Rabam spent the whole day making calculations at the desk. He was so engrossed in what he was doing he only remembered to eat the soup his brother had left him halfway through the afternoon. Then the door started opening and he could only hide by jumping behind the bed, thinking for a foolish moment it was a sentinel coming to arrest him.

Luckily, it was Cailes.

“I have the books,” he said, raising them over his head. “A copy of the list of gods and something on ancient history.”

Rabam took them.

“Thank you.”

“Ebus will bring you food after he finishes preparing dinner. I’ll have to leave in a couple of hours, do you need help with your disguise in the meantime?”

“Yes, I would appreciate it a lot. I have an idea on how to find out what they're saying at the meetings, but I fear that some of the sentinels would recognize me.”

“You should start by cutting your hair and beard.”

Rabam reflexively touched them.

“I… hadn't thought about it.”

Cailes approached the wardrobe and took out a mirror, a basin, a razor and a small jar of homemade shaving cream. Rabam took the basin and filled it with water from one of the bottles scattered all around the room.

He waited for Cailes to find all the tools, looking down at his own reflection. The beard was something new from after the exile, inspired by the fashion of Elgen and the western villages. The hair...

He raised a strand in front of his face and examined the loose curls.

Mili used to love them.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember how her hands felt between his locks. He let go of the strand, out of breath for trying to hold in the sudden pain. He gripped the borders of the table and breathed slowly until it subsided to a distant thought and no more memories were resurfacing to the front of his mind.

Then, he took the scissors that Cailes was handing him and began hacking at his hair.

“There you go,” Cailes said, stepping back with a small brush between his fingers.

Rabam had been looking insistently in the mirror for the past hour, as if a part of him feared that losing sight of his transformation would have turned his reflection into a stranger. Even now, after Cailes had helped him fix his hair and make-up, it was easy to lose track of his actual facial traits.

The door creaked again. He tensed, then heard the slow rolling of a cart and turned his head.

“Here's the food, as requested,” Ebus said, closing the door behind him.

The cart barely fit between the bed and the wall.

“There's no way I could have prepared thirty of them in secret, so only the ones on the top are real.”

He saw Rabam and froze, squinted, then laughed.

“Amazing! I couldn't recognize you.” He stepped closer and leaned forward with his hands on his knees to get at the level of Rabam’s face. “You look like one of those fanatics that put up the Founding Anniversary decorations two months in advance.”

Rabam felt the tension break and laughed too. He stood to hug his brother, then approached the cart to examine what he had prepared. The cart had three trays completely occupied by bundles of cloth. He opened one at the top: a piece of flat bread wrapped around slices of meat and vegetables. The bundles on the other trays, instead, only contained more cloth.

“It's more than enough,” he said. “Thank you.”

He grabbed the cart's handle, then turned to look at Cailes.

“I know I'm asking a lot,” he began, uncertain on how to ask.

Cailes sighed.

“What do you need?”

“Could you put the books in the forest? If everything goes well I'll leave tonight through the tunnel and I can't take them with me.”

Cailes nodded. Rabam told him how to find the tree in which to leave them, so that he could pick them up later without the sentinels noticing.

“They have to be returned in two weeks,” Cailes said. “Or I'll get in trouble.”

“I’ll come back before then and give them to grandma.”

Ebus opened the door and checked that there weren't monks outside.

“Go,” he whispered.

Rabam pushed the cart out of the room. He kept going along the corridor, blood rushing in his ears. It became almost painful when he heard steps coming in his direction from the opposite side. He was tempted to turn into a side corridor, even if it meant taking a longer path to the temple. But he'd have to talk to someone, eventually. It could be a good chance to test whether his disguise was working.

He didn't glance at the monk that was approaching from the other side, keeping his eyes fixed on a spot further ahead. He knew from the angle of the person’s head that they were looking at him. One second and it was over, the steps continuing further behind him. He made a deep breath and picked up the pace, the cart's wooden wheels rumbling on the stone floor.

He turned a corner and finally saw the temple's doors. They were closed shut, without any sentinel waiting outside. He had a feeling that it would have made his task more difficult, but he didn't allow himself to analyze exactly why.

He stopped the cart in front of the doors and knocked as hard as he could. His hammering heart counted more seconds than the ones that were passing.

The left door opened a crack. He reflexively lowered his head to hide his face behind his hair, but it was too short.

Two sentinels looked outside. Rabam recognized one of them as one of his older colleagues when he was part of the monks. They hadn't interacted much, not enough turns together. The other had to be slightly younger than him. She stared at his face with eyes full of suspicion.

