She froze.
“After my blood is safely restored, of course. I am quite useless for it now, as we’ve established.”
“I told you,” she said bluntly, facing him, “it can’t be fixed with your magic.”
“Yes, you did say that. Quite unusual. How exactly did it come about? Congenital? Something you ate? A sip of still water?”
Once again, her pulse quickened. “It’s none of your concern.”
“It is if we’re going to work together. It must be quite serious if even a spellscribe cannot heal it. Quite expensive. Perhaps even greater than half the prize.”
“Perhaps,” she responded, throat tight. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know the cost of such luxuries. Why don’t we compare it against the principal of your debt?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “A disease of the mind? Of the heart? The organ, I can mend, though of course it’s quite complicated. But the mind, a woundedspirit–”
Now, he mocked her. After all she’d just shared. After he–
She sucked in a hot breath. “What is this? What are you doing?”
“Ascertaining my chances of survival. As I suspected, we’ve become more of a hindrance to each other than a help.”
“What?” It was so ludicrous; it stunned a laugh from her. “Don’t be stupid. You don’t stand a chance without me. What you’ve seen is the least–”
“I’ve yet to see any evidence of your spooks and spirits, and I’m beginning to suspect they don’t exist. That you’ve been lying to me to ensure I hired you. Though,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest, “I do recall reading once that such fancies are often tricks of the uneducated mind. Fevered imaginings of the overstimulated and unsophisticated.”
Each syllable pelted her like a stone. She felt a stirring in her chest. It was the dark twin, the shadow, of how she’d felt last night, alone with him in the glade. How she’d felt mere moments ago, when his eyes seemed so hopeless, seemed to linger on her lips. Seemed to, because they hadn’t. Of course they hadn’t.
Before she could muster a response, a frightened, alien cry split through the birdsong, making her jump.
Sy’s animosity evaporated, and he frowned in alarmed concern. “Are you alright?”
She frowned back. “Me?”
It echoed again, short and sharp, raising the hairs on her arms and Sy from his seat. He’d not heard the first cry, lost in the cacophonous birdsong, but once recognized, the sound was unmistakably human – and unmistakably in distress.
“Evidence enough for you?” she growled, lifting her shotgun strap from her shoulder.
“Alright, yes,” he said, gripping the strap of his pen kit with white knuckles. “What was it?”
“Someone in trouble. Close by. Which means trouble for us,” she said, unlacing her ammo pouch from her belt. She pushed it into his fumbling hands.
Baffled, he took it, frowning at her. “Wait. What are you doing?”
She pressed the barrel of her shotgun flat across his chest, then stepped behind him.
“What – I don’t have the faintest idea–”
“Don’t point at anything you don’t want dead.” She spoke into his ear, his hair tickling her cheek. She reached around his shoulders, guiding his arms and fingers to demonstrate the safety and the trigger, ignoring the shape of him against her. Then she stepped around him, opened the ammo pouch, and pointed. “Birdshot on the right, slugs on the left. Save the slugs for the big shit.”
Turning, she plucked an arrow from her quiver and palmed her bow, made safe from her skin by Sy’s gloves.
“Anya,” he said to her back, helpless.
“I’ll be back,” she assured him, nearly out of patience. “Wait here.”
“I don’t think–”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “Moments ago, you–” She shook her head. She hadn’t seen it at first, but clearly the forest was getting to him – and now wasn’t the time. She tried slowing down. “Someone could be hurt. It could be one of your friends. David, right?” More than a friend, by the way they spoke. His face fell, confirming her suspicion.
