But all these, regrets and distractions, were mere irritations compared to the stress of traveling with magicians.
Warded and unconscious, they were currently carried by Uvnee and LaFlesche’s tough little pony, whose Umonhon name Isobel couldn’t pronounce but suspected meant “pain to live with.” The mule had taken one whiff of the bodies and put up such a fuss that they’d decided to leave it with the packs. Flatfoot trailed them now, staying within sight—and within protection range were it needed?—but at whatever distance the mule thought was safe from the threat traveling within their party.
Isobel felt much sympathy for the mule, but she wasn’t allowed to join it. She couldn’t go far at all: while Gabriel and LaFlesche took turns riding ahead to scout the path they were on, Isobel needed to stay close to the bodies, fully aware that if they woke, she might not be able to do anything to stop them again, but she would be the only chance their little party had.
And they were still being watched. If that made her uneasy, the scout seemed ready to jump, twitching like a rabbit, forever looking over his shoulder and muttering under his breath. That, more than Gabriel’s reassuring words, made the unease bearable?—anything that worried him that much couldn’t help but please her.
Still, she watched her mentor finally give in to his obvious impatience with their slow walk, swinging up into Steady’s saddle and trotting ahead, and wished that she were with him, leaving these strangers behind. And if part of that craving to feel Uvnee under her, the wind in her face, was the desire to ride away and never come back, abandon this entire mess . . . surely there was no shame in thinking dark thoughts, so long as you kept control over them.
But with Gabriel gone, she had to drop back and join the others, out of respect to the road marshal if nothing else. Thankfully, the older woman didn’t seem to take offense at her silence, nor did she seem perturbed, but merely strode along, her trousered legs covering the ground more easily than Isobel in her skirts.
“What’s it like to ride in them? Trousers, I mean?” Isobel finally asked, as much to silence the noise in her head as any real curiosity.
LaFlesche seemed surprised by the question, glancing down at her legs as though she’d only just noticed the fitted material. “I honestly don’t recall anything different. Been a while since I wore skirts for anything other than fancy dress for a party, and that was . . .” She laughed at herself. “Well, a while ago.” She sobered then, looking sideways at Isobel, then back ahead to the trail. “When I was younger, there were some as thought I was trying to be a man, and figured they’d remind me otherwise, but most folk, they see the sigil, and they mind their manners well enough. And those who don’t, well, they learn quick the Road doesn’t suffer the weak, not for long.”
“You ever . . . regret?”
“What, taking up the sigil or taking on the Road?”
“Either. Both.”
LaFlesche chewed over her answer a bit. “My gram, she came all the way from the old world, didn’t stop until she landed in Junction and kitted an even dozen; she used to say that we don’t choose our way, the way chooses us. Not sure I believe that entirely—everyone’s spent time on the wrong trail at some point—but there are some things . . . I don’t believe the sigil chooses us, but I’m not entirely certain we choose it, either. Maybe it’s a meet-in-the-middle sort of thing? Like falling in love.”
“Wouldn’t know about that,” Isobel said with a shrug.
“Never fell nose over knees for a shy smile or a sideways look?”
“Not yet.” There’d been some good-looking boys back in Flood, but she’d thought them just distractions, and she knew better than to fall for a charmer at the card tables.
“Ah, well, there’s time. Just remember love’s a lovely thing but it’s not all that’s in the world, and you’ll be fine.”
Isobel thought about Peggy, whose husband had died of illness, and how that seemed to have set her free, and Iktan, whose wife was a tiny, quiet thing who never lifted her eyes to anyone but was always smiling like she had a secret, and Marie, who like the boss had a stream of lovers but none who stayed, and thought she’d have no trouble remembering that.
They fell silent for a while again after that until they came down a slope and to a small but strong-running stream, Steady’s hoofprints clear on the sandy mud on its shore. Isobel placed her hand out, halting the marshal when she would have waded into the shallows.
“If there were a danger, your mentor would have left sign,” LaFlesche said, a little irritated at being halted.