Staring down at Fleuve Clair from the overlook, I started to wonder if this was actually such a great idea. After all, they hadn't really wanted me to leave. Would it cause trouble if we went down there and left again? Were the guild in Ard Shanaclair already waiting with representatives down there?

But I'd already promised Síle some real food, and her face seemed to be dripping with urgency to be back home, even for a short time.

"What's wrong?" she asked me, and I found that she'd been staring at me.

I explained my misgivings.

"But I do need a place to look into this box..." I trailed off.

"I will put on my cloak," Síle said, "and go down to the guild. Only Maela and Bastien know I'm with you. If I see them, I can explain. And either way, I can open the back door for you to sneak upstairs."

I laughed. "Who are you, and what did you do with my Síle?"

She squinted at me in mild pique. "Farm girls are not so innocent as you think."

I shrugged. She got out the cloak they'd given us when we left and wrapped it around herself again.

"Stay," she said. "If you see me waving, come down."

I had put my cloak back on as well, just in case. It had been difficult to stay alert, but I'd managed it thus far.

My thoughts had nearly started to drift again when I saw two people coming down the road, people whose gaits I would recognize anywhere. Sure enough, one of them looked up at the hill and waved at me, so I waved back and then started down.

At the bottom, Bastien greeted me by lightly gripping my forearms, and I did the same to his.

"Fí-Réalta," he said with a slight nod, letting go of my arms.

"It's good to see you, my friend," I said with a smile that he returned.

"Síle has passed on your concerns," he said, as we started walking back. "I don't think you need to worry, but it might be better not to raise people's hopes again until you're actually back to stay."

I raised my hood, trying to cover up my clothes and face. I couldn't do much about my shoes, but I hoped too many rumours hadn't gotten around about them.

I began to feel uneasy when the group turned down the "wrong" street for heading to the guild hall.

"Don't we go that way?" I asked, pointing.

Síle craned her head around to me with a grin.

"We've got something way better than the guild hall dorms," she replied mysteriously.

I shrugged and followed.

Several minutes and several turns later, we came to a fairly nondescript house in the middle of a quiet neighbourhood, one filled mostly with little shops and other houses. A little yellow post box stood at the edge of a roundabout near the house we'd come to. You could practically hear the dogs being walked in parks.

Wait. Do they even have dogs here?

Bastien walked up to the front door of the house and tapped a finger for a moment on a little spot by the door. Something clicked, and he a pushed a latch down, opening the door.

"Okay, come in," he said.

One of those magic-based locks. Nice.

The inside was bright and cheerful, much like the guild hall itself. The walls had a smooth, plaster-like finish. The floors were made from some sort of light, honey-coloured wood, sealed and polished until it shone. Those magic-light spheres dotted the hallway ahead of us, providing a nice white light.

The floor of the actual entryway itself was made from stone tile. To the left of the entryway, a grid-shaped set of cubbyholes were set into the wall; each cubby contained a set of slippers, which we swapped for our shoes before walking in.

Bastien closed the door behind us. "Welcome home," he said.

I must have looked at him like he'd grown a horn. He laughed.

"This is the guild's guest house for visitors, Fí-Réalta and trainees included," he explained. "It's already been allocated for you for as long as you're with us. You're just visiting earlier than we expected."

I sensed that my mouth was hanging open and had to close it as we walked into the living room of the house. A pointed white stone archway delineated the entry hallway from the living room. Several desks with ink, pens, and paper were present, as well as sofas with only one arm. In the... sitting room was a better word, I guess, the walls had been painted a pale green colour. In the centre, a low shelf ran around a small square pool. Thin arches rose up from that border to the ceiling, where a hole led past another floor, and up to a skylight. The pool itself contained various small fish, and I could see a weave of some kind that kept the water circulating gently.

"In times of nice weather," Bastien said, pointing upward, "you can open the roof window for fresh air. Let's go upstairs."

We wound around a corner staircase to the upstairs, where several small bedrooms led off of the path. The rooms themselves were small, but the beds were opulent enough to make a Prime Minister blush. Each room contained a little wardrobe, just like the guild dorm rooms. The skylight shaft went upward between the two bedrooms.

"Surely..." I started. "This is too much for just me. My dorm room at the guild would be just fine when I come back."

Bastien laughed. "Your humble nature is admirable, but you have much to learn about this world, still." I blushed, and he continued. "You are Fí-Réalta. You will be royalty, and our guild is built to serve your kind. And currently, you are the only one of your kind in Shanaclair. So if anything, these accommodations are too humble. It would be scandalous for you to stay in a dorm room."

I didn't trust myself to respond, so I didn't.

At the end of the hall, a kitchen and its windows overlooked the little roundabout plaza below.

"Cold storage," he said, pointing at a closed box dancing with weaves. "Pantry over there. Cook top and oven. Normally, someone would come to cook for you, but since you're here secretly this time, you'll have to take care of your food. Do you need anything else?"

I hummed for a moment. "One of us needs to be able to lock and unlock the front door, and since it's been only a few days for me, away from Danna, I haven't learned anything."

"I can do it," Síle said.

While the two of them went back to add her to the lock, however that worked, I sat down on a couch and sighed. I was barely back and already feeling overwhelmed.

Bastien waved as he swapped his shoes to leave.

"I'll be at the guild if you need anything."

I waved back.

"And I," Síle said, swapping out her shoes as well, "will be back with our Fox and Owl. Same order?"

I nodded. She held out a hand. I sighed again and dug out my coin bag.

The food was even better than I remembered.

"Do you want me to go back to the guild tonight?" Síle asked me.

"What?" I asked in surprise. "No, no, stay here with me. Please."

She grinned as if that was the answer she was hoping for, even if she seemed uncertain about whether it would happen.

"So what did you need to fix?" she asked.

"Right," I said. "Right. That's why we're here."

I pulled out a small laptop and plugged the black box into it. Using the screwdriver I brought, I unscrewed the lid of the box and carefully removed it. The insides were a mess that only its creator could love, but it should work as a first try.

I flipped a tiny switch, and then opened up a debugger to pull down its logs.

I spent some time studying it, not seeing the problem, still. Some sort of clock drift on the USB data pins. And then it hit me.

"Oh," I muttered. "Oh no."

"What is it?" Síle asked.

"There's a clock drift," I said. "It's a microsecond forward, a microsecond back, minus a tiny amount. La Lune's time ratio is changing again."