes for the ships, and she bowed respectfully at Felix when he presented his.

That’s what the scrap of cloth was. It was Porttegat’s flag. An identical one hung on one of the chart’s hooks next to the carved image of a sea faring contraption. The first carving Rusk had ever seen of a boat.

“Destination?” asked the receptionist.

“Sanctuary Island,” answered Felix.

She raised one of her thin eyebrows and then she dug around out of sight behind the carved stone chart with the pinned-up flags. “Number?”

“Single passage,” said Felix.

The receptionist came out with a different-colored flag. This one had the distinct look of being less durable and not as well-sewn. Disposable. “One way?”

“Sure,” said Rusk. He was butting into the conversation but he also didn’t want Felix to use up more connections or resources for a return trip that might not arise. “Guess this is where we part ways.”

“Guess it is.” Felix handed over the flag.

The cloth scratched at Rusk’s fingers. He’d taken hold of it with his forward hand, not the hand he used to pull back the string of any bow he was firing. Maybe he wanted to feel this parting without his calluses to muddle the exchange.

“We’re gonna study the rumors of monsters,” said Loretta. “Probably cross paths again and share what we find.”

“Right.”

“Be a Hero,” said Loretta.

“I concur,” said Felix.

“Been trying all my life. Took me long enough to get to the first step.”

“Not there yet,” said Felix. He gestured knowingly at the flag of passage. “I’ll see you off, but then Loretta and I are in the wind until you’re official.”

Rusk chuckled.

Felix negotiated and haggled right up until boarding time, which earned Rusk extra supplies, including an entire batch of arrows, a better reputation, and undeniably safe passage once the ship was boarded.

Loretta waved and bounced and whooped the whole time the ship was launching, and Felix stood next to her on the dock with an encouraging smile.

When Rusk finally turned away from the shore, the sea was an expanse of salt-smelling blue all the way to the horizon, which was a churning turbulence in the far distance.

Rusk breathed in the possibilities, feeling the Elva sway along with him and the waves.