“Bite and beetle, bugger and fuck,” Anya hissed, dropping her arm. “What are you doing? I might’ve killed you!”
The wizard scowled at her, rubbing his throat where her knife had scraped but not cut. He lifted the pillow. “I took your words to heart. You were right. I’ve never slept outside in my life.”
She sheathed her knife. “So you thought the best time to try is the night before we set off on a perilous journey.”
“No time like the present.”
“And you brought…a pillow.”
“Shall I use a pile of leaves instead?”
“I wouldn’t. Might get a spider in your ear.”
Even in the darkness, she thought he might have turned a shade paler. She felt her lips twitch.
“We’ll get you some proper equipment tomorrow,” she said, settling back into the grass, too relieved for company to admit her resentment toward him for following her. “Bedrolls, at least.”
He laid the pillow on the other side of the tree from her, facing the lit pathway, and settled into the grass. Several moments passed. She heard him pull his blanket over himself, then readjust. Several more moments passed. He readjusted again. She could sense him aching to break the quiet, yet fearful of what doing so would bring.
She knew the feeling well. Eight years old, curled up beneath the blossoms of a rowan tree, internally screaming for any sound at all to break the unbearable quiet but able to sense things silently shuffling, creeping around the edge of her shelter under the branches, things equally eager for her to break it. Johanna later told her the tree had protected her, but it was likely her silence that had saved her life.
Anya heard the wizard let out a small sigh. With a slight smile, she spared him. “It’s easier if you don’t try so hard. Let your body do the work.”
“Noted.” Barely another moment passed before he added, “Is it always this quiet?”
“Quieter,” she whispered. “Like all the world is poised to spring.”
“Hunting suits you, I’ve no doubt, but you’ve truly missed your calling as a writer of grotesques.”
“It isn’t too late to turn back,” she said to the leaves. One last chance to soothe her conscience. She would do what she could to keep him alive, as long as he was useful to her. But she could only do so much.
He didn’t answer. She wondered again at his steely determination. She leaned up on her elbow. “Wizard.”
“Yes?”
“What’s your name?”
“Sylas Cassirer,” he said, after a moment. “But you may call me Sy.”
“Good night, Sylas,” she said, turning on her side. “Sleep well. You will need it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“We could be halfway to the wood by now,” Anya said into a barrel of salted mackerel.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Sylas replied under his breath, smiling at the grocer, who handed him the packets of liverwurst she had wrapped for him. “We’ll take some of those, too,” he said, indicating the fish Anya was frowning at.
As he counted his coin, the grocer stared at Anya, who fought the urge to bare her teeth the way everyone in this city evidently expected her to.
“We don’t need all of this,” Anya mumbled. It was such a waste of coin, all these expensive provisions, though he clearly had plenty to spare. She was beginning to suspect he lived in a cramped apartment not from necessity, but a social climber’s thrift. “I told you, I have supplies and I can hunt for us.”
“And asIhave explained toyou,” said the wizard with exaggerated calm, “I have been…busy, recently. These foods encourage my recovery.”
Yes, he had mentioned that; the iron and fat in the foods encouraged his blood to replenish as quickly as it could, eased the symptoms of his anemia. Nuts, liverwurst, rye bread, figs.Andmackerel.
Not to mention a rucksack to carry it all, new boots (thathad felt like hours), needles and parchment to replenish his scribing kit. Bedrolls. Already, they had enough to weigh down a horse. And Anya still had to stop at her cottage for her bow and shotgun, her ammunition, her water skin and tinder box, Johanna’s map.
The enchanted arrow, carefully wrapped in linen and locked in her cellar.
