Chapter 38: WALLS HAVE EARS

The chant rolled through the mansion until Sio could feel the last of it humming through the wall against his shoulder. Dozens of voices had joined so cleanly that he hadn’t been able to distinguish one person from another, yet the moment the final words faded, the room simply returned to itself. An older woman straightened the papers in her arms and resumed whispering to the man beside her. Someone near the back took a drink from his cup, grimaced at the temperature and complained that his tea had gone cold while a clerk shuffled several folders into a neater pile.

Sio remained tucked beside the doorway with Angle and watched the normality settle over everyone again. They just chanted about Baron keeping them under his shelter, and now tea is the emergency. Either this is completely normal here or we’ve found the strangest peaceful town in existence. Angle didn’t notice the look Sio gave him. His attention had shifted toward the doors on the opposite side of the room just as they opened, the chant having already made it perfectly clear who was coming.

Baron stepped through looking slightly younger than Arch, though not by much. Silver hair showed beneath a pale beaver-fur hat, and a charcoal wool coat hung over dark denim-like clothes that followed the same frontier style Sio had seen throughout the town, only cleaner and better made. There was no crown, no collection of medals and nothing hanging from him simply to prove he could afford it. If Sio had passed him somewhere outside the mansion, he might have assumed the man owned several successful businesses and had strong opinions about how other people maintained their gardens.

The people around the table reacted to him with familiarity rather than fear. An elderly woman caught his sleeve before he reached his chair and told him her grandson’s fever had finally broken. Baron stopped, asked whether the boy was eating again and frowned when she admitted he had barely touched dinner. He called an attendant over and arranged for broth and medicine to be sent to her house in the morning before listening to a farmer complain about a blocked irrigation channel near the eastern gardens.

Baron remembered the exact channel without needing the farmer to repeat himself and promised someone would inspect it before noon. Sio watched him finally reach the head of the long table and remove his gloves, feeling almost personally inconvenienced by how ordinary the interaction had been. Could you at least insult somebody? You’re making spying on you much harder than it needs to be.

"What did my peaceful little town manage to do to itself today?" Baron asked, and several people laughed. A man in a wide-brimmed hat tipped it respectfully before placing five birth certificates in front of him, announcing three boys and two girls registered that morning. Baron raised his eyebrows at the number and joked that winter clearly hadn’t been as boring as everyone claimed, earning enough laughter that even Sio had to press his lips together.

A woman came forward next with new contracts for the bar and western market association. Baron recognized one missing family name and asked whether Doran’s youngest was still refusing to join his father’s business. When she said the boy intended to open his own workshop after harvest, Baron rubbed his temple and muttered that stubbornness apparently reproduced better than anything else in Doran’s household. Another wave of laughter passed around the table as a clerk separated the finished documents into neat piles.

Sio’s eyes followed them. Birth registrations, business memberships, housing forms, work agreements and several other documents he couldn’t identify from where he stood. He leaned slightly toward Angle and whispered, "Does everyone here sign something before they’re allowed breakfast?" Angle kept his gaze on the room and told him to listen. "I am listening," Sio murmured. "I’m also starting to think paper is their main crop." The corner of Angle’s mouth moved before he caught himself, but his attention sharpened almost immediately when a guard stepped forward and began reporting damage from the bounty-hunter fight.

Two storefronts had been damaged, several solar lamps shattered and part of the drainage channel near the street cracked badly enough to require repairs. Baron asked about the injured residents before the buildings, and only after being told everyone would recover did he turn toward a broad-shouldered man standing near the side of the table. The man stepped forward, took the repair sheet from the guard and read through the listed damage before naming the workers he’d need.

"Drainage first," Baron told him. "The lamps can wait until people have water."

"We’ll start before sunrise." The contractor signed the bottom of the work order to confirm his crew would handle the repairs, folded it once and tucked it beneath his arm. When the guard mentioned that several residents who had helped during the attack had refused compensation, Baron told a clerk to put market credit on their household accounts instead. "They’ll complain if you call it payment. Call it gratitude and they’ll only complain half as long."

The people nearest him laughed like they knew exactly which neighbours he meant. Sio almost smiled until Angle brushed two fingers against his sleeve. Following his gaze, Sio saw a clerk reach behind himself for a stamp without looking; another hand was already holding it out. A woman carrying tea approached the table and the man standing in her path shifted aside before she came close enough to ask. Two residents exchanged folders in the middle of a conversation, each extending a hand at almost the same instant.

