“Of course!” Giselle chuckled. “Just to be safe. I’ll make some tea while you test it. Just make sure you don’t test it until there is none left for me.”

15

WITH the visitors shooed out for the night, all of the chief members of the company had gathered around a table in the mess tent. There was just a little more than three weeks before they needed to be in winter quarters at the abbey, and plans to get there needed to be finalized. And it was not enough for just Kellermann to make those plans; anyone who might need to have a say needed to be here to speak up . . . just in case. There was a big map spread out over the table, and Kellermann had his ever-present notebook out.

“We have one more week of Oktoberfest, and then we move out,” he said. “And now we need to start transitioning to our winter quarters, the abbey that Giselle has so graciously offered to let us use.”

“I’ve heard from the builders I commissioned,” Rosa said immediately, not mentioning that those builders had been Elementals—dwarves, mostly, she’d said, but with a handful of brownies to make sure things were going to be comfortable. Dwarves tended not to think of comfort when they built, but rather making something substantial, that would last. If dwarves had their way, everyone would be sitting on stone furniture, at least, according to Rosa. “All of the repairs and needed additions are complete. I have a crew in place to start actually getting everything ready for us.”

A crew . . . that would be the brownies? Giselle wondered.

“They are headed up by a relative,” Rosa continued smoothly. “So I know that we can trust that things will be safe there and there will be no pilferage.”

That clarified things a little. A relative. That will be a member of the Bruderschaft. Or an ally, but definitely human, and probably another Earth Magician. Excellent.

“That was my next question. So if I were to start sending supplies, and possibly parts of the show ahead?” Kellermann asked.

“I’ll make arrangements ahead of time from the nearest train depot. You can rest assured that everything will be safely stored in all the proper places by the time you arrive,” Rosa promised. “I’m intending to leave the company at the end of this stint in Freiburg, in any event, and journey on ahead to make absolutely sure nothing goes amiss. I can travel much faster alone, and I intend to go by rail most of the way. Once I leave you, I can be at the abbey in no more than three days. I’m arranging to have a horse waiting for me when I arrive at the station in Meiersdorf.”

“Ah!” Kellermann said. “That is excellent.” Both Kellermann and Cody looked a little surprised and a little relieved at that.

“You sure you’ll be all right alone?” Cody wondered aloud.