Kiersten's Arc

Chapter 24 of 33

Kiersten stayed on the porch of the broken house until the sun burned off the mist. The escape was one night sooner, and every road she pictured ran back to the village. The scout had walked the north path twice. The stream road pointed south, where he had ridden. The east track cut past the well where he had asked his questions. She had no way out that his eyes had not already touched. She pressed her thumb to her heart tattoo. "Quantum," she said. "There is no clean road." The gray space opened. Quantum stood with his round glasses fogged from the school's steam. Mother Angel folded her wings behind him. Ananda leaned in with a grin. "We know," Quantum said. "That is why we are sending someone to you." "Someone who moves without being seen," Mother Angel said. "He keeps a place for people the roads cannot hold. He has agreed to take you in." "A bunker," Ananda said. "Hidden. My crystals are jealous already." "His name is Guardian Noble," Mother Angel said. "He is on his way. He will bring what you need to leave the porch unseen. Wait for him." The gray space closed. Kiersten waited. She counted three, six, nine until the count stopped mattering. The sun crossed the sagging roof beam. A shadow moved at the tree line that had not been there before. An old man stepped out of the shadow as if the shadow had grown him. White beard. A staff with a lit crystal at the top. Robes that looked older than the house. He did not walk to the porch. He was on it. "Kiersten," he said. His voice was small and flat. "I am Noble. The angel told me your name." She stood. Her hand went to the doorframe out of habit. "I keep a bunker," he said. "No one finds it unless they need it. You need it." He looked at the broken windows, the cracked boards. "This house is done holding you." He lifted a folded cloth from under his arm and shook it open. The fabric was woven with pale symbols that swam when she tried to hold them in her eye. It shimmered, then dulled, then almost was not there. "A veil," he said. "Put it on. The scout's eyes will slide off you. So will other eyes." "He rode south," Kiersten said. "He will ride back," Noble said. "Put it on." She took the cloak. It weighed nothing. She pulled it over her shoulders and felt the porch air soften around her, as if the world had stopped looking her way. "Bring nothing you cannot carry," Noble said. "We walk under the trees, not the road. I will keep us unseen until the door." Kiersten stepped off the porch. Her boots made no sound she could hear. Noble turned toward the wood, and she followed, hidden inside the shimmer, moving where no road would remember her passing.