2026-04-29-getting-out-of-town
Getting Out of Town
Fabri was caught fleeing with a stolen acorn, confessed his connection to the dead boys, and led the party out of Mistyvale. A local contact traced the green-rope magic to the Poskadari, and Vath claimed a fey panther named Pantera.
The shop wasn't right before he even put his hand on the door.Light leaking through the gap. Door ajar. Vath pushed it with two fingers and held back.
Drawers open. Velvet cases empty. Fabri moving through the room with the twitchy efficiency of someone who'd been frightened before and hadn't forgotten the feeling.
He froze when he saw them.
There it is. The expression — panic, the kind that lives behind the eyes and takes a moment to reach the face.
Victor moved fast. Hold Person. Fabri passed through it like it wasn't there, grabbed the gilded acorn, and was gone before the word had properly left Victor's mouth.
Cain made a sound. Vath put a hand up without looking at him. Give it a moment.
A puppet in the corner spoke. No fancy voice anymore. Just a gnome trying very hard not to sound as frightened as he was. We had a deal. You were supposed to find the boys.
Zephyr stepped through a shimmer of air to the doorway and called Fabri's name. Said something calm. Vath didn't catch the exact words — he was watching the room.
Then Fabri materialized behind Victor. Dagger at the small of his back, acorn in the other hand, held like he might crush it just to have done something. He didn't. He backed away, looked at the acorn for a long moment, pulled a silver handkerchief from somewhere, and wrapped it carefully.
Vath said thank you and pocketed the acorn.
Then he reached into the other pocket and held out the red stone. He didn't say anything. He just held it out and waited.
Fabri's face changed. Half a second, but Vath caught it — the way you catch a deer going still before it bolts. He knows what it is. Or he knows what it came from. One of those.
Their dead because of me, Fabri said. Stupid. So stupid. I've been looking for one of those.
He'd tell them everything. But first, out of town.
Cain tried to catch Vath's eye. Vath just nodded. Fair enough.
Calan and Ilara Muscgrove lived at the shaded end of the road — the house always in shadow even when the light was full. Ilara came to the door. Calan behind her had slightly pointed ears and the loose ease of someone who'd been somewhere else in his head for an hour or so.
He had some of their things. He didn't seem entirely sure how he'd gotten them.
Vath let him settle. When the moment was right, Victor showed him the papers — the sorceress's notes. The strange Elvish that hadn't been readable until now.
Calan's eyebrows moved. He drank something from a small vial and was sober in about fifteen seconds. Then he read.
Poskadari, he said. Wild elves. Western continent — Anchorome, across the Sea of Swords. Distant cousins of his father's people. He told them about Balderon, who'd sailed west with the Flaming Fists a very long time ago and never come back. He read the notes aloud in pieces.
It wasn't a mystery anymore. It was a catastrophe someone had been carefully engineering, patiently, for a long time.
Cain said the word necromancy like a gravestone settling into ground.
Calan put a hand on Vath's arm before they left. Said Vath should learn more about the Emerald Enclave. Said it quietly, like something he'd been sitting on. Especially if heading north.
Then he gave Vath a hug. A real one. The kind that felt like an apology for news he'd had to deliver.
Vath pocketed the pouch of herbs and went to find the animals.
Pedro was at the edge of town with a look that said he'd heard enough about Seacrest to last a month and still had Fabri's backpack to watch. He'd done well.
Zephyr spoke to Prudence in the animals' own language. Told her they were leaving with a new companion. Said he was sorry she'd had to carry the dead boys.
Prudence's response, relayed later: Don't put any more dead bodies on me.
Deathbringer said he didn't want to carry dead bodies either. Prudence ignored him.
Zephyr gave Mistyvale a wave from the road — a real wave, elbow-out, princess-style — and announced: "Have a good evening, inhabitants of Mistyvale."
Fabri shouldered his own pack. Nobody argued with him about it.
The first hour on the road, Fabri talked. He talked about Seacrest the way people talk about an old injury — constantly, and to reassure himself it had happened to someone else. Lord Halvin Maris, publicly devout, quietly not. Lady Varell: do not cross her, he said it twice. The whole dark underside of a city that had beautiful streets and very ugly back rooms. Victor told him it sounded like he'd had his hands in many pies and his toes near many fires.
Fabri laughed, a little too high. Said something about House Valcor. Caught himself. Went quiet.
Vath let the silence settle. Fabri wasn't going to run — not with Pedro alongside. Whatever was sitting in that man's chest would come out eventually. People always explained themselves when they were frightened enough and the road was long enough.
Victor doubled the guard shifts on him that night. Vath didn't argue.
The next morning, Vath called on the fey before they broke camp.
The panther came through the light quietly, the way they do — like she'd been waiting just past the edge of sight. He crouched and let her come to him. She was careful. So was he.
He spent time just sitting with her. Learning the way she held herself. She'd do what he asked; that wasn't the question. The question was whether she'd want to.
He decided her name was Pantera. She didn't disagree.
The road to Land Ho was uneventful. Pedro kept saying the finest combatants in the region lived there, which was probably both true and beside the point.
They were heading for Vogler. Nathaniel would be waiting, whether he knew it or not. There was enough to explain for a very long conversation.
Remember to breathe, Vath told himself.
He pocketed the red stone and kept walking.