Sometimes Fernan wished he hadn’t gotten so good at reading people’s body language through their glow. Then he wouldn’t have had to see the hardened stares follow him and the rider into the alderman’s house.

Fernan had left it vacant since Jerome had… Since all of that…

But he remembered how particular Lady Leclaire had been about even the slightest details, picking over the way he and Florette ate and how they carried themselves.

It was still hard to see the exact contours of clothing, and color was obviously impossible, but anyone here on the business of a Duchess was obviously some manner of aristocrat, and the last thing this precarious peace needed was to draw the ire of Guerron. Things were bad enough as it was.

“Can I get you anything?” he offered as he opened the door, waving the rider into the room.

“A glass of port would do me nicely. Chilled, if you please.” He slumped down into the chair by the vacant fireplace before Fernan even had a chance to offer the spot to him. “Garnish it with a wedge of lemon as well. I find it enhances the flavor.”

Fernan blinked. Port? Like the place they keep ships? “I’m not sure that we have that, my lord.”

The rider sighed, kicking his feet up onto the table. “Fine. I suppose a sprig of rosemary would suffice. If you must.”

“I think the last alderman left a bottle of something I could chill in the ice house.” Not that Fernan ever wanted to set foot in there again. Preserving ice through spring by insulating it served an important role for preserving food, but Fernan was entirely blind in there. “We do have rosemary though; I’d be happy to pick some from the garden outside.”

The aristocrat clenched his fist, fingers curling in, but nodded. “Just rinse the dirt if it’s to be fresh. One would think that would go without saying, but the earthy charms of you mountainfolk continue to surprise me.”

Liquor was hard to come in Villechart by these days, since the only way to get any was buying it from traders, and money was at an absolute premium right now. That alone had probably driven out a fair number of people, taking whatever was left along with them.

But some unspoken aura of menace had kept any of the villagers who’d fled from entering the house, and Fernan knew where to look.

“Just take as long as you like. It isn’t as if I’m here on important business or anything.”

Fernan grit his teeth. “Perhaps you could start explaining now, then. You mentioned a trial?”

“Enduring this bloody wasteland is a trial, I tell you. The last village turned me away without even allowing me within the walls. Me! As if they didn’t even know who I am.”

“The nerve.” The chest where Jerome kept his supply of— Had kept his supply. It was cool enough that making out the shapes was difficult, but a bit of fumbling showed that it was nearly empty. Fernan did manage to pull up a dusty bottle, though what the label read was anyone’s guess. “Incidentally, who are you?”

The man’s face grew almost as red as the wine. “You impudent peasant! You stand before Lord Guy Valvert, future Count of Dorseille, and Head of the Bureau of Land. I practically run the empire in matters earthly, and Aurelian keeps me well abreast of the spiritual as well.”

“And you’re great at asking for help, too.” Fernan held out the bottle. “I can cool it in the ice house and grab you some rosemary, but it would take longer. Or, again, you could just start explaining now.”

“This is not the sort of business one discusses without a drink in hand. What am I, a farmer?” Valvert squinted at the label. “I don’t know how you could think this is a port, but Château de la Jaubertie is at least a decent vintage. Those Rhanoir wines are getting harder to come by, too. A tragedy, that.”

“So…?”

The aristocrat rolled his head in a manner that Fernan had come to recognize as accompanying a roll of the eyes. “So fetch the glasses. Reds needn’t be chilled beyond cellar temperature, and they certainly ought not be garnished.”

Then why didn’t you just ask for that? Ugh. Lady Camille had thrown money in his face, and this Valvert was still making her look like the picture of politeness.

By the time Fernan returned with the glasses, the visitor had nearly finished uncorking the bottle with his knife. It came loose with a ‘pop’ as the glasses were placed on the table.

“Customarily it is the host who pours, but I wouldn’t want you spilling this.” Valvert turned the bottle on its end so fast that the wine came gushing out, a river of absence, cold cutting through the ambient warmth glowing in the air. Somehow he managed to fill both glasses in one fast, fluid motion. “There.”

