Page 23 of Homeward for a Spell

“No bringing those in the fire back at least,” Nura says. “But we can look for the others once you get that ankle sorted out.”

“I can help with that,” Bramble says, making their way over to the fire. “Some of my healer kit was carried off with the horses, but I can make do.”

Araphi’s stomach drops at his words. “The horses?” she says, her voice a croak.

Bramble nods once, holding her gaze. “They came untied and took off near the start of the fight, I think. All of them are gone except for Sage’s Reaper; somehow, she summoned him back mid-battle before he got too far. The rest are probably halfway to Kingfisher by now.”

“With our saddlebags and the goods that weren’t yet unpacked from them,” Remy adds bitterly, coming to sit down by the fire.

“I’m sorry,” Araphi manages. “That’s my fault. I thought I tied them up, but…”

Sage shakes her head. “It’s not your fault, and if they’d all been tied up securely, they’d probably be wolf dinner by now. If anyone’s to blame here, it’s me. My party, my responsibility. I should’ve made sure the saddlebags were off.”

“I…I didn’t think to take them off when I tied them up. I should have known.”

Sage doesn’t insult her by arguing, only sighs more deeply. “Well, I should’ve taken the first watch. I shouldn’t have gone to my tent early. I should’ve—”

“You can’t possibly be responsible for everything,” Araphi interrupts, reaching out a hand to touch Sage’s arm.

“But she is,” Remy says darkly, lighting his pipe. “She’s the party leader.”

Sage glares at him for a moment. “My tent is mostly unharmed. Whoever wants it can have it. The rest of us will have to sleep on the ground.”

“I’ll sleep on the ground,” Araphi volunteers.

Sage shrugs. “As you will. I’m going to see what I can scavenge. Nura, you keep an eye on things. Bramble, see about Tea’s ankle and any other injuries, please.”

“What about me?” Araphi asks.

“Try not to fall off anything or make things worse,” Remy snaps as he stomps in the direction where his tent used to stand.

Remy’s words bounce off Araphi—he’s always vaguely cranky with her, and she’s heard worse in her aunt’s drawing room—but Araphi wonders if Sage regrets bringing her along now too. She blows out a breath as she watches Sage walk away. Guilt settles in her stomach. They’re down to just one tent. All the horses are gone except Reaper, and their supplies are questionable at best. And a lot of that’s Araphi’s fault. There’s no way she can charm or buy her way out of this. No. Tonight she has to sit in discomfort and disappointment.

Which she can do on a figurative level. But she can’t just sit here by the fire while everyone else cleans up her mess.

“I’ll go look for your books, Tea,” Araphi says, standing up. Her head spins for a moment and her arm aches from the wolf’s poison, but she grits her teeth through the pain, which she certainly has no right to complain about.

9

Sage

By the time Sage has gathered and piled up everything they can salvage—her personal supplies and weaponry, their packs, fewer than half of their food stores that haven’t been trampled into the dirt, and the scattered cold-weather clothing and blankets left unshredded by teeth and claws—Bramble is nearly done tending to the party’s assorted injuries by firelight. They finish wrapping Tea’s ankle in cabbage leaf and cloth while lecturing the despondent spellcaster about keeping her weight off it as much as possible over the next two days.

“Can’t you heal it now?” Remy asks impatiently, ever an eye on making it to the Swallow before the season turns.

“I prefer the gifts of the natural world to the gifts of greater beings when the injury isn’t urgent, and when remedies will work as well as magic.”

Remy shoots Sage yet another disappointed look, and she can’t blame him; trust her to hire the only healer in Harrow who is shy of beseeching their god and prefers poultices to prayers.

Araphi’s forearm is similarly wrapped, after slathering it with a paste of yarrow and calendula and an herb Bramble tended and harvested in their home village, which they say will leech the poison from the shallow wound and help it heal. Thankfully, the wolf’s barbed spine only gouged the skin rather than piercing deeply. Her swoon had as much to do with shock as pain. “It’ll ache as it’s mending,” they caution Araphi, “and it may scar a bit. But look at it this way: You’ll be able to say you had a brush with a barbed wolf and lived to tell.”

With a withering glare, Remy dissuades Bramble from examining him, before stalking off toward the ruins of his tent. Meanwhile, Nura is the only one uninjured and seemingly unbothered among them, munching happily on a squash and cabbage hand pie scooped out of the wreckage. (It only had a little dirt on it, she insisted.)

At least they still have Reaper, ever loyal. Sage had caught a flash of him around the time the wolf grew threefold, and diverted just long enough to whistle him back. He’s no worse for wear, thank the gods. Sage stands at the edge of the firelight, stroking his flank soothingly even as she twists the knife of her own shame and guilt to slice at her heart. Araphi is sorry for failing to tie up the horses properly and neglecting to relieve them of their burdens, costing them their mounts and more. Tea is sorry for casting an enlargement spell on the wolf when she meant to shrink it, costing them their supplies. But this really is all on Sage, the loss credited to her poor leadership. If she hadn’t retired early, if she had checked on the horses and the perimeter before retiring, if she hadn’t allowed visions of Araphi to distract her…

A twig snaps underfoot behind her, and Sage tenses a moment before Bramble announces, “Your turn, boss.”

“I’m fine,” she insists, then stifles a hiss as she turns. The fight and the collision with a tree trunk certainly didn’t do her any favors, but she clenches her teeth. The last thing her party needs now is a weakened leader.