The first step to putting the plan in motion is Solace; Seffon sends for her, and he and Leah await her in his library. She arrives quickly enough, being led by a servant. She nods to them both with a smile, upright and formal in her crisp robes.

“You’ve had an idea,” she says, looking between the two of them. “For how to deal with Eschen?”

“That’s far in the future,” Seffon says, gesturing that she sit. “All we’re focusing on now is the Valerid keep, and the city; how to keep them safe.” He gestures for Leah to take over.

“You put an illusion over me once that made me look like Jeno.” Solace nods, intrigued. “Could you cast an illusion of her so perfect that even her parents couldn’t tell it wasn’t really her?”

“Of course,” Solace says with a flick of her hand. “With a framework to hang it on. It’s hard to make illusions move in a lifelike way, if they’re pure figment.”

Leah thinks back to her stunt during Kain’s capture, and at the end of Leah’s duel with the captain, and bites back a snort. Hard for some, maybe, but apparently not for you. “And could the illusion be undetectable enough that Eschen wouldn’t notice it, even from up close?” Solace pats her sleeve in answer, and Leah nods. “Then here’s our idea.”

“Your idea,” Seffon corrects her.

“You don’t want to be associated with it if it fails?”

“Credit where credit is due.”

Solace watches with barely concealed amusement. “Do go on.”

“We propose a prisoner exchange,” Leah says. “We ask that Lady Valerid be turned over to us, and we offer to return Jeno to her parents.”

Solace raises an eyebrow. “And I suppose this is where the illusion comes in?”

Leah nods. “You, or if you don’t want it to be you then someone else, go in Jeno’s place. Once the Baroness is with us, the fake Jeno jump-teleports – ”

“Quick-shift spell,” Seffon clarifies, and Solace nods.

“Quick-shifts away from Eschen, and we take Lady Valerid to safety. Cheden loses their bargaining chip.”

“Which will prompt them to immediately call back their ships and begin ransacking the city,” Solace says, looking less than enthusiastic.

“Not if what you said yesterday has any merit,” Seffon says. “They want to keep the city liveable, and they especially want to look like they’re honouring the marriage by keeping it safe. Also,” He gestures to Leah, who passes Solace the missive. “We will have allies, in two days.”

“Two days?” Leah asks, shooting him a glance.

“Ships have a maximum speed,” Seffon says defensively. “It can’t be helped. From the date on the scroll, they left yesterday, and it takes three days for the fastest Algic ships to sail this far.”

“What do we do for two days, then?” Solace asks, handing the missive back to Seffon. “I like the plan, and I will be able to help you undertake it. I think you’re being overconfident in Eschen’s concern for the city, but I do see that keeping the Lady Valerid alive and safe is vital to the nation’s eventual recovery.”

Seffon rolls the missive and tucks it in an inner pocket of his jacket. “We wait to hear back from the other nations. We plan our approach. If we want to be at full strength, magically speaking, we ought to travel to Valerin by mundane means.”

“Which means we leave within the day,” Solace says, sighing a little bit. “I was looking forward to another night in a bed…”

“We’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Seffon says. “I need to put a tag on you.”

“A what?” Leah asks.

“Of course.” Solace nods.

“What’s a tag?”

“A false identity, if Eschen tries to scry,” Seffon explains. “If we tell him we’re bringing Jeno, and he does a scry for her and doesn’t see her in our midst, then he will suspect a lie.” He rubs the fingers of one hand. “Teo was quite good at those, but I can’t call her back now; she’s probably already at the Devadiss border.”

Leah raises her eyebrows marginally and nods. Solace shoots her a scathing look, ruined by a smile.

“But Avai is a divinations specialist.” Seffon slaps the arms of the chair and gets up. “I will fetch her, and we will prepare the spell for you, Solace. Leah.” He turns to her. “Don’t leave the walls of the keep; I want to keep you out of Eschen’s reach leading up to this. Go find lieutenant Adan, and tell her the plan.”

“How?”

“Get Zon to translate.” Leah squirms a bit but nods. Seffon continues unaware. “We need her as a guard to the Baroness; she has experience against magic-users that we vitally need for this. Keep up your fighting training, for one last day. I’m not going to let you face Eschen, but he might have other ideas, once he sees you.”

