Page 146

Alex had claimed the kitchen table, three bags open around him, sorting dried meat and hard bread and small waxed packets of Nutrient blocks into piles that made no sense to anyone but him.

"That's enough food for fourteen days," Halver said, passing through with a coil of rope over one shoulder.

"It's a seven-day journey."

"Each way."

"Exactly. Fourteen days of travel." Alex didn't look up. "Unless you're volunteering to starve on the way back so I can save weight, in which case I'll happily leave your share behind."

"I cook. I don't need to carry food, I'll make it."

"You can't make food out of nothing, Halver. You're gifted, not a miracle."

"Watch me. I could always hunt for some meat."

Jade sat cross-legged near the hearth with her weapons laid out across a cloth, running a whetstone down each blade in the same rhythm she used when her mind had gone somewhere else. Ashter had laid down beside her, gentle snores coming from him.

I dropped into the chair across from her, my own pack already half assembled, and said nothing for a while, content to watch her work. The stone made its pass, and its next one, and I let the sound be the whole conversation for longer than I needed to.

"You're staring," she said, without looking up.

"I'm supervising."

"That's still staring."

"It is. Supervising involves judgment. Staring is passive." I reached for the mug of tea Halver had left cooling near the hearth.

"Your knife maintenance. Excellent, so far."

The corner of her mouth did the thing again, and this time she didn't hide it. Twice in one day, if I was counting.

Halver crossed the room and crouched in front of her without warning, reaching for the boot she'd set aside with the rest of her kit. He turned it over, pressed his thumb hard along the sole, then flexed the leather at the ankle until it gave with an easy, worn creak instead of the stiff resistance new boots always carried.

"These are broken in properly this time," he said, more to himself than to her, before setting it down and reaching for its match.

"You checked these two weeks ago."

"I'm checking again."

"They haven't changed in two weeks."

"Humor me." He turned the second boot over, ran the same test, and only then seemed satisfied enough to set it beside its pair.

"Last time you told me they were fine and blistered through both heels on day three."

"That was a month ago."

Jade made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh and went back to her whetstone, though I caught the look she sent after him as he stood, something warm underneath the exasperation that she still didn't bother hiding from him the way she hid it from us.

Corian came through last, a folded route map under one arm, and knelt beside the hearth to check the fastenings on his own pack without a word to anyone. Jade's hands didn't still exactly, but her shoulders drew a fraction tighter the moment he entered the room, the same careful correction I'd watched her make since the tavern. It had softened since then, whatever had happened between them settling into something less sharp than it had been those first few days, but it hadn't disappeared.

I wanted to say something about it. I didn't know what, and the not knowing kept my mouth shut.

"Seven days one way," Alex said, tying off the third bag with a knot that would probably need Halver's help to undo later. "Longest we've been sent anywhere since the Water Rift."

"It's not a research posting," Corian said, without looking up. "Treat the whole thing as operational from the moment we leave the gate."

"I know."