I open my eyes and the glow of the pyramid fades. Lictor is hanging on my wrist, but he releases it and steps away from the pyramid. I nearly lose my balance and wobble.

  Lictor watches me, like checking how I’m going to react. ”Restful trip back home? Ready to go again?”

  My head feels groggy, and I yawn. The yawn goes on for a long while. I think of Lille’s words, but then stop and try notto think about them. Things that happen on a Ride don’t feel like anything once you’re out, but what she said frightens me. During the discussion, I was hurt, frightened, my pride wounded. Now that the words feel like they were spoken to someone else, I worry they might make a lot of sense. I can bury the idea of going back to talk with Ral. Now I know what going back would mean.

  The breakfast I had in the village has disappeared from my stomach, but my mind is clear. I remember what Lictor said about sleep and Rides. I feel much better, even though I should feel exactly the same as always when returning to this moment. I squeeze my shoulderblades together and clench my fingers to test how my body feels.

  It feels normal.

  ”I put you to sleep and took you back home to rest. I thought you might need it. If you’re not used to it, too many Rides in succession can throw you for a loop.”

  I’m too bewildered to say anything. Lictor waits, his face impassive.

  ”Some Janitors find that joke funny. Anyway, one attempt left. R eady?”

  I stop testing my fingers. ”Wait. I want to discuss things properly. I haven’t had a chance to think since you brought me here.”

  He’s already walking toward the door. ”Very well.”

  I know the way already. I’m deep in thought and walk past the clerk, following Lictor along the familiar path. He takes us to the fruit room, sits on his couch, and gestures at the other one.

  I sit and lean my elbows on my knees. ”My trip home only showed me that I can’t go back or they’ll try to keep me there.”

  This might be new for Lictor, too. He doesn’t look absent or watch the ceiling, as he usually does. His posture is straight and alert, hands clasped together.

  “But I’m needed here. You’ve been telling it to me the whole time. I wasn’t chosen at random.” I take a long pause and look directly at him. “Now that I’ve seen what will happen unless it’s stopped, I want to help. I need to.”

  He cracks a smile, relieved and gentle. “I knew you do. Not because I organized it that way, but because you’re a good man, Locke. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have picked you.”

  I smile and frown at his words. I like being called a man, for once, but did he admit organizing it? What did he organize?

  The corner of Lictor’s smile freezes. He unclasps his hands and opens them toward me. “Anyway, what are you going to do next? Lay it all out on me. From now on, this all depends on you.”

  I sit up straight again. ”We’re not here to fight random battles with Kertharians. There’s something else you want us doing. The camp was an exercise for us to learn how to work together.”

  ”Not for them.” He points a finger at me. “Only for you.”

  I stop and suck at my upper lip. That’s right. The others were not included on the Rides. They don’t know anything about what has happened. The real they are still waiting to meet me for the first time. I reach to take an apple from the table. ”Why me? Why am I the last?”

  ”We’ve tried it in every order. It works best this way around.”

  I wait, but he doesn’t continue. I stand up and start pacing around the room, bouncing the apple in my hand. ”We still have one Ride left, right? Why four Rides?”

  ”Four was as many as I wanted to risk. Using the artifact has its limits.” His eyes flicker to me. “And you’re less suited to using it than most.”

  ”Why am I less suited? Was the mole related to that?” I rub my forehead, but there’s nothing there.

  Lictor rubs the back of his ear. His eyes trail the apple I’m throwing from one hand to the other. ”Do you want a beer? I could go for something other than fruit this time. I can show you the city.”

  I would love to see the city.

  Ral always said that it’s not great, but I want to know for myself. And Lille said I could have a beer once I grow up, but she’s not here and I feel pretty damn grown up after everything that has happened.

  I nod at Lictor. I’ll get one just out of spite.

  We march into the clerk’s office, again. He doesn’t try to greet us or say goodbye. He stares ahead, his face pale.