“Who are you?”

He couldn’t blame her, there weren't that many people in the village. If she was a particularly social person, she'd probably seen everyone at least once and was now mentally digging through his makeup to get at his real identity.

“They told me to bring here the food for the expedition,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Which expedition?” she asked.

He pretended to be taken aback.

“The one for tonight? Against Vizena?”

They looked at each other.

“Who's there?” someone asked from the inside.

Rabam recognised Maris's voice and tensed. The sentinels' priors were the only ones that could recognize him with ease. Them and the abbot, of course, who knew everyone's face by heart.

“Don't worry,” the older sentinel said. “They made a mistake in the kitchens. We'll handle that.”

Someone resumed talking from the inside, a different voice that had probably been interrupted by Rabam's arrival.

“There's no expedition tonight,” the older sentinel said. “We're going on eighthday.”

Three days left. Rabam nodded.

“Who told you the expedition was tonight?” the younger sentinel asked.

Rabam tensed.

“A guy…” he began, hoping she'd let the question fall.

“You can leave these here anyways, we’ll find a use for them,” the other sentinel said, reaching for a bundle on the second tray of the cart.

Rabam wanted to stop him, but that would be too suspicious, and the younger sentinel was already glaring at him. He couldn't leave the cart there, of course, or they'd find out that most of the bundles were fake. Ebus was a cook, so he was used to not leaving traces of his viss behind, but Rabam would have been captured immediately. He needed to distract them from the food.

“A man told me,” he answered the younger sentinel. “I didn't know him. He said he was a cook and that I had to bring this stuff here.”

The elder one retreated his hand and stood straighter.

“Describe him.”

“Long brown hair and beard, voice higher than mine.”

“Where was he? Give us all the details you remember.”

Rabam knew what was going to happen as soon as he'd told them everything: they'd have sealed any possible exit to the village, pool room included, and interrogated everyone they saw around. The only way to buy some time for him to escape was to convince the sentinels to look outside first.

“I was gathering herbs in the gardens near the forest, when that man approached me with a basket full of these.” He gestured at the food. “He told me he was a cook and asked me if I worked in the kitchen, and when I said yes he told me to bring here the food for tonight's expedition.”

The sentinels looked at each other again.

“We need to organize the search immediately,” the older one said to his colleague. “Go tell our priors what happened. Be discreet, don't interrupt the meeting.”

She nodded and retreated inside.

“And you, bring the cart into that room,” he told Rabam, pointing at an empty classroom further down the corridor. “And wait for us there. We need to ask you more questions.”

Rabam nodded while the man retreated inside. He pushed the cart further down the corridor, walking as fast as he could. He opened the classroom's door and pushed it inside, then closed it. He ran at a light pace toward the end of the corridor. He had minutes before the hunt for him started; he needed to leave the village before the whole mountain was covered with sentinels. There was no time to go back to Ebus and Cailes, it would only put them in danger.

He slowed down and walked toward the pool, praying to find people there and not be alone with the sentinels. He was lucky: there were two families with kids and a classroom of older children being taught how to swim by a teacher. They were all wearing lighter swimming clothes, so they glared at Rabam when he approached the pool with his tunic on. He slid into the water before the two sentinels chattering near the door could stop him. A deep breath and he disappeared underwater.

He swam inside the tunnel, the water around him becoming darker as he left behind the light of the torches. His hand scraped against the remains of the grate. He proceeded with caution until he'd left them behind, then swam at full force out of the tunnel and into the lake. He had almost finished the air when he emerged.

He splashed around at the center of the lake, limbs burning. He didn't see anyone near the shore, not even his grandma, so he immediately swam toward the shadow of the trees, aware that any sentinel looking in that direction could spot him in the dimming light of the early evening. He got out of the water, ignoring the cold wind pressing the wet cloth of his tunic against his back. Whatever sickness he would get that way, Aili could heal it. Provided he managed to reach her without getting captured.

He got his backpack from his hiding spot. He put it on and started heading down the mountain, the paths he'd calculated that day still fresh in his mind. He needed to circle back toward the gardens to reach the spot where Cailes had left the books, then go back to Lausune as fast as he could before the sentinels started patrolling the whole mountain to find him. At least, he had everything Aili had asked him to take: the book about the gods, the volume of ancient history and the exact date of the attack.

He stopped halfway through, the lake not yet out of his sight. Whatever Aili wanted to do, three days weren't much. She needed to read the books, and since she hadn't given him any titles, he couldn't be sure they actually contained the information she needed. The consequences of his actions that day were also difficult to gauge: the monks could be scared, but also determined to attack earlier. He needed to make sure they waited as much as possible, maybe scare them.

