The cowslip grew in a patch beside the blacksmith’s fence. Satina filled the basket Hadja had given her with the herb, concentrating on plucking instead of crushing as the woman demonstrated. The sun slipped past mid-day while she searched for the plants Hadja needed, fetching them in baskets the woman thrust through the doorway and then retrieving an empty one with another order. Now her back warmed under the white shift she’d traded for her traveling gown. The wool cincher grew moist at the small of her back, and her forehead beaded with small droplets.
The room wasn’t big enough to warrant this much labor, but the bed had looked perfectly cozy. A pile of quilts and a few coals underneath and Satina could already imagine how well she’d sleep. She plucked and sweated and tried her best not to curse the Skinner for her troubles.
When the basket overflowed with cowslip, she stood and earned a squeak of terror from the girl beside the fence. The blacksmith’s daughter, Maera, had wandered through the railings. She squatted against a fencepost, but jumped to her feet when Satina unfolded and peered across the grass tips at her.
Her cheeks had long tear tracks washed clean. Her hands still clutched a familiar, thin box. She blinked red-rimmed eyes, and her mouth opened and closed without sound. She stood almost as tall as Satina, but her cheeks still held the rosy blush of youth underneath the filth.
“Oh.” The girl grabbed a handful of skirt with her free hand. She hiked the fabric up and prepared to step back through the fence.
“It’s okay.” Satina made her voice as friendly as possible. She smiled, and let her goodmother lineage shine fully through. “Stay put. I was just heading back.”
“Wait.” The girl’s shoulders lowered. She watched her feet, shifting her weight back and forth between them. “Is it true what they’re saying, that you’re a Granter?”
“I’ve been called worse.” She let the basket rest against her hip. “I’m Satina.”
“Maera. The blacksmith is my dad. Are you going to stay here?”
“Maybe.” At least long enough to get a night’s sleep. If the Starlights moved on, maybe longer wouldn’t be so bad. She did owe Marten a peek at the thistledown. “For a little while.”
“Are the Starlights after you?” Her eyes darted back toward the shed.
Not good. If the town blamed her arrival for the gang’s, they’d toss her to the wolves for certain. “I can’t imagine why they would be. No.”
“They’re all staying at the inn.” Maera’s eyes stretched wide. “I don’t think they even have enough rooms.”
“Well then, maybe they won’t stay long.” And maybe she wouldn’t either.
“Do you grant wishes?” Maera’s eyes went wide and glossy. She swished her skirts and held the Skinner’s toy in front of her chest. Old enough for that then, not quite a child.
“I do what I can to help,” Satina answered.
“I—”
Someone shouted from the road. Satina ducked back into the grass without thinking. Maera had done the same. The girl huddled at the base of the fencepost, but whatever she saw in front of her father’s shop had her scooting through the long stems, back into the weeds. She bumped into Satina, then settled next to her and mouthed the word, “gang.”
Men’s voices drifted through the afternoon heat. She heard Vane call out Maera’s father, ask him about repairs. Thanks to his earlier trick, Satina could recognize the man’s voice without needing to see his face. She’d probably hear it in her sleep tonight, spend the rest of her days trying to sort out what type of magic let him speak to a whole town at once. He didn’t use it now, and they were left to guess at what he asked the blacksmith to attend to.
When her father bellowed Maera’s name, the girl cringed and flashed her a look of panic. Not the most convenient twist of events—the girl was already looking to her, asking for something Satina’s blood would give her little opportunity to refuse. She nodded, smiled her best goodmotherly reassurance and stood up a fraction before Maera followed suit.
There’d be no turning back now. She saw it in the father’s eyes when he spotted them together. Not rage, as she’d expected, but a hint of deep thoughts brewing. They damn sure involved her now, and being part of that huge man’s plans made her legs tremble a little despite her resolve or the sudden pressure of the young woman’s palm against hers. Maera flinched under her father’s gaze. She squeezed Satina’s fingers and called back, “Here!”
Worse than the blacksmith’s reaction was the man’s who stood beside him. Vane leaned against the shed support as if he owned the place. He did, in a fashion, if you could believe the mark that one of his men now painted carefully on the building’s frame. Starlight. They had a bottle of glowing paint that could have only come from one person. Had Marten given it to them willingly? She bit her lip and tried not to think of what they might have done to him if he’d resisted.
