She remembered that he’d gotten in at midnight last night, and he’d still been up before her. “Are you sure you slept enough? And you should get some breakfast.”
“Mmgh. I will. And I’ll get some more sleep after this. If the kittens let me.”
Agna grinned despite herself at the thought of Keifon trying to sleep while Shadow and Lulu flanked him on the pillows and meowed. “Tell them to get to work!”
He chuckled. “I haven’t seen any mice, have you?”
“No, but that could be a coincidence.”
“Ha.” He fell quiet as they passed under another canopy of leaves. “Thanks for going along with getting them. I like having them around. The house is more… homey. Especially when you’re at work.”
“Well. I’m glad somebody knows how to run a household. I don’t know the first thing about pest control.” She remembered Lulu curling up in the crook of her knee as she read last night. Driving away mice was just an excuse. “And I like having them around, too.”
“I’m not sure I know how to run a household. I’m still figuring this out, too.”
“That’s all right. Just means we’re in the same boat.”
“Yeah.”
The grinding sound was loud enough to prevent conversation now, and the way past the Tufarian construction site was fenced off, so Agna and Keifon crossed the street. Agna’s skin tingled with residual energy, and the hair stood up along her arms. Working side by side with the other engineers and construction workers, teams of earthbreakers shifted and fused the massive stones into place. The walls of the church were going up now, inside their wooden scaffolding. The church would open before winter. And good for them, Agna reasoned. They helped people just as the Balance healers did, even if they were more pushy about preaching along with their healing.
Shaking off her thoughts, Agna raised her voice over the construction noise. “Does it ever get easier, though? Keeping track of things? Making sure the milk gets used before it goes bad? Trying to find enough furniture without going broke? There’s always something. It’s exhausting.”
“I… I think it does. It has to. And you’re so good at planning, I know you’ll get the hang of it. I’m glad we can work together.”
“Of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He didn’t reply, and so Agna’s mind wandered as they passed by Wildern’s closely spaced houses, and the construction site receded behind them. The architecture was nothing like home — too much wood and plaster, not enough stone and brick, except in the churches. But the hills and the heat and the sheer density of human activity made it feel closer to home than she’d expected. After two years of life in a tent city, Agna was glad to be back in a real city. Wildern hummed with potential. There was still so much she could accomplish here.
“I think I’ve got a start on my first round of backers,” she said. “Agent Shora and Quasta Kalen, and then I'd like to get someone from the Church of Tufar and someone else from the logging industry. Quasta Kalen isn’t entirely on board yet, but I’ll work on it.”
“And you’ll just take her resistance as a challenge.”
“Yep. It’s worth it. I’m hoping I can find her some pieces for her collection. Maybe it’ll come off as flattery, and maybe it’ll come off as proving my usefulness. Both, probably. And I’ve been looking for a way in for the artists. If I sell a painting or two for them, they’ll be more likely to work with me. Win-win.”
“And you’ll take a commission, right?” His voice was light; he was teasing her a little, not unkindly.
“Win-win-win, then.” She shifted the butcher’s package to her other hip.
“Best possible outcome.”
“Of course.” Their steps had found an easy rhythm down the hill. The western side of the Benevolent Union base pulled alongside them in the middle distance, a block away. “…How is the apprenticeship going?”
“Good. Really good. Dr. Rushu has me studying medical texts from Yanwei and Kavera. Finding where the gaps in my training are. Filling in more about, oh, you know, chronic conditions, and tests. In the Army they didn’t assume that we’d have testing facilities in the field, so they didn’t go into it much. Lately it’s obstetrics. We kind of skipped that in the Army. Because, well. Not much call for it.” He laughed nervously, and went on before Agna could react. “It doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, working with the other apprentices. They’re fun, most of the time. And I don’t think anyone thinks of me… well, poorly. For being on their level.”