"They did that during the fight," Angle whispered, his eyes moving between them rather than settling on any one person. Sio nodded as another exchange happened just as smoothly. During battle he’d blamed training, panic or some signal he hadn’t noticed. Here nobody was fighting. They were drinking tea and discussing drainage pipes, yet the same strange timing kept appearing between people who weren’t even looking at one another. Could still be familiarity. Live beside the same people long enough and maybe you learn where they’re about to stand. The explanation felt weaker every time he repeated it to himself.

Before Sio could push the thought further, the innkeeper stepped toward the table carrying the folder they’d followed from the inn. Angle recognized it immediately. His hand closed around the wooden edge beside the doorway, and the tendons across the back of it became visible while the innkeeper waited for Baron to finish speaking.

"Five travellers came through my doors today," the innkeeper said, setting the folder down. "Three arrived together. The other two came separately earlier."

Baron opened the file. "All staying?"

"For now. The first two were restless when they arrived. One kept asking how early the north road opened, and the other only wanted a room for a night. Both signed their lodging agreements." The innkeeper gave a small, almost amused shrug. "By supper, one was asking whether I offered weekly rates and the other wanted to know who was hiring around town."

Sio’s expression changed immediately. He leaned closer to Angle without taking his eyes off the innkeeper. "That’s what happened with Arch too. He was ready to leave, then suddenly he wanted to stay." Angle’s gaze shifted toward the folder on the table, the muscles around his jaw tightening as the similarity settled between them. Neither tried to explain it away.

The innkeeper turned several pages until Arch’s first agreement appeared. "The three who arrived together came later. Their older man signed this before the fight." He flipped to the newer document Sio and Angle had followed tonight. "This came afterward—the damage agreement for the room and door."

Arch’s name sat beneath both documents now, and Baron compared the signatures briefly before asking, "He gave both willingly?" The question made Sio’s attention snap away from the names.

The innkeeper nodded. "The first took some time. He read through it, asked questions and watched everyone who came near the desk. The second barely slowed him down." He rested one finger near the newer signature. "He’s different tonight too. When they arrived, he looked ready to leave as soon as his people could move again. Afterward, he mentioned they might stay several days."

Angle leaned a fraction closer to the opening before Sio caught his sleeve. His eyes snapped toward Sio, anger rising faster than his voice. "He doesn’t do that. I’ve watched him read receipts twice because one number looked wrong."

"I know." Sio kept his grip light but didn’t let go. "That’s why we need to hear what they’re saying instead of walking into that room angry."

Angle turned fully enough for Sio to see the argument forming in his face. His fingers were still gripping the wood beside them, but beneath the anger there was something else Sio recognized too easily. Mira had worn the same look while trying to pretend fear was irritation. After several seconds, Angle looked back at Arch’s signatures and slowly loosened his grip. Sio released his sleeve while the thought settled unpleasantly in his chest. As far as Angle knows, somebody didn’t just threaten Arch. They reached inside him and changed what he wanted. There’s nothing funny enough to cover that.

Baron closed the folder halfway. "Don’t push the younger two. People become difficult when they feel cornered. If they’re comfortable, they’ll find reasons to sign things themselves." He glanced down at Arch’s information again before adding, "And keep the older one comfortable. Someone with his experience could be valuable here."

One resident suggested placing Arch among the guards, but another laughed and said that if the stories from the fight were accurate, standing someone that capable at a gate would waste him. Baron considered the thought with the same calm attention he’d given the irrigation channel. Perhaps training the guards, he said, or something higher if Arch proved capable and remained in town.

Angle’s thumb began pressing repeatedly into the side of his index finger. Sio watched the small motion before looking back at the people casually discussing where Arch might work. Nobody asked whether Arch wanted any of it. They spoke as though the only uncertain part was which place in the town would suit him best.

"They’re already planning where he belongs," Sio whispered, and Angle’s eyes remained on Baron as he answered, "He already belongs somewhere." The words killed whatever joke Sio might normally have used. He thought of Mira waiting back at the inn, probably waking every few minutes and checking whether he was still nearby. If somebody began deciding where Sio would work and how long he’d stay without asking him, she’d probably tear every contract in the building apart before worrying about what any of them meant.

