I’m standing on the polished marble floor again. Corum, it has to be her, is glaring down at me. She’s taller than I am, just like her uncle. Unlike the Old Wizard, she stands straight, her posture as rigid as the look on her face.

  “Did the War Janitor send you? Why are you here?”

  “Lictor? No. Yes! I need to talk to you about the mission!” I’m panicking. I need to get us out of here before the Old Wizard and the Ponytail Guy arrive.

  Corum doesn’t look convinced or answer, instead looking around the room, the closed circle on the ground, then at one of the corridors. It looks like she’s considering if she’ll throw me down before leaving herself.

  She takes a breath in, I interrupt her. “Please, there’s a conspiracy! Someone plans to kill all the Kertharians!” I hiss the last words, as I expect the men to be here any minute now.

  Her eyebrows raise and she leans her face next to mine. “What! What proof do you have? Who are you?”

  Her perfume fills my nose, a mix of flowers I can’t name. Not now. “We have to go! They’re coming! Your uncle is part of it.”

  She leans away, baring her teeth. She looks angry enough to hit someone, but I don’t know who. I hear steps and she does too. Her head jerks up, and she organizes her face from a grimace to a smile.

  The shuffling steps make it clear it’s the Old Wizard. The other steps are the clicking of hard heels on stone. The two men appear from the corridor that leads to the archwizard’s office where I was earlier. The old man has a confused look on his face. The noble’s mouth is smiling, but his eyes are not.

  “Oh, niece, I thought you were busy today,” the Old Wizard says. “How nice, how nice.”

  She greets him with the slightest nudge of her head. “Uncle.”

  “Representative Corum,” the Ponytail Guy says and bows.

  No one is paying any attention to me. I hope that continues and stay as still as possible. I press my hands next to my thighs, fingers over the extra thumbs.

  “Corum, let me introduce you to Mr. Lombarte.”

  “Sir Lombarte. It’s a pleasure, but I was about to leav—“

  “Don’t worry! There’s no rush. He came to talk about the… what was it?”

  Lombarte takes a breath and holds it, before letting it go from his nose. “The plans what we are going to do after the war. I trust everything will go smoothly.” He gives the old man a meaningful look that is impossible to miss.

  Corum’s eyes flicker to meet mine.

  The Old Wizard follows her look and turns to smile at Corum. “Oh, you have a visitor? Who’s your young friend?”

  “Merely a courier. I need to get something delivered.” Her tone is level. Not casual, but I’m not sure if it ever is.

  “Oh, right, right.”

  There’s a long pause after that. No one says anything. The Old Wizard leans a bit to the side.

  Lombarte starts tapping his foot on the floor but stops as Corum glares at him. He gestures at the closed circle on the floor. “Ahem. As I was saying, I really must—“

  Corum interrupts him. “Tell me a bit about those plans you were discussing.”

  I swallow, a sudden clump in my throat. Her voice is sharp in a way that reminds me of Lille, demanding an answer. A twinge of homesickness makes me grimace. I haven’t thought of the village for what feels like an eternity. I wonder what Bann, Lian, and Hendrik are doing.

  Actually, they are still probably sitting around the fire where I left them. Having a laugh or making guesses what I’m going to do on my trip.

  “Those plans are not really anything you need to concern yourself with, representative,” he replies. The smile he gives Corum replaces my homesickness with an urge to punch him.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “I’ll be the judge of that, sir,” Corum says.

  The smile freezes on the guy’s face. “Well, there will be much to build, rebuild, that is. People will want for homes and reparations.”

  “Who will be paying those reparations? The Kertharians won’t be able to.”

  A smirk flashes on his face and he glances at the Old Wizard. “That is very true.”

  People really aren’t very subtle here. It’s hard to judge how all this would feel if I didn’t know from earlier Rides that something is going on. Still, he must feel we’re completely irrelevant to be acting like that.

  The Old Wizard smiles on, oblivious to the look and the whole discussion, it seems. I search his face for any sign of deceit or the scathing intellect of earlier, but his eyes are vacant. There’s no one home.

  Corum takes a step toward the man. She’s as tall as him and the man withers before her gaze. “I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark, Mr. Lombarte.” She spins away hard and the long cowl of her robe slaps the man in the face. ”Come, boy,” she says and starts walking.

