Florence paced back and forth in the centre of the room. Her hands were clenched behind her back, and there was a deep frown on her face. She occasionally stopped and opened her mouth as if to speak, only to shake her head and continue her pacing.

  Valerie, on the other hand, was motionless, leaning against the far wall. Her arms were crossed, and her head was bowed. The only part of her moving was her eyes, which were panning side to side like she was reading something invisible.

  Lucas found himself with little else to do but observe his two comrades, sat against the opposite wall from Valerie. The new development up in the atrium had sent them both into a state of indecision that seemed so uncharacteristic of them. After Master Haddem’s revelation, Valerie had immediately pulled Lucas away, heading down the stairs. Florence had joined them at the ground floor and followed them on their way down without exchanging a single word.

  He wasn’t sure how long it had been since they’d arrived here. Maybe an hour? There was no easy way to tell. Regardless, they’d done nothing but lose themselves in their own thoughts in that time. Even Lucas had run through a bunch of mental scenarios, trying to guess at the implications of what had occurred.

  But he was sick of that, at this point. “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  Florence stopped her pacing. Valerie looked up. Neither of them replied.

  “Personally, I think the obvious route is for both of you to vote in favour of abandoning all hope of my arrival,” he said with a wry smile. “Feel like that would remove a lot of suspicion.”

  Valerie shook her head slowly. “Questions would be asked if I were to abandon my stance on that matter.”

  “Well, it’s not like they’d know your vote, right? I’m assuming it’ll be an anonymous ballot thing.”

  “I’ll be expected to campaign heavily in favour of taking back Pentaburgh.”

  “It’s well known that Valerie Vayon is one of those who hasn’t given up hope in Lucas Brown,” Florence said. “The story of a veteran front liner seeing all the horrors of the Blight and still believing in our eventual salvation seems to resonate with a lot of people, even those who don’t believe. I don’t know if it would have a huge impact if she was seen to give up on that, but this kind of thing is hard to predict.”

  Valerie nodded.

  “Are there that many cynical bastards?” Lucas asked.

  “I don’t think calling it cynicism is necessarily fair,” Florence said. “You have to possess a very strong will to stay optimistic after the events of the last century.”

  Lucas sighed. “Okay. So we think Valerie will have to be seen trying to convince people to take back Pentaburgh if she doesn’t want to draw suspicion to herself or make a bunch of people decide everything is beyond hope.” He paused, eyeing his two comrades. “But surely it’s better for the order to choose to give up the city itself, right?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Valerie said. “Either way, it’s possible we might see a splinter in the Order’s forces. There are those who won’t accept giving up, and those who will refuse to participate in what they see as a futile mission. They will do what they will, regardless of the vote, and they’ll try to convince others to do the same.”

  “And I think we should be hatching a plan to convince people that taking back Pentaburgh is unnecessary.” Lucas shrugged. “Just, y’know, in a way that they don’t lose all bloody hope or whatever. We know that I’m right here, and trying to take back Pentaburgh on my behalf would be pointless. It’s not like there’s anything else of note there. Trust me, I explored a lot.”

  “There is the matter of the Summoning Array itself,” Florence pointed out.

  “We have a copy of it,” Lucas said, nodding to Valerie. “And it’s not like the array is needed any more, right? All it’s good for now is studying.”

  “I’m not sure I like the idea of demons having access to it,” Florence muttered.

  That gave Lucas pause. “Is that a thing? Do you think demons will be able to learn from the array?”

  “They don’t wield magic like that.” Valerie gave Florence a sour look, then pushed herself up from the wall and strode across the room, before lowering herself to sit across from Lucas, a metre or so away. “Though I suspect the plant network there will protect the city for some time anyway. I agree that there’s no use in trying to retake the city.”

  “How many people know about the plant network?” Lucas asked.

  “Everyone knows the story of Pentaburgh’s fall.” Valerie’s expression darkened slightly. “As for how many people know it’s there to protect the city, I’m going to assume none at all, apart from ourselves. Though I admit I never truly believed the entire discipline of floramancy was cursed, even I was under the impression that the plants of Pentaburgh were the actions of a hostile entity of some sort.”

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure I believe you that it isn’t. The story of Pentaburgh is an old one, and you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone it’s a lie.” Florence followed Valerie’s lead, coming to sit by them, forming a little triangle. “There’s also the argument that it’s best to push the Blight as far away from Dawnguard as possible. We’re already seeing animals fleeing further south. Any further, and we won’t be able to keep livestock in the city without them going mad. I assume we agree that abandoning Dawnguard is out of the question?”

  “Pushing the Blight back would be an incredibly costly endeavour for little actual gain,” Valerie said. “And it would take a demon offensive the likes of which this war of a hundred years has rarely seen to bring the Blight closer to Dawnguard. There’s simply too many people here. We don’t have to be worried about losing Dawnguard at this time.”

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  “I’ll defer to your expertise,” Florence conceded. She looked at Lucas. “We should be clear: making the decision to give up on your arrival would be a monumental change in the Order. One that I don’t think even Lady Claire could undo upon her return. The political situation in the city is already fraught, and I suspect certain factions would take it as a sign to take action, though I don’t know how that would play out, exactly.”

  Lucas grimaced. “Honestly, I think that’s a better scenario than sending who knows how many people to horrible deaths for a pointless cause. There’s no need to hold the damned place for my arrival. I’m right here.”

  “We are not ready to reveal you to the masses,” Valerie said immediately.

  Florence nodded in agreement. “At the very least, we’d want Lady Claire here to protect you before we even considered that option.”

  “I know,” Lucas said, frustration building. “I wasn’t suggesting that. I just meant it would be absolutely horrible of us to stand by and let the Order try and retake Pentaburgh when we know it doesn’t need to be done.”

