Chapter 52: Homesick

Sylvaine shut the clinic ledger before she looked at Ren.

The last round of Day Twenty-Five was finished. Her medical satchel stayed inside the clinic. So did the chart she had just signed, the bundle of clean wraps, and every question Ren was not allowed to ask.

She locked the door.

"Anything about your wrist?"

"Nothing."

"The Cuff?"

"Also nothing."

"Good." Sylvaine handed him a covered tea jar. "You may carry that with your left hand."

Ren accepted it.

"That sounded medical."

"It was practical. If you make me regret the distinction, I will take the tea back."

He guarded it with his life.

The river watchpoint was empty when they arrived. Evening light spread copper across the water. Grass had grown higher around the broken wall since Ren’s last visit, but the purple starflowers still occupied the stones without anyone asking them to justify the space.

Sylvaine chose the end of the wall farthest from the path. Public, quiet, and impossible to mistake for a treatment room.

She poured two cups.

Ren reached into his coat and took out a ring of small metal keys.

One was brass, worn smooth along the bow.

"This opened the Lantern Room," he said.

Sylvaine waited.

That was different from waiting for a symptom.

"It was a community center," Ren continued. "And a kitchen, depending on which bill we could pay that month. Cheap meals. Homework tables. Classes. Somewhere warm for people who needed to sit without buying anything."

He turned the key between his fingers.

"The master key opened the front door, the supply cupboard, and the office if you lifted the handle while turning it. I kept meaning to fix that."

"Did you?"

"No. I became very skilled at lifting the handle."

Her mouth softened above the cup.

Ren looked toward the river.

"I miss stupid things. Stacking chairs after an event. Someone complaining the soup was bland while taking a second bowl. Knowing which light switch did nothing because the wire had failed three winters earlier."

The key pressed a familiar shape into his palm.

"I miss people whose names I’m afraid to say here. I don’t know what day it is for them. I don’t know what they were told when I vanished. Maybe nothing."

Sylvaine did not tell him they would understand.

She did not promise he would return.

"Do you want an answer," she asked, "or company?"

Ren’s throat tightened.

"Company."

"Then I can give you that."

There were birthdays Ren could not confirm he had missed. Meals at Bram’s table sometimes struck one familiar note and then became wholly Avarran. His phone lay wrapped at the hall, every minute of its finite charge too precious to spend and too useless to save.

The key was easier.

It could not go dark. It could only keep failing to fit.

They drank while the river moved below them.

The tea was too strong and still hot enough to punish haste. Ren let it.

"Sometimes," he said, "this hall feels like the Lantern Room wearing different walls. Sometimes that makes me happy. Sometimes I think I’m building a replacement because admitting the first place is gone would break something."

"Is Asterfall a replacement?"

"No." The answer surprised him with its speed. "That’s the problem. It is becoming home too."

"Two truths are not automatically enemies."

Ren glanced at her.

"That was dangerously close to an answer."

"A small one. I retain professional pride."

He smiled, then placed the keyring on the wall between them.

"Your turn."

Sylvaine raised one eyebrow.

"I answered your question," Ren said. "You wanted to ask about my first home. I want to ask about yours."

She considered refusing.

Then she looked at the river.

"My home had farms on both banks," she said. "The evening changed when the water gates were set. Before that, everyone was moving. Afterward, people sat wherever they happened to be and complained about mud, weather, and relatives who were not present to defend themselves."

"An advanced culture."

"Highly."

"What do you miss?"

"The hour after the gates closed."

She turned her cup slowly.

"I left because I wanted to. Missing that place is not a request to return to it, and traveling was not a rejection of it. I am proud of the villages Brinna and I reached. I am also tired of every arrival becoming proof that I should never stop."

Her fingers tightened around the cup.

"I began traveling because remote villages needed healers who did not humiliate poor patients. That remains true. But people praise calmness when what they often mean is, please continue carrying what frightens us."

Ren stayed quiet.

Sylvaine looked at him directly.

"I want a clinic that can close without someone becoming unsafe. I want a quiet room near it that is not part of it. I want supper that does not become a consultation. And sometimes I want someone to ask whether I like the tea before asking who is ill."

Ren tasted his cup again.

"Do you?"

"It is too strong."

"You made it."

"I contain contradictions."

The part of Ren that built schedules had already found three possible rooms near the clinic.

Sylvaine saw it happen.

"Do not turn my want into tonight’s assignment."

Ren made the plans sit down.

"I heard you," he said. "No promise. No wall measurements. No making myself the hero of your rest."

"Good."

"I do still want to know you when you are not useful."

The silence after that was neither clinical nor empty.

Sylvaine finished her tea.

"That is why I asked you here."

No kiss followed.

No permission changed hands.

When the cups were cold, Sylvaine covered the jar.

"Personal time ends when we enter the hall."

"Agreed."

Maelis was at the request table when they returned, tying shut a case of provincial surveys. Sylvaine took the tea jar and went toward the stairs. Ren waited until the hall door had closed behind them.

Then he placed the Lantern Room keys in his pocket.

"What would it take to enter Mossdeep lawfully?" he asked.

Maelis stopped tying the cord.

"A guide licensed for the lower galleries. Access from whoever controls the entrance. Inspected lamps, ropes, masks, air markers, and spore covers. Licensed field command, because your local operating instrument does not cover a dungeon descent."

She raised another finger.

"A qualified healer who is available by choice, not assumed. Written evidence custody before anyone finds evidence. Separate salvage terms. Risk coverage, a gate deposit, and coordination with the provincial investigation."

Elara looked up from the cashbox.

"We have one silver six copper and two silver three copper already payable."

Maelis tightened the cord.

"Then you are not planning a descent yet. You are pricing one."

Ren closed his hand around the old key in his pocket.

Mossdeep had at least eight locked doors.

Tomorrow, he would learn what each one cost.