A giggle almost bubbles up, but Mora stifles it, smiling at serious, enigmatic Fyon.

“I’ll leave you two to your scheming,” Bleddyn says, her gaze darting knowingly between them. She raises her half-consumed pasty in a mock toast. “Have one of these, Fyon. Although I warn you, if you do, you’ll want to kiss Mora’s feet and pledge her undying fealty.”

Fyon’s silver eyes widen.

Bleddyn flashes Mora a rakish grin before leaving the kitchen. She pauses to fish a few of the traditional Xishlon candy moons wrapped in purple foil out of her tunic’s pocket and hands a few to Olilly and Ghor’li before she exits through the restaurant’s gate and disappears into the crowd, the proprietor of the restaurant across the street scowling after her.

The moment they’re alone in the kitchen, Fyon glances through the open starboard door toward the busy thoroughfare beyond, then slips his hand into his tunic’s pocket and discreetly hands a folded document to Mora, Ghor’li’s name marked on it.

Mora pockets the papers. “Jules Kristian’s work?”

Fyon gives her a wry look. “Good with calligraphy, that one.”

“And thank goodness for it,” Mora returns before pouring them both tea.

Fyon leans back against the cramped kitchen’s counter, cradling the teacup in his hands as if it’s a precious thing. Lavender steam rises from it, the tea’s rich, floral scent wafting around them both. He glances out the open cliffside door, toward the Vo Mountains, his brow tensing.

“Mora, the Mages are threatening an imminent invasion of Amazakaraan,” he says, setting his weighted gaze back on her. “It’s taken a few days for the message to get to the East. I just learned of it.”

Mora pulls in a wavering breath. “Oh, Fyon...”

“They’ve also invaded Issan’o,” he adds, naming the Issani outpost village in the western Agolith Desert. “Some of the survivors are sitting outside Noilaan’s runic border. They’ve just arrived.”

“How many?” Mora throws a worried glance toward Olilly and Ghor’li—so many people in dire straits as the nightmare of the West bears down.

“Well over two hundred Issani,” he answers, his expresson grim. “Trapped behind the border. Ra’Ven Za’Nor is petitioning the Noi Conclave to allow them passage into the sublands. But more than half the Smaragdalfar are set against this. The Noi Conclave is too.”

“But...where else can they go?” Mora asks. “If the Gardnerians destroyed their whole village...”

He shakes his head. “There’s no clear plan—just this idea that the East should stop absorbing the West’s problems. And many of our own people feel that the sublands should be exclusively for the Smaragdalfar.”

Mora stiffens. “The future is diverse, Fyon.”

“Mora, it’s complicated—”