Part Twenty-Three — A Face That Remembered Too Much

　The stranger didn't do anything wrong, exactly.

　That was what made it stick with me longer than it probably should have.

　We'd stopped in a town we'd never actually visited before――new territory, past the edge of our usual circuit, picked mostly because Fenrik had heard the market there sold a particular smoked fish he'd been chasing since the coast trip.

　Ordinary reasons.

　Ordinary town.

　The man was sitting near the well when we passed, unremarkable in every way except one.

　He looked at me a half-second too long.

　People look.

　I'm used to people looking.

　The eyes. The aura at the edges when I'm not bothering to hide it.

　This felt different, though.

　Less what is that?

　More...

I know what that is.

　I didn't say anything to Doran or Fenrik.

　It was a small thing, easily nothing, and I'd learned by then not to hand my companions every passing unease I collected――some things weren't worth the worry until they were actually worth the worry.

　It happened again two days later.

　Different town.

　Different stranger.

　A woman this time, cloaked despite the mild weather, who paused mid-stride when she caught sight of me across a crowded square.

　Not fear.

　Not hostility, even.

　Just recognition.

　Sharp.

　Immediate.

　Gone the moment she realized I'd noticed her noticing.

　Twice now.

　That's not a coincidence anymore.

　That's a pattern.

　And I don't like patterns I can't explain.

　I mentioned it to Doran that evening, carefully, framing it as smaller than it felt.

"Probably nothing," I said. "Just――a couple of people have looked at me strange lately. More than the usual amount of strange."

　Doran didn't dismiss it the way I half-expected him to.

　He went quiet instead.

　The specific quiet he wore when something in him was actually working through a problem rather than brushing it off.

"Strange how?"

"Recognition. Not fear. Like they already knew what they were looking at before they looked."

"...Huh."

　He didn't elaborate on the huh.

　Somehow, that bothered me more than if he had.

　Fenrik, when I brought it up separately, took it more lightly――or pretended to, at least.

"You've got a memorable face," he said. "Blue hair, weird eyes. People remember weird eyes."

"You're not wrong. Doesn't feel like that's all it is, though."

"Could be nothing."

"Could be," I agreed. "I've just gotten better, over the years, at telling the difference between 'could be nothing' and 'is actually nothing.' This isn't landing in the second category."

　He didn't have a good answer for that.

　And I noticed――the way I noticed everything, filed and catalogued in the same growing ledger I kept on both of them――that he didn't quite meet my eyes for a moment after I said it.

　He's worried too.

　Just doesn't want to be the one who says it first.

　We kept moving, same as always.

　The strange looks became a low, background hum rather than anything urgent enough to change our plans over.

　Life didn't stop being good, exactly.

　It just got a little quieter.

　A little more watchful.

　The three of us instinctively drawing slightly closer together at camp without any of us naming why.

　One night, Doran spoke without warning.

"You'd tell us," he said, watching the fire rather than me. "If it got worse. Whatever this is."

"Yeah," I said. "I'd tell you."

　I mean that.

　I really do.

　I just don't know yet what worse is actually going to look like.

　Or how much warning any of us are actually going to get when it arrives.

　I didn't say that part out loud.

　Some worries, still, felt like mine to carry alone――at least until they stopped being small enough to carry that way.

　I wish, now, that I'd said it anyway.