Baba looked for something else to throw, frustration making her fingers itch to break things. “Tell me about it. And all those people now think I’m responsible for making the dreadful concoctions. I hate this.”
She didn’t normally care what anyone thought about her, but this was different. For one thing, she’d found the town, and the people in it, unusually charming. Before this all happened, she’d actually been daydreaming about staying. Just an idle fancy of course, but still. For another, it touched on her honor; that made it matter. And anyone who dared to make a baby sick on purpose and blame it on her? That person was in for a world of pain.
Chudo-Yudo’s furry face rumpled in puzzlement. “But how could anyone tamper with all those treatments without someone noticing? It’s not like a person could go from house to house messing with the jars in every single place. Someone would have seen something suspicious, wouldn’t they?”
Baba sighed. “You’d think so. And if Maya was behind it for some reason, she’s not exactly a ‘blend in with the locals’ kind of gal.”
“Maybe she crawled in through their windows?”
Baba snorted at a vision of the neat and polished Maya slithering in past gingham curtains to land in someone’s bathroom sink. “Somehow I don’t think so, but I suppose anything is possible. For all we know, she’s really some creature the size of a cat.” She shook her head. “This is getting out of hand. I think it’s time to call in the Riders and see if they’ve learned anything useful. They’ve been out wandering around all this time, and the only messages I’ve gotten from them are variations on, “Sorry, nothing yet.” Maybe they saw something while they were searching for the missing kids.”
She looked down toward where her dragon tattoos curled around her arms and shoulder; as long as the Riders were on a mission for her, each one bore her link in his own symbol. That made the task easier, since while they carried the mark, she could summon them with a thought—albeit a concentrated and directed thought. After all, it wouldn’t do to have them show up every time one of them happened to cross her mind.
She closed her eyes, sat up straight, and centered herself, letting go of the anger and frustration, breathing them out with every exhalation until she was calm and focused. Then she drew a picture in her head of Mikhail Day: his almost too-handsome features that hid a childish love for puns and riddles, and a weakness for damsels in distress, sweet desserts, and showing off. She visualized the white clothes he always wore that never seemed to dare show a smudge, and the long fall of his blond hair when it hung loose in the evening as he carved a wooden figurine by the light of the fire in the old Baba’s hut. Come back, she sent out silently into the ether. I need you. Come back.
Next, she saw Gregori Sun: always serene, with a quiet glow that seemed to emanate from some deep well in his being that no amount of ugliness or violence could touch. His face appeared stern to those who did not know him, but she had seen him nurse a wounded fox back to health, tending it and taming it just enough to heal, and then sending it back into the wild where it belonged. His long slender fingers could snap a man’s neck or strum a balalaika with equal ease and skill, and she had never heard him utter a word in anger in all the years she’d known him. Behind her closed eyes, his dark hair and slim figure coalesced into a solid representation of his essence. Come back. I need you. Come back.
Last, but certainly not least, she summoned the image of Alexei Knight, so different from the other two, and yet equally valued. Unlike Mikhail’s suave bravado and Gregori’s calm assassin’s grace, Alexei was brute force and animal instincts. He fought at the drop of a hat with a berserker’s wild joy for the battle, whether the cause was a mission of mercy or a careless word from a drunk in a tavern. As a child, Baba had once seen him tear an evil man apart with his bare hands, crimson blood bathing the sandy ground at his feet as he roared with laughter.
But he was also the only one of the Riders who took the time to play with the little adopted Baba-in-training, telling her tall tales and tickling her with the ends of her own braids until she giggled helplessly, while the old Baba rolled her eyes as she tended her cauldron nearby. During their intermittent visits, when the Riders weren’t off assisting some other Baba, it was Alexei who took her for walks in the woods, pointing out the tiny mushrooms that grew in the hidden nooks of mossy gnarled tree roots, and teaching her to punch and kick, so she would have something to defend herself with until she grew into her magic.