Dusk was descending over the valley as we rode along the riverbank towards the city. Reichis kept crawling across my upper back, crouching on one shoulder then the other as he snarled at the black water and dark foliage that rippled as we passed by. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Swamps,’ he replied, growling at the shadows.
‘So?’
‘So they’re disgusting. Full of bugs, and I’ll bet there’re gods-damned crocodiles just waiting for us in the water.’
There aren’t many animals Reichis is afraid of, but crocodiles are definitely the exception. ‘Nothing but teeth and evil,’ he added with a mutter.
When we finally reached the city gates, Ferius signalled for the rest of us to wait as she dismounted from her horse and went to the guardhouse to negotiate our entrance inside the walls. Argosi are surprisingly good at getting people to let them into places. Seneira put her blindfold back in place and pulled a hood over her head to reduce the chances of someone recognising her.
‘Do a lot of people here know you?’ I asked.
‘I’ve lived here my whole life and my father’s the headmaster of the Academy. What do you think?’
Before I could even think of a suitably caustic reply, she reached out a hand and touched my arm. ‘I’m sorry, Kellen. I don’t mean to be …’
‘Grouchy? Bitchy? Annoying and stinky?’ Reichis suggested.
I decided to forego his recommendations and instead asked, ‘What’s the matter?’ It was only then that it occurred to me that maybe the shadowblack hadn’t been the only reason Seneira had run away from Teleidos.
She hesitated, busying herself with adjusting the hood that was already hiding as much of her face as it possibly could. ‘It feels like home,’ she said finally, ‘but I don’t feel like the girl who used to live here.’
Before I could prompt her to say more, Ferius came out of the guardhouse and motioned for us to lead the horses through the city gates.
From a distance, Teleidos had looked like some kind of pristine palace, the smooth, almost polished look of its architecture and the serene geometry of its curved avenues lending it an almost spiritual tranquility. Inside, though, the city was a cacophony of lantern light and joyful laughter, of crowded avenues and buzzing businesses.
Everywhere I looked were signs of wealth and prosperity I’d not seen since coming to the borderlands. There were saloons and taverns, but also restaurants – places where people ate food that wasn’t just there to get you to drink more liquor. Clothing stores exhibited their finest wares outside for passers-by, modelled by attractive young men and women. Artisans and craftspersons demonstrated their art, their skilled hands working tools upon wood and stone and canvas to the admiration of small crowds of people who’d stand around bidding on the pieces even before they were finished. Teleidos seemed to have everything, even bookstores. Bookstores. Plural.
Strangest of all, though, were the city’s inhabitants. Most places I’d been in the borderlands, the only people walking around outside at night were either blind drunk or planning to rob you. But on the elegant sidewalks of Teleidos I saw men and women out walking, talking, eating and acting vaguely civilised. Odder still, a lot of them were around my age.
‘Students of the Academy,’ Seneira explained as we walked the horses past the crowds. The thin fabric of her blindfold allowed her to see reasonably well even as it hid her eyes from view. Still, anytime someone turned to take notice of the four of us, Seneira would duck her head and walk on the other side of her horse.
Reichis was barely able to contain his excitement. ‘Look at them, Kellen! Have you ever seen so many targets all in one place?’ He started to bunch his hind legs in preparation for jumping off the horse.
I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck – never a smart thing to do, but we couldn’t afford an incident right now and my jaw still hurt from the last time he got me into trouble. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
He gave me a sad, whimpering expression, as if he were a poor, unloved puppy left out in the rain. ‘Not even one pocket? I wouldn’t have to take an entire wallet. Just a souvenir?’
In the four months since Reichis and I had formed our ‘partnership’, I’d learned that telling him he couldn’t steal things just made him more determined, so instead I said, ‘Just wait until we’re on the way out of town this time before you incite a mob to chase us.’
He sniffed at my ear for a second and I flinched, expecting a sudden nasty bite, but then he said, ‘Okay, but I can still steal from the Argosi, right?’
I turned to look at him. ‘Rosie? Sure, knock yourself out.’
The muscles in a squirrel cat’s face aren’t really designed for smiling, but Reichis had taught himself to put on a sort of grin for occasions like these. It creeped me out.
‘This way,’ Seneira said, gesturing for us to head east along one of the circular avenues. Once we were away from the shops and crowds, she led us up a radiating street, turning again onto another curved avenue closer to the Academy. This area was made up of palatial villas which Seneira explained were given to the masters brought from other parts of the world to teach at the school.
‘Where’s your house?’ I asked.
She didn’t reply at first, but kept walking along the circular avenue until we reached a sparser area and a cul-de-sac with what looked like a pleasant but unusually modest two-storey house.
‘That’s where the headmaster of the Academy lives?’ I asked.
Seneira nodded. ‘It’s the house my father grew up in, back when Teleidos was just a ramshackle little town. He says it was all he needed then, so why should he want more now?’
Reichis hopped down from my shoulder and stared up at the plain white building. ‘Okay, so he’s a moron. All that money and this is what he keeps for himself? I bet we won’t find a single piece of silver or platinum in the entire house. What a dump.’
‘Well,’ Ferius said, tying her horse to a thin tree on the side of the alley and removing her pack from the saddlebag. ‘Let’s not delay the joyous family reunion any more than we have to.’
She and Rosie started up the narrow path towards the house, but Seneira hesitated.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She kept staring up at the house, but her gaze seemed even further away. I was surprised when I felt her hand slip into mine. ‘I never told them I was going away. I just left a note on the table. What if my father—’
‘He’s family,’ I said. ‘Of course he’ll be be happy to see you.’ Well, I supposed that would be the case. My family works a bit differently. I thought about Shalla though, and added, ‘Just think of your little brother. What’s his name?’
‘Tyne,’ she said, and even the word seemed to coax a smile from her.
I took that as permission to pull her along with me up to the house. ‘Think how thrilled Tyne will be to have his big sister back. I promise you, five minutes after you walk through that door it’ll be like you never left.’
Turned out I should never have made that promise.