Page 4 of Homeward for a Spell

“And yet I have faith in you. Get a brute or two as well, while you’re at it.”

“I want a healer,” Sage insists. “An acolyte, a woods priest, a medicinal potionsmith, I don’t care. I won’t go without one.”

The Agent quirks one craggy eyebrow. “Aren’t rangers capable of tending to wounds? Haven’t you all got some divine sense for finding blood mushrooms and the like?”

“I can wrap a wound if needed, and yes, I’ve a cursory knowledge of plants with healing properties—in familiar terrain at least. Outside the boundaries of civilized Harrow, less so, and greater injuries are beyond my skills. Besides, I can’t fire a bow and dress a wound at the same time.”

“Very well. Have a healer if it pleases you, and then it’s nothing but clear skies and smooth seas ahead. Figuratively speaking. It’s a week’s journey to Briarwall,” he says, naming the northernmost village on the Queens’ Road—little more than a final military outpost before the crown cedes its hold on the kingdom to the wilds of the Northlands. “Just a day or two’s journey into the Graywood after that, perhaps three, and then the return trip to Kingfisher to meet with the Client’s man and collect our pay. We’ll be gone three weeks, and home before winter really gets going. Then you’ll be rich enough to spend the season in fine style. The whole year, if you wish. What do you say?”

Sage doesn’t like the Agent much.

But he’s right: She is reliable, she is skilled, and she is hungry.

And how long will it be before she gets another chance like this?

Besides, Sage never meant to be stuck in Kingfisher for months. When she thinks of resting in one place all winter long, she starts to feel the old panic that’s never born of danger, only silence and stillness, when there’s nothing in front of her to chase. Luckily for her, there’s always another job to be had…and this one could be the break Sage needs to finally make a name for herself.

“One week till we leave?” she asks.

The Agent’s full lips curl into a triumphant grin. “Shall I buy you another Mare’s Milk to celebrate and start the contract? Or elsewhere. I’ve a room above the Pearl and the Grit; that’s where we’ll hold three days of party auditions starting on the morrow. It should be enough time to give the seeds I’ve planted in adventuring circles the chance to sprout.”

Sage shakes her head and hoists her pack again. “I’ve got preparations to make tonight, but I’ll find you there in the morning.”

“Very well. Until then.”

“Oh, and, Agent?” she calls out, stopping him as he turns toward the mouth of the alley.

“Yes?”

“So you know, we’re putting an injury clause in that contract.”

The Agent smirks. “See? You’re a natural.” He tugs on his knit cap as though tipping the brim, then strolls away.

Tomorrow she’ll begin to plan, to gather supplies with the small advance portion of her pay, to pore over maps as she waits to meet with prospective party members. Tonight, she’s going to find a room to rent, fall asleep on a real mattress instead of a pile of pine needles, and hope to feel like a brand-new ranger when she wakes.

Especially since a trip to the healing house is currently out of her budget.

2

Araphi

Two Days Later

Araphi Clauneck isn’t supposed to be in the Dragon’s Bane, a run-down watering hole deep in the twisting streets of the Rookery. (A rich girl like her isn’t supposed to ever set foot in the most dangerous part of Harrow’s capital city of Ashaway, not that that’s stopped her before.) She isn’t supposed to be drinking phoenix-grade whiskey on an empty stomach. And she most definitely isn’t supposed to be clutching a lute like her life depends on it.

She is, in fact, supposed to be at her own engagement party, an endless and elegant affair hosted at her parents’ mansion on the other side of the river—the third of many such celebrations scheduled over the next few months before her wedding in spring. She’s been engaged since this last spring, and the thought of yet another party to celebrate the match makes her stomach hurt. But maybe that’s just the pint of house ale she drained before the whiskey. Or maybe it’s her nerves. Or maybe it’s the way her mother’s lute keeps poking into her hip bone, as if to remind her that she doesn’t fit in here.

Whatever the cause, it doesn’t matter. Because the bard onstage at the front of the tavern is finishing up their set, which means one thing: It’s Araphi’s turn to perform next.

Hastily, she glances around the tavern. It’s crowded tonight, as it always is at the beginning of the month, when the Dragon hosts bards from all over the kingdom to compete for a prize—really just a small purse of coins, hard-raised by the music-loving crowd—but one that carries with it the ringing approval of all the bards gathered there. In addition to being famous for its whiskey and the number of people injured in bar fights every month, the Dragon has a legendary reputation among musicians. The owner, Clara Morley, is a famous bard herself, and she built the Dragon in the same neighborhood where she grew up. She named it after her professional nemesis, Laudie “the Dragon” Shelton, who Clara supposedly bested for years in music competitions, and who she eventually married. (That’s another story altogether.) Tonight, Clara, a beautiful Black woman with gray braids piled atop her head, and Laudie, a box-shaped red-haired woman, hold court at a small table in the center of the tavern, right in front of the stage.

The Dragon’s Bane itself is built into a former church—one of the few mildly extravagant places in a district that otherwise runs from modest to tumbledown. That’s because it was built by a king many decades ago, ostensibly as a gift to the poor. Araphi learned about it at Auximia, and how, being unable to find a holy person in the capital willing to live in the discomfort of the Rookery, the crown was forced to abandon it. With its soaring, vaulted ceiling, it has incredible acoustics, and Clara and Laudie have made the space their own. All the pews have been removed, and a wide stage has replaced the altar. Flickering torches are set into the stone columns, and candlelight from candelabras taller than Araphi dances off the arched rows of stained-glass windows, still decorated with pictures of gods and heroes. Small round tables fill the nave. There’s a bar along one side of the church, the wall behind it hung with instruments Clara and Laudie play on occasion. Because it’s Open Stage Night, the place is packed, and a low hum of noise fills the room as the bard currently performing plays their last notes.

“Another, another!” calls out the crowd as the bard bows.

Araphi’s heart races as the bard looks toward Clara, who raises a tankard and bellows in a smoky, melodic voice, “We’ll have one more, then!”

The couple beside Araphi at the bar cheers. They’re a pair of brawny men with metalworker tattoos decorating their enormous, entwined bare arms. Clearly drunk and having a marvelous time, they’ve been loudly singing along to a tawdry bunch of drinking songs every child in Harrow probably knows—nothing like the haunting, relatively obscure ballad Araphi’s prepared. The Dragon doesn’t seem like a ballad-friendly place now that she considers it, but Araphi has been working on this song for weeks. In her parents’ wine cellars, with the door locked, yes, but she’s finally figured out the tricky third section. She’s desperate to try it on a live audience instead of dusty bottles of Harrow’s finest vintage from one of her two fathers’ vineyards south of Ashaway. Ballad notwithstanding, she’s worked hard to fit in here.