Page 34 of Homeward for a Spell

In front of them, the young man’s eyes are saucers, and he’s got both his hands up. His tankard of ale shakes in one fist. “I didn’t mean anything by it, ladies,” he says in a rush. “I swear. I just love music. My ma was a singer—just for us, in the house—but the bard here sang some of her old songs and I wanted…I just wanted to thank her.”

A little crowd has gathered around them, and some of the villagers glare at Sage.

“I’ve got this.” Araphi squeezes Sage’s shoulder once and steps out from behind her. “Really, it’s very much a part of bard life.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sage mutters, running a hand over her face. Her cheeks blossom pink. “I saw him coming toward you and…”

“Really, I’m fine,” Araphi says as gently as possible. “I can handle it, I promise.”

Sage glances toward the door. “Of course you can. I’ve got to go. I need to…I need something out there…” She gestures toward the exit.

Without another word, she flees the lodge. Araphi yearns to go after her, but suddenly Bramble is there along with Nura, shaking her hand and giving her a full mug of cider. Araphi is pulled away from the wall and brought into a circle of villagers, all of them merry and thanking her for the music.

When she glances back at the lodge door, Sage is gone, disappeared somewhere into the night. Araphi misses her more than she has a right to, but that’s a problem for later, she supposes.

13

Sage

When Sage reaches it, the bathhouse certainly isn’t the kind found in cities, with vast marble tubs of enchanted and perfumed water that serve the rich. Nor is it what she’d expected—a simple wooden tub of water warmed on a potbelly stove, which exists in places without spellcasters or mountains of denaris. Instead, after a hike that would indeed be unwelcoming for those not accustomed to slipping through the woods in the middle of the night, she finds a small hot spring—perhaps the reason the people of Hexham decided on this patch of the forest for a permanent encampment in the first place. The steep slope of rocks and roots gives way to a series of rust-colored limestone platforms, looking like a rough staircase for the fabled giants of the Northlands (all gone from Harrow now, along with every god and devil and their earliest creations). On each step, there stands a wooden hut with a loosely thatched roof. She descends to the first and finds it sheltering a pool carved out of the stone. The trees have thinned on the slope so that moonlight shines down, sparkling off the mineral-smelling water through gaps in the roof.

Sage shivers as she strips. It’s even colder out here without the forest to muffle the autumn wind, so that the stars overhead resemble nothing so much as chips of ice. Then she eases into the pool, favoring her aching knee. As she shuts her eyes and sinks below the surface, she sends a prayer up to any divinity of the woods who might hear her that the near-boiling water will wash away her memories of the night, along with the dust of the trail.

Foolish. She was foolish to lose her temper like that when they’d barely been allowed into Hexham in the first place, and when the provisions have yet to be handed over.

The man—hardly more than a boy—had just been swept up in the performance, as was she. But Sage remembers his large hand reaching for Araphi, and the cornered look in her wide brown eyes…

And she remembers another town, another time, another party member.

In a floating tavern built on a raft and anchored in one of the algae-hued channels of the Swamplands, Sage had crossed blades with a bandit for the honor of a fixer like Remy (though not really like Remy) with waving hair as dark as Araphi’s, and eyes the color of green sea glass. She can still feel the throb of a shoulder wound now years old, smell the spilled ale, hear the rustling of footsteps on a rocky slope—

Wait. Not a memory.

In an instant, Sage leans across the damp stone ledge to grab for her daggers among her piled clothing. Of course they’re not there, so she settles on a jagged, fist-sized hunk of limestone that’s come loose from the ledge. She briefly considers dressing, but if she’s about to be ambushed, her tunic won’t stop an arrow. And some villager getting a peek at her before he dies gurgling, throat sliced by her makeshift limestone blade, is the least of her worries. Better that than getting caught out mid-change. She grounds her stance on the rough pool bottom as best she can, preparing herself as the footsteps approach.

“Here you are!” the silhouette of Araphi exclaims from the opening of the hut, breathing hard from the climb.

Sage quickly sets her rock on the ledge behind her, glad for the dark that hides her sheepishness. “Announce your approach next time, will you?”

“Because you’re…er…”

Thank the gods the pool is deep enough to cover what matters, but Sage dips lower anyhow, sinking up to her throat. “No, because I might have stabbed you or bashed you.”

“Right. Next time I’ll shout, ‘I’m not an assassin!’ before entering any room. Will that suffice?”

“Did you need something?” She’s irritable now—with Araphi for turning up when she least wanted to think of her, and with herself, for drifting off into memories that are best left dead and buried.

“I asked after you at the stables, and the stable hand said you’d asked to be pointed toward the baths. Rather, he said: ‘Shouted “baths” at me, she did, then blew out into the night like a storm when I pointed yonder.’ ” Araphi imitates the stable hand’s Midlands accent with an actor’s ease.

“What, was I supposed to bring him flowers?” Sage grumbles.

“Anyhow, I’m as filthy as I’ve ever been, and a good soak sounded so tempting. You don’t mind if I join, do you? I could use another pool, if you’d prefer.”

What can Sage do? Send her out into the near-to-freezing night? If she does, she admits that she cares enough about Araphi’s presence to object to it. “Do as you like, Bard.”

“I will then, Ranger.” There’s mischief in her voice that Sage barely has time to wonder at before Araphi lets her heavy cloak fall to the limestone floor and asks, “Help me, will you? I can get myself into my dresses if I lace them first, but I never can seem to get myself out.”

This dress is a complicated confection, terribly suited for travel or riding, with layers of marigold-orange silk held up by neither sleeves nor straps, only a brown leather corset and the shape of Araphi’s…shape. It must have been in Araphi’s pack, which thankfully wasn’t trampled in the wolf attack. Even if Sage couldn’t see it clearly in the moonlight, she certainly memorized it while watching the bard’s performance in the lodge. Araphi spins toward the hut’s entrance to offer the tightly laced back.