By month’s end Cadryn was off of the light duty roster, thanks in no part to Felina’s occasional visits. She didn’t have any motives beyond the physical . . . for anything that he could determine at least. Though she’d given him a bracelet of braided leather, holding a perfectly round stone the color of the dusk sky. It was an oddly sweet gesture, consider her general disinterest in sentimentality.

She also didn’t sleep, or at least, he was beginning to suspect as much. Time would tell, and that, like many other thoughts, told him that he was coming to accept his place at the Neeft. Some part of him accepted that he would be here, for the duration of his assigned first tour at least.

The other members of the Day Shift, and the growing number of Night Shift members he’d been able to actually talk to, seemed to agree: Cadryn Bence was good people. Acceptance, without the scheming of the rivalry of the Academy, or general paranoia of Throne-home, came as a welcome change for him. That comradery, in large part, had evolved out of their evening meals. Something put together for them, by the Second of the Night Shift, Quarter-mistress Bahsa Fen.

If Sefton was their tightly wound uncle, Bahsa was the mother of their band of misfits, and like any mother, she planned to celebrate the mending of an injured son. To that end, she’d prepared a full feast for them, partially supported by the extra gifts of food from Kellen’s Veld (including some fresh Darcies, as Emmi Baker’s cookies had been dubbed by the Keepers).

She had decided to have the feast in the dinning hall of the Citadel, a much larger and more impressive setting than the simple kitchen table at the Tollhouse. Arriving at the imposing brass doors, Cadryn pushed them inward, they opened as smoothly as the morning’s mist, drifting across the Veld.

The hall, like all of the rooms in the citadel, was built for an overwhelming sense of greatness, to better instill a sense of wonder and smallness in any mortal creature entering. Bahsa had done away with that, with clever use of silks and tapestries (taken, Cadryn was sure, from other, even more disused, parts of the Neeft) the effect was a space much closer to Amber’s Toast, than the Cathedral of Gilded Poverty. A great fire roared in the hearth, and the single long table was heaped with a score of different dishes. From roast dove, to venison, to boar, five kinds of squash and vegetables, four kinds of bread, and no less than three types of ale.

Standing near the head of the table, was Bahsa Fen herself. Cadryn had never seen her, but often thought of her kindly for the breakfasts she left the Day Shift.

Bahsa was about the same age a Sefton, but the years had been kinder to her features, that, or it was youthful effect of her ample frame. Fine silks covered the curves of her body and Curly brown hair shown in the firelight where it billowed around her cheeks. Above those cheeks, dark eyes glittered with a knowing that left Cadryn both comforted and off-balance.

“Cadryn,” Sefton said, from his place to Bahsa’s right, “join us.”

A chorus of ‘Aye’ followed.

Rubbing at something in his eye, Cadryn did just that. They ate, drank, and sang until they were all sick, and when that was done. Sefton cleared his throat, swayed slightly, and steadying himself, addressed the table.

“Now that the fun is concluded—“

“It’s only beginning!” Silence yelled over him.

“Time for a few pending items from, the list!” Groans answered him, and he swatted them away like insects. “The list, is important,” he intoned, “the list, keeps this place from falling into total chaos!”

“You’re drunk,” Korbinian observed, sourly, he’d grown dour since Lark had left the previous week. His flying contraption restored.

“So are you all,” Sefton said, shaking his tankard at him, “So I’ll forgive that breach of decorum.”

“What list?” Cadryn whispered to a sleepy Gita draped over his shoulder.

“its bsurd’, he’s mad, I’m not going to splain’ it,” she murmured.

“Two items,” Sefton nearly yelled, “the first, The Trunk-that-was-lost-but-now-is-found!” He made a heroic effort at lifting the trunk onto the Table, then waving for Bahsa’s help, the two of them managed to hoist it into position with loud crash. “Lots of random things have been found around the Neeft over the years, but this one comes to us by way of tragedy.” He bowed his head and waved at Silence.

“It fell off of Dagmara the Great’s Carriage when he collided with Flick. Guess he didn’t see it, for the fog. We were going to return it to him, if he asked, but . . .”

“Yes, a toast, to the rude man. He was a bastard, but one who paid his Guild dues on time.” Sefton said.

Tankards went up, then back, then down.

“The trunk was locked,” Bahsa said, her voice soothing. “However, Felina saw to that,” she said, and met Cadryn’s gaze briefly.

Sefton opened the trunk, and began to remove the items to varying exclamations of amusement or disappointment. It seemed to be some sort of consignment to random things Dagmara had acquired over the years. “Remember the rules,” he said, holding up one thin finger. “A single item only, first picker, is the Keeper.”

“How ghoulish,” Nine said, “I love it.” That was the first thing Nine had said in long while. He had spent most of the feast doing what the name implied, feasting. Cadryn was doing his best not to watch, but could not help but witness the Fae consume more food in one sitting than anyone he’d seen before. It was made all the more disturbing by the fact he had never seen Nine eat anything, any other time.

As items came out of the trunk, eyes began to roam, judging, guessing, at what might still be to come, or fearing who might claim something out from under another. Gita was the first to break.

“Mine, that’s mine!” she nearly shrieked, swooping over the table to land atop a folded up wolf’s hide. Nuzzling into it, she promptly fell asleep.

Korbinian was next, snatching up large glass flask of viscous liquid the color of the surf after a storm.

Silence claimed a book, bound in strangely textured leather.

Nine, a carved long bone, which may have belonged to a human.

Bahsa snatched up a ledger of some sorts, causing no small discomfort for Sefton, and oddly, Silence.

Sefton’s disappointment was quelled however when a set of fine quills emerged, one of the last items from the sound of his digging about. Looking down the table he scrunched up his face at Cadryn. “Didn’t see anything you liked?” he asked.

“No, it’s not that,” Cadryn said. “I was just enjoying all of you having such fun. However, I think I have decided.”

“Do tell,” Sefton said, holding out his hands at the assembled trinkets and treasures.

“I’ll take the trunk,” Cadryn said, confidently. There were some murmurs of confusion, but it was Bahsa who spoke out.

“Why?” she asked, without a touch of judgement.

“All my life, from my father’s Tavern’s crawl space, to the Academy, to here, I’ve been living where others have assigned me . . . going where I’m told to go.” His golden eyes wandered around the table, pausing on each person present. “But maybe that’s not so bad, I’ve seen so much of the world compared to most. It’s just hurt sometimes to not have a place of my own, a constant.”

He looked at the exquisitely crafted trunk, the steel fastenings, the fine lock, the stained heartwood. It was something real, and enduring. Something that could hold everything he’d ever owned. “I just thought: Wherever I go, I’ll remember where I got it.”