Chapter 39-Waiting

Odett’s POV

  Sam’s message arrived a day after its dispatch mark. Dad read the official page at breakfast while Mom unfolded the family note. Neither looked frightened, though I watched their faces until Lorilie told me to stop inventing reasons for the delay.

  I knew their calm should have reassured me. My mind was already filling the silence with explanations, each worse than the last. Lorilie dismissed them as quickly as I made them.

  ‘You are building disasters out of their eyebrows,’ Lorilie warned.

  ‘Dad has a very informative forehead,’ I replied silently.

  ‘His forehead says he needs more coffee,’ she corrected dryly.

  Dad folded the official report and placed it beneath his hand. The twins continued arguing over the last honey biscuit until Mom divided it without looking away from the family message. Neither Zerina nor Zander noticed how carefully Joshy and I had stopped eating.

  “Sam and the team are safe,” Dad told us with reassuring firmness.

  “But he is not coming home yet,” I guessed with controlled disappointment.

  “The review requires records from another protected archive, and the weather has slowed the retrieval,” Dad explained carefully.

  “He has postponed his departure until the joint team can complete the comparison.”

  Dad had told me what held Sam in the north. I wanted the details of the records and the disputed numbers, but those belonged to his team. I kept my questions on this side of that boundary.

  “Did he say how long?” Joshy asked.

  “No exact date,” Dad answered honestly.

  “He expects several more days if the roads and supervised review cooperate.”

  Mom slid the family message across the table after reading it. Sam complained about the northern weather, accused Aunt Jess of planning to steal his food, and reassured everyone that he was still coming home. The final line had been written separately beneath the others.

  Tell Odett I am still coming home; I am only refusing to bring an unfinished answer with me.

  I read his last line twice. He had thought about how the delay might sound at home, and that eased me. I was irritated, too: his explanation was so much like Sam that I could almost hear him saying it, far beyond the reach of my argument.

  “He could have written to me directly,” I muttered with restrained annoyance.

  “He could have, but then you would have spent the entire morning deciding whether every word concealed a second meaning,” Joshy replied.

  “I can still do that,” I warned him without conviction.

  Aunt Jess reached across the table and took the message before Zander could drip syrup on it. She read Sam’s accusation, looked offended for half a breath, and folded the page into the pocket of her training jacket. Uncle Orian watched her with immediate suspicion.

  “You were going to eat his share,” Uncle Orian accused with delighted certainty.

  “I was going to protect it from becoming stale,” Aunt Jess defended.

  “Inside your stomach?” Zerina asked.

  “That is one of the safest places in the kingdom,” Aunt Jess assured her solemnly.

  The twins laughed, and the tightness at the table eased. They knew Sam was safe and delayed. I was glad they could go back to teasing Jess without wondering what a protected archive might contain.

  Dad took the official page with him when we left for the Academy. Joshy and I had helped with a narrow set of records, and that did not entitle us to Sam’s field report. I hoped Dad noticed that neither of us asked.

  The courtyard had become a maze of open binders and study groups. The second-term assessment was a little more than two weeks away. Even the students sitting in the winter sun had labeled tabs sticking out of their notes.

  Nolan met us outside the council classroom with three revised sections and no patience. Cassian followed several steps behind him, holding a separate version of the same proposal. The matching covers did nothing to hide the fact that the pages inside disagreed.

  “He removed the emergency council’s authority to close a border crossing,” Nolan complained.

  “I limited that authority because his version allows one officer to close it without review,” Cassian countered.

  “For six hours during an immediate attack,” Nolan insisted sharply.

  “Six hours is long enough to trap people on the wrong side,” Cassian replied.

  Nolan feared losing precious minutes during an attack. Cassian feared giving one frightened officer enough power to trap people at a closed border. Each had written a rule for the danger he could see most clearly.

  Joshy laid the two versions side by side. I expected him to take out his pen, but he asked a question instead. At the hearing, Nolan and Cassian would have to defend their own rule.

  “What fact would make Nolan’s rule necessary?” Joshy asked.

  “A verified attack close enough that waiting for council approval would endanger the checkpoint,” Cassian answered after a pause.

  “What fact would make Cassian’s restriction necessary?” I asked Nolan with measured patience.

  “An officer acting on fear, prejudice, or an unverified report,” Nolan admitted reluctantly.

  Between their answers, a better rule emerged. An officer could restrict entry during a verified immediate threat, but the reason had to be recorded and the restriction kept narrow. More than one authority would review it quickly. An unverified warning could justify extra screening, not a closed crossing.

  “One hour before mandatory review,” Cassian proposed thoughtfully.

  “Two, if communication wards are damaged,” Nolan negotiated with cautious acceptance.

  “One hour, with a documented extension when communication is impossible,” I decided with growing confidence.

  “I hate that this is better than mine,” Nolan conceded.

  The instructor took the whole lesson to challenge that compromise. Who verified the threat? Where would stranded travelers wait? Every answer reminded us that a limited power still had consequences for the people at the gate.

  I thought of Sam staying to finish the review. His note said he would not bring us an unfinished answer, even though he wanted to come home. I understood his delay better at the end of the lesson than I had at breakfast.

  I did not bring Sam into the classroom debate. The team knew nothing about the records delaying him, and my private reason for caring about an answer did not belong in their exercise.

  “Your revised authority is narrower, but who bears responsibility if waiting one hour causes harm?” the instructor asked.