Chapter seven
“They’reasuspiciouslotto begin with, this close to the sea. And your attitude didn’t help any.”
“My attitude.” Lux snorted. They stood on the inn’s porch, their conversation the only thing keeping them from entering. These bandits had been discussing her attitude ever since they’d met her. As if they weren’t the ones to pepper her cloak with holes and chase her like prey through the wood. If anything, she thought herself remarkably even-tempered for what they’d put her through. “Apologies for my misunderstanding that items in a shop were for purchase.”
Magda cast her a disapproving look, her eyebrows harsh. “Those were stores from his own supply. You shame yourself with your entitlement.”
“My—” Lux seethed. Dropping her voice, she said, “You’rethe one who stole from him to match the cost. Oh, don’t deny it now; I know the money in my pocket didn’t come from one of yours. Really, I shouldn’t have been there at all. This isyourdoing.”
Magda shrugged off that prickly truth. “I would say you aren’t doing too well out on your own.” The woman stared pointedly at her raw finger.
Lux fantasized briefly over what Magda’s eyes would look like, unseeing and fixed. A pause which, apparently, the woman took to mean the argument had been won. “Inside now. There’s not a speck of daylight left.”
Glaring, Lux shouldered through the door.
She wasn’t a frequenter of taverns, and Ghadra, with its nigh impossibility of visitors, did not have much in the way of inns. But Lux didn’t think they should ever be this quiet. She scanned it quickly, and would have stepped back, if Lars hadn’t come through behind her and knocked his bony shoulder with hers as he passed.
“Move over, City Girl. I need a drink.”
Lux gritted her teeth. “We’re here for aroom. Sven is still—” But she spoke to empty air as Lars was already well on his way to the bar.
“Leave him be. We’ll secure a room for your service, and then I’ll send him off to collect Sven.”
Lux glanced over at Magda surveying the room. If she wasn’t mistaken, the woman did so with the eye of someone looking for another. “Do they always take to outsiders like this?” She looked away from the bandit to absorb the hard stares and keen suspicion above the rims of mugs and around bites of food.
Irritation welled within her at the perusal of her form, the clothing draping it, and the pack at her back. Lux’s confidence in such company was still only a sapling hardly grown. This situation was about to pluck it out by the roots.
“An unusual group. They’ve lost plenty and think anyone unfamiliar is out to grab at the rest.”
Some of the bite left Lux’s voice. “Lost what?”
But Magda, too, had chosen to abandon her. She snagged at the sleeve of a passing woman carrying a tray; a hushed conversation ensued in which the matron nodded a curt agreement at its end. Magda returned to her.
“We’ve got three rooms for the night. Unless you plan to nest with the crows?”
“If it’s that or share a room with someone who tried to shoot my legs from under me, I choose the birds.”
“Girl, nobody was out to actually injure you. We herded you toward that bridge on purpose. And rest easy, you get a room all to yourself.” When the oil-splattered matron appeared before them again, this time with three keys in hand, Magda handed her one. “Head up. I’ll send Lars out.”
Athissixthhourof death, Viktar lay upon what would soon be his bed. Lux refused to perform the revival in her own room, on her own bedding.
Naturally, she’d not allowed anyone to watch, and though Lars muttered, and Magda stared, Sven ushered them from the room easily enough. She set to work.
She felt like Riselda on that night her imposter of an aunt had returned. Lux pulled forth all sorts of tins and vials, a mortar and pestle, and a jug of distilled rainwater—travel size, of course. Looking back at it now, Riselda’s assortment had a much more sinister air. Lux only had the one weapon, and it lay strapped to her waist.
She took the knife out now, and once laying the bat wings flat, sliced them into thin strips. They were easy to tear by hand as they’d been dried, but Lux liked the feel of the handle in her palm. She turned over the blade when she was through.
When she looked at it, she could easily imagine another hand in place of hers. And then not only a hand but an entire body, warm skin and eyes like melted copper. A wave of homesicknesscrashed over her, a wrench of her heart leaving her doubled over and gasping.
She didn’t yearn for Ghadra—not at all. But there were as many different meanings of the word “home” as there were shades of bat wings.
She rubbed at the space over her chest before tossing the readied ingredient into the bowl. “Who would guess my first revival in weeks is for a man out to rob me.” She wiggled out a sprig of mint and crushed it beneath her nose.
A twinge of nerves beat a rapid tempo within her, but she ignored it and leftTheRisenwrapped inside. True, it’d been the longest she’d ever gone between enchantments, but that meant nothing. She could close her eyes and see every line of the incantation etched behind her lids. If she concentrated, that was. Lately, every time she closed her eyes all she saw washim.
You could have asked him along.
No.No, she couldn’t have. His family’s home had been nearly as devastated as his own. He had a mother and sister to look out for—she had no one but herself.She hadn’t been about to cause him to feel torn over a difficult decision. The only logical answer was to dash it before it could ever form. She’d told him she wanted to go alone.