Leah nods, and Seffon leaves with Solace. She looks around the library one last time, then sighs and goes to the mess hall, looking for Adan or John or both.

She finds Adan at a table, brown hair braided messily, breakfast half-eaten. Leah sits down beside her and Adan looks up, surprised, then nods to Leah with a confused but polite smile.

“Where’s Zon?” Leah asks, and Adan looks up and to the side, a small crease between her brows.

“Hes sifs ã en d mornengs, fe d refuzys.”

“Refugees? Watching the refugees in the training room?”

“Traineng reum, jes.”

Leah nods and tries to think what order to say things in. “For practice, this afternoon,” she says slowly, and Adan listens very carefully. “He needs to be there. To translate.”

Adan makes a concerned face. “De ju teu ge ovẽ jõ fie from jesterday?”

“It’s not important,” Leah says, trying to think of words that sound similar between dialects. “There is news, new information, from Valerin.”

Adan sits up. “Oh?”

“This afternoon,” Leah says firmly, patting Adan’s shoulder.

Adan seems surprised and a little uncertain, but nods. “Des afterneun.”

With the whole empty morning ahead of her, Leah does not rush. She goes first to the stable and gives some attention to Beeswax, brushing out her mane and muttering baby-talk. The horse seems to thrive under the attention, and leans into her, at one point pinning Leah against the wall of the stall with her bulk.

“Let me go, big doofus,” Leah says, pushing. Beeswax cranes her head around to chew on her sleeve. “You eat like a goat. You’re not a goat, you’re a majestic steed. Act like it for once, we’re going to see important people in a couple days.”

She wriggles out of the stall and Beeswax makes an indignant noise at her sudden abandonment. Leah reaches back in and gives the mare’s nose a few pats, checks the sun’s angle through the broad doorway of the stables, then goes to find John.

As he had said the day before, the hall hosting the refugee families is somewhat emptied. The guards are fewer in number as well, though still very vigilant, after the two attempted entries into the Hold. The wood floor has been divided by more than lines, at this point; fabric screens and curtains are hung to provide privacy, and social spaces have been created by certain groups where varied families meet and talk and trade supplies. A cook and a few servants wait at one end, preparing breakfasts and chatting with the farmers and tradespersons who are sheltering within the Hold.

Leah watches them all, on the ground floor, then looks up around the balcony for John; she sees him standing watch at one end, with another guard at the opposite. She doubles back to the stairs and goes up, emerging through a curtain, and through the door at the end of the hall.

Both guards turn to look when she opens the door; the stranger nods politely and goes back to watching the room, and John tenses a bit before nodding as well. Leah walks over to stand by him, close enough to talk quietly but not too close.

“I’ve been making things hard on you, by being my chaotic self,” she says.

“Not on purpose,” John says quietly. “And a lot of good has come of it, too.”

“But I can see how it’s harder to hide a part of yourself, when everyone’s talking about it and giving opinions on it, good or bad.” Leah looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

John tenses, knuckles white on the railing, then breathes out and relaxes. “I always thought I was good at hiding.”

“You’re excellent. I didn’t even realise until yesterday, and usually I’m quite good at telling when someone’s…or at least, telling when a man is. Women are trickier.”

“Agreed.”

Leah snickers. “Anyway, I’m here about my next training lesson with Adan.”

“Need a translator?”

“A training buddy, a translator, but also someone discreet.”

John half-turns to her in interest. “Oh?”

“Plans are underway, for what we should do next in Valerin. Seffon’s busy taking care of one part, and I’ve got to bring Adan up to speed. I need you to translate, and to not spread the information.”

John’s initial awkwardness has melted away, replaced by buzzing excitement. “Something big?”

“Training grounds, this afternoon,” Leah says, with a grin. John returns it easily.

The next few hours are a tense, anticipatory stillness. Leah reads in her rooms when she can sit still, and paces the perimeter when she can’t, practicing how she will talk to Eschen, practicing how she will talk to the Baroness. She wonders about the five, and about the Baron, and about the fisherman who brought them out of the city and fled into the dark. She practices moves with the dagger, alone in her room, shifting her grip on it to find what feels strongest for each swing.

