He smiled, his teeth flashing silver in the darkness. He had never turned back into the mortal man again.

But he was far more cheerful now, with company.

“Far. And I am no good [Scout] or [Cartographer], but I once measured the distance between each stone casket with my feet. Thirty-five miles left, Miss Cara. I think it a decent estimate.”

She was nodding, but one thing bothered her.

“Why miles?”

He shrugged, miffed.

“That is the system of measurement in this world.”

That offended Cara almost as much as talk of monarchs.

“What, everywhere?”

“Of course. Why would we destandardize measurement? The same with time. Language. Don’t tell me you made up your own units as well as languages? Your silly world has so many inefficiencies.”

He said it so casually. Cara scowled.

“Miles are a ridiculous unit of measurement. Listen, we use metric. Sensible numbers. You’re using what we call the imperial system, and only a few countries are daft enough to use it.”

“Oh, really? Prove the superiority of your measurements, Cara.”

Ser Dalius rose to the bait. She smirked.

“Fine. We use meters, kilometers…”

She demonstrated a meter. He scoffed.

“We use feet! See? One foot—an easy unit of measurement!”

He lifted an armored foot for proof positive. Cara rolled her eyes.

“Well, my foot’s different from your foot. Which one’s right?”

“That’s—we have standard units of measurement! A foot is precisely twelve inches, which are…um…”

He looked around for a ruler he didn’t have. Cara rolled her eyes.

“And how many feet are in a mile? Hm?”

“About five thousand three hundred?”

“What a wonderful unit of measurement. Guess how many meters are in a kilometer?”

“How many?”

“A thousand.”

“Ah. That is a rather…complete number.”

“Not got anything to say, Ser Dalius?”

“I’m thinking. The problem with your ‘meter’ is that it’s unmeasurable. What was it even based on? A foot is at least logical, if not always standardized.”

“We came up with meters based on the length of the world.”

“The length of…someone measured it? You must be joking.”

Ser Dalius laughed as if she’d told a hilarious joke. Cara shook her head.

“We know how large the world is. We’ve seen every part of it.”

“Now I know you’re lying to me.”

“Oh yeah? No one’s ever gone around your world? You know all the continents.”

“…Perhaps. Well, it must be something. Someone flew from one end of the world to the other, eh?

Quite a lot of work for this ‘meter’.”

“They flew around the world, Dalius. The world’s…oh no. You have no idea.”

Cara laughed. She was delighted to tell Ser Dalius. He looked at her suspiciously.

“What?”

“This is big news, Ser Dalius. The world…my world, your world…is round. You see, back home…”