We reached Carastra earlier than I expected. A light shower fell on the downstream port when I was brought out of my cabin and reunited with Brunz.

  My new assistant looked better than me. He’d managed to untangle his hair somehow, and despite the obvious fear on his face, he’d probably had a decent amount of sleep. He only nodded when guards brought us together, but he failed to hide a wince. I probably looked like a disheveled panda.

  Senior Magus Kseya was waiting for us. The short woman wore her usual critical face, and her long dark gray hair was gathered in two braids on her shoulders. Commander Asturi, who was escorting Kossi, bowed before her.

  “Good afternoon, Lady Kseya. Are you here for the dragon?”

  She shook her head.

  “The king trusts him to keep his word and not try anything stupid. The hero, on the other hand…”

  Her sentence ended in a sigh, and she turned slightly, making her ornate purple robes swing around her.

  “Come on, Al,” she said, pointing to an unremarkable coach behind her. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  No coat of arms, no sign anywhere. It doesn’t even look like it’s coming from the royal stables. But does it?

  The inside looked even more ordinary than the outside, with wooden benches and only one cushion that Kseya promptly requisitioned for herself. I sat next to her, with Brunz in front of me and guards on either side of him. The coach set into motion, the sound of hooves on the cobblestones covering the echoes of the bustling port.

  Kseya leaned against the side of the coach and crossed her arms.

  “What trouble did you get into this time, Al? I’ll grant you the benefit of the doubt, given what happened the last time you ran away, but I can’t imagine a good reason for you to steal a horse and bring back… what did they say again? Princess Jilu Núr Setar’s freshly dismissed dog sitter.”

  She gave a sideways look at Brunz, who was paying a lot of attention to her voice, probably in an effort to understand her words. He must have caught Jilu’s name. He knows we’re talking about him. If this man must stay around for a while, he must learn Brealian, or he’ll go mad.

  “What’s so special about him?” asked Kseya.

  “A promise I must keep.”

  She frowned. Oh, please, do I have to explain over and over again?

  I pointed at Brunz with my chin. “Do you see the bruises on his face? The crust at the corner of his mouth? He got beaten and sacked for being seasick on a boat he was forced to ride. Thrown out, with only the clothes on his back, in a country where he doesn’t speak the language or know anyone.”

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  Kseya shrugged. “This happens every day, and I don’t see you walking around with a flock of assistants unfairly laid off by someone else! Let me ask again, what’s so special about him?”

  “I saw him! We talked! What else do you want there to be? There might be others, but Brunz is the only one I could help!”

  Can’t we talk about something more important? Last time I looked, there was an invasion, and someone possibly tried to poison me, even though the lack of surprised reactions to my being alive in the morning makes me wonder if I imagined it all.

  “Is anything wrong?” asked Brunz.

  This time, Kseya was the one who didn’t catch a word. I tried to smile and switched to Foleshian.

  “No, it’s fine. I just get a little passionate when people question my motivations.”

  “You were talking about me, weren’t you? Is this lady questioning my worth? Tell her I’m an honest man. I never stole anything, I never slept on the job…”

  “There’s no question about it…”

  I stopped my hand mid-air, just short of openly facepalming. Kseya chuckled.

  “You don’t look too happy with your assistant right now. Look, Al, if you wanted to help, you should have used your hero status while you could. You did it with arsenic-based pigments. You could have created a charity for laid-off servants. Instead, you failed to see the bigger picture and you threw your privileges away for one person.”

  I sighed. “I guess I’m only the friendly neighborhood spider.”

  “The what?”

  I enjoyed the puzzled look on the Senior Magus’s face like a sip of solael juice.

  “Never mind. Can you tell me anything about the current situation, Lady Kseya?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not here, and not much at all, to be honest. If I were you, I’d prepare for some action, because the king will want you on the scene, not in the strategy room.”

  I figured out so much. And I’d probably do the same if I was a monarch having to manage someone like me.

  When the coach came to a halt, I looked out, past Kseya’s shoulder. I didn’t recognize the buildings. Is it why we’re riding an ordinary vehicle?

  “This isn’t the palace!”

  “Of course not! You’re not exactly welcome there, for the time being.”

  My heart sank. Abbens? The prison?

  A guard opened the door and Kseya stepped outside. I briefly considered taking the cushion she’d left behind.

  “King Esthar decided you’d stay in Calta Cottage for a while,” she explained, with a circular gesture to the house behind her.

  As I was pushed out of the coach, I took a better look. Calta Cottage was definitely not a cottage by my standards. We were inside the city, but I couldn’t tell where exactly. All I knew was that the neighborhood looked a bit ancient, probably one or two centuries old. The three-story house had seen better days and was missing a few tiles. Still, despite its old-fashioned and not too well-kept architecture, it was obviously designed for upper-class guests.

  “I was afraid I was being detained, but it looks like a nice place!”

  Kseya smirked. “It hasn’t seen guests for a while. Expect some dust and musty smell.”

  “Still better than a cell, I guess.”

  I waited for Brunz and our escort to be gathered, then one guard went inside and told us to follow. It was still raining lightly, and with the warm weather, it was actually rather pleasant. The smell of wet dust filled the air. But in such a place, was I safe from whoever wanted me dead? Wouldn’t I be better in Abbens?

  I looked around, and then up. Some old stones looked rather unstable. This place needed maintenance work, badly.

  Hey! What’s that?

  It was quick and hardly visible, but it was magic, quite definitely. The symbol vanished too fast for me to analyze it, but I did see a large stone unseal.

  “Look out!” I shouted.

  I pushed Brunz out of the way, just in time for the stone to crush my foot. Pain. Pain. I hardly noticed Senior Magus Kseya casting a spell to push the stone aside and mitigate my bleeding. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak. Only scream.