She takes her lunch and eats as she walks, her leather armour already on and adjusted. She finds Adan and John at the far end of the triangular courtyard, getting ready.

Adan asks, and John translates: “So what news is so important it needed a translator, but couldn’t be delivered by the Lord?”

“The Lord is busy with a spell, in preparation for tomorrow,” Leah says. “Many things have happened.”

“Oh?”

“Algi has recognised the conflict as a usurpation, and is sending a number of ships to roust out the Chedens and Devadiss. We will aim to arrive at around the same time, when Eschen is feeling most cornered, and offer him a deal; we will trade Lady Jeno for the Baroness.”

Adan’s jaw drops, and even John looks at her in shock. “But the Lady…” John says, “She’s marked for dead! Why would the Lord – ”

“Because it will be a ruse,” Leah says, stepping in closer – not that anyone is close enough to listen in, but it just makes for a better dramatic reveal if it feels like a big secret. Which, of course, it is. “The bard Solace will be illusioned to look like Jeno. Once we have the Baroness with us, or close enough to cast on, Seffon and you will take her to safety.”

Adan nods sharply. “And the bard?”

“Can take care of herself; she’s got experience escaping even the best prisons,” Leah grins as she says it.

“And Lady Jeno?”

“Will be safe here.” Leah steps back, to signify that the important secrets have all been told. “We will leave tomorrow morning, by horse. This is my last day to train.”

“I will be ready. You will be joining us?”

“I will.”

Adan’s mouth turns down at a corner. “You will not throw yourself into a fight with Eschen again, will you?” John gives Leah a stern look after translating this sentence, adding his own judgement to the words.

“I promise I won’t,” Leah says with a grin, “Although he may come after me.”

John reaches out and holds Leah’s shoulder; she pats his hand, then steps back and picks up the training weapons. Adan pulls herself out of her contemplation and begins the lesson, running through old moves and adding in new components as Leah becomes at ease with them.

Two hours later, lightly bruised and very sore, Leah sits and cleans her armour under Adan’s guidance. John has been sent away to see to his other responsibilities in the Hold, so they are silent once again.

Leah marvels at how familiar the armour has become, since she first arrived here. I used to need help putting it on and taking it off. Hell, I used to need help doing the same for my regular day clothes. The leather of the chest-piece is thick but pliable, and Leah rubs the dirt and sweat off the material with a clean cloth, watching how it shines.

It’s frighteningly little, when I look at it like this, Leah reflects, looking over the pile at her feet. Leather vest, metal pauldrons, leather faulds, leather tasset, boiled leather greaves, boiled leather vambraces, wool cape – does that even count as armour? Then the shield.

She looks to the round wooden shield she’d been practicing with this time – the promised one from the gear of the defeated Cheden invaders. It’s a little heavier than the one she used to use, and has an extra ring of metal studded onto the sides. It’d probably make a great shield for bashing people’s heads in. Unfortunately I don’t really want to be the person who does that sort of thing.

“Ley?”

She looks up. Adan has finished with her own gear, despite having much more of it than Leah has, and is holding out something in a scrap of linen. Leah takes it with a questioning look.

“I gavnevẽ e ba, aftẽ d fie bi d revẽ,” Adan explains, as Leah unwraps it to reveal the Baroness’s dagger. “E’s buteful, an very fell mae. Fy’ll have teu gev teu e ba hẽ, b untel den ju may as fell jus e.”

Leah hefts it a few times. “I don’t know how to use this,” she says, ruefully holding it back. “Keep it until we have the Baroness back.”

Adan pushes it back to her. “Tri e,” she says, gesturing to the stacked hay bales painted with targets.

“I promised I wasn’t going to fight,” Leah says, bundling the throwing dagger with the rest of her gear. “Learning to use a shield is okay, but I don’t think I could argue that using a throwing dagger is self-defence.”

The lieutenant raises an eyebrow but does not press.

