Page 72 of Homeward for a Spell

“So the cabin magic was meant for him?” Sage guesses.

“I didn’t learn to cast a homecoming spell till I was sixteen. By then, I was trusted to stay away from the temple overnight. I’d sneak extra provisions with me—a half-emptied wine jug, another sack of potatoes and onions, a dry log—to reset the spell for the next trip. The magic only lasts so long as the components do, as you found out. But it was long enough to keep us warm and fed for a night, so we’d no need to chop wood or fix a pot. We could tend to…other matters.” Somehow, Wren’s blush deepens further, until her cheeks nearly match her hair. “Much as it seems you two did.”

Araphi grins cheekily at Sage.

As happens worryingly often these days when she looks at the bard, Sage feels like a cup brimming over. She reaches out to take Araphi’s hand atop the bar counter (nothing more than a pine plank propped over barrels) and squeezes tight for lack of proper words. “So where is Jasper not-a-friend now?” she asks Wren instead.

Her flushed cheeks fade as she stares down into the depths of her mug. “There was one moon I couldn’t make it. Momma was laid up at home with a sickness, and they couldn’t spare me so long. When I went down to the cabin the next new moon, I found a letter. He was going down into the kingdom, to Shearwater. He wanted to find a big ship to sail on, see lands outside our little valley. Jasper planned to petition them at Briarwall to let him through the gate. Convince them he wasn’t a threat; that he wanted to be of service to the kingdom and the crown.” Wren’s lips tug into a sneer. “That’s the only way they’ll let us through—if they decide we can be of use to them, whatever that means. And only then if you catch them in a good mood. Helps if you have something to offer, and they’re especially bored. He was always a good storyteller. Like you.” She nods at Araphi. “He said I ought to come when I could. To head for the ports and ask about him, as that’s where he intended to go. That’s when I started begging—convinced my mothers to leave the temple for Arkney. At least we weren’t alone anymore. But that was four years ago, and I…I haven’t made it south just yet.”

Araphi frowns. “Why not?” she asks, whisper-soft.

“Well. This is home, isn’t it? Not the rooms or the roofs or the things in between, but the people. My mothers. The little ones. This jackwagon.” She toasts fondly to the bartender, who scowls by the fermenting barrels. “I think of leaving them, and I expect it would be like cutting out my heart and leaving that behind too. You know that feeling?”

Sage swallows, now staring down into her own drink rather than letting her gaze wander to meet Araphi’s. If it did, then everything inside her that’s too much to contain would surely spill over, and how would she ever put it back again?

In late winter, Sage, for the first time since childhood, plants a seed with the expectation of watching it sprout.

Like many in the Rookery, her family grew a few potatoes and chives and mint for tea in old, overcrowded buckets crammed into the one sunny slice of alleyway between their home and the next. Ollie’s family were laborers who ferried across the Willowthorn at dawn during the warmer months to work in the orchards south of the Golden and Copper and Ivory courts; likely as not, they still are, though most of the capital’s produce comes from farmland beyond the city’s hexagonal, black stone walls. They would bring home bruised fruits for bartering and for canning. One summer, Sage and Ollie snuck out to the western corner of the city, which used to be part of the Rookery until the residents were scooped eastward in a land grab by the banks in the Copper Court. A brambly field had grown up around the old stone foundations, already crumbling. The two of them squatted down, dug up a patch of rich-smelling earth with their bare hands, and spit apple seeds into the soil, hoping to grow a secret tree just for them. Then Ollie’s father found out they’d skipped school to trespass, and they were forbidden from going back. When Sage mentioned her own plans to sneak back to check on the tree, Ollie pouted so heavily at the prospect of being left out of an adventure that Sage swore an oath not to return alone, and never did.

She still thinks of the apple tree, and whether or not it grew. It seems unlikely with nobody to tend to it, but then, what good has human meddling ever done for much of Harrow? What good has she ever done, with all of her adventuring, retrieving lost artifacts and rare flowers for clients who, for all she knew, might have been just as bad as Menorath Clauneck? Sage wonders this as she helps a man called Almond prepare Arkney’s strange greenhouse for spring. In what would be the upper floor of one segment of the longhouse, such as Wren’s family occupies, the roof has been first replaced by a collection of sturdy old windowpanes set in rough-cut lumber, then reinforced and heavily sloped to stop any buildup of snowfall from breaking the glass. A few of the panes are hinged to swing open and welcome fresh air as the weather warms, which Almond assures Sage won’t happen for a month or two yet.

It’s not enough.

She climbs the ladder with two good legs, her knee having healed at last, and checks the seals around the glass. Where the cold wind whistles through, she adds fresh pine tar with a paintbrush. All the while, Almond chatters as he tends to the winter crops—lettuce, carrots, parsley, peas, and all manner of root vegetables. Sage’s mind wanders to Margot, perhaps bustling around her greenhouses right now. Does her best friend know she’s gone missing? Is she scared for Sage, or simply annoyed? Sage has been out of contact for months (she thinks mournfully of the compact she left in her pack, wherever that is now). But she’s dropped out of touch for longer stretches than that while chasing one adventure or another.

Before she packs up for the day, Almond invites her to plant a round of parsley seeds and gives her a tiny pot to take with her for her trouble. “Put it on the windowsill,” he instructs, “and water it deeply once a week.”

Sage hoists the pot to examine it with a skeptical eye. “Wouldn’t it be a lot safer in the greenhouse with you?”

“Parsley’s hard to kill. Won’t look like much at first, but it’ll put taproots down quick.”

She carries the pot back to their quarters, setting it dubiously on the sill in the room she shares with Araphi. The bard sits in the chaise by the warming stove, her long, loose hair draped over the back as she works at one of her boots, stitching a crack in the leather to sew a thin, new patch over it. They’re beautifully made things, though not particularly built for Northlands winters. Araphi sets it in her lap as she hears Sage enter and turns to her with a fond smile. “Have fun in the greenhouse?”

“Almond gave me a plant.”

“I see that. Well, I’m sure it’ll be very happy in your pack. Perhaps it’s always wanted to see the kingdom.”

“Araphi…should we talk?” Sage pries the words out of herself painfully, like shucking an oyster without a knife. “About what comes next?”

Araphi’s amused smile turns tight as she picks up the boot again, jabbing her needle through the leather with unnecessary force. “Not today,” she says lightly, pleasantly, repeating the phrase that she throws out every time the ghost of the future rises.

They really should talk. They can’t hide here in Arkney forever. Remy will have made contact with the Claunecks ages ago, or with Menorath at least. How long might it take her to put the pieces together and determine that Phi Runesong was their missing heir? If Araphi never returns, she’ll surely send a fresh party to comb the Northlands for her niece and the dragon’s tooth come the spring melt, and Sage won’t risk Arkney by drawing any more adventurers to the village. Once the weather turns, they’ll have to leave—though where to and whether they’ll arrive there together remains undecided, like everything else.

And yet.

“Very well,” Sage says, relieved, and crosses the room to brace a hand on each arm of the chair, trapping Araphi. “What shall we do instead?”

She grins up at Sage. “If you’re finished for the day, we can see what’s cooking in the mess hall. You look hungry, Ranger.”

“I’m starving, Bard.” Sage leans in to kiss her, to taste her.

Soon, both the boot and dinner are forgotten entirely.

The truth is that, as much as this feels like a life Sage could love, it isn’t real. And it certainly cannot last. Every moment moves them nearer to having to admit this to themselves and to each other. But they aren’t there quite yet, and there’s no reason to talk about it tonight.

They still have time.

28