The door slammed, and Suthe looked up to see Nem Koel standing with her back pressed against it.

"We have a problem," she said, first to Suthe in Montese, and then in Shun Dwo to Saer Lon, who immediately stood up from the table where she had been lounging.

"What problem?" Suthe asked, but Nem Koel and Saer Lon were already engaged in their own conversation, muttered words of Shun Dwo flickering between them like flames from a fire. Suthe tried to catch the general tone of the conversation, but the words disappeared too quickly for her to make any sense of the sounds.

"It's barely even the morning yet," Suthe said, but her comment went largely ignored by the two other women in the room. "How could we possibly have a problem already?"

Nem Koel finished speaking with Saer Lon and turned to face Suthe, who tried to read her face for any clue of what this sudden problem might be.

"Were you able to meet the messenger from the theater?" Suthe asked. The meeting invitation had just come late the previous night, and she had been worrying over the outcome ever since.

Nem Koel nodded.

"Well, are they going to allow us to meet with a design expert?" Suthe pressed.

"Yes," Nem Koel replied slowly.

"Then what's the problem?" Suthe asked, crossing her arms.

Rather than directly answering, however, Suthe only received a question herself.

"Yesterday morning when you just popped up out of nowhere – where did you go?" Nem Koel asked.

Suthe froze. "Why does it matter?"

Nem Koel cast a glance towards the door, as though worried someone might burst through it at any moment. "Someone saw you disappearing. Well – lots of someones. And not just disappearing, but appearing, too."

Suthe sat down, her impatience suddenly washed out by a cold sweat that had broken out across her forehead. She had been so worried about the clockwork soldiers, she had almost forgotten about the people that had seen her that night. "Yes," she said, her voice sounding hollow to her own ears. "There were quite a few people who saw me."

Nem Koel continued. "They know about Montmyth's decree against druiths," she said. "And now after your strange appearance the night before last, there's a reward out for your capture. People will be watching you more closely than ever. You can't disappear anymore, or do anything else that you druiths do."

"I can't do anything else," Suthe countered defensively. "I only jump to different places. Is that really so much of a crime?"

Never mind that she had been considering robbing a bank with her abilities just the other day. It had only been a thought, but she hadn't acted on it!

"Well, they don't know that," Nem Koel said, also sitting down to better face Suthe. "People will be looking for anything mysterious or even hinting at a druith ability, especially from anyone matching your description."

Suthe pursed her lips. "It's not like I'm going to try to be found out," she said. "I just can't help it, sometimes."

Nem Koel opened her mouth, but hesitated just a moment.

"What is it?" Suthe asked.

"Well...is it true you really went all the way back to Fai?  How do you do that?"

If only I knew.

Suthe opened her mouth to give a response, but Saer Lon spoke up first, and Nem Koel turned away to give a quick reply.

"She says you're to stay here until we meet with this person," Nem Koel said, her previous question forgotten as she turned back to Suthe, eyes downcast. "Sorry. But you know it's for the best."

"And when is that?" Suthe asked. She was sick of waiting. They needed to speak to Enji, or whoever it was, find out about the swords and where the best place would be to store them, then find them and destroy them so she could just go home and return to her normal life.

"This evening," Nem Koel said. "In the thirteenth warehouse by the docks."

"Thirteenth? How many warehouses are there? That's a terrible meeting place!"

Nem Koel shook her head. "No, it's smart. It's four rows in out of seven total, which means there are so many other warehouses that it makes it difficult for anyone else to find it unless they know exactly where they're looking."

Suthe shook her head. "If you say so."

There was a knock at the door. All three of the room's inhabitants immediately stood and turned in the direction of the sound.

Suthe noticed Nem Koel and Saer Lon make eye contact, and the latter nodded before stepping forward to answer the knock.

"Ya i-kah?" She called out, and a male voice rumbled a response.

Suthe was startled as Nem Koel suddenly grabbed her by the wrist and began pulling her backwards, towards the window.

"What are you – "

"Shh!" Nem Koel held up a finger. "We need to hide."

Suthe immediately dug her heels in. "Out the window? Are you insane?" She had already experienced that sort of thing with Ulsper back in Sylterra, and she wasn't in a hurry to repeat the experience.

"Well, our room is a bit small, if you hadn't noticed," Nem Koel hissed, the exasperation in her voice evident. "I'm trying to help – or would you rather we get caught?"

Saer Lon was at this point in the middle of what sounded like a heated argument with whoever it was out in the hallway, and at the sound of jingling keys, rushed forward to put her weight against the door.

"There's no time for anything else – and don't even think about panicking," Nem Koel reprimanded at Suthe's wide-eyed stare. "Remember the breath sets from the meditation I've been teaching you. And let's go."

This window, at least, had a ledge below it, and Suthe followed Nem Koel's example and used it to support her feet as they crept out the window and shuffled along the wall.

Slow and steady.  So far, so good.

Suthe's heart nearly jumped to her throat in the next instant as Nem Koel suddenly pushed off, launching herself to the next windowsill, feet scrabbling on the wall and fingers white on the sill until she managed to get her foothold.

