Springtide came early to Formere this year, gracing the capital of the Ridge in the form of brightly colored wagons and tents. Being the largest city along the route between the Scar and Kinston’s border gates, it was only natural that the caravan would stop here to perform. The timing could not have been more perfect, for the coming holiday had filled Formere’s people with excitement, and thus its citizens were more than willing to conjure up any excuse they could to extend their revelry. This atmosphere had proved an abundantly lucrative one for the circus; fortunate, since this was the only lengthy stop the troupe could afford to take. In order to align with Lady’s Veil’s designs, the caravan’s allotted time for travel was limited, and she had forced the circus to move through Cambria at a brisk and dogged pace. If this had been one of their usual jaunts, then the troupe would have likely stayed within the country for another two months at least. Certainly the locals could have used the distraction, given the current state of their affairs, but things were soon going to get much worse for Cambria now that Veil’s plan had seen success.

  Indeed, the ringmaster’s intervention would cause a storm of unease and anger to blow throughout all of Cambria, and the circus would be both safer and wiser to leave the country in order to avoid the fallout. Eventually, when the worst of the rage and chaos had died, the Circus of the Moonlit Veil would make its grand return to take advantage of the aftermath. This had been Lady Veil’s plan since long before entering Cambria, and everything she had laid out unto this point had unfolded precisely as she’d devised. In truth, things had turned out far better than what even she had anticipated, for the caravan’s stop in Formere had pulled in more profit than what the ringmaster had accounted for. This was a most welcome surprise, in spite of how much extra work it had created for the caravan’s matron, for there were few things that pleased Veil more than when the circus thrived on its own merit.

  And for days after they had left Formere, did the proper tallying of goods, coin and current stock remain a lasting chore for the ringmaster, for she had disregarded it in favor of reaching their next destination in the allotted time. The caravan’s punctuality was of far greater importance than the completion of these calculations, and so the lonely scratching of quill to paper persisted even now. But this unending scrawling was a normal ambience within Lady Veil’s wagon car, for often did her endless work remain long after the sun had set. This rarely bothered the ringmaster though, for she typically had trouble sleeping during those hours when she ought. However, tonight her extensive list of circus duties and insomnia were not the only reasons why she stayed awake.

  Beneath the glow of the brazier crystal melded with an enchanted flame, Veil silently toiled away in solitude. Warmed by the magical fire and soothed by the continuous burning of lavender incense, the whittling down of her long list of various chores was not so taxing a thing. When sweeping aside each completed paper, she didn’t care when—more often than not—they fell from her desk to scatter across the floor. Organizing mere paperwork was too mundane a task for the ringmaster to concern herself with, though because nearly a month had passed since her usual assistant was here to help, the clutter was piling up more than it ever had before. Regardless, Veil knew the exact location of every parchment, be it on the desk or on the floor, and so as long as she could continue to reach them when she had the need, she saw no reason to clean them up.

  Whisking another finished note aside, she dipped the tip of her feathered quill back into the ink, though paused when the heavy beating of leather wings alighted outside her door. A loud knock pounded against it then, booming out inside the hollow quiet of the wagon car. Dropping the quill in the ink pot to sit, Veil stood up from her desk and fixed her sash over her shoulders, this staving off the chill that arose from leaving the close proximity of the crystal fire. When opening the door she could just make out the shape of her visitor, for Luminaya’s dark-toned blue scales were a nearly identical match to the dense black shades of night.

  “She’s coming,” the towering draconess muttered with her usual growl. “From the north road.”

  “I will see to her,” Veil responded flatly. “Thank you.” This emotionless thanks Luminaya accepted with her usual responding huff, and bending at the knees, she leapt skyward to fly off again into the light of the waning moon. For another hour the draconess would keep watch over the caravan, dutifully circling a wide perimeter until the next set of scouts would take her place. Veil was counting on this, particularly because of this new bit of urgent business. That someone who had been so sorely missed had finally found her way back home, it was best that no one realized it save for Luminaya and herself.

  Drawing up her thick fur cloak from the hook beside the door, Veil slipped it on before grabbing up a walking staff. A spherical glass bauble—fragile in appearance yet tough as steel—dangled from the wooden rod’s swooping crook, looped around a second, ornamental curve via a thin length of leather strap. Veil whispered to this artifact as she stepped out into the cold, whereupon the orb began to glow and illuminate everything nearby in a soft, pale blue light. Now able to see, the ringmaster started off through the caravan’s encampment, and made her way toward the road that laid just a short ways beyond the circus’s outer edge. While weaving her way between the wagon cars, Veil held her staff low so to keep from waking up those who slept. Only the dimmest of the enchanted light thus blanketed each wooden cart, and this allowed Veil to proceed both swiftly and undisturbed.