  We step out from a door that leads out of his office and into a small alley behind the building. Lictor leads me to a larger street, where it’s dark and bright. The black sky looms above the spires and roofs of the city, but the glare of the streetlamps is also in my eyes. The light in the city has a blue hue, but it’s punctuated by the yellow and orange of the torches and lights above some shop windows. Every door on the street is a different color, like no one even saw the other doors before putting up theirs. The smell is a cacophony of people, stone, smoke, and the ozone of the lamps.

  There are people hurrying somewhere, but not many. They have their heads down, like they are expecting something bad to happen and hoping to get back inside before it does. Most glance at us as we walk by.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Not at us. At Lictor.

  I imagine people would look at a famous criminal in the same way. Awestruck, but wary.

  ”What’s going on?” I ask, watching the people hurry past and sneak their looks.

  Lictor walks ahead, ignoring the attention. ”People are wondering about what’s going to happen later this night and worried about the pouring rain that is going to start soon.” He pushes open a thick wooden door. A sign above it clatters in the wind. It has a drawing of a winking man with a beard and a conical hat with the text Wily Wizard above everything.

  ”They worry about the rain, but not the teleportation attack?”

  ”We didn’t tell the citizens any specifics. Merely asked everyone to stay indoors as much as possible. We bring in the rain to wash away the mess.”

  I swallow and follow him to a table. It’s in a corner of the room, separated from the rest of the area by a wooden partition. A boy brings over two tankards of beer immediately after we have sat down. He doesn’t say anything, only puts the mugs on the table and turns to leave immediately.

  ”Thanks!” I call out after the boy. He doesn’t react.

  ”We made an arrangement with this place,” Lictor says. He pulls the amulet off his chest and places it on the table, drops his cloak to rest on the backrest of his chair. Finally, he rubs his hands together, picks up the tankard and smells the foam. ”Janitors and their guests get beer, food and privacy. We pay them monthly. It’s quick and simple, and no one needs to have an existential crisis.” He takes a drink and smacks his lips. “It’s right next to the Ride Hall, there’s a table reserved around the clock and the food here is excellent.”

  The boy is waiting at the counter. Someone brings him two steaming bowls of something from the kitchen. The smell wafts in our direction and my mouth starts to water. I grab the tankard to whet my appetite further. I’ve had beer before, but not often, and never with permission.

  “If we were not on a Ride, I wouldn’t let you drink, but here, this also, doesn’t matter,” Lictor says. He raises his mug at me and his beady eyes squint at me over its rim.

  I raise the beer and take a sip. It’s different from what I’ve had before. Clear, crisp, thin. It tastes sharp and less robust than the one Durn makes back home. I don’t really like it, but like that’s going to stop me.

  I place the mug back on the table. I’m not yet ready to start with the real topic, so I ask something else. “Why did people look at you like that?”

  “On the street? They’re not used to seeing a Janitor walking about.”

  “How could they? Haven’t you been around for a single day?”

  “Rumours travel fast in this town. They say seeing a Janitor is bad luck. Means you might not be real.” A grin flickers on his face, but it disappears as soon as it appeared.

  Reading him is only getting harder. We’re as close to the real world as we have been for a while. This should be a moment of authenticity for him. He can’t have practiced this before, as we’re so deep into the tangle of different Rides. Is this what he is like for real? He’s still like a collection of unrelated moments. He licks his lips and drums the table as the bowls come closer. Yet he talks about the attack and the rain like it’s administrative business to be taken care of.

  The boy pushes the two bowls onto the table. The smell is amazing. There’s something in the stew that I can’t place, some spice that I haven’t encountered before. He keeps his eyes from meeting ours, and leaves again immediately. Now that I know what’s going on, it feels more like a professional touch, instead of him being unkind or frightened.

  “I never got to eat like this in my past life,” Lictor says. His nostrils flare as he picks up a spoon from the table. His tone is breathless and the look he gives me almost pleading. “Try the meat. They season it for weeks.”