Agna had heard a couple of thoughtless comments in passing, from the other staffers. She’d tried not to compile a mental list of the culprits for future reference. “If they did, they’d be wrong. And you’re in an unusual situation anyway, because of your experience.”
“Hm. Anyway, the kids don’t seem to mind me. Guess I’m kind of a…a big brother figure, to them.”
“Ah.”
He looked over at her, narrowing his eyes. “I’m not old enough to be anything else. They’re what, twelve to eighteen? Not that much younger than you.”
“I didn’t say a word. And I am so much more mature than that. You take that back.”
Keifon’s unease broke up into chuckling. “Yes, yes, fine.” The last corner of the Benevolent Union base passed by them. “I mean,” he said quietly. “Us. Not that much younger than us.”
“That’s right. You aren’t going to pull your cart ahead of me by pretending we aren’t in the same race. You’re stuck with me and my post-Academy flailing, buddy.”
“Good,” he said. Agna focused on the shop windows on her side. Keifon hitched the bread bag higher in his arms, and the paper crinkled. She felt his quiet mood shift, like an oncoming thunderhead.
“You’re going to say something you’ll regret,” Agna broke in. “Go ahead and say it, get it over with.”
He growled under his breath.
“Am I wrong?”
“No. I just — rrgh. Let me think.”
You’re only going to make it worse, Agna thought, and managed not to say. She hadn’t meant to send him into a loop of self-recrimination by bringing up the apprenticeship. She’d apologize after he got out whatever he meant to say.
“I know I should be moving on,” he said. “I didn’t come here to… to sponge off you, and-and keep you from…” His arm tightened around the bag, and he left the thought hanging. “I should move forward. I should get to the matchmaker and stop… you know.”
“No,” Agna said, her mind lining up rebuttals like a rank of toy soldiers. “I don’t know.”
“Exploiting your goodwill.”
The hot, strangled sensation in her throat made it too difficult to speak at first, although plenty of words fought to get out. She held her grip on her silence, indulging the anger, knowing he hated it when she didn’t reply. It was petty and spiteful. Shame crowded in with her irritation at his demons.
Finally he cracked. “What?”
Her voice wasn’t quite steady. “If I needed a place to stay, and you had the space, would you feel exploited?”
“No, I-I’d… I’d just be glad I could help you. For once,” he added in a mutter.
Agna clenched her jaw and deliberately let it go. “Then let me make it clear. I do not feel exploited. I offered you a place with me as long as you need it. You aren’t sponging, you’re contributing to the household just as much as I am. The only difference between us is how we invested what we made on the road. I put it all into the building, you put yours in the bank and gave some to Nachi. And there’s nothing wrong with that.” She stopped in the shade of a sweet gum tree, and he turned to face her. They had drawn closer to the canal, and the humidity was oppressive and algae-scented even in the shade. They’d begun to have a pleasant morning walk together, and now, between his secrecy over the scavenged foodstuffs and this business about their living situation, things had turned sour. She would not let this stand, worrying about it all through her shift. “What’s actuall
y wrong?”
Keifon set down the sack of bread at the base of the tree. His joints cracked as he stretched, then folded his arms and avoided her eyes. Agna waited. Wary of setting a package of meat on the ground even when wrapped up, she held onto the mystery bundle from the distant butcher’s shop.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said. “And I didn’t, and then I thought I could just show you, and I wouldn’t have to really talk about it.”
She relaxed her stance, aware for the first time how rigid it had been. I thought I could show you, he’d said before. You’d understand.
His chin pointed toward the buildings in the distance behind her. “The old Eytran church. First one in Wildern.”
It was back the way they’d come, not far from the neighborhood where they’d visited the butcher — the area that the locals called Oldtown. Agna nodded. “I know it.”
“Yeah. They offer sanctuary. Have to. It’s what Eytrans do. But… not everyone goes. Some hate the gods. Or think the gods hate them. Old feud with one of the priests. Can’t walk that far. Something. Anything.”
