A glorious Shepsborn summers day, the occasional cloud drifting across the blue sky like a stray sheep, mirroring the flocks milling around the hillside. Somewhere up there was Eliza, watching and waiting, taking over the Vigil while her sister panics over the wedding tomorrow. Det would be with her, but for this class McLintock decided they needed. Speaker McLintock could be convinced to end early if the class seemed to have got the point of the lesson, and if so, he could make it up there just in time to escort her home, via somewhere nice, and out of the way, and if it took slightly longer to get home than strictly necessary, who would know?
“Master Marshall, do you have somewhere you would rather be?”
Yes, sir. “No, Sir”.
“Then you can answer the question Master Sornworth has been so very stumped by. If your house was on fire, what would you take with you?”
* * *
They won’t.
Stop.
TALKING.
Romance dragged me here, to the grand colonial meeting of “What do we do?”, and now I have my answer. We will talk. We will argue. We will accuse each other of stupidity, of not listening (While not listening). The people I serve and assist, famous for their ability to talk around a problem rather than act though it, have absolutely nothing on this fetid dank swamp of politics. Evidence is presented, things that chill me to my very soul are told; and the line between “Do the right thing” and “Something must be done, do something” is thick with the mud from boots of two dozen arguing voices. We leave. We will ask the Lady, while themagicians attempt to move a physical volcano and deal with the metaphysical one later.
The supplication has happened, someone came to both the conclusions the meeting did at the same time, and instead of the large act of sorcery whilst others supplicated to see what else we could do, instead decided to supplicate to see if the sorcery would work.
My lady is not known for her clarity. She had been hinting at us all weekend, and now she spoke to us directly, such that none could avoid her words or her thoughts, and this is what she said to us:
Flee.
I couldn’t. I had one more task, and I moved across the field as fast as my tired legs could carry me until I saw the shape of her in the distance. The only item I could not leave the island without. As Amelia and I joined the flood of people, we saw our friends and loved ones in their own attempt to rescue all they could. “Are you leaving?” I asked them. They were all leaving, or finding someone and leaving.
We got to the Marshall’s corsair, and eventually left with the last of our group. We’d left the tents, though Stuart and Fiona had grabbed the money and most of the stock that hadn’t been already stored on the ship. Fiona had also picked up the paperwork and heresy pamphlets, and we sailed from Coyote island, hoping our friends could do the same.