Not good, not good, most definitely not good.

As though she scaled buildings every day, Nem Koel calmly pulled herself up, shook a lock of hair out of her face, and peered through the glass.

"This room's empty. Come on."

Suthe felt her jaw drop. "There is no way I am going to be able to jump that far without falling to my death!" she hissed. With Ulsper, at least he had experience and strength. But Nem Koel was still a trainee, and much shorter and skinnier in comparison to the Sylterran spy. If Suthe were to slip, she didn't have the same confidence that she would be caught in time.

"Suthe, I'm not going to let you fall."

Ulsper had said something similar, back when he had helped her escape from the Guard raiding Alaera's apartment.

"I won't let you fall."

She had trusted him. There'd been no other choice.  And now she was in the same situation.

Nem Koel was wrapping her hand in the sleeve of her shirt, and in the next moment had punched through the glass pane of the window in front of her to reach through and unlock it from the inside. Suthe cringed at the sound, her ears straining for any indication that the people Saer Lon was currently arguing with had heard it. But the shouting from the window beside her was too loud for the shatter to have been heard. From the sounds of pounding on wood, it sounded like whoever it was was trying to break the door in, and Suthe only just resisted peeking her head back around to look through the window. Saer Lon must have been fighting like a sand viper, but she couldn't hold them off forever.

Suthe took a long breath in through her nose, counting to five just as Nem Koel had instructed in their meditation sessions. For once, it seemed to help a little, and she refocused on the window Nem Koel was currently climbing through.

Once inside the next room, Nem Koel leaned out the window and held out her hand, waiting for Suthe.

"Come on, you can do it!"

Suthe could hear Ulsper's voice again, words he had whispered in what seemed lifetimes ago, guiding her.

"Now, jump. On the count of three. Ready? One, two..."

Suthe gritted her teeth and bent her knees, then sprung before her mind fully had a chance to process what she was about to do. There was a terrifying moment when she was falling through the air, but Suthe couldn't even scream.

What if she hadn't jumped far enough? She would miss the window and be splattered on the pavement below—

"Gotcha!" Nem Koel's victorious whisper could barely be heard over the ruckus in their room next door. The girl had latched on to Suthe's forearm in a grip that was surprisingly strong for her small frame, and she leaned back, pulling Suthe into the room with her body weight until they both landed on the floor in a disgraceful heap, glass shards cracking beneath them as both struggled to catch their breath.

"Wait," Suthe gasped as Nem Koel began to struggle to her feet. "What if...what if I tried to get us out of here?"  She'd be willing to try anything if it meant no more jumping out of windows.

Nem Koel tilted her head. "You mean, disappear with your magic?"

Suthe cringed. "With my...abilities, yes. If I just have a little time, and can focus long enough, I could probably get us out of here without any more trouble. It was how Ulsper and I got in to Andilir in the first place."

Nem Koel's eyebrows rose in surprise, but she shook her head. "What if we suddenly appear in front of people, like you did last time?" she said. "And what if we can't get to the warehouses in time because of it? It's too risky. We just need to wait long enough to meet with the design expert. Then we'll consider if we need to take more drastic measures to find these swords."

Suthe opened her mouth to argue, but found she had nothing against Nem Koel's logic. The girl was right, ancestors curse it all. With a grumble, Suthe accepted Nem Koel's outstretched hand and let herself be pulled to her feet.

A splotch of red caught Suthe's eye as Nem Koel dropped her arm.

"You're bleeding!"  There were a few spots on the floor, too, trailing down Nem Koel's upper arm and dripping from her elbow.

"Shh! It's nothing. I just missed knocking out a shard in the windowpane on my way in." Nem Koel tapped a finger to her lips, then crept to the door that led to the hallway and pressed her ear against the wood. From what Suthe could tell, the sounds of splintering wood were growing louder. Any moment now, and—

Crash!

Suthe couldn't help but jump at the noise, even though she had been somewhat expecting it. There was a frustrated yell, and then a clang of metal. Suthe thought she could hear a shout from Saer Lon every now-and-then through the wall, but there was no way to tell how she was faring against at least three other people.

Boots pounded against the floorboards, and there was more shouting, louder than before. Nem Koel suddenly raced across the room, back to the window, and stood against the wall, looking out to the street just as a gunshot echoed from the room next door.

"Ancestors!" Suthe gasped, unable to help herself. She rushed over to join Nem Koel, afraid of what she would see.

"She's jumped out the window," Nem Koel whispered, one fist clenching the drapes. Another gunshot rang out, and others on the street screamed and scattered as the bullet pinged off the street tiles, just at Saer Lon's heels as she made her escape. Suthe could see that the woman was clutching her arm, but it didn't stop her from disappearing around the corner faster than the strike of a scorpion.

"Thank the ancestors we're only on the second floor," Suthe muttered, but her comment went unacknowledged.

"Get back!" Nem Koel whispered, yanking Suthe against the wall.  Why, Suthe didn't know, but she waited along with the trainee in breathless silence before the shouting from the room next door began again.

