“It has been an honor to meet you, Sir Karigan,” Joff said. He bowed, and Serena and Dash did likewise. Karigan nodded in return. It felt odd having Weapons bow to her. The three stepped away, leaving just Chelsa with Karigan and Cade.
“I have a feeling your presence has heralded change,” Chelsa said.
“Change for the better, I hope,” Karigan replied. “I wish you and your people well.”
“Thank you. Dr. Silk will find that he will not take the tombs easily. No, he will not. Meanwhile, we shall search diligently for this dragonfly device you mentioned. If we find it, we shall send Scruffy with a message to Mr. Harlowe. From there we shall determine what to do with it.”
“Scruffy will find me?” Cade asked in surprise.
Chelsa smiled beneath her hood. “He found Sir Karigan before we knew she was here and needed to be found.”
“I wish,” Karigan said, “you would just call me Karigan.”
“I am sorry,” the caretaker replied, “I cannot. You are too . . . large in our history. So many things I would ask you about the old realm and times past, but so little time.” She hesitated, her head tilted at a thoughtful angle as though she were making up her mind about something. She said, “There is one question I desire to ask, if you would indulge me.”
“Yes?”
“It is impertinent of me to do so when there are much larger matters at stake, but . . . It is a personal curiosity.” Chelsa took a deep breath and asked, “In your time, is it so that you met the caretaker named Thursgad? He was not born into the community, but came into it in adulthood.”
Karigan stared incredulously at Chelsa. Thursgad? She wanted to know about Thursgad, the bumbling Mirwellian outlaw? He’d been among the Second Empire thugs she’d helped catch down in the Halls of Kings and Queens, when they sought the high king’s tomb. Karigan had not heard what became of him. Either he’d been executed or inducted into the caretaker community. Of course, if Chelsa was asking about him, it could be for only one reason.
“Are you descended from Thursgad?” Karigan asked.
Chelsa nodded. “My several greats grandfather.”
Who would have guessed that one of Thursgad’s descendents would one day become chief caretaker? Karigan barely refrained from laughing. “Yes, I knew him in passing, and not under the best of circumstances.”
“Ah! So you confirm it.” Chelsa clasped her hands before her, clearly delighted.
Cade simply watched the two of them with his own questions in his eyes, but he did not interrupt.
“It is so much more interesting having an ancestor with a, shall we say, colorful past, isn’t it?” Chelsa asked. “Now, when I have children, I can pass the story on to them with confidence, and then tell them I got to meet you in a later century.”
It felt very odd, Karigan thought, to be considered the stuff of stories.
“Oh, I do so hate to say good-bye,” Chelsa said, “but we must. Should you not find your way home, Sir Karigan, do know you are welcome among us in the tombs. We would keep you as safe as we can.”
Karigan suppressed a shudder at the idea of living in the tombs, but she was also grateful for the sincerity behind the offer. After the farewells were spoken, she watched with regret as Chelsa and the Weapons entered the Heroes Portal one last time and closed the door behind them.
Karigan blinked, trying to adjust to the absence of lantern light, and maybe also trying to clear the tears that had collected in her eyes. Chelsa and the Weapons were the closest to home she had felt in a long time.
Raven whickered softly, reminding her that she also had him. She went to him and stroked his neck. The sudden flare of light startled them both.
“Here we go,” Cade said. It turned out, that along with the various pistols and knives he’d brought with him—now restored to him by the Weapons—he’d also had the foresight to bring a phosphorene lantern that fit in his hand.
She was relieved, as they didn’t even have a cat to lead them out of the woods this time.
He held the light while she untethered Raven, and then lit the way as they walked into the woods. She glanced once more over her shoulder, but already the Heroes Portal had submerged into shadow.
“Did you walk all the way here?” Karigan asked, knowing he couldn’t have kept up with her if he had.
“I’ve one of Widow Hettle’s mules,” he said. “Tied him up a ways into the woods.”
“Widow Hettle?”
“I board at her house in exchange for chores and upkeep.”
“You have time for that?”
Cade chuckled. “I make time for it. I am a poor student, and it is a good arrangement. Not to mention, Widow Hettle is in her elder years and nearly blind and deaf, which makes it easier for me to come and go at odd hours.”
That, Karigan thought as she stepped through some brush, solved one mystery. They walked on in silence for a while, Cade scrutinizing the way ahead with his lantern.
“So what happened back there?” Karigan asked. “In the tombs?”
Cade paused, casting his light about, mist curling in its beam. “As you could not tell me about the tombs before, there is not much I can tell you now, except that what I saw there, even the little I saw, has left a great impression on me.”
The tombs had that effect, Karigan knew.
“Also, I learned more of my responsibilities to the Order of the Black Shields and how I must conduct myself. I am now subject to the justice of the Order should I prove disloyal.”