When Lys woke up from his nap, he came outside of his room to an empty kitchen.
The bowls from breakfast had been washed and stacked. The bread plate was gone. Someone had wiped the table down and pushed the chairs back in. The whole room had been returned to its morning order so completely that if he hadn't been there an hour ago, he wouldn't have known anything had happened in it.
He stood in front of the big kitchen room for a moment, looking at the empty chair where Selene had been sitting.
Mira came in through the back door with dirt on her knees and a handful of something green she'd pulled from the garden. She took one look at his face and said, "She already left, if that's what you're wondering."
"I know," Lys said. "Sara must have taken her to her."
"Yeah." Mira dropped the herbs on the counter and started pulling off her boots. "They stepped out just as you had gone to your room to sleep."
Lys pulled out a chair and sat down. He wasn't hungry. He just needed somewhere to put himself while his head caught up with the morning.
Mira glanced at him sideways while she worked her second boot off. "You look like someone who slept for six hours and is pretending it was one."
"Four hours," he said.
"Four isn't better."
"It's better than six."
She dropped the boot and turned around, leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed. She had the expression she got when she was deciding whether to say something or let it sit. Usually, she would say it. But now was not usual.
"Did she say, she was going back to her house or something?" he asked, before Mira could open her mouth.
"Who? Selene?" Mira tilted her head. "I think so. Sara said something about her needing to get her things before…" She stopped.
Lys looked at her. "Before John comes back?"
Mira pressed her lips together, then said, "It's okay. He went somewhere this morning. Before sunrise. Some village thing, I think. Bertha mentioned it when she came by to pick up Sara's coat she left here." She shrugged. "Point is, he's not there right now."
Lys didn't say anything. He was looking at the table.
"She'll be fine," Mira said. "Sara is with her, too."
"Sara has her own house to get back to."
"Sara is also not going to leave Selene alone if she thinks there's a reason not to." Mira pushed off the counter and came to sit across from him, dropping into the chair with the full weight of someone who hadn't slept enough yesterday night. "She's not stupid, Lys. She knows what the situation would be right now if she went home."
"I know she does."
"Then stop making that face."
He looked up. "What face?"
"The one where you're going through every way something could go wrong." She propped her chin in her hand. "Before, I wouldn't have thought much about it. But now, after what Mitsu said…" She let that trail off on its own.
He pushed his hand through his hair. "I just didn't think past last night. Her father's going to come back eventually. And she'll be in that house. After everything that happened at the council, the crowd, Selene standing up to him in front of everyone, he's not going to just let that go."
"You feel responsible for her," Mira said. It wasn't a question.
"She wouldn't be in this situation if I hadn't done what I did," he said.
"She also wouldn't have stood up to her father if you hadn't done what you did." Mira held his look. "That's also just true."
He didn't have anything to say to that.
Mira leaned back. "Mom had figured it out before Mitsu even finished talking. Sara too, you could see it happening on her face."
As they were talking, Elara came in from the hallway with a laundry basket, looked at the two of them sitting at the table doing nothing, and put a heel of bread in front of Lys without a word.
"Sara sent word with Bertha," Elara said, moving back to the laundry. "She wants you over there before the afternoon. Something about guild documents or something."
Lys looked at Mira. "You coming?"
"Obviously, let's go," she said, already standing.
-----
The market was bustling with people and some new shops as they walked through the village. Carts being unloaded, shutters opening, the bakery smell coming down from the corner. Some people nodded at Lys as he passed by them. A few even held the look a second longer than a nod needed.
It was different from before. Not just with new shops and people from outside, the engagement announcement with him and Selene had shifted something in how people were looking at him, not unfriendly, just working out which category he belonged to now.
They passed two women near the well who watched them go by without pretending otherwise.
"You're going to have to get used to that," Mira said.
"I know."
"Some people are going to think you're brave, and some are going to think you're an idiot." She considered it in her mind while giggling a little. "Most are probably going to think both."
"That seems right, considering how Selene's previous behaviour was," Lys said, brushing off her comment.
-------
Sara's front door was open. They went in without knocking.
She was at her work table with her back to them, one finger raised before either of them said anything. The table had been cleared and covered in fresh documents, official seals on several of them, a map spread across the middle.
Lys sat on a sofa without saying anything. Mira went to the bookshelf and looked at things without touching them.
Sara set down what she was reading and turned around. She looked at Lys and sat across from him while sliding a document over.
"Guild courier. Arrived before sunrise." She didn't wait for him to ask. "Someone is coming tomorrow, it says. A guild assistant to handle the groundwork before the main representatives arrive here. Things like registration, preliminary land contracts, the checkpoint framework." She tapped the document. "It also says it might take two weeks until the formal arrival. Maybe three. I'm assuming two."
"What's the checkpoint framework?" Mira asked from the bookshelf, no longer pretending to look at books.
"Collection posts in neighboring villages. Collecting Mana stones from local hunters instead of sourcing everything through the capital." Sara glanced at Lys. "Clara is going to try to get ahead of this before the assistant even sits down. She always wanted a monopoly; she's the only supplier in this area till now. So if the guild has to source everything through her, she might set the price with no alternative."
Then, with a smile on her lips, she said, "That's where a checkpoint system comes in. You need to be the one to raise it. Not me."
"Why me?"
"Because if I raise it, it might look like a village landowner is just protecting her territory in their eyes. But if you raise it, it'll look like someone is genuinely thinking about the village." She met his eyes. "Which is very valuable to a guild's eye. We'll need every advantage we can to make them know that we're serious about this."
"Hmm, I get it somehow. Show me where the neighboring villages are." Lys looked at the map.
Sara turned it around and started talking. Mira pulled up a chair without being asked and started taking notes in her mind, complaining about being used as a scribe right up until she got genuinely interested in the logistics Sara was showing them, which took about four minutes.
But before they knew, it was four hours.
-----
Walking back home, Mira was quieter than usual again. Just when they were almost home, she started saying, "You really do feel responsible for her."
"Stop it already, will you! We talked about this."
"I know. I'm just thinking about it differently now." She kept her eyes on the road. "You feel guilty about her getting caught up in your kindness, right?"
"So what if I'm. Who cares! She was in a corner." Lys got a little angry. Clearly, being too annoyed by her repetitive questions.
"Okay, Okay. I'm stopping now. No need to snap like that." Mira stopped talking altogether. Walking beside him with her head down now.