  Everyone’s always stomping off and assuming I’ll follow. I do, though. So far, so good. The Old Wizard has grabbed Lombarte’s sleeve and is talking about something, face still oblivious. The guy himself is glaring after us, paying no attention to the old man hanging on his sleeve. Someone made an enemy today, but I have a feeling the woman marching ahead of me is not worried about it.

  Her office is nearly as large as the old guy’s. Her plaque says Wizard.

  The moment the door clicks closed, she turns to me. ”How do you know all this?” The tone of the question reminds me of Marek, as do her eyes. They zig-zag around too fast to follow, inspecting me from head to toe in an instant.

  The resemblance makes me answer without thinking. ”I have been on Rides. Lictor took me on a bunch. I’ve met your uncle. He put on his hat.”

  ”And what happened next?”

  ”When I mentioned the plan to kill everyone, he knew exactly what I was talking about.”

  ”And then?” The questions follow each other without a pause. She’s standing completely still, one hand on her elbow, another on her chin.

  ”He froze me. I was stuck in place, slowed down, but I could still sort of see what happened. He met with that Lombarte guy again, and you came to shout at him later.”

  ”Still researching the effects of the Ride. He probably figured out you were on a one. It’s worrying that he met with Kattam first.” She finally breaks her pose and seems to relax.

  ”Who?”

  ”Kattam Lombarte,” she says, and points behind her with her thumb. ”The man’s a menace.” Maybe she didn’t relax, just turned her focus inward. Her face is scrunched up in thought. Her nostrils flare and she rubs her face, starting to pace around the room.

  I stay silent to see if she continues.

  ”Kattam is a key figure in the war faction. If Marek really is working with him behind the council’s back…” She trails off as her pacing brings me into her view again. ”Why are you still here?”

  ”I’m supposed to leave in a couple of hours on the mission! I just want to know I’m doing the right thing. And the thing you think I’m supposed to do. What is the mission, exactly?”

  ”You don’t know?”

  ”I’d like to hear it from you.”

  She tilts her head up, looking out from the big window on the ceiling. It’s similar to the old man’s office, but there’s not an eagle blocking it. She’s considering it, but I don’t know which way she’ll go.

  Someone knocks on her door.

  I panic. ”Astaroth says he will leave you in peace and forget what happened last spring!”

  Blood rushes to her cheeks. She touches her cheek and her mouth presses into a thin white line. ”The cheeky tosser.” She draws in a breath and chuckles.

  The knock comes again. ”Lady Corum?” a soft voice asks from behind the door.

  ”Fine. FINE.” She blows a short raspberry with her mouth, making a ”blrrr” sound that surprises me. Not so prim all the time, after all. ”Meeting’s cancelled! Go away for now,” she shouts at the door.

  The voice behind the door starts to say something. I don’t make out what, as Corum is already walking toward her desk and I focus on her again.

  She sits and opens a drawer, peering into it. ”So, the mission. I’ll explain it like I would to someone who doesn’t know anything about it.” She’s still bending over toward the drawer, but takes a moment to look up at me. ”Except normally I would start by saying this is going to sound pretty far-fetched, but with you, I think that won’t be necessary.”

  I chuckle and look around for a chair. There’s none in her office, so I stay standing. There are still some hesitant knocks on the door, but we both ignore them. She fiddles with the drawer for a while with both hands and pulls out a leather folder. It must have been in a secret locker. Maybe I should remember that.

  Before I can think more about it, she opens the folder and starts reciting, paper in hand. ”A team will be teleported near the Kerthar border before the Etherthorn Weave is put in place. They will sneak over to a pre-designated location to transport a magical device of great power along a set path of coordinates.”

  The set path of coordinates is news to me, but it helps to explain why Lictor flew me over the area and showed me all the camps. Plans inside plans. Telling anything only once it’s the right time to do so.

  ”Once there, the team will cross back over the Kerthar border to avoid the effect of the device. It will activate itself, displacing all humans and equally intelligent creatures on Kerthar’s side from time for thirty years.” She puts the paper back into the folder while speaking. “From their viewpoint, they will be transported into the future.”

  “What!?”

  She looks at me flatly and taps the folder. ”What, what?”

  ”Into the future! Thirty years!” My fingers are stretched out, both hands before my face, waving back and forth and spreading them wide to show how long a time thirty years is. Once I notice I’m doing it, I lower my hands and blush. ”I mean, I know things are a bit weird here, but thirty years!”

  ”That is not the part you should be astonished by. The War Janitor has gone rogue. The mere thought warrants panic.”