“Larie’s a nice lady.”
“When she isn’t spreading gossip,” Mavek said. His grandma glared at him.
“You shut that mouth before I find a clamp to put on it. Larie’s nice all the time.”
“Aw, we both know youlikemy big mouth. I just say all the stuff you’re too nice to.” Mavek kicked his foot up to the side of the porch wall, tilting his rocking chair back all the way.
“Boy, I don’t know when you got to be so dumb,” Gramma Prisca told him as Mavek took a hearty swig of drudd.
Cassia couldn’t help but giggle. She reached the top of the stairs and paused there a moment, leaning against one of the porch pillars, not wanting to be rude by going straight inside.
“You wanna join us?” Mavek asked, jerking a thumb at an empty chair.
She thought about it for a moment. Cassia liked Prisca, and she sort of liked Mavek, too. But she wasn’t sure she was in the mood to sit between their sharp tongues and try to keep up. Not when the alternative was spending more time with Aevrin.
It wasn’tjustthat he made her knees weak, her babbling brain quickly rationalized. She hated feeling useless, and here she was again, just standing outside the house while Aevrinworked on her behalf, washing clothes bought with money from a job she hadn’t even started. It still hurt a bit when she moved, or even when she didn’t, but she was well enough to help. If she didn’t start soon she’d be overstaying her welcome, no matter what they said.
“Thank you, maybe next time,” Cassia said, and went inside to find the grumpy rancher. Her heart was pounding for some reason, even though she’d just been with Aevrin a moment ago.
His hat hung by the door. She stripped off her old, too-big boots and set them down at the end of the lineup of shoes by the door, hoping it wasn’t presumptuous to leave hers out with the family’s. Wandering into the house, through one door of the dining room and out the other, she came across Aevrin walking the other way with a woven basket of damp clothing in his arms.
“Hey,” Cassia said. He turned over his shoulder.
“Need something?” he asked.
She ignored the feeling that she was interrupting, and reminded herself his voice was gruff with everyone.
“I’d like to help.”
Aevrin gave her a surprised look. Then he smiled crookedly, a flash of white teeth as his lips quirked up to one side.
“Nah, no need. You rest up.”
Cassia sighed and gripped the doorframe with one hand. Her new boots dangled from the other.
“Please? I need something to do.”
“Wouldn’t you rather do something fun?” he asked. Then, before she could answer, he added: “‘course you can help, if you reallywantto. Laundry line’s out back.”
Feeling purposeful for the first time in days, she followed him through a comfortable, well-lived in den, then through a boot room scattered with worn, dirty outerwear and dragontack, where she paused to ease into the new boots. Then Cassia stepped out onto the rear porch.
She hadn’t been in the back of the property yet, though she’d gotten a sense of it from the front. From here she could better see the cockatrice pen, its tall walls enclosing a lean-to and three of the massive snake-tailed hens. There was a tall stone dragon coop not far from the house, the tile roof heavily scratched from landings. Behind that was a metal and stone lean-to and hundreds of acres of scruffy, half-burned cow pastures, dotted with herds of armored cattle. One of the herds was up in flames, their dark shapes barely visible through the fire surrounding them. The pasture’s borders were all marked by low stone walls and patrolled by dragons; wooden fences were useless against fire-breathing beasts. Off to the right, up against some trees, was what looked like the ruins of a modest stone cabin.
“Isn’t it kind of late to be hanging up clothes?” Cassia asked, with an eye to the horizon. Long shadows like strips of black chiffon stretched over the ochre ground. It was an hour or two until sunset.
“Better than leaving ‘em in the basket all night,” Aevrin told her. “Besides, it’s pretty dry in these parts.” He trotted down the steps of the back porch and looked back to see if she was coming.
Inexplicably, her heart fluttered at the sight of him waiting expectantly for her to catch up. Cassia breathlessly clattered down the steps.You’ve met attractive men before, she scolded herself silently.Get it together before he notices you’re being ridiculous.
There was a post two dozen feet away from the house with a horizontal beam on top. Thin rope ran between the horizontal beam and the porch. The lines were empty right now, except forthe wooden clothespins dangling off them. He set the clothing basket down on the ground. Picking up the item on top, a damp black tunic with a patched side, he shook it out and started pinning it to the line.
Cassia slowly came up next to him, careful to keep a few feet between them in case he thought she was presumptuous. She pulled out a pair of trousers, disentangling them carefully so none of the other clothing would fall onto the ground.
“Geeze,” Aevrin snapped, and snatched up a pair of male underpants with a narrow backside—barely more than a string—that had been hidden beneath the trousers. Cassia raised her eyebrows. “These arenotmine,” he informed her darkly, like she’d accused him.
She laughed as she pinned the trousers up on the line.
“Sure they aren’t. You don’t sound atalllike a man with a secret to hide.”