Fernan picked up one glass, allowing Valvert to take the other. “To your health,” Fernan toasted, copying the toast that he’d heard at the First Post hundreds of times.

Valvert raised his glass in turn, clinking it against the side of Fernan’s. “To the Empire of the Fox, diminished but not lost.”

Okay Florette. He took a small sip of the wine as Valvert gulped down about half of his glass in a single stroke. It tasted pretty good, not that Fernan knew shit about wine. “Alright, we’ve had our toast. Now could you please tell me what exactly you’re here for?”

“My, you are impatient!” Valvert took another sip of his wine. “Essentially, my cousin has been accused of murdering my uncle. Her trial is fast approaching, and a sage is needed to represent her.”

“It is, huh?” Fernan’s mind raced back to the barrage of secondhand stories Florette had told him over the years. Were there any trials there? “Couldn’t you do it?”

Valvert chuckled. “Although many have called me magical, I am not in fact a sage. And that is what the law demands. While we still have laws, anyway.” He emptied his glass, then filled it again in a flash. “This is the way things have always been done, ever since the Fox Queen first granted the right of the spirit’s justice to all of noble birth under her cause.”

Tradition… There was always a reason for it, sure, but what lay at the root? “How does having a sage on hand prove anything, exactly?”

“Alone it proves nothing. But sages regularly hold power over life and death; this is a mere extension. Indeed, the soul who cannot muster a single advocate is surely forsaken by the spirits, and their fate is sealed.”

But sages are only human. Jerome had made that horrifyingly clear, if there had ever been any doubt.

“Camille hasn’t returned, then?”

“Ha! That bitch is dead. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Dead. The image returned unbidden to his mind, the warm red glow of blood leaking out onto her clothes. Lumière’s callous kick into the water below. Lady Camille had seemed so invincible, prepared for every possible circumstance, and it hadn’t stopped her from gruesome failure.

Valvert took another gulp of wine. “Admittedly, if she had returned, I wouldn’t have needed to traipse through these accursed mountains. But now I’ve found you, and all is well.”

Fernan raised an eyebrow. “All is well? Didn’t you just say your uncle died?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He clicked his tongue. “Uncle Fouchand could be soft where it counted, even indulgent past the point of reason, but he was a good man. He took care of me.” He took a deep breath. “He would never jump from that balcony. He would never give up like that. And I refuse to let his killer go free.”

Jump from the balcony? “What happened, exactly?”

“Who knows? His door was locked, but they still found him plastered on the stones in the courtyard below. The captain of his guard confessed to pushing him on my cousin’s orders, and she was arrested at the funeral.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

Valvert shrugged. “The captain may have done it; I couldn’t tell you. But Annette, irritating fool though she could be, would never do that. Never. And…” He poured the last of the wine into his glass, topping Fernan’s off with a few drops that were more insult than courtesy. “I love Aurelian like a brother, but he’s too smart not to see it too. I’ve talked to him over and over and he simply refuses to listen. All his time now is spent with that foreign bard.” His hand clenched tightly around the glass. “I wanted him barred from the city, but Uncle insisted on allowing him in. Now… Ugh, what a mess.”

“And you want me to fix it? I’m sorry, but—”

“You? No, of course not. I want you to stand as Annette’s advocate at the trial, but you’ll be following a script. This is all nominal.” He shook the empty wine bottle, but Fernan ignored the hint.

“Surely there’s someone else. Maybe Laura Bougitte; she was that other flame sage, right? Or… didn’t Camille have an uncle?”

“Laura would never cross Aurelian. There isn’t a sage in Guerron who would. Emile Leclaire might have, but he fled like the coward he is. The moment the fox pup was arrested, he was gone.” He lay back in his chair, crossing his legs. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have come here if I had any other choice.”

Khali’s curse, the sheer entitlement. “No. I’m done playing errand boy for bloodthirsty aristocrats. All the lies, the ruthlessness, the hate… I have a village here I have to protect.”

The glow of Valvert’s head tilted to the side. “A village? I saw less than a dozen people here.”

