Chapter 2: The Return

THE GATES OF the University looked smaller than I remembered.

Not literally. Stone and iron don’t shrink. But I had. Or grown. I couldn’t tell which anymore. The Adem had given me new eyes—eyes that measured distance, counted exits, never stopped watching. Eyes that saw threat in everything and safety in nothing.

The guards didn’t recognize me. I’d left thin and pale, a musician who happened to study magic. I’d returned as something that made the older guard’s hand drift toward his sword without him knowing why.

“Name and purpose?” The older guard’s voice was carefully neutral.

“Kvothe. Re’lar. Returning from sanctioned leave.”

I pulled back my hood, let them see the red hair.

The guard consulted a ledger. “You were marked as leave of absence. Extended.” His eyes flickered to my face, curious but cautious. “You’re cleared to enter.”

“Thank you.”

As I passed, I caught the younger guard murmuring something to his companion. A name, maybe. A question. The older guard shook his head once, sharp, and the conversation died.

I should have paid more attention to that. To the way they’d looked at me—not with respect or recognition, but with something closer to wariness.

But I was eager to be home, and I didn’t think about what it meant.

The Archives loomed ahead, and my heart pulled toward them like iron toward a lodestone. All those books, all that knowledge, all the answers I’d been seeking for years. But I forced myself to wait. There were other things to do first. Other people to see.

I found Simmon in the Artificery, bent over a schema that made my eyes hurt to look at. He was so focused on his work that he didn’t notice me until I was standing right behind him.

“That binding’s going to fail,” I said, leaning casually against the doorframe. “The copper needs to be thicker at the joint. Honestly, Sim, I leave for a few months and standards just collapse.”

Simmon jumped, spun, and nearly knocked over his lamp. His face went through a rapid series of expressions—confusion, recognition, disbelief, joy—before settling on something that might have been tears.

“Kvothe.” He said my name like a prayer. “You’re—you’re actually—”

I caught him as he threw his arms around me. The embrace was awkward—Simmon was taller than I remembered, or maybe I’d just grown accustomed to the compact frame of Adem warriors—but it was real. Warm. The first human contact I’d had in months that wasn’t violence or negotiation.

“I’m back,” I said, when he finally let go. “Took longer than expected.”

“Longer than—” Simmon laughed, wiping his eyes. “Kvothe, it’s been eight months. We thought you were dead. Wil said you’d probably found trouble. I said you were probably finding trouble on purpose. Fela said—”

“Fela?” I noted the way his face softened when he said her name. “You finally told her?”

His blush answered before his words could. “She told me, actually. About three months after you left. Said she was tired of waiting for me to figure it out.” His smile was the brightest thing in the room. “We’re together now. Really together.”

“I’m happy for you.” I meant it. There was a warmth in my chest—the genuine pleasure of seeing a friend find joy—but beneath it, something else stirred. Envy, perhaps. Or loneliness. It had been so long since I’d felt anything that simple.

“Where’s Wil?”

“Probably in the Taps. He’s been spending a lot of time there lately.” Simmon’s smile faded slightly. “He’s been worried. About you. About… other things.”

“What other things?”

Simmon hesitated. “Things have changed, Kvothe. While you were gone. Some of it good, some of it—” He shook his head. “You should talk to Wil. He’ll explain better than I can.”

I found Wilem in the Taps, as promised, sitting alone at a corner table with a mug of scutten he wasn’t drinking. He looked up when I approached, and unlike Simmon, his face didn’t move through a parade of emotions. It simply went very still.

“Kvothe.” He said my name the way a man might acknowledge an earthquake. Factual. Unsurprised. Already calculating the damage.

I sat across from him. “You don’t seem shocked to see me.”

“I knew you’d come back. The question was when.” He pushed the mug toward me. “And whether you’d bring trouble with you.”

“Have I ever?”

“Always.” But there was warmth beneath the dry words. “You look different.”

“I’ve been places.”

“The Fae.” It wasn’t a question. “Sim doesn’t believe me, but I can tell. You have that look. The one people get when they’ve seen things that don’t belong in our world.”

I didn’t ask how he knew. Wil had depths that most people never saw. “How bad is it? Here, I mean. Sim said things have changed.”

Wilem was quiet for a moment, his dark eyes studying my face. “Ambrose is sixteenth in line for the throne now. His father’s been making moves. Buying influence. People who used to oppose the Jakis family have been… having accidents.”

“That’s not new.”

“No. But he’s gotten bolder. And he’s been asking about you.” Wil’s voice dropped. “About where you went. What you might have learned. There are people willing to pay for that information.”

“Let them ask.” I’d faced down a mercenary camp in the Eld and trained with warriors who could kill a man six different ways before breakfast. Ambrose Jakis and his father’s money didn’t exactly keep me up at night.

“There’s more.” Wil hesitated—an unusual thing for him. “Denna’s been back.”

My heart stopped. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Wil to notice.

“When?”

“About a month ago. She came looking for you. Left after a few days.” He watched my face with careful attention. “She seemed… different. Harder. Something in her eyes.”

“Did she say anything? Leave a message?”

“She performed at the Eolian. A new song.” Wil’s expression was unreadable. “About Lanre.”

Lanre. The name fell between us like a blade.

“What kind of song?”

“The dangerous kind.” Wil leaned back. “The kind people can’t stop talking about. The kind that makes you wonder if everything you learned was a lie.”

I thought of the Cthaeh. Of the things it had told me about Denna’s patron. About what she was being shaped into.

“I need to find her.”

“I know.” Wil’s voice was quiet. “But Kvothe—be careful. Whatever happened to her while you were gone, whatever she’s become… she’s not the same girl you left behind.”

“Neither am I.”

“No.” He met my eyes, and there was something ancient in his gaze. Something that saw more than most people ever bothered to look for. “No, you’re not. And that’s what worries me.”

I spent the rest of that day wandering the University, relearning its geography, noting what had changed and what had stayed the same. The buildings were where I’d left them. The students moved between them in the same patterns of urgency and exhaustion.

But there were differences.

More soldiers in the streets than I remembered. More whispers about war in the north, about kings and successions and power struggling to find new balance. More fear in people’s eyes when they looked at strangers.

And everywhere—in taverns and dormitories, in classrooms and common rooms—people talking about a song. A song about Lanre, written by a woman with dark hair and a voice like honey and heartbreak.

Denna’s song.

I didn’t hear it that first day. I wasn’t ready. But I felt it—pressure behind my eyes, a storm I couldn’t see.

I was already caught. I just didn’t know it yet.

That night, alone in my old room at Anker’s, I lay awake and listened to the wind moving through the eaves. Somewhere in the darkness, the Cthaeh’s words whispered in my memory.

Her patron beats her, you know. Two days ago he used his walking stick.

Cinder does as he pleases.

What a charming boy you are. So righteous. So full of fury.

I closed my eyes and saw Denna’s face. The way she’d smiled the last time I saw her. The way she’d never quite let me get close enough to help.

Tomorrow I would find Auri. Face Elodin. Begin pulling at threads I couldn’t see the ends of.

But tonight I let myself hope.

It was the last time hope would come that easily.