"They're going after her," Nem Koel explained on a breath out, sagging away from the wall. "But there will be more coming once they hear that a druith's been staying at the inn. We need to leave."

"How will we know when they're gone though?" Suthe worried, following Nem Koel back across the room to the door. "What if one of them stays behind?"

Nem Koel bit her lip. "It's a chance we'll have to take," she answered grimly. "It's better than staying here, at least."

Suthe didn't know what to say to that, but the pit in her stomach was getting heavier by the moment.

"So now we wait?"

"Now we wait."

Nem Koel pressed her ear to the door, and Suthe crept back to the wall between the two rooms to listen for sounds of the intruders' departure. Now that the fight was over, the silence between them seemed impossibly quiet, broken only by the soft murmurs of the crowds outside as people returned to their daily activities after the disruption.

"Do you think they're gone?" Suthe asked after a moment.

Nem Koel bit her lip. "I can't tell." The curtains swished softly from a breeze at the open window, but then a thump at the windowsill had Suthe turning with a cry of surprise. Nem Koel, too, whirled and brought out her knives, ready for a confrontation.

A hooded figure was half-kneeling on the floor, one hand on his knee as he focused on recovering his breath after the exertion. Suthe was frozen, horrified that one of the men from next door had managed to find them and jump from the other window so quickly.

But as the man continued to kneel there, unmoving with somewhat labored breaths, Suthe began to notice the familiar shape of his shoulders, and recognize the nondescript brown of the coat...

"Ulsper!" she and Nem Koel gasped at the same time, rushing forward.

"Wait." He held up a hand, and both women came to a halt. After what seemed like ages, finally, the spy looked up with a slight wince.

"Took you long enough," Nem Koel said, her words rushing out in a relieved exhale as she swiftly stowed her knives back in their sheaths and reached out a hand to help Ulsper up much in the same way she had done for Suthe.

To Suthe's surprise, Ulsper was not nimble when he rose to his feet, and even staggered forward a step. Her brows came together as she noticed the bandage around his leg.

"You're hurt!"

"It'll heal. I'll be fine."

"How in the five realms did you get here?" Nem Koel asked. "Saer Lon thought for sure you'd been, well..." Nem Koel glanced at Suthe before growing silent. "Anyway, it's good to see you."

"Thought you'd been what?" Suthe asked, her gaze darting from Nem Koel to Ulsper.

"Detained," Ulsper said unhelpfully. "Which I was. But now I'm not. Seolosu helped me catch the next train in Fai and I arrived in Sang Bur just this morning. It seems the news of Suthe's adventure in Fai two nights ago did as well."

His gaze locked with Suthe's for just a moment at this, and she gulped nervously. Was that roiling sensation in her stomach left over from her anxiety at the morning's recent events, or from her guilt about the added danger she had put them all in?

"But now we need to focus on our next steps," Ulsper turned back to Nem Koel. "Any news from this Irirkri person you were to meet with?

"We're meeting a design expert in warehouse thirteen this evening," Nem Koel explained. "No name was given, but we have a strong hope it's this Enji person you heard one of the smugglers talking about."

Ulsper nodded. "It's a promising start. I'll help you two get out of the inn and meet you at the warehouse this evening."

"But you just got here!" Suthe protested. "And you're hurt! What are you going to do in the meantime?"

Ulsper looked back at her. "Saer Lon is also injured. I'll see if I can help her shake off her pursuers."

"Oh – of course," Suthe said, immediately feeling foolish. How could she have already forgotten about Saer Lon? "I'm – I'm glad you're back – that we're all back together."

Ulsper nodded, and turned back to the window. "Nem Koel, get ready to help Suthe down the hall on my mark. Back gate to the alleyway should do."

"Sounds good," Nem Koel said, grabbing Suthe by the wrist before she could fully process the instructions.

"I – but...okay," she finally managed, throwing a last glance over her shoulder. "Thank you Ulsper. And please...stay safe."

She thought she caught just the slightest twitch of his smile in the shadows at the window. "I'll certainly do my best.  Although–" he winced and rubbed the side of his injured leg "I might avoid entering buildings from the rooftop for the time being."

~*~*~*~*~

Ta-da!  I know, I can hardly believe it myself.  I actually posted.  But now that I have the rest of this story written out (well, book one at least - what have I done *cries*) the rest of the updates should come a lot more quickly.

My plan is to finish posting these chapters (about 5 left), then go back and do some light editing (since I'm too lazy/busy to do a full proper second draft) because Heavenly Realm is the Sylterra section and beginning of Fai especially (oops does that mean the entire thing) a mess and then move on to book 2.

This is honestly the most ambitious fantasy plot I've ever tried to write (and finished writing) and I can definitely see parts where I'm struggling, but I guess it's good practice?  Usually my writing fares better when I base it in real-world history (see: Ballad of the Mountain Fox lol) but I've always had a soft spot for high fantasy and LOVE worldbuilding, no matter how unskilled/inconsistent I may be with it.  So yayyy not only have I written this story but also tied myself up with a whole series.  Haha overly ambitious much??

Thank you for reading, whether you're new to this story or started reading from the very first update!!