Leah puts away the cleaning supplies and leaves the practice area, returning to check up on Seffon and Solace. She finds them in the tower, with a student – one she has seen before, Leah thinks. God, it feels like I’ve met so many people here, but only ever briefly. I’ve only been here a month! Well, a little under a month, but still. The number of faces I’ve seen, names I’ve heard…I’ve probably been told her name, and forgotten it.

The spell appears to be done, and the three are talking quietly, standing around the table. Seffon looks up at her entrance. “Avai,” he says, and the student looks up. “Tha uell by all.”

Avai nods, and passes by Leah with a smile on the way out. Oh yeah, I remember that face. She was the friendly one, who showed me to my new room and to the mess hall. Leah smiles back.

“Adan will be ready for tomorrow morning,” Leah says, once they are alone just the three of them again. “So there’s only one person I can think of we need to talk to.”

Seffon nods. “We’ll tell Eschen through this – ” He pats his pocket. “ – when we get within a few hours of the city.”

“That’s not who I meant.”

“Oh?” Seffon asks.

Solace rolls her eyes. “She means Jeno, of course.”

Leah nods, and Seffon hums pensively. “She needs to know what we’re doing. At the very least she may have some insight into how her parents will react.”

“You’re entirely right.” Seffon straightens and dusts his hands clean. “I doubt she – or Miss Djalaa – would want to hear it from me. However, I’d like to ask, through you, if she knows anything about how political prisoners with status are treated in Cheden.”

“Actually, I was thinking Solace might go,” Leah says, cutting him off. “Though that is a good point to bring up.”

Solace smirks over at Leah. “You just want me to leave you two alone so you can dream up more ridiculous schemes.”

Leah turns to Solace with a neutral face. “Jeno will want to talk to me about other things that I don’t really want to talk about. You go.”

The bard’s face falls. “I thought – ”

“Please go.”

Solace raises an eyebrow. She smoothes down the lines of her robe, and leaves with dignity, looking up at Leah’s face as she passes near. “Is that so?”

“As well you know.”

“And you didn’t?”

Leah’s expression flickers to one of confusion, but Solace does not wait for any questions. The door closes behind her.

Seffon starts walking up the stairs to the sunny third floor, and Leah follows him without waiting for or needing an invitation. “You choose interesting friends, Miss Armande.”

“They more often choose me, Lord Seffon,” she says with a smirk.

“Oh, that’s odd,” he laughs. “I’m not used to you using my title.”

“It’s a little stuffy,” Leah agrees. “So I guess I will continue to call you just ‘Seffon’ until you finally cave in and give me your first name.”

Seffon hesitates at the top of the stairs, looking stunned. “Have I not told you yet? I just assumed I had and you’d chosen to call me Seffon to be stubborn.”

Leah sits on the couch. “No, I don’t know it.” She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

“Well, it’s become a habit at this point. I don’t know how I’d react if you used my given name.” He sits in his chair and reaches for a cabinet. “I don’t think I will tell you.”

“What?”

“I don’t mind being called Seffon, not when you do it; you’re too foreign to know any better manners,” Seffon says with a smirk, pulling out a wooden box. “Also I think not knowing will annoy you.”

“You got that much right,” Leah says with a friendly scowl. “So, Seffon, what else do we need to plan for tomorrow?”

He gives a quiet chuckle, his eyes glinting, then sobers up to answer her question. “Eschen desperately wanted some information that was in your mind. If you leave these walls, he will be able to find it. I can’t fit every ward from the Hold onto your body – you’d barely be able to walk from the weight – but I can put on the essentials.”

Leah’s mood dampens again quickly, with this reminder. “We’ll have to spend one night in the forest. He’ll be able to try the spell one last time before we see him, won’t he?”

“If he knows that you’re out of the walls, yes. And if he has any more of your blood.”

“All it would take is one scry for him to know.”

Seffon opens the box and begins riffling through the contents. Leah sits tall and tries to peek inside. He pulls out a piece of white chalk, a tumbled green gem, and a stub of candle. “This is going to feel different from the charms,” he explains, setting out the items on the table between them. “Firstly it will be a noticeable burden; you will be able to feel the weight, and it will consume a certain amount of your energy to remain active. The charms that you used were basic low-level abjurations and transmutations that even a non-caster can use if they know the rune names; these are full spells.”

