Spectrier watched the two knights hurry off, Laura along with them, then turned his attention back to the rooftop courtyard, remembering to hold the door open for the others who couldn't walk through walls. The building's ambient warmth had kept the frost at bay, even though the garden was open to the sky. In fact, the whole area felt much warmer than it ought to have—no doubt due to the Heat Rock crystals in hanging lanterns. Dark green shrubs dotted the garden, interspersed with elaborately-patterned tilework and intricately-carved statues, including a highly stylized portrayal of the Aeon twins.
"It's a lot nicer in the spring when the flowers are blooming," Spectrier said apologetically, as if embarrassed that he wasn't bringing them here at the optimal time. "Sometimes I like to pass the time by lying on the floor up here, but it would be rude to do that when there's guests. Unless you wanted to lie on the floor with me. You don't have to, though," he added quickly.
"I know you mostly work with Arthur, but there sure are a lot of people here, and I bet they do a lot of cool stuff. D'you ever help any of them?"
"Oh, um." His eyelashes swished, and he pawed at the ground with a hoof. "Usually, if I'm around people too much, I end up making them sad. Arthur says I should socialize more, but I don't want to impose on anyone." He paused for a long moment, then added, "I do like finding lost items, and delivering things that people need brought to them." With his abilities, he probably
was quite good at it, even if he didn't think so.
“How long have you and Arthur been with the Covenant? It sounds like they keep you guys pretty busy,” Archie said. “I’m sure you guys have been all kinds of cool places, you must have all kinds of stories.”
"Ohh, it's been a really long time," Spectrier said lowering himself to sit on the heated tile floor. "The Covenant was small when we first met them, but it's grown a lot since then. We travel all over the east coast to a lot of official headquarters, but we haven't been to the west in a while."
So, neither Arthur nor Spectrier were involved in the Covenant's founding, if that was the case.
He frowned, as if he’d only just thought of something, “Actually, Spectrier, do you know what they meant by ‘ongoing events in the north’? It sounds pretty ominous!”
The shade horse's ears flicked toward Archie. "Oh, that... It's a pretty big deal, so there's been a lot of people talking about it. I overheard some of them." He lowered his head, sheepish at admitting to eavesdropping. "Maybe they wouldn't like it if I was spreading rumors. But Arthur did seem to like you guys a lot; he was real excited to meet you..."
So perhaps it was probably something that Arthur would have wanted the Wayferers to know anyway...
