Bastion

everyone says so”). Who had gotten full Scarlets and Greens, and had gone—Mags really didn’t know any of the people who had,although, thanks to Nikolas’s training, he could actually put faces and a bit of a personality to every name mentioned. Court gossip that had percolated down to the Collegia. The fact that it was all so very commonplace—and was stuff that wasn’t even remotely important or earth-shaking—was reassuring. It told him he hadn’t been gone all that long, because no one mentioned was a stranger except for a handful of new Trainees.
    He suddenly realized he was starting to nod over his drink and blinked at Bear suspiciously. “You didn’t go dosin’ me, did ye?” he asked.
    “Not I!” Bear protested. “But when you’re finally home from a stressful time, it’s common to—” Whatever he was going to say was quelled by Lena reaching around and clapping her hand over his mouth.
    “He’s not your patient at the moment, and he probably doesn’t need to be,” Lena chided him, getting away with the indignity as only a new spouse can. She let Bear go before he could start to squirm and leaned around her spouse to talk directly to Mags. “If I were you, I would be absolutely knackered and looking for my bed. Don’t worry. They’ve made sure your room is ready.”
    “And I’m ready for it,” he admitted, yawning. “Sorry I’m not a bit entertainin’,” he apologized.
    “Why, you mean you didn’t get abducted and dragged across country purely to make us a story for us to chew over endlessly?” asked Pip, tossing his shock of tow-colored hair indignantly. “The nerve! ”
    That was enough to get a laugh out of him, and the entire crew surrounded him to walk him down to the Companions’ Stables, where his room still was. They left him at the door so he could get back inside the four walls he knew best, sighing a little as he felt tension slip out of him. It was all the same. No one had moved anything, not even when they cleaned it and put fresh linens on the bed.
    He was home at last. And it felt, oh, so very, very good to be here.

2
    B y sheerest coincidence, the timing on Mags’ return could not have been better, although he didn’t know it until he got to the dining hall the next morning after a night of completely exhausted sleep.
    It had been deeply restful, quite as if he had spent the entire night curled up in a pair of giant, comforting hands. He felt as if this were the first solid night of sleep he’d gotten since he’d returned, and, for once, his dreams weren’t troubled by those memory fragments.
    He woke early—probably since he’d gotten to sleep very early—and lay quietly for a good long time, listening to the birds singing out in Companion’s Field behind the stable and to the sounds of the Companions themselves dozing in the rest of the building. He could, quite literally, feel muscles that had been tense all this time finally relax.
    But he couldn’t lie here all day, and he really didn’t particularly want to anyway. Judging the hour by the quality of the sunlight, he decided that it must be just barely dawn, and he decided to take advantage of the fact that almost no one ever had a bath in the morning to go up to the Collegium and have himself a good hot soak.
    He got up and checked the chest where he usually kept his clothing. Someone had made certain there were plenty of changes of freshly cleaned Grays that fit him. He felt a wave of gratitude for his unknown benefactor; it would have been perfectly easy to just leave the Grays that were in there alone, rather than clean the chest out and put in fresh ones, with sprigs of rosemary between each layer.
    The bathing room was empty and silent, and he ran hot water from the boiler into his favorite tub, the one in the corner. He felt as if he were soaking out more than just dirt, as if he were soaking out some of the lingering nastiness from his captors’ drugs and memories. At last he came down to breakfast with damp hair and feeling entirely presentable for the first time in weeks, to discover the dining room was full again—but it wasn’t to gawk at him. The moment he caught bits of errant thoughts from unshielded minds, he knew why, too—all three Collegia had the day off so Trainees could visit the Harvest Fair. It was a real day off, too; none of the teachers had assigned any after-class work or exercises, and everyone would be able to just enjoy their holiday without fretting