“It’s unfortunate,” she said, sounding awkward and unfinished in her own ears.
“Well. In the mornings I’ve been going around to where they stay. Talking. Giving them checkups when they’ll let me. Bringing food.”
“…Oh.” The bread. The soup bones. Leftovers, paid with a pittance out of Keifon’s own money.
When she was still at the Academy, doing homework and writing moony letters to Rone, Keifon had lived on the streets in Yanwei, drinking himself to death. He’d gotten better, and he was safe now, but the shadow lay over his past like a receding storm. The Daranite church had helped him at the cost of a life in their service. However unfair Agna privately felt that was, she had always been grateful they’d saved him. And now…
Now she had to shelve her irritation with him, because he was trying to do something selfless, and it was important to recognize that. Damn him, even when he was being charitable, he had to be strange and self-loathing about it. But that was what made him the way he was. She felt a strange affection even for the tendencies that irritated her, just because they were his.
“Oh, Kei. That’s… that’s so good of you. I know that means a lot to you.” Balancing the butcher’s package at the edge of her shoulder bag, she stepped in to hug him. “Thank you for telling me about this. Even though yeah, I think you should have said something sooner. But anyway. Is there any way I can help?”
She felt him swallow, but he did not reply at first, holding on tighter than was strictly comfortable. Finally he eased up and took half a step back, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Thank you. If-if you want, I think your healing would be useful. I don’t know whether anyone will be all right with having anything done to them yet. But if you come along and they get to know you, there are things you can do that I can’t.” He took a long breath, as though he’d passed through a dark alley and come out safe on the other end. “Thank you. That’s all. Just - just come and see. If you want to go home, that’s all right. But if you saw how it was, it — it would mean a lot to me.”
“All right. I will.” She lifted the bag of bread and held it out to him. Keifon took it, nodded, and turned toward the canal. Since his hands were occupied, Agna tucked her hand into his elbow as they walked. They were no longer acting as a secretive leader and a clueless follower, but as a team.
Keifon: Proving Ground
It was a little selfish to bring Agna along. She seemed willing to come, and she could be a help to the group. But feeling her presence at his side, Keifon could not deny that one of his reasons for asking her along was to calm his own nerves. He was treating her like a talisman, living proof that he had, if not a home, at least shelter and safety. He was no longer like Keiva and Bargi and the others.
But he was like them; that was the point. Everyone was. If he finally disappointed Agna or the Benevolent Union revoked his contract, he would be at the Eytrans’ doorstep at best, or under the bridges at worst. Though, he thought as a bead of sweat tickled the back of his neck, there were worse outcomes than that.
The houses and shops gave way to storehouses — blank, wide wooden boxes slapped up when the canal had brought flatboat shipping to town. Some of the canal-dwellers had already gone downriver to find work, Keiva had said. They returned to Wildern when the jobs ran out. Or they didn’t. The climate in Vertal was supposed to be milder, and the job market might be better. Someone who was still young and able-bodied could find work on the docks, unloading the great ships. The logic ran that way, and Keifon did not want to speak against it. His place was to bring medical aid and food when he could, to understand, and to appreciate what he had gained.
In the alleys between the storehouses, he spotted the first person he knew, a former lumberman who called himself Gaf, short for some name he wouldn’t give up to an outsider. Keifon nodded, and stopped at the mouth of the alley. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
“Hello,” Agna said, shifting the package from the butcher’s shop to her other arm.
Keifon hitched the bag of bread back into his arms as it began to slip. “I’m gonna drop this stuff off with Keiva so they can add it to the soup. Do you want any bread in the meantime? We got a lot today.”
The old lumberman shrugged. “Sure, what do you have?”
“Looks like everything. Wheat with honey here on top, I think.”
“That’ll do. Thanks.”
