Wild Magic

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Reyna dropped his cloak and his bag of medicines, hugged Faan vigorously, then pushed her back and stood with his hands on her shoulders, smiling down at her. “You look better.” He drew the tip of his forefinger in a shallow curve under her eye. “No black bags.”

“SHE’s been leaving me alone. It’s like SHE’s waiting for something.” She walked beside him, snuggled up against him, his arm around her shoulders as he moved from the entry toward the stairs Ailiki came from shadows and glided at her heels.

He stopped by the newel post. “Go on to the sitting room, honey. I need to change my clothes and wash up.”

Dressed in a crisp white Salagaum robe, his hair brushed and wound into a loose knot atop his head, Reyna looked ten years younger. He smiled at Faan, nodded to Dawa and the other Salagaum sitting round the single lamp, repairing hems, darning holes, working over their old clothing. Cloth was almost as expensive as water these days. He dropped into a chair, reached down to touch Faan’s head as she settled on the floor beside his knees.

Furrah set his work down. “How is she?”

“I’ve seen rough, we all have. Nothing so ugly.” Reyna shivered, rubbed his thumbs across his fingertips. “He did a job on her face, especially her mouth and nose. I sewed the wounds up, but she’ll have scars.” He shook his head. “She gets a look in a mirror, maybe she’ll wish he finished it. Cut her on the breasts and legs. She says he was going to gut her, then rape her again. It got him excited, telling her all that, where the cuts were going and how deep. A Biashar, she said. Mama’s putting the word out, we’ll find him.”

Goandee touched a scar slanting past the corner of his mouth. “He get her eyes?”

“Left them alone so she could watch him strut. He thought he cut her throat when the STRIKER band came by, but he was in a hurry and she got her arm in the way and he didn’t stop to make sure.”

Faan twisted around and looked up. “Rey, you remember the time I nearly sliced my thumb off?” She held up her hand, fingers spread, turned it slowly in the yellow lamplight to show them there was no scar anywhere. “When she’s well enough to walk, take her to the Sibyl.”

“Fa, what Sibyl’d do for you… “

“Make it a visiting night and I’ll go with you.” Faan stroked her fingers down the side of her face, shivered when she thought of the girl not that much older than her. “We can’t let the jeggers win all the time.”

Silence stretched out for several minutes. Furrah went back to embroidering with tiny precise stitches over a tear in a white shirt. Dawa smiled at Faan, took up another pair of trousers, and began darning a hole in one of the knees. Reyna lay back in the stuffed chair, his eyes half-closed, his face weary. Faan leaned against his legs, quietly happy; it was almost like being in the old Beehouse again, on one of the nights when Reyna and the others stayed home and rested. If she had a choice, this was where she’d live. She closed her eyes, sighed. Choice? Tsah! the way she was now, she killed people she stayed around.

Goandee ran his finger around the cuff he’d been mending, snipped the thread loose and began folding the trousers. “Went by Ladroa-vivi this morning. Chez’s place. He’s down with fever. Saw three dead rats in the wynd.”

Reyna opened his eyes a crack, made a face. “K’lann! It just needs that. There’s already cholera about.” He pulled his hand across his face. “We’d better organize flea baths and get ready to dunk the laggard. Druggers don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to them, they’ll spread plague like fire.”

Goandee spread his hands. “Maybe it isn’t plague.”

“And maybe it’s going to rain tomorrow. Fa.”

“Mmh?”

“Tell Tai about the rats. We’re going to need balaar root, gauuva tincture, imba-frog paste, anything else she can think of. Oh. And all the soap she can provide. We’ll have the coin for it, silver pradhs, she doesn’t need to worry about that.” He sat up, touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “All she can get, as soon as she can get it. You can take the first load of silver tonight. Pack it in your basket, hmm?”

“Verna, Rey.” Faan yawned. “And I’ll go see the Sibyl tomorrow morning, see what she advises.” She grimaced. “If I’m let.”

The door opened, Thammir came in with a platter of small cakes^.and Raxzin followed with a teapot and cups on a tray. “Time out,” he said. “Move the lamp, hmm?”