“But you’ll still be casting them, right?” Leah asks.

“If we want them to hold back the captain then it must be me.” Seffon takes her hands and begins tracing plain circles on them in chalk. “Although it brings up a valid question: how are the runes coming?”

“Um.” Leah watches him draw on the circles. “It’s a lot to learn. I’m focusing on a few pages at a time, until I’m sure I have them memorised.”

“Sensible,” Seffon says, continuing the spell set-up.

“But after Teo’s warning about unsupervised magic, I’ve been too nervous to try anything.”

He frowns and looks at her. “Why did Teo say that?”

Leah shrugs fractionally. “She showed me an Algic spell, a fire thing. Two lines long, ‘Do hai…’ something.”

“Oh Gods, yes, alright.” He returns to the spell, drawing more circles up her arms and to her face. “Did it work, when you tried it?”

“It did, a bit, but she said it would be dangerous to try any new magic like that without supervision.”

Seffon clicks his tongue. “Teo…”

“What?”

“She ought to have specified that she meant scansion-spells are dangerous to try unsupervised. There’s a reason runes are the first step; it’s nearly impossible for them to backfire.”

Leah blushes a bit. “Oops. So I’ve been afraid of nothing.”

“A magic-user is never afraid of nothing; we are warping reality every time we cast, and it’s foolish to ever ignore the danger.” Seffon finishes the preparations. “But I should have specified; after all, I knew full well you came from a world without magic.”

His eyes suddenly go distant, a small frown at the corner of his mouth. Leah watches his face with worry. “How much of my world did you see?”

“Bits and pieces, but hundreds of them.” Seffon shakes his head to clear it. “Enough that your behaviour over the past month makes a bit more sense.”

“How so?”

“Hush,” he says, holding up a hand. He recites a few words very quietly, lights the candle, and starts tracing lines between the circles marked on Leah’s hands, arms, and face, as though weaving something between them. Faint glowing threads seem to follow his fingers. At the end of it he takes the green stone in one hand, holds it in the middle of the web, says a word, and crushes it bare-handed.

“Whoa,” Leah whispers, but he is too focused to notice.

The dust sinks into the web of faint lines, following them to Leah’s skin, and then sinking into her skin. The feeling is similar to being jabbed with very small needles in a hundred different places.

“Ow!?” she flinches but keep her position; Seffon blinks a bit at the noise but does not stop.

The dust sinks under her skin, invisible, then seems to settle into place. As quickly as the pain arrived, it fades, though Leah’s skin still feels a little odd around the circles.

“There,” Seffon says, sitting back and sweeping away the remaining dust, blowing out the candle.

“I’d appreciate warnings when the spells you are about to do are going to hurt,” Leah says, rubbing her arms.

Seffon turns a surprised look on her. “What other spell has hurt?”

“The healing one, among others.”

“Ah, well, you’d have experience with that one, true,” he chuckles. “It’s a common effect for any spell that rearranges your body. I’ll remember to give you some warning next time.”

Leah hums her unimpressed thanks, but does smile. “How long will these last?”

“Until I dismiss them or one of us dies.”

Leah sits up at that. “Don’t joke.”

Seffon raises an eyebrow. “I’m not joking, that’s how the magic works.”

“No, I mean don’t joke about one of us dying. I’ve come too close to that, too many times.”

He seems to reflect on this a moment. “Alright, I won’t. It was in poor taste, considering that tomorrow we ride into a war.”

Leah nods nervously. “Is there anything left to do?”

“Eat, sleep, and hope we hear from Bair,” Seffon says. “The moment Eschen realises the ruse, he will likely send in the ground troops. I want you away from the fighting, so I will send you with the Baroness and Solace, to meet up with Adan and begin fleeing to the Enterlan. If we can’t liberate Valerin’s capital, best we have the Baroness away as quickly and as far as we can. Now go.” He flaps his hands at her and shoos her out. “Go rest up. It’s going to be a long couple of days.”