Just kidding, this was clearly how I die.
She pointed to my cuffs. “Those will get you spotted quicker. I can’t take them off, but I can cover them.”
She pulled some thick leather from a box under the sofa next to the bed and started to wrap them around the cuffs, measuring. “Stay the night and you can leave at first light? You don’t want to cross these woods after dark. Walk in the day posing as a trader and sleep high in the treetops at night.”
I gulped, nodding. Walk in the day, sleep high in a tree at night. Got it. “Trading what? Won’t they smell my wolf?”
She nodded. “They’ll think you’re Ithaki or Paladin, not a city wolf and not banished. The Paladin wolves often trade furs and bone blades at our market.”
They did?
I didn’t know that. I wondered if my biological father, Run, had done that.
“Okay.” I questioned this plan but was grateful for her help.
“I’ll give you a few items to trade if you get caught, but you’ll have to travel all day to make good time.”
My eyes widened as I became more and more afraid of this plan.
“Got a motorcycle or something?” I gave a nervous laugh and she looked confused again. “It’s like a metal donkey that goes really fast,” I told her.
She clicked her teeth. “Demon technology.” She tapped my cuff. “See where that got you?”
Maybe she had a point, but I missed my iPhone right about now and the connection it gave me to the outside world. Okay, my boyfriend just broke out of an evil love spell, I was trapped in Troll Village, and I needed to travel through Dark Fey Territory to get to the Prime Minister of Light Fey City… an ally who’d sniffed me and moaned. This was fine.
Everything was fine.
She motioned to my jeans and t-shirt. “Traders don’t dress like that. I’ll give you clothes too.”
I sighed. “I don’t have anything to pay you with, but I can—”
She grabbed my hand and held it, her eyes swimming with emotion. “A year after my mom died … the vampires paid me monthly visits.” All vulnerability fled when her eyes creased to slits of absolute hatred. My stomach dropped at her words. “At first, I was just glad they left my little sister alone, but then my old neighbor, Timatu, dropped by and saw what was going on… he taught me how to fight back.”
I squeezed her hand to show support and she nodded, wiping at a stray tear.
“I killed my first blood sucker that summer, and then another, and another, until they learned to stop coming or they’d keep dying.” She flicked her eyes to the wall behind me and I turned to see a rack full of shotguns, silver stakes, a sickle, and other vampire-killing weapons.
Holy shit, homegirl was a killing machine, because she had to be. I understood what she was telling me. That even though I had nothing to give her, getting me away from the vampires was enough payment for her.
“I’m so sorry. Something similar happened to me,” I told her.
She nodded. “So I don’t want payment. I want to pay it forward and help you, like my neighbor helped me.”
My throat constricted with emotion. Gifts that were given with no expectation of return were the best kind. “Thank you. I won’t forget this kindness.”
She nodded and released my hand. “See if you can walk. You seem to have taken a beating and I want to make sure you are strong enough. Bathhouse is just off the porch if you want to wash up.”
And with that, Marmal and I became temporary roommates. I shuffled outside and took a shower in her bathhouse, putting on some handmade cotton clothing she left for me, careful to baby my injured shoulder. It was black and blue, like my eye. I looked pretty beat up, but Marmal had an arnica salve for my eye and a minty rub that I put on my shoulder that lessened the pain.
When I stepped into the kitchen, she called me right over to the stove and taught me how to makepag’al. It was like a sweet puffy bread that was delicious with butter. I also tried goat’s milk for the first time, and even some stewed rabbit. As long as I mentally told myself it was chicken, it tasted great.
Later that night, after helping her clean up, I wished her goodnight and then lay awake for a long time in bed. I wondered what Sawyer was doing right now. Was he still looking for me? Did he still love me? Did he still love Meredith? Raven once told me that love potions only worked if the person genuinely had feelings for another person. It could amp those feelings up but not create them out of nothing.
I didn’t know what to think about that, so I stared at the weapons wall of the house until sleep took me.
* * *
I wasawoken by the crisp clear sound of Marmal singing. She had a lovely voice. Even though life had been hard on her, it hadn’t dampened her joy.