Vane’s eyes lit like torches when they found her standing amidst the weeds and holding the girl’s hand. His full lips curved into a bow, a dangerous smile that had even more plans behind it. Satina met his gaze, but kept her mouth still, her face blank. Let him think what he would. Let him take whatever interest in her he liked. Her task was already set—protect the girl at her side.
Whatever plans she’d had of her own evaporated in those dark, terrified eyes, in the face of one question, do you grant wishes? She had to stay now, and if it were in her power, she had to help. She had no problem with the Starlight gang, but if the look on Vane’s face meant anything, she would sooner or later.
☼
“They tagged the blacksmith’s.” She sat on the stool she’d claimed for her own, combing the last few tangles from her hair. Hadja stirred the cauldron over the flames, and the earthy scent of tubers cooking filled the cottage, overpowering even the herbs. “Half the town, I suspect.”
The woman only snorted at the revelation and continued her cooking. “Eh. I suspect Cygnus can look out for his family. Don’t worry about your Skinner none, either. He knows how to take care of himself.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Probably crawled into a corner somewhere to wait them out.”
“They had that paint he uses.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s not my Skinner.”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes.” She stood up and pulled her hair back behind her shoulders, a silver cloud that hung to her waist and dripped tiny water spots on the floorboards. “You did, and he’s not.”
Hadja could take that little idea and stuff it in her pot. She hadn’t even tried to keep her assumptions to herself, and Satina feared she’d say or do something embarrassing if she let it go unchecked. Let the woman tease her about her figure again. She’d welcome that compared to the suggestive snickers anytime they mentioned Marten’s name.
“We’ll need another potato.” Hadja sniffed at her stew and gave it a fierce stir. “And a few more carrots.”
“I’ll get them.” She’d already fetched more than enough, but Hadja meant for her to earn her night’s sleep and then some. She pulled her cloak from the hook by the front door and slipped out. The moon already looked less full—she could feel it, the ebb of power. The air still held the day’s warmth thanks to a few low clouds. She wandered around to the back of the cottage to the only strip of well-trimmed lawn.
A crooked privy stood at the far edge, backed up to the line where trees began again. At the rear of the house a simple metal pump stood beside a wooden barrel that served as Hadja’s wash bin. Satina passed this and opened the door set into a lump of ground. A dark stair led down to the root cellar, and she risked a little of her own magic to make her cloak glow enough to guide her steps. Her dust pouch still lay on the bed with her other bags. In only her shift and the cloak, she trod barefoot into the cellar to pilfer the woman’s stockpile of roots.
The steps complained, creaking and releasing puffs of dust. At the bottom, the soft dirt floor chilled her feet. Sturdy shelves lined the narrow s
pace, and every one overflowed with baskets of roots and vegetables and bundles of dried herbs. The space smelled like a musty version of Hadja’s home, and lit only by the glow of her cloak, the shadows danced and revealed more sigils. Even here, Marten’s hand had worked its magic.
She went directly to the potatoes, but her eyes wandered, reading each spell and understanding how they played into one another. Close to the stairs, the sigils spoke of protection, barriers to evil intentions. These would keep out the weaker-minded intruders. She snatched the fattest potato she could find and bent down to a basket of wilting carrots. Under the bottom shelf, a row of clay pots hunkered, and these glowed in the magical light, flaring with signs like fever, pox, croup and death. She squinted at that last one and made a note to keep on her host’s good side—or take her meals elsewhere.
Deeper in, the shelves spoke harsher warnings. Satina spied at least one curse on prying fingers, cringed and turned back toward the stair. A flash of something drew her eyes back. A shimmer near the floor reflected both her cloak’s light and the nearest sigils. A twist of sack cloth covered the item that leaned against the farthest wall. It stood shoulder high and had little depth, but the bottom corner didn’t quite reach the ground, and whatever hid beneath the fabric peeked out at her, shiny, smooth. Mirror.
Had the shard around Hadja’s neck come from this? A Kingdoms’ relic hidden amongst the woman’s stores? She paused and read the marks again, the blue glow that lined the shelf lips, the stairs themselves, even the ceiling supports. Her eyes drifted over one mark before she registered the symbol. Her breath caught, and she went back to it, examined it for any error. Four dark wedges, like pieces of a pie, Shades, without a doubt. Why would Hadja have a tag in the cellar?
