“Stay there,” he said, though it wasn’t as if the soldier was going anywhere on that leg. He crossed to where he thought his own pendant had landed and began rooting through the debris on the barn floor. He could hear the soldier’s labored breathing, the heel of his boot scraping on the floor, and the hiss of pain as he tested the leg. Evan found the pendant next to the wall and draped the chain around his neck again.
He returned to the soldier’s side. His eyes were closed, but snapped open when Evan approached. Evan wasn’t sure what to do. He had no intention of killing him, but it seemed wrong to leave him lying in the ruined barn with a broken leg.
“Destin!”
Evan looked up, startled into drawing his blade again. A woman in a nightgown and boots stood in the doorway, taking in the scene—the missing roof, Evan standing over Destin with a knife in his hand.
What was he supposed to say—he started it?
“Mother!” the soldier gasped, raising his hands as if he could push her back through the door. “Run!”
Instead, the woman balled her fists and walked toward them, her jaw set with determination. As she drew closer, Evan could see the resemblance between them. They were both fine-boned thoroughbreds, and they shared the same light-brown hair and hazel eyes. She was not a mage, however.
“Please. Just go, Mother,” Destin whispered, without much conviction, as if he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Then he directed a warning glare at Evan that would peel the skin off a Bruinswallow pirate. Impressive for someone flat on his back, with a broken leg.
The woman faced off with Evan. “Before you act, you should know that I am not without resources,” she said in her clipped, blueblood voice. “I’m willing to more than match whatever you’ve been offered if you’ll agree to leave and say nothing about our presence here.”
Another wetlander, Evan thought.
“No, Mother,” Destin said. “Don’t bargain with him. Don’t trust him.”
She looked up at the ceiling, at the massive hole above the stalls. She shrugged. “What choice do we have?” she said simply.
Evan was enough of a pirate to be tempted. How much closer would that put him to a ship of his own? Maybe he deserved compensation, for being attacked and nearly killed and for having to find another place to live. He could even ask them to deed the place over to him so that he owned it free and clear.
But in the end, he was not that much of a pirate. Assuming Destin had told the truth, and they did own the property, he was the trespasser, and Destin would be laid up at a time that the barn needed immediate repairs.
“It was all a misunderstanding,” he said. “I’m a ship’s pilot, and so I’m gone most of the time, but I’ve been staying here when I’m in port. I thought it was abandoned, and I had no idea anyone had moved in here.”
“You’re a ship’s pilot?” Destin said, his voice thick with skepticism. “Of what—a jolly boat? A copperhead canoe?”
“Destin!” the mother said, as if her son was poking at a venomous snake.
Evan beat down annoyance. “Maybe we’re better sailors on this side of the Indio,” he said.
Destin and his mother exchanged glances. The message was clear. He knows we’re wetlanders.
Destin’s mother knelt next to him, seeming oblivious of the mucky ground. Gently, she ran her hands down his injured leg. “Is it just your leg? Is there anything else?”
“That’s it,” Destin hissed between clenched teeth. And promptly passed out.
Now would be an excellent time for me to get out of here, Evan thought. But his money was still stashed in the house. He needed to retrieve that before he left.
As if she’d overheard the thought, Destin’s mother looked up and said, “What’s your name?”
“Lucky,” he said. “Lucky Faris.”
She raised an eyebrow at the name. She and her son had the same eyebrows, the same way of raising them. “My name is Frances,” she said. “Wait here.”
Frances walked across the barn, rummaged in the corner, and came back with a fence post. Dropping it next to her son, she crossed to Djillaba’s old stall and lifted down the blanket hanging there. She returned and spread it out next to Destin. “Please, Mister . . . Faris, I could use some help rolling him onto this blanket and carrying him to the house.” She paused, then rushed on. “I’ll gladly pay you.”
Evan couldn’t help thinking that it was risky for her to tell someone like him that she had money around.
It was as if she read his mind. “Captain Faris, we’ve been on the run for two years now. Running was less risky than staying where we were. Now trusting you is another risk that I have to take.”
Well, Evan thought. He did want to go up to the house, so it was on his way.
Between the two of them, they managed to ease Destin onto the blanket, though he groaned and struggled as if the maneuver was painful. Evan took the head end of the blanket, and Frances the other end, and they managed to half-drag, half-carry him out of the barn. It took another half hour to get him up the stone pathway to the house.
As soon as they opened the door, a scruffy little dog sprang at Evan, growling, so that he nearly dumped Destin onto the floor.
“Breaker! Stop it!” Frances glowered at the dog, who slunk away.
Breaker, Evan thought. That’s a suitable name.
The interior was familiar—only better than before. It was cleaner than it had ever been when Evan lived there, and now there were rugs on the tile floors and curtains at the windows, and a few sticks of furniture, much of which looked homemade.
They carried Destin into the smaller of the two bedrooms and laid him on a mattress on a rope bedstead, even though he was filthy.
“Could you fetch some water and put it on to boil?” Frances said. “There’s a pump in the gathering room, and you’ll find a pot on the hearth.”
There didn’t used to be a pump, Evan thought. He did as he was told, one eye on the dog, who kept up a constant rumble of growling from the fireplace corner. When he returned to the small bedroom, Frances was examining the leg, her fingers probing around the site of the swelling.
“It’s broken,” she said, pressing her lips together as if disappointed by whatever gods she worshipped. She sighed. “Let’s do this,” she said, looking up at Evan, “while he’s still unconscious.”
“Let’s do what?” Evan said warily.
“Let’s straighten out his leg. Hold him down.”
Maybe it was because she’d been born to money and was used to ordering people around. Or maybe it was because Evan was curious about this odd pair marooned on the Desert Coast—the angry, wounded soldier mage and his blueblood mother. Whatever the reason, Evan ended up restraining his would-be killer while the boy’s mother straightened his leg and bound it to the fence post to keep it in position.
During this operation, Destin woke up and spewed an entire book of wetland curses. This time, Frances scowled at him as if disappointed, but said nothing. Afterward, she brewed up some willow bark tea mingled with turtleweed, and that put her son out like a sailor at Solstice. They returned to the gathering room and she brewed some tay for the two of them.
“You drink tay?” Evan said, surprised. “I didn’t think wetlanders went in for that.”
“I come from a family of merchants,” she said, not specifying where. “They brought back tay from abroad, and I acquired a taste for it. My brother had done business in Endru, so he was the one who arranged the purchase of this property years ago, in case . . . in case I ever needed it.” She had a way of seeming like she was confiding in him and yet, at the same time, holding information back.
Evan sipped his tay, wishing it were something stronger. Now he was homeless and jobless both.
“What happened in the barn?”
Evan looked up, startled. “Like I said. A misunderstanding.”
“I need more detail than that,” she said.
Evan found himself telling her the truth, without trying to pretty it up. By now, he was too tired to lie.
She frowned. “So . . . my son tried to kill you, and you defended yourself by blowing up the barn?”
“You’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” Evan said. “I’m sorry about the barn, though.”
“So. You’re a mage, like he is.”