I stumble out of the tavern. I managed to drink les than half of the beer before I lost my appetite for anything. I still feel light-headed and nauseous.

  Lictor closes the door behind us. He is wearing his cloak again and draws himself up to his full height. He smells the air. “We still have the whole night. Do you want to see the city now? I could show you the market square or the spire district. We could catch either before the rain.”

  I’m cold. Colder than when flying over the forests and camps. The thought shakes something loose. “Wait. Who’s going to handle the camp this night? What are the rest doing?”

  “Probably getting annoyed. Finna eventually loses her temper at Rworg and stabs Liam a bit after midnight.”

  “A bit after midnight?” I repeat. My head’s swimming.

  “No, stabs him a bit. Anyway, it’s not relevant.” Lictor’s cheeks are flushed. He finished his beer, and it seems to have gone directly to his head.

  “I don’t really feel like a tour at the moment,” I say. “Why is Finna part of the team, by the way? She seems…” I can’t find a way to finish the sentence.

  “Oh, she’s a handful, for sure. But also one of the most talented thieves in the city. A prodigy. Untouchable.” Lictor’s mouth draws into a smile. “Until yesterday, obviously. I’m offering her a different path.”

  I wonder how freely Finna took that path. Still, maybe it’s good I learn of these things. “And Rworg and Mandollel? Who are they?”

  Lictor walks briskly back toward the Ride Hall. From outside, it looks like a huge dome. I wonder what it was used for before the artifact was placed there. They couldn’t have built it in a single day.

  Seeing the Hall reminds me of something that’s been gnawing at me the whole time. “Where did the Mountain Ride come from?”

  Lictor still doesn’t answer. He keeps walking, head pulled between his shoulders.

  Physically, he doesn’t look like anyone important or powerful. He’s only about as tall as me, and his shoulders are narrow. His cowl is pushed back and I can see even his hair is thin and wispy. Ral or Bann could snap him in two. Even I could probably bend him a bit.

  He glances back at me and the thought is swept away. His eyes are black in the blue light of the streetlamps. The runes on his clothes glint and a spark jumps from a nearby lamp to one of them, spitting along the collar of his cloak. It jumps to his cheek with a snap. He doesn’t even blink. “Rworg and Mandollel are who they are. Who are you, Locke? Will you do what’s necessary?”

  I don’t reply. Doing what’s necessary sounds sour suddenly. Preventing an attack, hurting someone I know, for a fact, would kill me, is one thing. Wiping out a nation, a people, is something else entirely.

  Lictor stops. There’s no one around us. He points up at the overcast gloom. “Soon, the sky would be filled with mages raining fire and death. We prevent that. Soon, the camps would launch their attacks. We’ll prevent all but one of those.” He turns to face me properly. “After this night, there is nothing we can do to help any of the border settlements: no warnings, no evacuation plans, no last-minute rescues.” He leans his face toward mine. “Eastern Velonea will burn.” His voice is a barely audible whisper. “And burn and burn and burn.”

  I swallow, even though my mouth feels dry. I remember Lille saying she would stop this, prevent me from taking part. For a moment, I wish that the discussion had been real after all.

  Lictor leans back and turns away. “And then it will get worse. Unless they are stopped.”

  “But is there really no other way to stop them? What does wiping them out even mean?” I’m pleading. I always imagined I’d be tough, do the right thing without hesitation, like the heroes in all of the legends. Now I’m shivering and almost crying. I want to go home, but I grit my teeth. Lictor’s pushing open the door back to the Ride Hall and the clerk’s office.

  I follow him in and forget to shut the door as I try to keep up. Outside, the clouds hang heavy and dark, ready to hose down the streets.

  “Leave it. It doesn’t matter,” Lictor calls to me. He’s already halfway through the room.

  The clerk is nowhere to be seen and the breeze from the door sets a paper flying from his desk. The paper dances in the air, but suddenly stops and crumbles mid-flight. A woman, another Janitor, appears next to the desk. She must have been invisible too. Is the whole place filled with invisible Janitors? How many are there?

  She’s holding the paper in her fist. She places it down on the table and walks to the door. “Always have to clean up after him,” she mutters, pulling the door closed.

  My eyes go wide and I stop to stare at her. She’s wearing a similar uniform as Lictor, but that’s not the most striking thing about her. She’s gorgeous. Tall, perfect skin, the blond hair spilling out from under her cowl the same color as the gold of the runes.

  She points at Lictor, who stops to look back.

  “Ignore that dumbass,” they say at the same time.

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  She winks at me. The wink makes my knees wobble.

  Lictor . “Come on.”

  I sneak a final look at the woman, biting my lower lip, but jog to catch up to Lictor. His cheeks are still flushed from the beer, the walk outside, or the discussion from before. “That was another Janitor? Is she on the same Ride as us?”

  “No, she’s a local.”

  “Did she know we’re on a Ride? Why didn’t she freak out?”

  Lictor stops and frowns at me. “She’s a Janitor.”

  It seems that’s all the explanation I’m going to get. Lictor starts walking again and takes a hand out of his pocket to rub his eyes. “That woman thinks we should respect the places we go through. She keeps lecturing me. It’s demeaning.”

  I chuckle. I can’t help it. He sounds so petulant.

  Lictor cracks a smile as well. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and pushes open the door to the main hall.

  The artifact flashes the moment we step in. Near the pyramid, a group of ten people are holding hands. They let go of each other and start filing toward the other end of the room. Most wear heavy armor, with a large stylized bridge embossed on their breast lates. The bridge must be the Tenorsbridge insignia, though I haven’t seen it anywhere in the Ride Hall or on Lictor. Maybe the military uses it. Among the group are a few archers, and a man in a robe with the same insignia embroidered on his back.

