A NGEL PEREZ sat in an old rocker on the cottage porch and stared out into the screen of trees that masked the sluggish flow of the Columbia River. It was midday, the heat penetrating even the thick canopy of the forest. Only the breezes off the river kept it cool, but today they were sporadic and slight. She was tired of the heat, the cottage, the inactivity, and the long days and longer nights. Mostly, though, she was tired of not knowing what was happening to those who had left her behind.
She exhaled wearily, thinking of it. Her recovery had been slow, if steady. She had been with Larkin Quill for more than a week now, sleeping most of the time at first, and then dozing frequently after that until she’d had enough of sleep and healing and the corner on her recovery had been turned. Her pain from her wounds had been harsh but bearable. Her magic had helped her to mend as an ordinary person could not have, restoring her health so quickly that even Larkin Quill, who had seen much of injuries and recoveries in his time, was surprised.
“You would be laid up for another month, were you a normal young lady,” he had declared that very morning. “I thought I knew something about healing, but you could teach me a few things.”
Well, she could if she understood how it worked, but she didn’t. She had always healed quickly since becoming a Knight of the Word, the process enhanced and quickened by her magic, by her being who and what she was. There was no mystery to it. It was necessary that she heal swiftly if she was to survive. It was required of those who were constantly in danger.
Or all Knights of the Word.
She wondered how badly you had to be damaged before even the magic couldn’t save you. She thought she had reached that point on the slopes of Syrring Rise, that the combination of blood loss and cold was enough to finish her. She had crawled through inky darkness and howling wind in search of a cavern entrance she could not see, and she was certain she was going to die. She had come close, she thought. She had come as close as she could without crossing over.
But here she was, still alive, her wounds healed, her strength mostly back. A miracle.
There was movement in the cottage, and Larkin Quill stepped onto the porch beside her, his milky gaze fixed and unresponsive, but his smile warm.
“You seem much better,” he said.
How he could tell she would never know. She was constantly amazed at how he was able to discern so much of what would normally require sight. He was better at it than she was, she believed. He had that gift or skill or whatever it was that enabled him to sort things out with his other senses. She had seen him do it over and over since she had arrived, in small but no less incredible ways.
“I am better,” she agreed. “Thanks to you.”
His lean, sharp features crinkled with the appearance of his self-deprecating smile. “I supplied the small kindnesses and little medicines, but mostly you did this yourself. You and your magic, Mistress Knight of the Word.”
She shrugged. “Some of each played a part, I imagine. What matters is that I am better.”
“Indeed. Now we need to think about getting on with things. It’s been a week, and Sim and Kirisin aren’t back. I don’t know if that means anything, but we should assume the worst for purposes of your own situation. What do you want to do?”
Angel didn’t hesitate. “Go after them.”
“Go after them?” Larkin shook his head. “No, that’s a bad idea. You aren’t strong enough for that yet. Even if you think so, you aren’t. You’d have to go afoot. It’s a long way to another balloon, even if you could get there, and neither you nor I can fly it.” He smiled. “We have to be patient, Angel. We have to wait on them.”
“What if waiting on them is not what’s needed?”
He shrugged. “Give me your second choice. What else would you do with yourself while waiting?”
She thought a minute. “I would find Helen Rice and the children I left in her keeping when I came in search of the Elves. They are supposed to be somewhere on the Columbia . . . sorry, somewhere on Redonnelin Deep.”
“And so they are,” he said. His quirky smile was back. “They are a dozen miles upriver and have been for as long as three weeks. More than two thousand of them, by my count.” He didn’t explain how he had managed that; he just shrugged. “I can take you there, then come back and wait.”
“If I agree to that,” she said carefully, locking eyes with him as if he could see—and perhaps, in a way, he could—the intensity mirrored there, even in that blank gaze, “then you must promise you will bring Sim and Kirisin to me at the camp or come to get me if you discover they cannot reach us without help.”