  I’m getting whiplashed talking to him. I pick up a spoon as well. “So, we’re still on a Ride, right?”

  He makes an ‘mm-hmm’ sound, mouth already full and chewing.

  “And after this one, we’ll start doing whatever we’re supposed to do for real? Can you tell me already what is going on?” I lift the bowl to sip at the stew. It is amazing. Salty, oily, thick with flavor.

  Lictor stops the spoon half-way up to his mouth and purses his lips. There’s oil on his chin and fresh stains on his uniform. Yet the burnt holes are gone and replaced by new shining runes. Or old, to be more exact? “Sure. You’re ready.” His posture changes. He sits up straight and wipes his mouth on his sleeve. “We’re going to end the war before it begins. We’ve spent collective years researching the situation, trying out different options, seeing how the Kertharians react to victories, losses or attempts at negotiation.”

  I lean forward in my chair. I’m squeezing the spoon in my hand, waiting for him to continue.

  Lictor leans in too. “They meet every attempt at negotiation with violence. No amount of casualties makes them slow down, hesitate, or even flinch. They don’t stop to claim the spoils of their victories. They kill and keep on killing as long as they can find anyone who’s not a Kertharian. They. Are. Insane.” He punctuates each syllable of the final sentence by tapping the table with his spoon.

  I swallow as I remember the woman with the wooden spatula. The savage look in her eyes as she crawled toward me, the arrow poking out of her back.

  “They scream and crash over our lands like a wave, burying everything in their wake in fire. You saw the farm, but I can show you the ruins of half a dozen other settlements. Families slaughtered in their homes for not being Kertharians. You can let the still warm ash run through your fingers and watch the fires die down.”

  “Um,” I say. The stew is getting cold and the beer warm, both forgotten.

  “Wait, that was an odd thing to suggest, wasn’t it?” he says and chuckles. He leans back and twirls his spoon in the stew, not meeting my eyes. “Sorry. Sometimes you need to rub the experiences in to get them to stick. You’re not there yet, don’t worry.”

  Neither of us says anything for a moment. I consider tasting the stew, but I don’t want to. “So… ending the war. How do I and the others play into it?”

  “You’ll go and take something deep into Kerthar that’ll wipe them out.”

  The sentence feels like a punch to the stomach. A cold flush goes through me, then a hot. “What!”

  “Someone has to do it. It would have been impossible to handle by teleportation, even if the Etherthorn Weave wasn’t an issue. The Kertharians catch on too quickly. And it’s too far for anyone to do it inside a single Ride by other means. That’s why we need a flexible team that can handle themselves and adapt to any situation.”

  “No! I mean, what do you mean ‘wipe them out’?”

  Lictor puts down his spoon on the table. His eyes, like dark marbles, hard and cold, glint at me from below his brow. “Think back to what I told you about them. Compromise is not an option. They need to be put down.”

  I thump the table, spoon pressed into my fist. “We don’t talk like that even about animals. We can’t put down—“

  “That’s exactly the point. They are worse than animals. They are not trying to survive or defend themselves. They are trying to exterminate everyone. I need you to understand this, Locke! This is not an ethical question. This is about survival.”

  My mouth is hanging open. The tavern is quiet. There’s someone sitting at a table on the other end of the room, but they are reading a book, not paying attention to us. The boy has disappeared somewhere.

  “Trying to fight them traditionally is pointless. And the end result is the same, even if we win. Every single Kertharian is willing to die to kill as many of us as they can. Whole families, from grandparents to grandchildren, will come at you with kitchen knives, flails, shears. They won’t stop until they’re dead.”

  “That can’t be normal. That makes no sense!”

  “The reason doesn’t matter. This is war, started by them, with no provocation.” He slams his fist into the table so the amulet and the bowls clatter. Some stew spills over from my bowl. ”They started it! We will end it.”