WHEN I CAME DOWN from the mountains, I went looking for my friends. I had apologies to make. Taking off like that, leaving nothing but a note at Anker’s, wasn’t something you did to people who mattered.
I found Simmon first. He was in the courtyard near the fountain. When he spotted me, he was on his feet in an instant, his face shifting from relief to excitement to something harder to name.
“You’re back.” He clasped my arm. “Where did you go? No, never mind. How much do you know?”
“I know admissions started,” I said. “Beyond that, nothing.”
Sim nodded. “Well, Kilvin is Chancellor. Manet is Master Rhetorician.”
I stopped walking. “Manet?”
“Yup.” Sim’s mouth quirked. “He refused three times. Said he had no interest in politics and less in teaching fools to argue. But Kilvin insisted. Said the University needed ‘a mentor in that chair.’”
I tried to picture it. Manet sitting behind the long table. Manet, the eternal E’lir, who had been a student longer than most Masters had held their chairs. Who played corners for ha’pennies and gave advice like other men gave weather reports. Now he would sit across from me and set my tuition.
“And Brandeur?” I asked.
Sim’s smile faded. “Still here. Still Master Arithmetician. They couldn’t prove anything under the iron law. But everyone knows. The other Masters won’t speak to him. He sits alone. Takes his meals alone. Honestly, I think expulsion would have been kinder.”
Sim reached into his pocket and pressed something into my hand. “Tomorrow. Second bell.”
I looked at the chit, then back at him. “Sim, I can’t take your slot.”
“It’s not mine.” His ears went red. “I drew for both of us.”
“How?”
Sim shifted his weight. “I may have reminded someone that my father is the Duke of Dalonir. And that the Duke’s fourth son was requesting a small courtesy for a friend.”
In all the time I’d known him, I had never once heard Sim leverage his family’s name.
“Sim.”
“Don’t.” His ears were still red. “It’s fine. Can we talk about something else?”
I pocketed the chit.
Classes would be back in session. Life at the University had, at last, moved on.
I came down through the last branches of the apple tree and dropped into the courtyard to find Auri hopping from stone to stone, landing only on the ones that had heaved up proud over the years. She held half an apple in one hand and took small bites between hops. When she heard my boots touch ground, she landed lightly and turned, her face lighting up.
“Welcome home, Kvothe,” she said primly from one foot, arms spreading for balance. “These ones think too much of themselves.”
I returned her smile and set my pack down with a low thump. “So you need to visit each one?” I asked.
“Of course.” She hopped down from her stone and crossed to me with quick steps. Her eyes found my hand. “What are you wearing?” she asked, then peered closer. “Oh! It’s still swirling there.” She grinned up at me. “Did you catch it?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Catch it? That’s the wrong question altogether.”
Auri raised a finger. “But did you ride it?”
“No.” I sighed, finding a root to sit on. The courtyard was cool beneath us, and the light had grown thin. “But I got closer.”
“That’s good enough,” she said lightly. “You’ll be Taborlin the Great before you know it.” Her gaze fell to the bulging pack at my side. “You found other things.”
“I did.” I reached into my pack and pulled free a bundle of rich blue fabric tied with a thin strip of leather. “This one’s for you.”
Auri stood back. “Oh,” she said, her eyes slowly tracing the sleeves as I unfurled it. “Oh, it’s the right color.”
“It’s been pretty cold lately,” I said. “And I thought the wind shouldn’t steal your warmth.”
She let me swing the cloak around her thin shoulders. It settled softly, wrapping her like dusk. Her small hands clasped the edge and brushed its folds. “What’s it made of?”
“Goose feathers and whispers from summer clouds,” I said.
She laughed, a chime caught in the open air. “Goose feathers alone are cruel. How thoughtful, to soften them with the kindness of clouds.”
“And what did you bring me?” I asked, invoking our ritual.
Auri’s laugh shifted into a sly grin. “A book, full of secrets and whispers,” she said and drew it from her pocket. It was small and weathered, its edges browned, its cover soft leather faintly embossed with swirls.
I took it carefully, running my fingers along its textured surface. “Secrets it keeps?”
“Books don’t keep secrets. They tell them,” she said, correcting me gently. She stood and gave the cloak a spin. “It moves nicely,” she said, turning toward her drainage grate. “But Foxen will be wondering where I’ve gone. And the brass in Rubric gets lonely.”
Denna was back in Imre. I found her seated at an outdoor table with a prosperous merchant whose rings caught the evening light. She was dressed simply, her dark hair loose around her shoulders.
The merchant was talking, his hands gesturing broadly as Denna smiled on politely. Her eyes found me before I could decide whether to approach, and something like relief crossed her expression. She stood before the merchant had finished his sentence.
“Are you off to dine with kings?” I asked as she reached me.
“Only if they hadn’t bored me first,” she said, taking my arm and drawing me away.
Behind us, the merchant sputtered something about their evening plans, but Denna didn’t slow. “I’m afraid I’ve just remembered a prior engagement,” she called over her shoulder, then turned to me with a smile. “You don’t mind being a prior engagement, do you?”
“I’ve played worse parts.”
We spent the evening walking the streets of Imre, dipping into one restaurant after another. She talked between courses, hands moving as she worked through problems in her song, where a verse sat wrong, how a story should turn. I listened, offered thoughts when she asked, mostly just watched her come alive over the work. Over glasses of wine, we sang her new harmony. Her smiles and bright laughter filled our evening, yet I couldn’t shake the weight of what always waited beneath. The quiet. The spaces where I could not follow.
By the time we left the last restaurant, I’d spent more of the Maer’s coin than I cared to count. But sixty-two talents’ worth of tuition buys a great deal of pocket money, and I found I did not mind the spending as I once might have.
We walked without destination, and our wandering brought us to the Omethi River that curved through the city. On an impulse I didn’t care to question, I hired a boatman, and soon we were drifting downstream.
A pleasure boat passed us, lanterns strung along its rails, music and laughter spilling across the water. Sovoy stood at the railing, drink in hand, gesturing animatedly to someone I couldn’t quite make out. Denna followed my gaze, then reached for my chin, drawing my attention back. “Look there instead,” she said, pointing to where the moonlight pooled silver on the water.
The boatman guided us to a quiet spot beneath the arch of Stonebridge, where the current slowed and the sounds of the city softened to a murmur. Above, the occasional footstep crossed the bridge, but here in the shadow of it, we might have been alone in the world.
“Why don’t you play me something?” she asked.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
I hesitated as I unslung my lute, my fingers trailing over the strings. In the past, I would have reached for something easy, the steady comfort of a familiar tune. But I was tired of being safe. So I loosened the highest string and slipped it free.
The music rose into the air. It was no longer perfect, but how could it be? I’d only ever played this song with a broken lute, as a broken boy.
Denna closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, as if listening to what lay beneath the notes. When the final chords faded, she opened her eyes and for a moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the lap of water against the boat and the hum of the city above.
Then she shifted closer, settling against me on the narrow bench, and rested her head against my shoulder. She was light against me, warm against the night air. “I always knew you were like this,” she said softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The question rose in my throat, but before I could give it voice, she lifted her head and turned toward the lights of Imre. The boatman had begun poling us back toward the dock, his movements quiet in the water once more.
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