She was quiet a moment before saying, “It keeps the nightmares at bay.”
There was something in her voice that made Zev slow. “Dyna, you know you can talk to me, don’t you? I’m right here. Simply talk to me. I know you’re not all right. We all do.”
His cousin paused in the middle of the street, but she didn’t look at him. The last rays of sunlight casting off the roofs lit up her tresses as they blew around her face.
Her emerald eyes fixed on the towering clouds above them, and he could almost see a hint of Nazar’s floating islands. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“I need you to go on pretending that you don’t know that.”
Zev’s throat tightened at the emptiness in her expression when she looked at him, and he nodded. Aye, he could do that, but only for so long. Because he couldn’t be the only one who fought to go on living.
Sighing, Dyna leaned against him, her entire body sagging as if she needed that support from him. “Shall we return to the inn, or wander about until we catch up with Rawn?”
Zev wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and they made their way down the street together. “Hmm. Let’s see where fate takes us.”
CHAPTER 23
Rawn
Many had gathered in Little Step’s courier office. Voices swarmed all around Rawn as he waited in line for his turn at the counter. The crowd made him nervous, but he couldn’t lose another opportunity to send Aerina a letter again.
After an hour, he at last reached the front.
“Good afternoon,” Rawn greeted the dwarf postman as he placed a crumpled envelope on the counter. He added the carving of a wolf figurine with it. “To Greenwood by portal, please.”
“One silver.” The postman poured a dollop of red wax on the envelope, and Rawn pressed his signet ring into it, sealing it closed.
“Province and size?” A sun mage beside the dwarf asked in a bored tone. He sat in a stool at the service counter, playing with a wisp of flame between his fingers.
“Sellav Province.” Rawn placed a silver coin on the counter to cover the postage. “Standard size. Instant delivery and confirmation, if you will. No expected letter in return.”
“Orbital address?” The mage held out his palm where he carried a dark green crystal patterned with stripes in lighter green. Malachite. Theportarune was carved on the surface.
Lucenna had mentioned he would need to acquire such a crystal to open his own courier portals.
Rawn gave him the address and lightly tapped his ring against the crystal. Both lit up with magic, a sign the crystal had connected with theenchanted letterbox located in his home. The mage’s eyes glowed orange as a spiraling portal with white light about five inches in diameter formed between them. The dwarf inserted the letter and the wooden wolf statuette inside.
The mage’s gaze went distant for a moment. Rawn held his breath, always nervous at this part. “Delivery confirmed.”
The portal winked closed out of existence.
Rawn exhaled with a smile. “Thank you.”
“A pleasure,” the mage replied drearily. “Have a fine day. Next!”
Slipping past the waiting line, Rawn strode out the double doors of the courier’s office. Fair waited for him outside.
“First order of business is complete,” Rawn told him, untying the reins from the hitching post.
There were a few things to pick up from the market before returning to the inn. If they managed to set sail tomorrow, they would need to be well equipped for a journey at sea.
After traveling discreetly for so long, it made Rawn nervous to walk among so many Elves. But no one paid attention to him. He was merely another face in the throng, and the glamor spell had held well. Rawn inserted some beeswax in his ears to dull the constant din of the market. By his third purchase in the mariner’s street, the tension eased out of his shoulders.
“Lemon linctus, milord?” an old herbalist offered, holding up a dark brown bottle. “A spoonful a day keeps the scurvy at bay.”
“You’ll need salt to keep your fish unspoiled at sea.” The elderly woman beside her thrust a burlap sack in Rawn’s face next.
