The return to Oath was not a triumphant processional as Iris had imagined it would be.
It was a dreary gray afternoon, the sort of day that begged for an endless cup of warm black tea and a thick book by the hearth. A persistent soft rain fell, and soon the eastern roads were like swamps, iridescent with motor oil. A few of the lorries got stuck in the mud as a result. Platoons began to walk on foot, tromping through the damp grass on the side of the road. They had to stop at one point to let a flock of sheep pass by.
When they finally reached the outskirts of the city, Chancellor Verlice was waiting for them, standing in the back of a roadster, holding an open umbrella in his white, spindly hand.
“Is that who I think it is?” Attie growled as Tobias cut the engine.
Iris only sighed, watching as Keegan jumped down from the lorry at the front of the line, walking to meet him. Even though Tobias’s roadster was only a few vehicles behind, they couldn’t hear what the chancellor was saying. Before Iris could think better of it, she slipped out of the motorcar.
“Where are you going?” Attie asked.
“We’re the press,” Iris said, her boots sinking in the mud. “We need to hear what he’s saying, right?” She began to hurry up the road, careful not to slip. A few seconds later, she could hear Attie close behind.
The girls stayed back a respectful distance but dared to draw close enough to gather what the chancellor had to say to Keegan and Enva’s army.
“This road needs to remain clear and passable,” Verlice was saying. “And Oath is still declared neutral ground. I cannot permit you and your forces to infiltrate the city.”
Infiltrate? Iris nearly breathed fire at that word. She ground her teeth together as she stared up at the chancellor. He wasn’t going to allow Enva’s army to find shelter and provisions in the city. He wasn’t going to allow the army to protect the people within the city walls.
Keegan was silent, as if she too was shocked by the chancellor barring their entrance. But she only said in a strong voice, “If that is what you have decided for Oath, then so be it. We will make camp here on the outskirts. All I ask is for my wounded to find care and shelter in the hospital.”
The chancellor narrowed his eyes. It was apparent he wanted Keegan to return from where she had come, taking the trail of lorries and troops with her. But he only inclined his head and said, “Very well. As long as the road remains passable, and your troops cause no inconvenience for the citizens of Oath, remaining outside of the city limits, you may camp in this field.”
“And my wounded?” Keegan pressed. “They have been traveling for days and need medical attention.”
“I will take this up with my council,” the chancellor replied. “In the meantime, the wounded will need to camp here with you until I gain approval for their admittance.”
Iris set her jaw. She couldn’t believe this was happening until the chancellor sensed her stare and glanced up to find her and Attie standing side by side, ankle-deep in mud. Irritation pulled his mouth into a thin line, made his brow slant heavy over his beady eyes. Iris could almost hear the trail of his thoughts. How annoying the journalists at the Inkridden Tribune were, writing about things he didn’t want the people to know.
A wordless challenge was set down between them, and the chancellor took his seat in the back of the roadster. His driver stirred the engine to life and drove away, and Iris shivered as her damp clothes chafed against her skin.
The mist was growing thicker, transforming into a hushed rainfall. But she watched the chancellor disappear into Oath, and she knew exactly what article of hers would be in the paper tomorrow.
“Are you sure, Marisol?” Iris asked for the third time. “You and Lucy are more than welcome to stay with me and Forest.”
Marisol smiled as she set down a crate. Her black hair shined in the rain, falling loose from her long braid. “I’ll be fine here. I want to stay with Keegan, you know.”
Iris nodded, although a knot of guilt and anger soured in her stomach at the thought of leaving Marisol and Keegan and all the soldiers behind to sleep in tents on wet ground. They didn’t even have a way to stoke campfires and cook a warm meal or make a pot of coffee, and Iris wondered what she could do to help.
Marisol read her thoughts.
“You must remember that they’ve been through much worse than a little rain, Iris,” she murmured as tents continued to rise from the ground like mushrooms. “A little foul weather won’t hurt us. Perhaps the sun will be shining tomorrow.”
Iris couldn’t hide her grimace. The weather in Cambria was notorious for being ornery.
