Lance sat on the porch with his back against the doorframe and his legs stretched out over the top step. He'd taken his boots off at some point, though he couldn't remember deciding to, and his socks had a hole in the left toe that he kept noticing and then forgetting about.
The sky was clear. He'd already established this. He'd established it several times, in fact, because there was very little else to do besides look at the sky and confirm, again, that it remained clear, and that the man who'd been standing in front of him ten minutes ago was no longer on the ground.
Oz sat on the garden wall about eight feet to his left, facing the same direction, his feathers settled flat and his eyes half-lidded.
Neither of them spoke.
The garden was quiet save for the chants of a few insects, and somewhere down the lane a shutter was banging against its frame in a wind that Lance couldn't feel from where he was sitting. The lantern by the front door had burned down to a low, orange thing that barely reached the first row of herbs Sael the Great kept along the path.
Lance looked at the sky again. Still clear.
He shifted his weight against the doorframe. Crossed his ankles. Uncrossed them. Put his hands on his knees, then moved them to his sides, then folded his arms across his chest, which lasted about four seconds before he unfolded them and put his hands back on his knees.
He finally glanced at Oz.
The rooster hadn't moved. His breathing was slow and even, his beak pointed slightly upward, his posture so perfectly composed that Lance wondered if dragons practiced looking unbothered or if it came to them at birth.
"...Do you think," Lance said. "You see him up there? From here, I mean. With your eyes."
Oz didn't turn his head. His beak stayed pointed at the sky, his feathers stayed flat, and after a pause that went on long enough for Lance to hear two full cycles of the shutter banging down the lane, the rooster spoke.
"Don't talk to me."
"Oh," Lance said. "Right. Sorry."
There was a beat, then...
"Is that a dragon thing, or a you thing?"
"It is a you thing," Oz said. "You are the thing I don't want to talk to."
"Got it," Lance said as he folded his hands in his lap, and looked at the sky, and did not talk.
The silence lasted longer this time. The shutter kept going, and the insects kept going, and somewhere past the rooftops the faint sound of drums from the feast grounds drifted in and out.
Then Oz spoke.
"It has begun."
His eyes were fixed on a point in the sky Lance couldn't identify, and his feathers had lifted along his neck.
"What has—"
The stars in the sky had shifted in a ripple, and that ripple spread outward in a ring. Where it passed, the other stars bent, smeared and snapped back into place. Then came a second wave, this one bigger, and it carried colors of pale blue and green bleeding into the dark behind the wavefront, thin at first, then thickening until the entire northern sky was stained with it. It looked exactly like an aurora borealis, only much, much more impressive.
Lance stood up without deciding to.
The third wave brought gold in long horizontal bands, and between them, deep reds pulsing in a rhythm that matched a heartbeat.
"That's his mana?" Lance asked.
"Yes," Oz answered.
"...How much of that is him?"
"All of it."
Lance sat back down slowly.
"He released his core," Oz said. "The compression he's held for decades." He paused. "I told him to stop being content. but I didn't expect him to listen tonight."
Oh, so he could talk now, huh?
The colors pulsed once more, and the shadows in the garden shifted with them for about ten minute before finally settling. Then Lance heard footsteps coming up the lane from the east, and a third from the west, all of them running.
Orion came around the corner first with Ilsa half a step behind him. They were out of breath when they reached the garden gate, and Orion had his hand on the post to steady himself when he looked up and saw the sky and stopped talking entirely for about four seconds.
"Priest," he said, which was all he managed before Robin came sprinting up the lane from the opposite direction, barefoot for reasons he did not explain, and vaulted the low section of the garden wall that Oz was not sitting on.
"Are you seeing this?" Robin said, bent over with his hands on his knees. "The whole city is outside. People are panicking. There's a woman on Threadneedle Street who thinks it's the end of the world and she's not the only one." He straightened up and looked at the sky again, and whatever he'd been about to say next left him.
Ilsa was staring upward with her lips parted. "What is it?"
"Is this my master?" Orion asked. He looked at Lance. "This is him, isn't it?"
"Yes," Lance said, from the step.
The five of them stood there, or sat there, or in Oz's case perched there, and looked at the sky together. Robin was the first to speak again.
"Where is he?"
Lance pointed up.
Robin followed the finger, and his eyes kept going to wherever his imagination told him the source was.
"How far up?" Ilsa asked quietly.
"Very," Lance said.
The colors had been fading for about twenty minutes when Orion pointed.
"There!"
Lance followed his finger and saw a small, dark shape descending through the last of the green and blue, silhouetted against the glow. It was moving at a speed that should have been alarming, but it slowed as it dropped below the cloud line, and by the time it cleared the rooftops it was drifting, unhurried.