  One of the armored people slaps the robed man on the shoulder. “Think you got it now?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. I’m not used to people shooting arrows at me.”

  “You have to dodge the first one and then you can ignore the rest.”

  “They hit pretty close, though. One goes right through my sleeve!”

  “Well, keep your eyes closed or something if it bothers you. Just finish the fireball in time, so we get the opening to…”

  I can’t hear the rest of the discussion as they file out through the door. On the other edge of the hall, another door opens and a woman peeks in.

  “Previous group all done?” she asks. “Can we go? Do you mind? We’re on a schedule.”

  Lictor waves his hand, signaling the woman to come in.

  The group enters, pulled in by the woman. Some bow stiffly at Lictor, while others roll their shoulders and adjust their gear. It’s another squad, eight people this time. They link hands and the woman touches the pyramid. There’s a flash, a hum, and nothing happens.

  The woman turns around and pumps her fist at her team. “Great work! Do as we practiced and it’ll go great.” Her face becomes serious, and she faces one of the men. “Hank, we can’t risk more tries, so… be careful, ok?”

  “Yes, captain,” a young man says. “Last two times went great. I’ll be fine!”

  “Make sure you will. Ok, let’s clear out. The next group needs to get going, too.”

  Lictor watches the group file out, his hands in the pockets of his overalls. “You understand what’s going on?” he says, without turning to me.

  “They are the teams that are going to handle the Kertharian camps? How long were they gone for real?”

  “Impossible to say from the outside. You could ask if you’re really interested.” Lictor shrugs, but then pivots to face me, face pulling tight. “I wanted you to see this. Do you understand the power that we wield at the moment?”

  I rub the back of my neck. They could practice whole wars. Perfect intelligence, flawless attacks, teams that could be transformed from random people who have barely met to elites in seconds.

  Lictor’s face droops as soon as it had tightened. “We’re throwing it all away.”

  ”What is the Weave? How does it work? Can’t you undo it?”

  “The ether will be seeded with a tangle of barbed growths. Thicket reaching everywhere, strong as steel, impenetrable. Irremovable. Teleportation moves you in a straight line through the ether… and through them.”

  I shudder, remembering his presentation earlier. Like a whole person pushed through a sieve. Which was basically what happened, now that I think about it. I shudder again, realizing that he did it to himself, willingly and flippantly.

  “Oh well,” he says. “What is decided, is decided. The council couldn’t be dissuaded.”

  I get the feeling it was not for lack of trying. I wonder how politics work in Tenorsbridge, with the Mountain Ride in the picture. Who gets to use the artifact, anyway?

  The next team marches in from the other side of the hall. This time it’s led by a man with an impressive beard. He starts organising his people and taps his foot, looking at us impatiently.

  “Don’t mind us,” Lictor says to him and turns sharply at the door. “Let’s go.”

  There’s a flash from behind my back. The hall is empty but for us and the team. “Why are they so worried about the previous team being gone and us being here?”

  Next to the pyramid, the team is hooting and the team leader is slapping someone on the back.

  “Think about it. Someone comes, touches the artifact and then starts to act like they’ve just arrived to a Ride.”

  “Ah,” I say. I pause and frown again. “But we were there? What happened on the other end? How did we react?”

  Lictor pulls open the door. “Not our problem. Janitors are pretty used to it. Don’t worry about it.”

  I shudder. The thought is like a wound that I can ignore as long as I stay still and don’t happen to look at it. Of course I’m real, but what if one day someone would prove otherwise? I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my teeth together.

  “I said don’t worry about it. We need to go.”

  His cloak billows behind him as he strides ahead, past the clerk and into the corridor. There are already too many things I shouldn’t think about. I file the thought with the memory of the woman with the ladle and Mandollel decapitating me. He should be happy consequences don’t matter on a Ride, because killing a Janitor and a minor in the middle of the city would probably be a big deal.

  I chuckle at the thought.

  As I walk, I wonder if all the preparation we did until this point was for nothing. I quicken my pace to catch up to Lictor and start walking beside him. “Will we be involved with the camps at all? Why all the trouble with that one camp?

  “The squads you saw will handle the camps, but not the one you went to. We can’t get that one to work out for some reason. We used it to get your team some much needed battle experience, because you could have the whole camp to yourselves. Remember that you shouldn’t attack that camp when you leave for real, though. Your mission is too important to risk.”

  “But won’t it be left to attack the village? We already handled it once. If we took the whole team and went on a couple of Rides—“

  “Your team is exceedingly bad at using the artifact. I don’t mean that in the way that you lack skills or intelligence, but you’re all very…” Lictor scratches his cheek before continuing. “…unsuitable to using it. The risk seems to get multiplied by the number and type of people, so if your team goes in together, it’s a coin toss if you come out looking like people or goo even on the first try.”

  Is turning into goo really a possibility? I shudder. He already mentioned limits on using the Ride earlier. If I believe that, his words might make sense.

  I’m not so sure about the rest of the situation. “Why us? Why not gather a team who could use the Ride, make sure they succeed?”

  Lictor stops, puts his hands in his pockets, lowers his chin to his chest. “We tried. Tried and tried and tried. We’re boxed in. The Etherthorn Weave will be put into place. The Ride lasts 24 hours, so the whole mission can’t be practiced. We need a team that can do this on the first try, without a safety net.”

  He turns to face me. “Your team.”