Her woods back to normal.
She nodded slowly, forcing herself to accept the offer against her better judgment.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll help you find your witch.”
12
“You’re an idiot.” Tilly shook her head. “I swear, Rowan, you see one pretty cock and the brains drop out of your head. It’s one thing to offer a man a bit of fun, another to risk your life for him.”
“I haven’t seen his cock.” She’d handed him a bucket when he was too ill to make it to the outhouse and otherwise tried very hard to ignore that part of his body.
“You have no excuse then,” Tilly snapped. “Why would you agree to this madness?”
Honestly, Rowan was still trying to figure that out herself. When her mother suggested she serve as his guide, she’d been swamped by a weird mix of anger, sympathy, and duty. She was still drowning in it. She gave Tilly an answer she’d understand.
“You saw the will. Track his men, lead him to the fort. Two hundred cord for a fortnight, everything he owns if he doesn’t come back.”
If she located his men, it was another two hundred on top of that. Enough money to change everything.
“He’s lucky he picked you as a guide,” Tilly said. “Anyone else would slit his throat and dump his body in the woods. Want me to send George with you?”
Tilly was onlymostlyharmless. Other times she was terrifyingly practical in a way that chilled Rowan to the bone. “I’m not going to kill him.”
Tilly rolled her eyes. “And what did your mother say about this? Sending her only child out to hunt a witch when she herself wears the brand?”
“She was the one who suggested the idea. She seems to think the captain is doing God’s work, and it’s our duty to help him. That God sent him to help us too. You know how she is.”
Tilly made a strangled noise. “An idiot too.”
They’d left her mother an hour ago, praying in her garden, to come here so George and Tilly could serve as witnesses to the last testament of Captain Casrian Dain. They’d taken care of that first. If she was going to do this to save her mother, she wanted everything in writing. In Toam, you wanted the money up front. In the city, they wrote everything down. The witch hunter had looked at her like she was crazy when she told him Tilly and George were the most reliable people in town.
She didn’t argue as the old woman continued to berate her. For the most part, she agreed with Tilly. Shewasan idiot for agreeing to take a man she hated into the Black Woods to hunt a witch nesting at the heart of it. But she couldn’t stay here for another winter, watching while her mother got sicker and sicker, with barely enough food, and the darkness in the woods creeping slowly toward their door. She had to do this, not only for her mother, but for Tilly and George too. For all of the people living at the edges of the kingdom with nowhere else to go.
If it was a witch making the woods sick, maybe if she helped the witch hunter kill it, then the woods could heal and Toam could survive.
“If it gets too bad,” she said, “I’ll leave him and get out.”
They weren’t friends. She had no illusions about that.
Tilly spread a square of cloth on the wooden table and started loading charms onto it. “This one is to prevent her from scrying you. You don’t need to do anything with it, just keep it near you. If you shove it into the bottom of your bags, that will be fine. This one will hide your presence from any of her familiars. And this one will repel mild attacks. If you see any Lorsan along the way, you’ll want to gather it up. You won’t be able to make a potion out of it on the road, but even breathing in the scent of the flowers will help keep your head clear.”
Rowan shook her head. Lorsan was considered good luck, but she didn’t see herself taking the time to gather flowers on this trip. “It’s too late in the season for Lorsan.”
“Keep an eye out. It’s good magic, though even Lorsan won’t help if she decides to throw the full force of her power behind an attack.” She dropped another charm onto the cloth, then knotted the corners closed.
“That last one is to stop a babe from planting. Even if you haven’t seen his cock yet, I saw the way he was looking at you this morning.”
“He looks at me like he thinks I’m a witch.”
Tilly snorted. “I saw the way you were looking at him too.”
Tilly was wrong. But she meant well, and Rowan wasn’t going to argue. She took the little bundle and shoved it into her bag. “How much do I owe you?”
The captain had given her a few coins to leave with her mother while they were gone. She could spare some for Tilly too.
“Nothing. If he manages to kill the witch, then it helps us all. Consider this my contribution to the cause.”
Tilly was gruff and coarse, but she’d been like a second mother to Rowan since she’d moved in down the road. Tilly never gave her charms away for free, and here she’d done it twicein a week. She was growing soft in her old age. On impulse, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Tilly’s neck. Tilly stiffened for a second, then her arms came around Rowan and hugged her tight.
