Chapter 92

Aria's POV

The second year of the knowledge compact brought something none of us had planned for.

Gorvan asked to visit.

Not formally, not as a representative of the confederation — he was clear about that in his letter, underlining it twice in the way he had of emphasizing things that mattered to him. He wanted to come as a practitioner. To see Shadow Peak's school in operation. To sit in classrooms and talk to teachers and observe the things that didn't travel well in documents.

He was seventy-one years old and had never been to the eastern territories.

I wrote back the same day. Told him we...