  When finally she emerged from the slumbering alleyways of their encampment, Veil trekked through the stretch of sodden grass and toward her destination. Again the night air was blowing cold, and Veil could feel this far more keenly now that she had left the safety of the wagons. Winter was still clinging on to the life that spring was attempting to ebb away, as it would continue to do until Snowsbloom was nearly gone. The scent of snow upon the breeze was evidence of that struggle, and tonight Veil’s every breath left her as a fog. She remained warm beneath her hood and cloak however, and took comfort in knowing that she would not be waiting out in the open air for long.

  After only a short walk further Veil reached the roadside edge, and left now to wait, she allowed her eyes to wander aimlessly over the sprawling farmlands ahead. A city lay beyond the reaches of those soon-to-be-seeded fields, and the torch fires upon its walls were naught but specks at such a distance. An even greater shadow stood behind it: that of Cambria’s border wall, and the enormous structure appeared the same here as it had back in the Scar. Giant braziers were visibly burning low atop the structure, and occasionally some winged beast would swoop down near to its main gates. But where the braziers failed, the wall became wholly invisible except for where it met the sky, where it created there a stark contrast of black against the blanket of low-hanging starts.

  Veil closed her eyes after a short while, having taken in all she cared to see. Blind, only the sounds of the nearby woods rained their soft assault on her senses, the wind having picked up enough to cause the swath of trees to bend and shift. Wordlessly she listened to it and to those other sounds of the night. There were few, given how cold it was. Still, above, where her dracon flew, the ringmaster could perceive the pumping of their wings, and eventually—though it took some time—she heard the faint sound of a horse’s hooves too disrupting the quiet night.

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  Veil opened her eyes and peered off down the road. There, not too far away, she could make out a singular light, the glow of it only visible after having departed from a copse of trees. It was a saddle lantern by appearance; small and only adequate for revealing the nearby path. Nevertheless, both steed and rider were lit up by the lantern’s glow, though Veil could have recognized these two given less of a look than this. The pair being in no great hurry due to the lateness of the hour, the ringmaster stabbed the end of her staff into the ground to relieve herself of its burden. Veil then stood in stoic silence, waiting for the travelers to near, knowing exactly what would happen the very moment the two arrived.

  When eventually the horse came plodding into a reasonable distance beyond her light, Veil pulled back her fur hood and calmly revealed her face. Immediately then, the young rider vaulted free from her stallion’s back, leaving beast, pack and even cloak behind as they would only slow her down. At a sprint the girl crossed the short length of darkness between her and the ringmaster, where then she leaped into her matron’s waiting arms without a word. The force of the acrobat’s pounce caused Veil to stumble back when catching her, and so fiercely did the girl squeeze her in a hug that the ringmaster felt partially crushed.

  “Veil…” Saraya weakly squeaked, the name coming out as a pitiful whine.

  “There now,” the ringmaster softly crooned in a meager attempt to soothe the girl, and wrapping her arms around the jester’s back, Veil enclosed her inside her cloak. Slowly the acrobat began to relax under the woman’s touch, but then her grip loosened unexpectedly and, as though ashamed, she firmly pushed away. “Saraya?” Veil began in question. “Is something troubling you?” Of course, Veil had no need to ask this, for she already knew the answer, and likewise knew just why the girl had so suddenly pulled away.

  “It’s just that…” Saraya tried to say. “I just…” But she couldn’t get her words out, and even Alter appeared to be unwilling to speak in the jester’s stead.

  “I see…” Veil interrupted. She had expected something like this to happen. “It would appear as though I have given you too much time alone to mull things over, Miss Lafeir.” Calmly then, Veil reached out and gently stroked Saraya’s head. “Tell me everything.”

  Hesitate though she did at first, eventually Saraya did summon courage enough to do as Veil had asked. Reluctantly, she started at the beginning, recounting to the ringmaster her first misstep. She then proceeded to reveal everything that had happened after as a result of that one mistake, and the further on the acrobat went, the more visibly upset she became. Inevitably, she reached the point in her story when all of it came to a head, and with its retelling, Saraya almost couldn’t bring herself to speak. A deep regret for everything she had done—save for fulfilling what Veil had asked of her—had quite clearly been plaguing the acrobat every day since she had fled, and now it was all that Saraya could to do to profusely apologize. She was sorry about getting caught up with the assassin, sorry about betraying the Slayer, but more than these, she was profoundly ashamed for having even slightly considered betraying Veil.