“My people.” The ones who stood by me, when I asked them to do the right thing no matter the cost. “You’ll have to find another to read your script. Lesser sages can’t be that difficult to come by.”

Valvert’s blood burned blue. “This is not a summons you can refuse. If your meager mining town is of such concern, I would be happy to bestow you lands in Dorseille. Perhaps a knighthood as well. It seems a reasonable thanks for services rendered, if I must.”

Why don’t you throw it in my face too? “What part of ‘no’ is so difficult for you to understand?”

“You presume to negotiate with me, as if I were some sort of oyster raker?” His glow burned brighter. “Very well. You shall be a viscount, but I will not forget how difficult you made this. I hope that more elevated peerage was worth the cost of my displeasure.”

“I’m not bargaining.” Fernan stood and opened the door. “Good day to you, my lord. I sincerely wish you luck.”

Valvert slammed his fist against the table. “Would you just stop? Every man has his price, and your pretense to the contrary is a waste of both of our time.”

“Not. Interested.” He gestured towards the open door, waving him out.

The aristocrat took a deep breath, exhaling long and deeply. “Now look. We’re going about this all wrong. My offers don’t interest you? Fine. You’re the one with the high card. Speak your mind.”

Speak your mind.

The fire in Fernan dimmed slightly as he took a moment to think. If there were some way to revitalize the village, to bring back what was lost without trampling on the peace they had built…

But there isn’t, is there?

Everything Villechart had once had was built on theft and deceit. The entire town was built around the mines, and the coal within them belonged to the geckos.

All that was left was waiting out oblivion here with the noble and the stubborn who had chosen to remain with him.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab another bottle,” he called out as he walked through the door. The liquor chest was back inside, but Valvert wouldn’t know that.

Fernan needed time to think, free of his imperious demands.

“You’re one of the good ones, aren’t you?”

He’d only met Annette Debray once, the short woman so clearly consumed by grief. It wasn’t as if he could speak for her innocence, even if it seemed so unlikely she would have committed murder against her own family.

“And remember that Camille kept her word,” she’d said. Even though Fernan’s deal had been with Camille Leclaire alone, Lady Debray had still honored it.

“Fernan?” Mara crept towards the open doorway. “Is everything alright? I heard the big human yelling.”

“It’s fine,” he sighed. “Lord Valvert was just asking me to go back to Guerron.”

Mara’s glow lit up, trails of warmth spiraling up from her nose. “When do we leave? I want to bring some of my older siblings this time. They’ve grown so fast, and that big den is way bigger than anything they’ve ever seen before.”

“We’re not going.”

Her head cocked to the side. “Why?”

“The people here need me. Mother, and Chanteclair, and old Guillaume, and—”

“So take them too! I bet they’d love to see Guerron too. It’s so big and exciting and there’s nothing for them here anyway.”

“There’s peace here,” he insisted. “I know most people left, but we’re building something here. And it’s--”

“Can’t we build it there?”

Fernan opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn’t find the words.

Couldn’t they?

≋

It had only taken a few days to mobilize the town. There simply wasn’t much left to pack up, especially since it all had to fit into rucksacks with the wagons taken and no lumber to build more.

Valvert had ridden ahead to The First Post to be better supplied as they packed everything up, which was probably better for everyone involved.

He’d promised much for them: new lands, new incomes, a new start. A way to survive and thrive far longer than a wilted village and few thousand florins could ever get them.

Fernan knew better than to expect it. There would be lodging in Guerron, likely temporary at that, and some florins to embark elsewhere that Valvert wouldn’t be able to weasel out of. Anything more couldn’t be relied on, even if it were promised. But it was something.

Maybe for the best, even.

Villechart was a monument to Jerome’s ego, an affront to the geckos it was built to destroy and pillage.

And now it was the geckos helping see it off for good.

The ones who’d remained in Villechart had gotten used to seeing Mara by now, even a sibling or two that she’d bring in on occasion, but by the time they departed Mara had gathered six more. They were smaller than she was, but still larger than a wolf, and far more intelligent.

Swelled with the power of the sundials, they were even beginning to learn the language, though progress there was slow with only Mara to teach them.