He took out his carving knife, turned toward the lake and set out to work.

The gardens were ripe with activity when Rabam arrived. The helpers were arguing with the sentinels, who were trying to send everyone else inside and question them about what they had seen at the same time.

Rabam slid from tree to tree, keeping low among the bushes. He counted under his breath to find the right tree, keeping an eye on the sentinels in the meantime. They were all holding spears except for two, who were looking around with their binoculars.

He finally found the right tree: there were bushes in front of it, and if Cailes had managed to take the books outside, he should find them there. He hid behind the trunk and leaned forward until he could touch the earth under the bushes with a hand. He felt a bundle of rough cloth and slowly dragged it on the earth toward his hiding spot, stopping every time his movements caused some rustling. The voices of sentinels and helpers continued in the background, agitated but not alarmed. Still, he only relaxed when he finally held the books in his hands. He brushed the earth off as best as he could and put them inside his backpack.

The evening's wind bit into his skin harder through the damp cloth. He tried to hold in a sneeze, but some of it still managed to come through.

“There!” a sentinel shouted, pointing index and binoculars in his direction.

Rabam stood and started to run down the flank of the mountain. He was forced to change direction by some movement further down, one of the many groups of sentinels sent out to look for him. He went east, toward the lake, the shouts of his pursuers stronger behind him. Soon more of those groups would have converged in the area, following the sound of their voices.

He saw one approaching from the right and ran a bit closer to the border of the forest. They still saw him. A sentinel went straight to intercept him, a spear aimed at him.

“Stop!” he screamed, but Rabam didn't slow down. The sentinels had never fought outside of training and never killed anyone, so he hoped in some seconds of hesitation, enough to get out of reach.

But the sentinel raised his spear as Rabam ran next to him, and he knew he would attack. He was too close to run out of the way.

Then their eyes met and the sentinel shrieked, the spear frozen in his hand.

“His face!”

Rabam kept going. He touched his face as he ran from tree to tree, but he didn't feel anything different than usual. Then he remember the makeup: the swim through the tunnel had ruined it completely. The monks seemed to consider him dangerous enough for that simple thing to scare them.

He saw the lake from afar. He risked a glance over his shoulder: there were at least twenty sentinels running toward him, but at least he had managed to put a bit of distance behind him. He smelt the smoke and looked at the tree, its dark shape curving toward the water of the lake, but he didn't see any fire yet.

He abruptly jumped to the right, landed on all fours, and crawled toward the bushes as quickly as possible. He found his spot and crouched there, carving knife in one hand and backpack held to his chest with the other. He breathed heavily, listening to his pursuers getting closer.

“Where is he?”

“Spread out and check the whole area.”

“What's this smell?”

“Calm down, I'm trying to light my torch.”

Flickering dots of light appeared among the trees. Rabam retracted a bit more into the bushes, until he couldn't see the monks anymore. He put down the backpack and covered it with soil as much as he could. Aili wouldn't have gotten her books, but she could always send someone else to retrieve them after he'd bought her some more time. His capture would have meant interrogations and another process, which would have slowed down the monks' plans of attack more than anything else he could do.

The rustling of leaves became stronger as the light approached. He saw the arm holding the torch, then the head of a monk. He tensed, waiting for his reaction once he saw him.

“Fire!” someone screamed.

The monks turned and ran toward the lake. The rustling of leaves became more intense as all of them converged toward the tree. The smoke was denser, now: Rabam had planned for the fire to start once he was halfway down the mountain, so he had covered the flames with grass and some dry leaves to create smoke and slow down their growth. Then it would have reached the twigs and wood he had piled up on top, creating enough light to attract any sentinel in the area, including the ones who were observing the temples with their binoculars.

“There's a message,” he heard them shout. Rabam risked raising his head over the leaves: there weren't sentinels further down, at the moment.

They were all observing the message he had carved on the tree: ‘Your village will crumble in two days from now. Join us or die’.

Along with the cart of food and the mistery of his infiltration into the village, he hoped it was enough to make them hesitate. Of course they would figure out it was all a ruse once two days had passed with nothing happening, but he hoped Aili could make good use of that extra time.

He took his backpack and walked away from their frantic attempts to tame the fire with the water of the lake. He had no choice but to cross the forest at night. At least the boars had been scared away by all the shouts and movement. He had nothing to fear, except for the silent emptiness of Mili's house waiting for him on the other side.