  “I’m so sorry, Veil,” Saraya whimpered as her guilt caused her eyes to tear. “I don’t know why I…I didn’t mean—”

  The ringmaster lifted Saraya’s chin, pushing closed the jester’s mouth. “Hold your tongue, Miss Lafeir,” she ordered softly, though stern. “I am not interested in your apologies, for I have no need of them.” Veil paused a moment then, though she soon started again. “I gave you such an imposing mission fully knowing that it would test you in every manner I desired. Your ability, your mannerisms, your loyalty, I intended to challenge it all. Yet never once did I entertain the notion that you would fail the faith I placed in you. You had my full confidence from the start, Saraya. If it had not been so, then I never would have chosen you for this.” Slowly Veil slipped her hand out from under the jester’s chin, allowing the girl a moment to fully take in all that she had said.

  “…Of course you knew,” Saraya muttered after a moment, yet she did not seem much relieved. “You always know…But…But I still did something horrible…! And it hurts…so much…” When saying this, the acrobat gripped her shirt nearest to her heart, and curled slightly into herself as though she were experiencing physical pain.

  “You speak of the Slayer,” Veil concluded, to which the jester gave a nod. “That woman…if you had told her of your intent, even given her the honest reason, would she have accepted it?”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Saraya answered swiftly. “She would have searched for another way that didn’t require loss of life.”

  “And so the Fawln would have acquired that which they were searching for.” Veil paused for a moment after this, wanting to speak what she did next with care. “It is not wrong to desire a solution as your ally did, Saraya, but more oft than not will those times occur when such luxuries cannot be afforded.”

  “I know that,” Saraya sighed, hardly comforted by the thought.

  “It’s not as though we expected anything less,” Alter added offhandedly. “Taking a life is the chief thing we were once trained for, after all.”

  “Be that as it may,” Veil continued, “your dilemma comes not from taking a life, but rather affecting the one you befriended by doing so. I will not tell you that you should not make allies, Saraya, if only because I am well aware that you are incapable of not doing so. But should something like this happen again, you would do well to remember that what you do for me, you do for them as well. That woman, Myria, do you imagine she would favor living out her life during the Fall?”

  The answer was obvious, of course, so much so that the acrobat had no need to answer. Thus Saraya simply kept silent, contemplating things on her own, until eventually she found will enough to open her mouth again. “Just…Just tell me that it’ll be worth it,” she begged. “Please, just tell me that I didn’t do all of this, that I hurt like this, for nothing…”

  Veil did not speak immediately. Instead, she took a moment to gather her words. “We mean to prevent the Fall, Saraya,” she stated evenly then. “No one can hate you for that.” Though it was unclear if Veil’s words had had their desired effect, at the very least, the jester seemed to be put more at ease by them. For in response, and because she undoubtedly still had a longing for it, Saraya stepped back up to Veil with a tight embrace. This gesture the ringmaster calmly accepted, and was even willing to return.

  “I missed you so much…” the girl muttered then, hiding her face against Veil’s chest.

  “And I you,” the woman replied while stroking the jester’s hair. “Now, we have tarried long enough. Let us get in out of the cold.” Releasing her hold of the acrobat, Veil sent Saraya to go fetch Talon, and soon after the two of them were on their way back to the ringmaster’s wagon car. “I see the charm has served you well,” Veil mentioned once they had walked together a short distance.

  All the while they had been speaking the acrobat had been holding something in her palm, and only now that Veil had mentioned it did Saraya finally open her hand. Within it sat the carving Chloe had given the jester before she’d left, though the top of it appeared smoother now for having been rubbed at length. Running her thumb over its top, likely as she had been doing for multiple days, Saraya palmed the piece once again and held it to her chest. “It was all I had to hold on to, that and the necklace,” she explained. “After everything that happened, I…I just wanted to be home.”

  “And so you shall be, for a time,” Veil told the jester honestly. “Though your next task is already decided, it can wait for now. Tomorrow we leave Cambria for Val Aven, and I had hoped to see you recovered in time to perform in the circus for a while.”

  “Nothing would make me happier,” Saraya answered, having at last mustered a smile. In response, the ringmaster felt herself partially smile too. Indeed, it would do the circus, Saraya, and even Veil a great amount good to have the girl be nothing more than just a simple jester for a while. Certainly Saraya could, and would, fulfill whatever role Veil required her to take, but for right now, and for several days to come, it was for the best that she was simply here.