Still, they were eager to learn, to see the new sights of the city Mara had almost certainly oversold, and even willing to follow a pack of humans to get to it.

Certainly, they were handling it better than the villagers.

Doing the right thing hadn’t been enough to convince Guillaume, who had insisted that he die in the same house where he was born, but the fact that no one would be left to care for him, along with the rest of Jerome’s chest of liquor, had finally managed to convince him.

Everyone else had jumped at the chance to move on to the chance of something better, but there was still a suspicion in their fire, a wariness with the geckos that might never fade.

Wariness beats outright hostility though. It was a start.

Strangely, the village seemed less ghostly once they had packed it up entirely, less ominous. With a dozen villagers scraping out survival in the shattered remnants, an atmosphere of despair had hung in the air. Now it was simply a candle that had burned out, a place that had had its time, now over. Not dead, but complete.

Passing by Enquin had only validated things further, as their numbers had swelled.

Many were Villechart villagers, who’d left to find more work in mines that had run too dry to accommodate them anyway, but many were from Enquin themselves, including Gaspard. He’d returned once the tournament had been called off, he’d said, only to find no work remaining for him.

And the best part was that they had fallen in line with the geckos Mara had brought. Even some of the most ardent departees from two months ago still joined the growing caravan, seeking a better life that the mountains could no longer offer.

Florette had mentioned Enquin’s mines running low, with floods blocking what little was left, and it seemed that things had only gotten worse. In a way it was sad to see that prospects were so hopeless that people would rather swallow their fear than continue as they had been, but swallow it they had. Enough, anyway.

It helped that Mara had gotten her siblings to hunt down extra game up and down the mountainside as they traveled, roasting it to be fit for human consumption. No small amount of suspicion had greeted the first presentation of their kills, but hunger was a powerful thing, and fresh cooked meat a luxury at the best of times.

Fernan had no illusions that peoples’ acceptance was motivated by anything other than desperation, but it was still a start. The more that people could be exposed to geckos without any killing or stealing, the more they might come to accept them in truth.

Valvert had been utterly baffled once they reached him at The First Post. “This is far beyond the bounds of our deal,” he’d sputtered at the sight of so many people following.

“I’m renegotiating,” Fernan had said back, and that had been the end of it.

Oddly, though, the geckos had not overly shocked Valvert. Perhaps it was a lifetime spent around the sun sage, but he seemed to take the geckos largely in stride. “Spirit-touched,” he’d immediately identified them. “Strange to hear one speak a human tongue, but I suppose the bulk of their energy went to their brains rather than their magic.”

Of course, he was physically incapable of getting through a single conversation without being a raging prick, so he’d also added, “Very poor choice of familiar, though. Entirely common. You would do well to find something more exotic. Perhaps a Micheltaigne Pegasus; it would better compliment your abilities without such redundancy.”

It wasn’t just Enquin either. The further they went, the more people flocked to the ever-growing procession, giving Lord Valvert a heart attack with every new mouth he would have to feed to hold to his promise. But their deal was for everyone, and that included the newcomers.

Valvert would just have to figure it out.

“We have to ride ahead,” the aristocrat insisted one evening, sipping a bottle of port — fortified wine, apparently — that he’d purchased at the First Post. “Annette’s trial is the day before the solstice. These teeming masses will never reach Guerron in time. There’s hundreds of them now, with no more than mules, goats and asses. I’m the only one mounted, for Soleil’s sake!”

“They’ll make it,” Fernan insisted, remembering the journey he’d taken on foot. “What’s important is that you honor your end of the deal.”

“Bah, that’s nothing for me.” He waved his hand dismissively, though the dim in his glow implied that the reasoning behind his bravado might be less than strong. “Enough of Villemalin burned that they’ll fit right in.” He shrugged. “Better yokels than foreigners, at least.”

Still, it was slow going, and they were eating Guerron Pass dry. If not for the geckos, they would have already run out.

It was a close thing, but they still made it with two weeks left to prepare for the trial.

And as Fernan crossed the threshold of Guerron he felt, for the first time in months, a cautious hope.