Realizing his overburdened state, Keifon began to turn to Agna for help, but she had already reached for a loaf near the top. It was half as broad as a dinner plate, and true to Zea’s word at the bakery, it was wider on one end than the other. Agna ferried it over to Gaf. Keifon thought he saw a stutter in her step as she approached, as though she’d just noticed Gaf’s missing legs or the crutches leaning against the wall next to him. But she cheerfully passed him the loaf.
Keifon jostled the bread so that it settled into the empty space. “There’s more than enough for everyone, so I’m going to leave the extra with Keiva. You’re welcome to it, just check with her.”
“Yep.” Gaf tore off a chunk of bread with his good hand.
“Everything all right? Got enough fresh bandages?”
“Ehhn, a few.”
Translating that to not really, Keifon set down the bread and flipped open his shoulder bag. “Got any used ones?”
“Yeah. I can wash ‘em out, though, they last.”
Keifon’s empty stomach rocked at the thought of the infections that Gaf might be pressing against his sores. It was hardly better than not bandaging them at all. He should have thought of that; he should have remembered the compulsion to stretch and hoard everything he could. “Mmmgh. Trade me, I’ll get them boiled and bring them back. It’ll help the sores heal faster if they’re boiled. We’ll just trade, is that all right?” He held out a fresh packet of bandages, and after some consideration, Gaf rummaged a folded bundle of used bandages from his stash. Keifon handed over the new bundle first — he’d learned to give and accept, never take with Gaf — and fished an oilcloth bag from his kit to pack up the used bandages. Keifon folded the oilcloth closed twice and stowed it in a side pocket. True to her training, Agna never flinched, though the smell after a few summer days was considerable. It was good that she hadn’t; Gaf could be testy about the smallest things, and the last thing he needed was to chase Agna off with a rant from an irate stranger. Keifon said, “Use new ones every day if you can, remember. I’ll trade you as many as you need.”
“Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the bread.”
Sensing the turning of the tides in his sharpening tone, Keifon closed his satchel and picked up the bread. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Agna said, already on her way out after him. Keifon couldn’t hear whether Gaf answered.
When they’d gotten out of earshot, he sighed. “He gets surly about the treatment sometimes. Won’t take medicine, not eve
n poultices. Seems to be bandaging them regularly, at least. Still.”
“What’s the problem? Hmm… pressure sores? From the crutches?”
“And sitting too much, yeah. Mmgh. Speaking of which. Hang on.” Now that he was aware that he’d touched the used bandages, he could imagine the tainted energy soaking into his skin. Broken skin, he reminded himself, tainted energy got in through broken skin. Still. He should have noticed that. Agna’s presence was a new factor — not a distraction, exactly, but it had thrown him off enough to drop a step from proper procedure.
He set down the bread again — it would be such a relief to distribute it for so many reasons — and held his hands out in the open air, too frustrated to move. “Rrrgh.”
“What is it — Oh, oh, you didn’t purify, did you.”
“Forgot. Stupid mistake. So stupid.”
“May I?” She reached for his satchel, so he turned to give her better access. She flipped it open — he’d closed it with dirty hands, too, damn it all. With any luck, the energy would dissipate out here. Leather was a pain to purify. Agna found his bottle of alcohol. “Swab or pour?”
“Ugh. Pour. Just a bit.” He cupped his hands, and she poured the spirits into them. Keifon snipped out a word of thanks before his stomach caught a trace of the vapors and slammed into his ribcage. Tears leapt to his eyes, but he washed his hands and let the air evaporate the liquid. Between the strings of self-recriminating invective unspooling in his head, he remembered to offer a Tufarian prayer.
“You know what I read yesterday? It’s really interesting.” Agna corked the bottle. “Lina sent me a pamphlet that was published last month in Murio.” She packed the bottle in its spot, and before he could stop her, she had begun to buckle the satchel flap. “One of the researchers in Blackhall thinks he’s discovered a way to see energy, even if it doesn’t glow. Even infectious energy.”
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