DeMauve finished his reading, tacked a bit onto the end about how we should be thankful that no one was permanently injured during the boys-versus-girls hockeyball match, and announced that we could all eat.

There was silence at our table, and everyone avoided looking at me.

“Well,” said Doug, finally breaking the silence, “you’ll come back, Eddie. It’ll be fine.”

“I agree,” said Tommo with a more confident air, “but not from a hopelessly optimistic viewpoint, more simply because you’re too valuable for the deMauves to lose.”

This was possibly true, but I didn’t see how they could guarantee my safety. Once beyond the Outer Markers, I was on my own. The others nodded their heads, but I could see they weren’t confident of my chances. But since the matter had been raised and dealt with, the conversation was ready to move on. I was just like one of those people who dropped in on their way to Reboot. There, then not.

“So,” remarked Daisy, who was in possession of one of the biggest bruises I had ever seen, “how stuffed did you get over the match?”

I told them the punishments Violet and I had been given.

“She only got a hundred for your two hundred?” said Lucy. “That hardly seems fair.”

“She’s a deMauve,” said Tommo. “I didn’t expect her to get any. How is your ear, by the way?”

“A bit sore,” she replied, touching it gingerly. The offending article was purple and very swollen, but had a fine row of my father’s most delicate stitches around it. “Matron told me to listen through the other for a couple of days until it got better.”

“Any idea who did it?” asked Doug, who had a split lip to match his bruise.

“It all happened so fast. But we could match the tooth marks, I suppose.”

“Hardly worth the trouble, surely?” said Tommo, a little too quickly to make me certain he’d had nothing to do with it. “After all, that’s the rough-and-tumble of hockeyball, eh?”

“By the way,” said Doug, “I must thank you for getting Violet off my back.”

There was sudden silence, and they all stared at me, waiting to see what my comment would be. Gossip travels at the speed of light in any village, and there couldn’t have been many people who didn’t know of Violet’s sudden change of allegiance. My opinion of it was as likely as not the biggest question on everyone’s lips.

“It’s not going to happen,” I said with a dramatic air of finality, “even if I do come back.”

“Violet can be very persuasive,” remarked Daisy, “and she’s used to getting her own way.”

“There is a downside to the whole Russett-deMauve marriage,” said Tommo, who hadn’t spoken for a while.

“You see?” I said.

“It’s thrown my entire marriage fantasy league into disarray. With Doug now available for the first time in six years, I’m going to have to completely restructure the league from the bottom up.”

It wasn’t the sort of “downside” I had in mind.

“Unless,” added Tommo, snapping his fingers, “Doug, would you do me a tremendous favor and declare yourself? It would save a huge amount of paperwork.”

“I’ll second that,” said Arnold, giving Doug a wink.

“What’s with the LIAR badge?” asked Daisy, who was the first to notice. I had skillfully obscured it behind my Red Spot.

“He may have inadvertently exaggerated his viewing of the rabbit,” declared Tommo in a voice tinged with glee.

I stared at Tommo. “How did you know about the rabbit?”

“Whoops.”

“You snitched on me?”

The entire table turned to stare at Tommo. Lying was bad, but snitching on one’s own hue was far worse. He seemed somewhat less than contrite.

“I should apologize, really. But your sneaky rabbit subterfuge would have come out sooner or later, so it’s far better that a friend and colleague should cop the sixty merits of bounty rather than someone less deserving.”

“Less deserving than you?” remarked Lucy. “How is that even remotely possible?”

“There’s no need to be unpleasant. I’ll make it up to him.”

“How?”

He didn’t answer, and instead caught the eye of the dinner monitor and asked to switch tables, which he did. To be honest, his perfidy worked in my favor, for the LIAR badge was not mentioned again.

“Does anyone know anything about High Saffron?” I asked. “I’m not convinced that my briefing from Yewberry will be anything but absolutely useless.”

There was silence around the table.

“The, um, lack of eyewitness data makes facts thin on the ground,” replied Daisy diplomatically, trying not to make me any more worried than I was already, “but there are many half-truths and suppositions.”

“Which are?”

They looked at one another, then Lucy spoke. “Legend says High Saffron is where the memories of the Previous have collected. They lament upon their lost lives and vanished histories, and lurk in the shadows, waiting to feed upon the charisma of those still living.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said hurriedly, “I don’t want to hear the half-truths. Anyone have any facts?”

“Mining speculators arrive in the village every now and again,” said Daisy, “lured by stories of unimaginable Chromatic riches. The prefects sell these miners a speculating license,” continued Lucy, “and they take the road to High Saffron and do not return. Or at least, not this way.”

“I heard that travelers arrived by sea,” said Doug, “who came from the same place as the man who fell from the sky. And they take people to work for them somewhere across the ocean.”

“I heard that High Saffron is populated entirely by cannibalistic Riffraff,” added Arnold in a remark that possibly helped the least, “and they eat the brains of everyone who approaches.”

“There are many who blame the Riffraff for the disappearances,” said Lucy, giving Arnold a sharp kick under the table, “but if there was a community there, we’d know about it by now. And someone would have escaped to tell the tale.”

There were other stories, none of them helpful, and all of them unproved.

“I’m on my own, aren’t I?” I said in a quiet voice. No one replied, which was answer enough.

Joseph Yewberry

“Good of you to drop around,” said the Red prefect as soon as I had settled on the sofa opposite him.

He seemed chirpy and friendly, despite our recent enmity—it was probably because he was confident I’d not live long enough to take his job. The front room of his house was what I called “untidy chic.” Prefects weren’t subject to the same Rules on room tidiness, but since no one really enjoyed clutter, a certain style of ordered untidiness was generally considered de couleur for a prefect’s room.

“Comfortable?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can’t have that. I need you as sharp as a tack. Here, sit on this piece of metal. How’s that? Still comfortable?”

“Not in the least.”

“Good. Since you’ll be off at dawn tomorrow, I wanted to brief you fully over the trip to High Saffron.

I’d be joining you myself, but the burden of leadership precludes one from doing one’s duty. Since no one else volunteered, you’ll be going on your own. Have a look at this.”

He laid a hand-drawn map on the coffee table.

“This is us here—and that’s your destination. So you have to go from here”—he pointed to East Carmine—“and travel all the way to—”

“High Saffron?”

“You’ve done it before?”

“I understand the theory about traveling—that it involves moving between two points, usually different ones.”

“But not always,” said Yewberry, eager not to give me the intellectual upper hand.