When the two ladies were nearly out of sight, Noble slowed down to allow the others to catch up.
Helie looked at the other woman's face, and her nose wrinkled. "You look like you swallowed a Nightmare Creature whole. Did something happen?"
"Syrce is fatigued. Lady Mae is taking her to rest."
"She has been through a lot lately," Roan nodded slowly, "Perhaps the return of Lady Mae has finally allowed Syrce to let her guard down, and the exhaustion has crept in."
"It seems that using the mirror took a toll on her as well. I'm not sure if it was from harnessing the image of the Great Mirror last night or if it was channeling that energy to allow Mae and the army to pass through. Maybe both."
"Wait, is that how Lady Mae and the others arrived? Through the mirror?" Aether tilted his head, very curious.
"That is what I was led to believe. It makes sense considering how certain she was about Mae's arrival. Syrce made it come about." Noble brushed a falling leaf from her armor.
At least they were no longer walking under the dripping trees, so the leaf fluttered harmlessly to the ground without irritating Noble's skin.
Aether sighed. "I do wish I could have been there."
"Why, are you sweet on Lady Mae already? I can tell you right now that she is much older than she looks." Flint clicked his tongue.
Aether ran his hand through his hair. "While having a mature taste in women is nothing to be ashamed of, Master Flint, I think you might have confused my feelings with your own."
Helie spat the sip of water she had just taken.
Roan and Noble looked away, forcing their faces not to show their amusement. While Aether hadn't been there when Flint greeted Maelys, they had both seen his failure to make a suave first impression.
"Ah, suddenly you are a comedian, Star Boy? Well, the joke is on you. I would never be attracted to a figment of a Nightmare." Flint gritted his teeth.
'Don't you dare!' He added through the Memory.
'It's not my fault that I can feel your real emotions.' Smiling, Noble shook her head. "Whoever may or may not be attracted to those flawless Saints is beside the point. I think Aether meant that he wanted to see how people traveled from one place to the other with the help of the looking glass."
"That is what I was trying to say, thank you, ma'am." Aether gave a gallant half-bow as he walked.
"I think we can all agree that it would have been something worth seeing, but it seems Syrce was too excited to wait. I'm not sure if I could have waited either. Lady Mae is a great asset to their cause." Roan thought of his own Saintly wife and how he would not have been able to wait either.
"That's true. Lady Syrce was very eager for Mae to be here. The two ladies seem very close," Helie noted with a thoughtful expression.
"Very close, indeed," Noble agreed.
Just because people were blood-related did not make them close. But the sisters were family both biologically and emotionally. When she looked at it that way, Noble's heart softened slightly.
"And she brought an army with her that is entirely made of Awakened. It will be good to have their support for whatever is coming next." Aether placed his hand on his chest.
"What is coming next, Blondie?" One corner of Flint's mouth turned upward. "Did Lady Syrce inform you of our next move?"
Noble shot him a withering gaze for the briefest moment before her neutral expression resumed.
"We will discuss it first thing in the morning."
"That will give us some time to look over the information we collected and decide the most pressing issues." Roan stroked his beard. "Other than the Drifters, there are probably a few other nests of Nightmare creatures that we will need to root out to clear the way for Lyra."
"Now that we know the mirror works, will Lady Lyra not come the same way as the army did?" Helie motioned toward the palace. "Lady Syrce could bring them straight into the keep and bypass the monsters in the water."
But Noble shook her head. "That will not work. Whatever magic is used cannot bring the supplies. They will have to travel the old-fashioned way in order to bring everything with them. If they didn't, we would not have enough food to go around."
Fighting off starvation while trying to establish a new society was something humanity had dealt with many times, but the situation was never ideal. Like Syrce, Noble preferred to avoid that option.
"That is unfortunate," Roan sighed. "But I guess it would be too much of a shortcut to expect the Spell to give us that opportunity. Still, I was hopeful for a moment."
"I understand. I, too, would like to resolve this conflict and get back to those who are waiting for us. But after last night and the development today, I think we are much closer."
"I hope so," Helie allowed a bit of longing into her voice. "After the scene last night, I want to get home more than ever."
"Me too," Roan sighed wistfully.
Aether nodded, his gaze becoming far off.
Noble winced. Her experience under the real Bastion had made her not want to go to the Great Mirror ever again. Thankfully, now that they had the hand mirror, she wouldn't need to.
"We all have the same goal of finishing this Nightmare. It's why we came," Flint rolled his eyes. "But can we talk about something much more important that needs to happen first?"
The rest of the group looked at him with confusion. He grunted.
"Don't tell me after a day of exploring that you aren't the least bit hungry."
Now that he mentioned it, Noble did want something to eat.
While Masters did not need nourishment on the same schedule as mundane humans, they could still work up an appetite.
And with the amount of essence Noble had used to carry Helie across the countryside, the meager porridge at breakfast had not been nearly enough.
In answer to Flint's question, Aether's stomach growled loudly.
He paled. "Forgive me!" The young man clutched his belly. "I had no intention of expressing myself in such a way."
"Don't worry. Your stomach is correct. It is time to eat." Noble sniffed at the air. "And it looks like we are just in time for the sunset meal."
A heavenly aroma of smoking meat filled the air. Noble felt a little bad for all of the men and women stuck cleaning up the mess from the gate. Hopefully, there would still be some left when they returned.
As Noble found the kitchen wagon and received her plate of food, her concern for the new soldiers faded from her memory.
The Masters reminisced about their day, trying to recall if anyone had ever been able to study gates with such interest and indifference. They selected the parts of the forest most in need of monster extermination and mapped the best way to make that happen in the morning.
In fact, it wasn't until the moon was overhead and Noble was heading to bed that she gave the new fighters any more thought.
That was for a simple reason.
Outside of Syrce's wagon, Maelys was waiting for her.