She squinted her eyes and the symbols flared brighter. Some of them, a few twists in the corner, a symbol like a bird over the last shelf, she didn’t recognize. Dangerous to move then, with marks that could mean anything, with a Shade tag on the rafter overhead. But there on the next beam was the Starlight mark as well, a starburst around an empty circle. The two tags glowed from the same space, and neither one gave way. It made no sense at all.
She returned to the stairs and relative safety. At least the wards there were meant for obvious thievery. At the bottom step she looked back again, and this time she noticed more bundles. More sack cloth wrappings in the corners, beneath a shelf, under the stairs. Did they all hold relics like the mirror? Or was her mind conspiring with Hadja’s paranoia to lead her into fancy? They could be anything. Tools, sundries. Old Magic.
No. The sigils only had her spooked. Hadja’s secrets were not her business, but the woman’s stew was. She scurried up the steps to the door with the vegetables tucked into a scoop of her shift fabric. The cellar door weighed more than she could manage with one free arm, and she dropped the veggies into the grass long enough to close it. Once it was safely latched, she scooped the bounty up again and tripped lightly back to the cottage door.
Voices spoke inside. She could hear them, muted, but clear enough to recognize the exaggerated pitches of their visitor. It gave her a moment to steel herself, brush one hand through her damp hair, and shake her cloak forward enough to cover most of her thin shift. If Hadja had planned the Skinner’s visit, she did a brilliant job of looking both surprised and apologetic when Satina pushed her way back inside. The twinkle in her eye, however, hinted of mischief.
“There you are, Satina.” Hadja scrambled from the stool faster than she’d thought her capable. “Sit. I’ll take those.”
“Yes, Satina,” Marten lingered over her name. “Sit.” He perched on the other stool, leaving her the one their host had just vacated. There were already two bowls steaming on the table, two spoons set beside them.
“Stew’s ready.” Hadja didn’t make eye contact. She shuffled to the hearth with the vegetables that she quite clearly hadn’t needed. “I’ll eat by the fire.”
They’d given her little choice, had obviously conspired against her. Satina inhaled the delicious scent of the stew, gave in and sidled around Marten and into the space by the cupboards before taking her place at the table. She scooted the stool a touch further from his and perched on it.
“I smelled the stew all the way from town, Hadj.” The Skinner’s voice teased either her or the old woman. Satina stared at her bowl so as not to find out. “Her cooking is legendary,” he whispered so that his target could only be her.
Hadja grunted, and Satina scooped up a spoonful of broth and tasted it. The herbs blended into warmth and health on her tongue, delicious, maybe even legendary. “I can see why. This is really good.”
“What do you know?” Hadja squatted by the fire. She ladled a bowlful for herself and grinned like a gargoyle. “You’ve been on the road too long. Anything would taste legendary.” She teased him back now, and it relaxed the mood a tad. Satina settled more firmly on her seat and dug into her dinner with less decorum.
“How long have you been on the road, my dear?”
“Too long.” She set her spoon down and looked up in time to catch him watching her. His eyes darted away, and the twisty smile returned before she could pin any emotion to the look. “Long enough to look forward to a good night’s rest in a real bed,” she added.
“That’s too bad.” Now he twinkled again. His eyes flashed brighter, not quite a surge of power, but a tint of a secret he was dying to tell. “We have Tinkers in the woods tonight, and I thought you might like to join me for a visit.”
“Tinkers?” She couldn’t help the waver of excitement.
Marten’s amusement shone in his face, but she didn’t care. She wanted to go. Of course she did. He’d have known that all along.
“What are the Gentry doing mucking about in my woods,” Hadja grumbled from the hearth. “Bad enough the gangs have found us, if you ask me.”
“They’re in the pocket, Hadj. No need to worry. Your little patch is safe.” He rolled his eyes for Satina’s sake, earned only another grunt from Hadja. “If you’re not interested, I won’t be offended. I have some trading to do, but Tinkers can be a rowdy lot.”
“Well, I was looking forward to sleeping inside.”
He looked genuinely startled, and she enjoyed it for a few moments, scooped up another bite of stew while the muscles in his face warred over the proper reaction. She chewed the carrot a few times extra and then let him off the hook.
“I would love to visit with the Gentry.”
“You see.” His eyes flashed at the same moment the fire crackled. Satina scooped up another bit of potato and tried not to notice the old woman by the fire, rocking with silent laughter. “I just knew you would.”
Chapter Seven
Unlikely Page 6