The discussion moved naturally toward the bounty hunters. Two of the dead men apparently carried active rewards from neighbouring regions, while another belonged to a private hunting group. Baron instructed the clerk to submit the names and put whatever money came back toward repairs. A man holding a repair ledger chuckled that the hunters had travelled all that distance chasing money only to end up paying for the solar lamps they’d broken.

Then the same man nodded toward Arch’s folder while opening his ledger again. "Hunters usually follow something worth catching. Have we checked the younger ones?" Another resident said they hadn’t confirmed either identity yet, and a woman who had spent the last several minutes complaining about market fees suggested that if one of the boys carried a substantial bounty, selling their location might be safer than trying to collect it themselves.

Baron rested his chin against one knuckle. "Confirm who they are first. I’m not inviting another pack of armed fools into my streets for pocket change. If the information is worth the damage they might cause, we’ll consider it."

The man with the ledger nodded and immediately returned to discussing replacement glass for one of the damaged shops. The woman beside him asked someone to pass her a pen and continued checking her market papers. Sio watched the easy transition between the two conversations, his stomach tightening as nobody around them seemed to notice anything strange about it. These were the same people who had worried about a sick child, broken irrigation and compensation for injured neighbours, yet they’d discussed what Sio and Angle might be worth in exactly the same tone.

Nobody laughed cruelly. Nobody looked eager to hurt them. Somehow, that made Sio’s usual response die before it reached his mouth.

Baron opened Arch’s folder once more. "The older one is different. If he chooses to settle here, I’d rather find a place for someone useful than trade him away."

If he chooses. Sio stared at the signatures beneath Baron’s hand. The words sounded almost respectful until he remembered the first two travellers asking for weekly rates and work after signing, then Arch deciding he wanted to stay for several days. Choice was beginning to sound like a word everyone here used differently.

A noisy argument broke out near the opposite side of the table before Sio could think further. Two farmers had apparently spent most of the evening blaming each other’s goats for a broken fence, and within seconds they were interrupting one another loudly enough that nearby residents began laughing and offering opinions. One woman took a side despite openly admitting she hadn’t even seen the fence. Baron leaned back and rubbed his forehead with the exhausted expression of someone regretting every decision that had led to responsibility for four goats.

For a few seconds the messiness was almost reassuring. Then Baron raised two fingers while one farmer was still speaking, and the farmer stopped before noticing the gesture. The other man, partly turned away, fell silent at nearly the same moment. The clerk beside them stopped sorting papers too, and a chair that had been scraping across the floor became still before Baron had said a word.

"One at a time," Baron told the farmers. "I’m not losing another hour of my life because your goats discovered a hole."

Laughter filled the room again, and movement returned as easily as it had disappeared. The farmers resumed arguing at a lower volume, the clerk returned to his papers and somebody dragged the chair the rest of the way back.

Sio kept his eyes on the clerk, replaying the movement in his head. "He didn’t even see Baron’s hand," Angle murmured beside him, and Sio nodded without looking away. One of the farmers had been partly turned too, yet both had stopped almost at the same moment. "And during the fight people reacted to attacks they shouldn’t have been able to see," Sio said, his gaze moving slowly across the room as he tried to force the pieces together. "Shared senses, maybe?" Angle considered it, then gave a slight shake of his head. "Possible, but it doesn’t explain everything." Sio scratched behind one ear. "Commands?" Angle’s expression barely changed. "Also possible." Sio finally glanced at him. "You’re extremely helpful tonight." The corner of Angle’s mouth moved faintly, but his attention stayed on the townspeople. "I’m trying not to pretend we know more than we do."

That pulled Sio back toward the paperwork. Five travellers had entered the same inn. Two strangers arrived wanting to leave and then started asking about weekly rooms and jobs. Arch had signed before the fight, signed again afterward and now seemed less interested in leaving. Yet the townspeople had already been moving together long before any of them arrived, which meant the documents weren’t creating whatever ability they were seeing from nothing.

Another housing agreement changed hands near the table. The residents had signed it themselves before bringing it there; Baron merely listened while they discussed which family would occupy the house and whether everyone understood the shared-water rules. A folder concerning a workshop changing owners followed, then several new bar memberships. Different people, different purposes, different agreements, all tied to another piece of life inside the town.

"Maybe the contracts aren’t the ability," Sio whispered. Angle followed his gaze toward the growing stacks, and Sio continued before the thought escaped him. "Maybe they’re how people connect to it."

"Connect to what?"

