Neil found a seat near the edge of the floor, picked up a glass from the nearest table, and looked like someone who had stepped out briefly and returned without incident, which was precisely what he wanted to look like.

Seven minutes later, Cynthia appeared at the far entrance.

She moved through the crowd the way she always did, unhurried and drawing eyes without appearing to invite them, her expression composed and faintly pleasant and giving absolutely nothing away.

Caleb saw her almost immediately.

He had been scanning the entrances for the past twenty minutes with a patience that was running visibly thin, and when she came into view his posture shifted in a way he probably didn’t notice but several people nearby did.

He looked at her across the hall, then his eyes moved through the crowd, finding Neil at the edge of the floor, then returning to Cynthia.

His expression did not change on the surface.

But something behind it was working very hard on a series of questions he did not yet have answers to, and the fact that he didn’t have them was clearly bothering him more than he wanted it to.

Caleb moved through the crowd with the particular ease of someone who had spent their whole life being the most important person in any room they entered, and had never been given a strong enough reason to doubt it.

He reached Cynthia near the far edge of the hall, where she had stopped to accept a glass from a passing servant and was looking out across the gathered crowd with an expression of mild and entirely impersonal interest, as though she were observing weather rather than people.

"Queen Cynthia." Caleb said, settling beside her with a smile that was doing a great deal of work. "I was beginning to think you had left entirely. You disappeared for quite a while."

Cynthia took a slow sip from her glass and let a moment pass before she acknowledged him, which was not rudeness exactly, just the unhurried timing of someone who answered things when they were ready to answer them and not before.

"Did I?" She replied, her voice carrying that particular quality of warmth that was perfectly calibrated to feel personal while giving nothing away at all.

"You did." Caleb said, his smile holding. "I looked for you after the matches. There were some people I wanted to introduce you to, wardens from the eastern settlements, they have been hoping for an audience with the snake kingdom for some time." He paused. "Where did you go?"

Cynthia considered the question the way someone considered a painting they were not particularly interested in buying.

"Just here." She said simply, and took another sip.

The smile on Caleb’s face did not move but something behind his eyes did, a brief tightening that he pushed back down before it could become visible. He had learned early that showing frustration around Cynthia was counterproductive in every possible way, because she did not respond to pressure the way most people did, she simply became less present, her attention drifting away from you like smoke moving from an open window, and then you had even less than you started with.

He changed direction.

"Regardless." He said, his tone shifting into something easier and more deliberate. "I wanted to tell you in person that I will be making the journey to the lost elven city when the time comes. My father has authorised our participation." He paused just long enough for that to carry its weight. "I imagine the snake kingdom will be attending as well."

Cynthia looked at him for the first time in the conversation, a brief and even glance.

"Most kingdoms of standing will attend something like that." She said, which was neither confirmation nor refusal and gave him absolutely nothing to build on.

Caleb nodded as though she had said something encouraging, which required a specific kind of internal discipline.

"Then perhaps we will have the opportunity to spend more time in each other’s company there." He said. "I look forward to it."

Cynthia’s expression stayed exactly where it was, composed and faintly pleasant, the face of someone who had heard many things said to them over the years and had developed a comprehensive system for allowing most of them to pass through without leaving a mark.

"Safe travels, Caleb." She said, which was both an acknowledgment and a conclusion.

He held for a moment, then inclined his head and turned away, because there was nothing else to do when Cynthia ended a conversation and he knew it.

His eyes moved across the hall as he stepped back into the crowd, tracking without appearing to track, and they found Neil standing not far from the edge of the floor with his hands in his pockets and his attention pointed elsewhere, apparently at nothing in particular.

Caleb looked at him. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The expression that moved across his face in that moment was not something he performed for anyone. It was quieter than anger and considerably more patient, the kind of feeling that did not need to express itself immediately because it had already decided what it was going to do and was simply waiting for the right conditions.

He had no proof of anything. He knew that. He was also not the kind of person who required proof to reach a conclusion when his instincts were speaking this consistently and this clearly.

