Chapter 51 The Hero Pays Tuition

At dawn, Jin found the Hero arguing with a bird.

“One copper,” the bird said.

“I don't want to buy anything.”

“One copper.”

Calder stood behind the counter, trying to fasten a tiny wire cage while a black-and-brown myna pecked the bright stitching on Selene's cuff.

“Professor,” Calder explained. “Previous owner taught in a village school. Sold him to me after the examination incident.”

“What examination incident?” Jin asked.

“One copper,” said Professor.

Selene tried to ease her sleeve free.

The bird bit harder.

“Excellent instincts,” Jin told it.

A window opened.

Jin looked at Selene.

She looked back.

“No,” she said.

“I haven't asked.”

“Your face has become very hopeful.”

He took the bird's cage and carried it into Calder's backroom. Selene followed, rubbing her cuff.

Jin closed the little door, gripped the handle and tried to cross.

The bird remained on its perch.

Jin repeated the result aloud.

Selene studied the space around the cage.

“For wounded travelers, we use a Vital Veil. A boundary around the living thing instead of the stretcher.”

“Can you show me?”

She set one finger against the wire.

White light filled the cage.

Professor exploded into offended wings.

Calder caught the rocking frame before it could fall.

“Less, my lady.”

Selene lowered the light.

“Less.”

The bird shrieked.

Jin crouched so his eyes were level with the perch.

Professor stared at him.

“You want a seed,” Jin said.

“One copper.”

“You're running a very aggressive school.”

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Calder passed him a seed. He put it between the bars.

The bird stopped fighting the cage.

Selene knelt beside him.

“I have sealed a man's chest in a storm,” she muttered. “This should not be the difficult one.”

“Maybe don't give it the whole storm.”

They brought the quiet cage back to the counter for another seed.

A boy stopped at the open shop door. His mother looked in behind him.

Selene glanced at them, then at the bird.

Jin could almost see her deciding how much of this morning she was willing to have repeated.

She bowed her head solemnly to Professor.

“Will you teach me how to be less alarming?”

“One copper.”

The boy made a strangled noise.

His mother pulled him away before Selene could see her laughing.

“The Hero's taking lessons!” the boy shouted down the street.

His mother tried to shush him. It was too late.

Lark arrived at the door leading two saddled horses. He looked at Selene, still kneeling beside the cage, and began to smile.

“I ask you for a teacher,” he said, “and you find one before breakfast.”

“One copper,” Professor told him.

“Cheaper than most.”

Selene stood with considerable dignity.

“Then perhaps you'll listen.”

Calder moved the cage back toward the private room before the people gathering at the shop door could turn the lesson into a procession.

Jin put two into Strength, two into Agility and one into Endurance.

Two thousand seven hundred for the next Level.

He read it twice. The thirteen points that had brought him to sixty suddenly looked like the last cheap meal in town.

The warmth reached his fingertips just as Selene held out her hand.

“Seed.”

He gave her one.

She offered it without the light.

Professor took it.

Her smile was small and entirely unheroic.

“One copper well spent,” Jin said.

“I haven't paid him.”

“You've begun a terrible relationship.”

Calder put a small glass dome beside the cage. Fine pale lines ran through its surface.

“A silver,” she said. “It holds the shape once she takes her hand away.”

Jin paid one silver, leaving thirty-five.

This time Selene let the light settle around the bird instead of filling every corner. Calder turned the dome until its lines held the living outline.

Jin watched the veil close without touching the wire.

His new Level had opened another page in the travel trace. He laid the failed cage load beside the living boundary he'd just seen.

Then he selected his own body frame as the bridge between them.

The glass grew warm beneath his palm.

He looked at Calder.

“Same afternoon,” she said. “And he comes back alive.”

Jin nodded and accepted.

The dome crumbled into pale grains. Light drew a second outline around the small creature on its perch, then settled against the cage's handle beneath Jin's hand.

Selene rose, watching him.

Jin removed the tongue-pin and put it on the shelf. He closed the cage door once more.

“Please don't make me explain this to anyone,” he told Professor.

The bird tilted its head.

“One copper.”

Three seconds later, the kitchen surrounded them.

Professor flapped once.

Settled.

Then whistled exactly the same sharp note he'd used in Calder's shop.

Jin stared at the bird's moving chest.

Mira appeared in the doorway, still wearing slippers.

“Oh, no,” she said.

Theo came up behind her.

Professor looked from one to the other.

“One copper,” he said in Common.

Neither understood it.

Jin started laughing.

Theo's good hand caught the doorframe.

“It crossed?”

Jin nodded.

Theo looked at the little bird.

Then at the kitchen floor.

“Try me.”