The pair entered the trees, and Tasia took the lead. She strode out with confidence, secure in the knowledge that this part of the path remained familiar. Mitch made a silent wager with himself. If she could make it the entire way to Grandmother’s house without needing directions, he wouldn’t worry about her too much. That would be proof that she was capable of taking care of herself.
If she didn’t get quite that far, he would reassess depending on how close she was. Getting lost before the troll boulder would be pretty pathetic, and Mitch resolved to teach her some defense moves in that case. Nothing too complicated, just some things she could learn while walking on the path. Maybe throw in a more substantial move when they stopped for lunch.
Mitch’s predictions proved . . . unrealistically optimistic. Tasia managed to lose track of her navigation soon after the log bridge. An alluring toadstool caught her eye, and she was heading west before Mitch snagged the back of her cape and reoriented her.
He cleared his throat once they were travelling south again. “What are you going to do when Grandmother doesn’t need you to make deliveries anymore?”
“Oh!” Tasia peeked over her shoulder at him. A cute little wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. “Um. I’m not sure?”
“Do you have savings?” Mitch prodded.
“Yes!” Tasia gave a sharp nod, then tripped over something on the path. She recovered without his help, and he retracted the hand he had automatically stretched out. “I have been saving half of my earnings. And hiding them from my relatives,” she added as an afterthought.
This admission alarmed him more than he cared to admit. Was Tasia safe in her home? “Is there a reason they can’t know?” Mitch didn’t like the tentative way his words came out, so he coughed in irritation.
“Well—” Tasia used her hand to push her hair back over her shoulder. She had left half of it down, and Mitch was mesmerized by the way her locks seemed to glow in defiance of the weakened light.
“I don’t think that I want to live with them forever, you know?” Her shoulders twitched under her cape. “But I have the feeling that they . . . like things the way they are,” she finished.
“Are you safe with them?” There. He’d asked outright.
She turned around and blessed him with a gentle smile. “I am safe with them. Thank you for checking.”
Mitch scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, right.” He debated the merits of turning into a wolf for the rest of the walk.
Tasia took pity on him and resumed walking. “Why are you asking now?”
His mind blanked, and he blurted out what he’d been thinking earlier. “I can teach you some ways to defend yourself.”
Her curious eyes peered at him from her red-clad shoulder. She tilted her head. “How do you mean?”
Because she was looking at him and not the path, her steps were taking her straight into a large tree trunk.
“For instance”—Mitch grabbed her upper arms and redirected her out of harm’s way—“paying attention to one’s surroundings is a valuable life skill.”
She touched her nose as though realizing how close she had come to scraping it off on the tree bark. A nervous giggle bubbled to her lips. “That’s true.”
Mitch relinquished her arms and took the lead. “Being aware of who and what is around you can keep you out of some bad situations.”
“Like not leaving a well-lit street with lots of people to take a shortcut home through the alley, because the creep who’s been following you for three blocks is waiting for that opportunity.” Her words were light, but they chilled him.
This time, Mitch peered over his shoulder to look her in the eye. “That happen a lot?”
Tasia shrugged. “Diomland is a huge city. With that many people, a significant number of them are up to no good at any given time.”
He faced forward again. “Do you know what to do if one of them cornered you?”
“Um—” She sounded less certain now. “I never went anywhere alone. We always had a servant or two with us.”
“Not being alone is a good step. I don’t see any servants here, though. Do you?”
“Ha! No.”
Mitch wondered at the hint of bitterness. Until today, she had yet to express a truly negative sentiment about her living situation. Did the loss of her old life still sting? Or, as he suspected, was her current “family” taking advantage of her? Maybe she was an unpaid servant now.
A delicate finger poked him in the back, dragging him from his musings. “So? What should I do in that scenario?”
“Fight dirty and run away.”