  A moment of silence passed, the three of them exchanging looks.

  Eventually, Florence spoke. “You’re not wrong, Lord Lucas. I agree that it would be best for the Order not to attempt to retake Pentaburgh. At the same time, allowing the scenario to be framed as abandoning hope of your arrival might not be the best course of action, either.”

  “So we convince them the city’s safe instead,” Lucas said, leaning forward. “We tell them about the plant network. There’ll be records that Valerie went on a mission north, right? And there’ll be eyewitness testimony from people who saw her out there. The Taunton survivors, for example. We can say she was on a mission to Pentaburgh. Get Wick to vouch for what she’s saying.”

  “It would be difficult to convince people the city’s safe from demons,” Valerie said. “But it would still ultimately mean, from the perspective of those who don’t know the truth, that Lucas Brown would eventually arrive in a city surrounded on all sides by the Blight.”

  Silence lapsed once more. Lucas found himself grinding his teeth in frustration. He knew they weren’t shooting down his arguments to put him down, but it would be nice if they could be more constructive.

  Then, an idea occurred to him.

  The rest of their conversation took hours. It seemed Valerie and Florence were determined to pour over every little detail, trying to envision all the possible scenarios. Their ideal outcome was to prevent a large scale action to retake Pentaburgh without letting the Order widely give up on Lucas Brown, while also ensuring Lucas himself remained anonymous for the moment. It was inevitable that some unforeseen consequences would arise, and things would get complicated, but as long as those three conditions were met, everything else was largely irrelevant.

  In the end, they left the basement training room just after noon with the beginning of a plan in mind. Lucas was a bit disappointed that his magic practice was cancelled for the day, but the current situation took precedence. He wouldn’t have been able to focus anyway.

  Jamie the monstercat was still in his strange state of general alertness, vigilant but without his attention directed at anything in particular. They’d discussed this, too, but ultimately concluded they didn’t know enough about Jamie to determine what the problem was. Lucas searched in himself for any hints, but the Gift apparently didn’t know what to make of the cat either. If he wanted to figure the creature out, he was going to have to do it himself.

  He tried asking, directing a sort of mental question down the link: “What’s wrong?”

  But the monstercat gave no reply, still alert, still silent. He’d give Lucas access to pyromancy at will, and the lag between command and reaction seemed quicker than it had been, thanks to the training he’d been working on.

  There was no way of knowing what had disturbed the creature, it seemed. Lucas would just have to be vigilant, too.

  They made their way up from the depths of the Moontower to the ground floor. There were still a lot more members of the Order in the atrium than usual, though much of the crowd had dispersed. A constant stream of skycloaks were pouring up the stairs into the tower, many of them with their cloaks darkened.

  Florence took the lead, while Valerie guarded him from behind, as they made their way into the atrium itself, weaving a path through the crowd. This was the first time, Lucas realised, that he’d left the confines of the pentagonal tower since arriving here over a month ago. It felt like no time at all. He’d blinked, and here he was. The realisation came as a surprise; normally, he was the type of person to get all grouchy if he was cooped up in one place for any extended period. Had Valerie and Florence kept him so occupied that his mind hadn’t been able to comprehend that he’d been shut inside for over a month, or was the Great Star just helping him deal with that better? He couldn’t decide. Maybe it was just that there was such a great distance between Valerie’s quarters and the places they trained in that the fact it was all in the same building didn’t register.

  It hit him surprisingly hard when they reached the far end of the atrium and stepped through one of the giant archways out into the world beyond. The countless towers of Dawnguard loomed over him, with the great Moontower lording above it all at his back. It cast a shadow that seemed unending.

  A constant, low din rumbled through the city, the sound of millions of people going about their day. In his head, he’d always imagined a pungent stench lingered over medieval cities like a toxic mist, shit and sweat and dirt mingling to form a nose-searing cocktail. But here he could smell only grass and baked bread. He wondered if that was artificial, somehow, then dismissed it as unimportant. The key point was he could draw in a lung full of fresh air without gagging, and it tasted wonderful.

  Outside the atrium, a wall surrounded the Order’s territory in the city. Yet another pentagon. It seemed everything the Order built adhered to that theme, whether it be inns or barracks or storehouses or the Moontower itself. He got the impression it was a tradition that had gone somewhat out of fashion; he’d seen plenty of regular, four-sided buildings out there in the city proper.

  They made their way across the courtyard, sticking together as a trio. He felt eyes on them, caught snippets of whispers, and tried not to hunch his shoulders. He told himself the attention was for Valerie, who was apparently a recognisable figure and someone people would be specifically looking to given all that was going on. They shouldn’t have any reason to suspect him. Still, he worried. It was difficult not to after having spent the majority of his time in this world fretting about people discovering his identity.

  No one stopped them for a chat, and they made it to the enormous arch that led out to the south of the city. There was one archway on each of the five walls, each wide enough to fit a motorway through and at least six stories tall, and they showed no hint of any way of blocking them, which traditionally meant to show that the Order was always open to any visitors, or something. The organisation hadn’t always been the quasi-military outfit controlled by a Great Hero it was today. In times gone by, it had been practically a religious sect.

  There, Valerie finally emerged from Lucas’ shadow and approached the guard station that squatted at one side of the arch. An unassuming door straight into the thick wall, somewhere within it contained the seldom-used magical mechanism that would seal the arch and erect a protective barrier that spread from the very top of the Moontower like a giant carousel.

  Two guards stood on either side of the door, and undoubtedly more were inside. They eyed Valerie warily as she approached, clearly recognising her.

  “The Order is in danger,” she told them. “We need to activate the barrier.”

  Discord :)