The carriage was packed before I had permission to get into it. I watched from the upstairs window while a man tightened the last strap around the luggage. Two mounted guards waited near the front steps. The driver checked something beneath the rear wheel, straightened, and checked it again.
Everyone seemed ready except the person whose name was on the papers.
I took the travel folder from the desk.
The certified receipt was inside. So were the household forms, the copied practice notes, and Valeria's first proposal. Her page had acquired a small crease along the edge without becoming any more reassuring.
A card had arrived yesterday from her household.
She expected to continue our discussion at the academy.
No agent names. No finished terms. At least we were both leaving the conversation exactly where she had found it.
I put the card behind the proposal and closed the folder.
The small notebook went inside my coat. I checked the pocket twice, then made myself stop. Nobody had stolen it between the first check and the second.
"His Grace will see you now," the attendant said from the doorway.
I looked once more at the carriage.
Then I went downstairs in the other direction.
This visit to the study was shorter. No testing table stood ready. Cassian sat behind his desk with a sealed document beside one hand and my departure accounts beside the other.
I didn't relax. The absence of a fixture only meant I couldn't see what would go wrong.
"Your place at the gate is reserved," he said. "The warrant remains subject to the receiving office's checks."
"Yes."
"Your household allowance has been assigned. Personal claims are to be reviewed rather than settled automatically."
He looked up. So he had read that change too.
"I want to know what I'm being charged for," I said.
"See that you give them fewer reasons to charge you."
I kept my answer short.
"I will."
He turned the document so its seal faced me.
"An arrival notice once your rooms are assigned. Copies of every formal assessment. Any change to your standing reported without delay."
The forms from the clerk now had their instructions.
Leaving would put distance between us. It would not stop paper traveling back.
"Understood."
"Do not confuse admission with achievement. Your name secures consideration. It does not excuse the result."
I looked at the warrant instead of the drawer that held the examination instruments.
"The restricted practice continues?" I asked.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Until competent assessment requires otherwise. The academy has facilities for that purpose. Use them."
Not permission to stay weak. Permission to make the next failure someone else's first observation.
I took the document when he pushed it toward me.
My hand stayed steady enough to hold the paper.
"The house will expect progress, Cedric."
"Yes, Father."
The word felt strange in my mouth. He seemed satisfied with it, or at least uninterested in hearing more.
I bowed and left with the warrant in my own hand.
At the outer desk, the steward checked that the seal had cooled before fitting the document inside a stiff sleeve. The gate booking was attached behind it, along with the receiving district's address.
"Keep these together," he said. "The reservation is not the clearance."
I read the destination.
Capital receiving district. Eastern Spires corridor.
One route. One reserved place.
"The party?" I asked.
"Your escort returns after the capital handover. Academy staff receive passengers at the Spires station."
No household man standing behind my chair for every conversation there. That sounded useful until I remembered how often this particular attendant had stopped me from making an ordinary mistake.
I slid the papers into the front of the folder.
Outside, the driver closed the luggage compartment. The attendant had my supply bag ready and the water bottle hanging by its strap.
"In the carriage," I said. "Not with the cases."
"Yes, young master."
He placed both within reach of my seat.
I climbed in without using my right hand on the doorframe. The left arm pulled a little but held. By the time I sat, the driver was already moving toward his place.
Nobody gathered to wish me luck.
The steward handed a final note to one of the guards. A worker stood back from the wheel. The attendant took the opposite seat and closed the door.
Then the carriage moved.
I watched the front steps slide out of view. For twenty-six days, most of what I knew of this world had fit between my bedroom, a practice room, and the study I didn't want to enter.
Now the gatehouse approached.
We stopped before reaching the gate.
The guard outside checked the departure mark, spoke to the driver, and waited while someone moved a wagon clear of the road.
I sat with permission to leave resting against my knee and listened to a dispute about who had parked where.
After several minutes, the gate opened.
The carriage passed through.
I didn't look back until the wall had become too long a line to pick out the house behind it.
The first hour felt almost pleasant.
Road noise. Fields. A row of low buildings where smoke rose from morning fires. Nothing resembling the game scenes I remembered, which was a relief until I realized I had no useful map of the road either.
The attendant offered me a folded route sheet.
I accepted it as if I had merely been waiting for him to remember.
The journey crossed the Heartland toward the capital. The gate would take us far east afterward. My route in the game had passed between those places with a loading screen and a change of music.
The actual carriage had wheels.
I began to dislike them around the third hour.
Each rut reached the seat through the floor. My right hand was safe in my lap, but the repeated jolts worked on the deeper ache beneath my ribs.
I changed position. Then changed back. The attendant noticed without saying anything.
"How long to the next stop?" I asked.
"Less than an hour, if the road remains clear."
That answer left plenty of room for the road to disappoint us.
I drank from the bottle, checked the stopper, and leaned against the side cushion.
The little supply bag had already justified several minutes of arguing with the clerk.
At the first proper stop, I climbed down slowly and pretended to be interested in the horses while my legs remembered how standing worked.
We had stopped at a posting yard with a covered eating area. Carts occupied most of the space beyond the water trough. Our guards remained close enough to see the carriage while the driver spoke to a man carrying a feed sack.
No grand entrance. No crowd recognizing the villain. A woman wiped a table and asked how many meals had been booked.
The attendant answered before I could make the number unnecessarily complicated.
Five.
Mine arrived on a better plate than the others. Same stew, as far as I could tell. I was hungry enough not to investigate further.
The driver had to wait until the horses were seen to. I asked how much time remained before departure.
"Enough for him to eat, young master," the attendant said.
I nodded and returned to my bowl.
He had answered the question behind the one I asked. I wasn't sure whether that was practice with Cedric or simply experience with people who owned carriages.
After the meal, one of the guards checked the road ahead while the other tightened a strap on his saddle. I stood under the shade and read the gate instructions again.
Clearance could take most of the following day.
Arrival at the receiving district did not mean we were done traveling.
I folded the page before the small print found another way to lengthen the journey.
By afternoon, the fields had given way to more frequent buildings. Traffic gathered on the road. A broken cart forced us to wait behind three wagons while men shifted its load onto the verge.
I could see a clear stretch beyond them. I could also see the ditch beside the carriage wheels.
The driver remained where he was. I said nothing.
The delay used up the comfortable part of the light. By the time the capital's outer buildings appeared, the lantern beside the driver had been lit.
Stone walls rose beyond workshops and crowded yards. I recognized none of them. The game had shown me the city from above, with district names floating over the roofs.
From the road, most of what I saw was someone else's wagon.
We reached the receiving district after dark.
A clerk checked our booking at a narrow counter while the attendant kept the cases together. The guards waited by the door. The driver looked tired enough that I stopped resenting the uncomfortable seat for a moment.
"Clearance tomorrow," the receiving clerk said. "Have the passenger ready when the booking is called."
He marked our arrival and returned the warrant.
I checked that it was the same document before putting it away.
The room assigned for the night was small, plain, and close enough to the street that I could hear carts moving past the window.
I liked it immediately. Then I tried the mattress and reconsidered.
The attendant set water beside the bed and asked when I wanted the morning call.
"Early enough to eat before we go."
He nodded and left me with the cases.
I put the travel folder beneath the small notebook on the bedside table. My hand ached. My back hurt. Somewhere beyond the wall, a man argued about a missing crate.
Cassian was a day's journey behind me.
I lay down before I could decide whether that was far enough to sleep.