Sio didn’t have an answer yet. A resident nearby mentioned an expansion to the northern greenhouse and unfolded a map showing where additional solar collectors would sit. Another person discussed ownership of the neighbouring plot while a housing clerk carried signed residency papers toward a cabinet. Sio followed the threads between their conversations until something finally began taking shape. The people kept changing, the documents kept changing, but every single one of them concerned something inside the same town.

Sio looked down at the floor beneath his boots, then toward the wall beside his shoulder and followed the thought outward to the houses, shops, roads, gardens and the inn they’d crossed on the way here. We’re looking at the people because they’re the ones acting strange. But every one of them is tied to the same place.

Angle noticed the change in his expression and quietly asked what he was thinking. Sio scratched behind one ear before answering, "How big can a Claim actually be? Not how powerful. I mean physically." Angle frowned at the sudden question but thought about it, explaining that size depended on what had been Claimed and whether the Veyr could establish that relationship in the first place.

"So land isn’t impossible. Neither is a building." Sio kept looking around the mansion as he worked through the thought. "What about everything between several buildings? Roads, property, whatever sits inside one boundary?"

Angle’s expression shifted as he finally understood where the question was heading. His gaze moved from the papers to the floor, then slowly toward the wall beside Sio while the residents continued discussing their signed housing agreements across the room.

Sio watched them and felt the pieces settle into a shape he didn’t like. The residents didn’t look like people Baron had individually Claimed. Most weren’t even Wayfarers. Yet all of them lived, worked and signed agreements inside the same place, and whenever the town needed them to move together, somehow they did.

"The people might not be his Claim," Sio whispered. "Maybe that’s why none of our theories fit. We’re treating them like they’re the thing he owns."

Angle looked toward the room again, testing the thought against everything they’d seen. "You’re saying they’re living inside the Claim."

Sio swallowed. "I’m saying maybe the Claim is the town."

For the first time since Baron entered, neither of them had another theory ready. The idea explained too much at once: the contracts linking residents, businesses and travellers to the same place, the repeated emphasis on people signing willingly, and ordinary townspeople moving together without displaying abilities of their own. Even the chant returned differently in Sio’s head now. All hail the Baron who keeps us under his shelter.

Angle’s voice dropped further. "Then the agreements could be how people accept a place inside whatever his Claim does."

"Maybe. It would explain why willingness matters, and why those first two travellers changed after signing." Sio looked toward Arch’s folder again. "Why Arch changed too."

"We’re still guessing."

"Yeah." Sio shifted slightly, and his shoulder brushed the wall behind him. "And I really hope we’re—"

The thought died the instant he felt the stone against his back, and Sio moved away from it so abruptly that Angle looked at him. For a second neither spoke. They had followed the innkeeper through Baron’s streets, crossed Baron’s grounds and climbed through a window in Baron’s mansion. If their theory was even close to correct, they hadn’t spent the evening investigating Baron’s Claim from somewhere safely outside it.

They had spent the entire night walking deeper into it.

Oh, fuck. Every street we crossed. The inn. This mansion. Even the wall we’ve been hiding behind.

Sio’s mouth went dry as he leaned close enough that his whisper barely travelled between them. "If we’re right, we’re not hiding from him." Angle’s eyes moved toward Baron as the implication settled across his face. "We’re hiding inside his Claim."

Neither needed to finish what that meant.

At the head of the table, Baron’s hand stopped above the document he had been reading. For several seconds nobody else noticed. One farmer was still grumbling about his fence, a clerk whispered to the woman beside him and the innkeeper quietly reorganized his files. Then Baron’s eyes lifted and settled directly on the dark doorway where Sio and Angle stood.

Sio felt every small sound in the room become distinct as people gradually noticed where their ruler was looking. Conversations faded, papers stopped moving and the farmer fell quiet halfway through another complaint. Face after face turned toward the same patch of darkness with the smooth coordination Sio and Angle had spent the entire night trying to understand.

Baron didn’t look angry. A faint amusement entered his expression as he leaned back, almost as though he’d been listening to two people work through a puzzle and had finally heard them reach the answer. He rested one palm against the stone beside his chair and tapped it lightly with his fingertips.

"There it is. I was beginning to wonder how long you boys would take." His eyes remained fixed exactly where they were hiding, and his smile deepened when Sio instinctively put another inch between himself and the wall. "You know that old saying about walls having ears? Most people use it as a warning." Baron tapped the stone once more before finishing, "In my town, it’s simply a fact."