“Do you still have the bird book I gave you?” Marisol asked suddenly.
“Yes. It’s in my coat pocket.”
“Have you read the page on the albatross?”
“A few lines,” Iris replied. “I remember that they can sleep while flying.”
“As well as fly into the strong wind of a storm, rather than having to avoid it and head to the shore like other birds would do,” Marisol said, snapping wrinkles from a blanket she found in the crate. “It’s safer for them to fly toward the storm than away from it, as counterintuitive as that may seem to us. But they can soar for thousands of kilometers without ever touching land, and they know their strengths. They lean into them in times of trouble.”
Iris fell quiet, mulling on those words.
“Are you suggesting I be counterintuitive?” she eventually asked.
Marisol smiled. “I want you to remember that you have already flown through a strong storm, as have most of us here. And a little rain from the chancellor won’t unsettle us now.”
“I hope you’re right, Marisol.”
“When have I ever been wrong?” She tapped Iris’s chin affectionately before turning away, passing the blanket off to a soldier.
But Iris could see the stiffness in Marisol’s shoulders, as if she were weary of holding herself upright. As if she knew the long flight was just beginning, and they were all soaring toward the boiling eye of the storm.
Tobias drove the girls into Oath. They left behind the sea of tents and mud-riddled roads for the brick and cobblestone of the city. It felt strange to return, and even stranger that Oath didn’t truly feel like home anymore.
They reached Iris’s flat first. She climbed from the roadster, glancing down at the dents in the door that her knees had made. She still had the bruises to prove it, to remind herself that chilling run from Hawk Shire had happened.
“Inkridden Tribune tomorrow?” Attie said.
“Tomorrow,” Iris agreed, thinking how odd it would be to return to confined work in a building after they had been roaming the realm in a fast car, sleeping in unusual places, and dodging bloodthirsty hounds.
“Can I carry your luggage up?” Tobias asked, holding her typewriter case in one hand, her duffel bag in the other.
“Oh, no, I can handle it. But thank you, Tobias.” Iris took the luggage from him. “I hope I see you again soon?”
“I’m sure you’ll see me around,” he said with a hint of a grin.
Iris glanced at Attie, who acted like she hadn’t heard him. But Iris found herself smiling into the shadows as she hurried up the flight of stairs to her flat door. It wasn’t fully dark, although the rain was ushering in an early dusk, and she imagined Forest wasn’t home yet.
He would be surprised to see her. Iris found the hidden key, tucked behind a loose stone in the lintel. She unlocked the door, waving to Tobias and Attie to let them know she was good. The roadster drove away with a puff of exhaust, heading to Attie’s town house near the university side of the city.
Iris stepped inside the dim flat.
She had been right. She was the first home and she knocked the rain from her boots and jacket and set down her luggage. As she turned on a few lamps, she was struck by how clean and tidy it felt. How the flat smelled different. Not in a bad way, but she stood for a moment in the center of the room and breathed it all in, wondering if home had always held this strange scent and she had simply grown accustomed to it in the past.
“Not that it matters,” she whispered, hurrying to shed her damp clothes for a sweater and a pair of brown trousers, and to unpack her typewriter on the kitchen table.
But she noticed a vase of daisies, brightening the room, and two bottles of medicine on the sideboard, prescribed to Forest. She felt a wash of relief to know her brother had finally gone to the doctor.
Iris had set a kettle to boil and was beginning to type an equally heated article about the chancellor barring Enva’s forces from the city when the front doorknob squeaked.
She paused.
It must be her brother, and she was both excited and anxious to see him again. Iris stood and reached for the locket, hiding beneath her sweater, and held on to it as the door swung open.
There was a shuffle, a low curse as someone tripped and dropped a baguette wrapped in bakery paper.
Iris stepped forward, eyes widening. This person was too short and slender to be Forest, and as they threw back the hood of their raincoat and struggled to keep the other parcels in hand, Iris took in their light-colored hair, frizzy from the rain, and the endearing flash of glasses on their nose.
Iris stopped upright.
It was truly the last person she expected to see stepping into her flat.
“Prindle?”