The lost elven city would be a large place, complicated and full of unknowns, with enough chaos built into its nature that outcomes were difficult to predict and even more difficult to attribute.

Neil would be attending. Most lords of standing would attend.

Things happened in places like that.

Caleb looked away from him and moved back into the crowd, his expression settling back into something smooth and easy, and he did not look in that direction again for the rest of the evening.

Neil left the settlement an hour later with Randy, who was in the specific elevated state that came from winning a significant amount of money from people who had been confident they would not lose it.

The flying car Randy had requisitioned for the return journey was comfortable and enclosed and smelled faintly of whatever Randy had been drinking since his last successful bet, which appeared to have been quite a lot. He was sprawled across one of the seats with his arms spread wide and the expression of a man entirely at peace with every decision he had ever made.

"Do you know." Randy said, to no one in particular and to the ceiling of the vehicle specifically, "how long it has been since I won that much from Gregor in a single evening? That man has been owing me a moral debt for six years and today I finally collected." He paused. "Also actual money. A significant amount of actual money."

"Congratulations." Neil said, looking out the window at the settlement lights falling away beneath them.

"Thank you." Randy said sincerely. "You contributed enormously to this outcome and I want you to know I appreciate it even though I will not be sharing the money."

"I did not expect you to." Neil replied.

"Good." Randy said, closing his eyes. "That’s the kind of realistic thinking that will serve you well in life."

Neil said nothing further and watched the settlement disappear behind them as the car moved into the open air above the darkened landscape, the lights below becoming smaller and further apart until they were just scattered points against the black.

Cynthia had left before him. A soft nod across the hall, nothing more, the kind of acknowledgment that meant everything it needed to mean and nothing it didn’t, and then she had simply not been there anymore, already gone back to her kingdom through whatever teleportation method she used that left no visible trace of departure.

He looked at the dark landscape below and said nothing about any of it.

His domain came into view eventually, the familiar shape of it in the darkness, the barrier faintly luminescent at the edges, the patrol movements of his people visible as small lights at the perimeter. The cloud vultures were circling high above, and from this distance he could see the outline of the wooden walls that Bob and Rob had repaired, solid and unchanged.

He felt something in his chest ease in a way he hadn’t noticed was tight until it wasn’t.

Randy’s car set down outside the boundary and Randy waved him off without opening his eyes, already most of the way to sleep, making a vague gesture that could have meant goodbye or could have meant he was swatting at something in a dream.

Neil walked into his domain, nodded at the guards at the gate who straightened when they saw him, and moved through the interior with the quiet ease of someone who knew exactly where every familiar thing was.

Ileana found him before he had gone very far, or perhaps more accurately she had known he was coming before he arrived, which was the kind of thing she managed without making it feel strange.

She was standing near the inner courtyard with a small light floating beside her that she had clearly been using to see by, dressed for the evening, her hair loose, and when she saw him the expression on her face was the specific one that she reserved only for the moment he came back from something, the one that contained both relief and warmth in equal parts and made no attempt to disguise either.

"Hubby." She said, and crossed the distance between them without hurry.

He put his arm around her and she settled against his side the way she always did, like a thing returning to where it was supposed to be.

"Everything alright here?" He asked.

"Everything is fine." She confirmed, looking up at him. "Leon reported nothing unusual. The officers did their rotations, the barrier held perfectly, and Ray made something with that new grain stock that everyone agreed was very good." She paused. "Also Magnar tried to eat one of Rob’s tools and there was a whole thing about it, but that resolved itself."

Neil looked at her. "How did it resolve itself."

"Rob just took it back." She said simply. "Magnar was upset for about ten minutes and then he found something else to chew on, so."

Neil exhaled once through his nose, which was as close to a laugh as the situation warranted.

They went inside together, and Fay had left dinner covered and warm for him, which was exactly the kind of thing Fay did without being asked and without making a production of it.

He sat down and Ileana sat across from him, and while he ate they talked the way they always did when he came back from something, comfortably and without performance.

Thanks for reading...