Sael the Great touched down at the far end of the garden path. His robes were frosted along the shoulders and sleeves, the silver thread at the cuffs glinting with ice crystals that were already melting in the night air. His hair was a mess and his expression was the same as always: calm and slightly bored
He stood there for a moment, facing the herbs. Then he crouched down and touched one of the leaves with two fingers, as if checking on it. The five people standing on his porch, several of whom had been in varying states of alarm for the last half hour, did not appear to register.
"Sir," Lance said.
Sael the Great looked up. He seemed briefly surprised to find an audience.
"Oh," he said. "Hello."
Orion was already down the steps. Ilsa was a half-second behind him, and Robin followed, though he hung back a few feet once he got close enough.
"Master," Orion said. His voice was steady but his hands weren't. "We saw the sky. The entire city saw the sky. What happened up there?"
"Are you hurt?" Ilsa asked, already looking him over before he could answer.
Sael the Great seemed to consider the question.
"No," he said.
"Your robes are frozen, sir," Lance said.
"It's cold in space."
... Lance had been in his company for several weeks now and still couldn't reliably distinguish between the moments where he was being dry and the moments where he was being completely literal. The man occupied a space where the two overlapped so often that trying to separate them felt pointless.
"I'll need to leave again," Sael said. "Tomorrow morning. At the latest."
"Leave," Orion repeated. "Leave where?"
"I don't know yet. I'll know more after I've spoken with Daeren in the morning and dealt with the girl. But I received information tonight that I need to act on, and I can't do it from here."
"For how long?" Ilsa asked.
"I don't know that either."
"...Master," Orion said. "The tournament is in a month and a half."
Sael looked at him.
"And I..." Orion paused. He seemed to be choosing his words with care. "Since you took me on as your apprentice, we haven't really... you've never properly trained me. I know that's not a complaint, I know you've had reasons, and I know you've taught me things along the way, but I've never had real structured training from you. Not the way your other students did." He swallowed. "If you're going out into the field, could I come with you? And could you train me while we travel? I need it, master. The tournament is coming and I'm not ready, and I think you know I'm not ready."
Sael the Great looked at his apprentice for several seconds. His face gave Lance nothing, as usual. He could have been moved by the request, or calculating logistics, or just be thinking about the herb he'd just been touching.
"Hmm," said the archmage.
Lance had no idea what that meant. He'd heard Sael the Great say "hmm" in a dozen different contexts over the past few weeks, and each time the syllable seemed to contain a completely different thought.
"I'll ask your uncle tomorrow," Sael said. "If he agrees, you can come. We would travel until a week or so before the tournament, and then return for it."
Orion let out a breath he'd clearly been holding through the entire "hmm."
"Thank you, master."
Ilsa had been watching this exchange with her arms folded. She waited until Orion was done, and then she spoke.
"Is this about corruption?"
"Yes."
Ilsa nodded once, as if confirming something she'd already worked out on the run over. "Then I'd like to come as well."
"I'll ask Richter about that too," Sael said. He paused. "He may say no."
"He might," Ilsa agreed.
Robin, who had been standing at the back of the group this entire time, opened his mouth and Sael looked at him with an expression that, on anyone else, Lance would have described as tired.
"Robin," Sael said. "Go home."
Robin closed his mouth. He nodded once, accepted this completely, and then looked down at his own bare feet as if noticing them for the first time. "Right. Yes. Goodnight, sir."
Sael turned to Orion and Ilsa. "You two as well. It's late, and tomorrow will be long. Go back home, and sleep. I'll send word in the morning."
Orion bowed slightly while Ilsa inclined her head and Robin was already walking toward the fence.
Sael the Great stood in the garden, watching them leave with his hands at his sides. Then he turned toward the house, took two steps, and stopped.
"Oh," he said, reaching into the inside pocket of his coat and pulling out a rock.
It was about the size of his fist, grey-white and pitted with tiny craters across its surface. One side was rough and broken where it had been snapped off, and the other was smooth. He held it out to Lance without ceremony.
"It's a rock from the moon," he said.
Lance took it. It was heavier than he expected, and cold. A fine layer of dust came off on his skin when he turned it over, pale and powder-fine.
"...Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome," Sael said, and turned toward the house. He got about three steps before he stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
"By the way," he said. "I didn't see the Path."
Lance shifted the rock to one hand and straightened up. "That's normal, sir. Most people don't perceive it on their first attempt. It took me eleven months, and I had guidance the entire time. The flask would have brought you closer to the threshold, but crossing it on the first try would be... unusual."
"Hmm."
He was disappointed. Lance could see it, and the fact that he could see it at all was what caught him off guard, but he decided not to comment on this.
"You should get some sleep, Lance," Sael said. "We'll be traveling tomorrow."
"We, sir?"
Sael glanced at the garden wall. "Oz?"
"Of course," Oz said, without opening his eyes.
"Yes, Oz as well." Sael looked at Lance as if the answer had been obvious for some time. "I'll be meditating until dawn. Goodnight."
He walked inside and closed the door behind him, and Lance stood alone in the garden holding a piece of the moon.