me a healer.”
“Sir, there are no — ”
“It doesn’t have to be a guild healer, Calloway. An herbalist.
Anyone with an Affinity. The boy needs help.”
Calloway’s face went a shade paler. “Sir” — he fumbled,
glancing at Glenn and then whispering fast — “you’ve been away. The guilds are no more. And the Magistra has restricted the use of those …
talents. To express an Affinity without approval is death.”
Aamon’s eyes went sharp on Calloway as if he was trying to root out an impossible lie. But before Aamon could say anything, a moan from Kevin pulled him back. Aamon brushed away the green paste.
“The poultice has slowed the bleeding, but we need to sew him up if he’s going to get better.”
Aamon fished a needle and spool of thread out of the bottom of the bag. They were rough, simple things, no different from what you’d use to mend clothes. Aamon threaded the needle and leaned forward, but Glenn grabbed his wrist before he could use it.
“You have to sterilize them first,” she said. “Boil them.
Something. It’s not safe.”
“All of Dr. Frit’s instruments are consecrated,” Calloway said from behind them. “I helped him myself.”
“Consecrated?”
“He means they are blessed,” Aamon said.
“I know what it means,” Glenn snapped. “You have to take us back so we can get him to a real doctor.”
“They’d capture you the second we crossed the border.”
“Let them!”
Aamon’s hand moved too fast for her to see, and before Glenn knew it, he had her wrist and was holding the bracelet up to her face.
“You’d give them what they want?”
Glenn tried to take her hand back, but his grip was like a vise.
“It’s a stupid piece of junk.”
“Then why were they ready to kill for it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care!”
Aamon let her go, pushing her hand at her and baring his horrible teeth. “I do,” he growled.
There was a moment of stalemate and then Aamon turned to
Kevin. Even though a trace of color had come into his cheeks, Kevin was still so pale that Glenn thought she could see the shapes of his bones beneath the flesh.
Glenn didn’t fight as Aamon moved over Kevin’s body. He
bowed his head and began whispering in low tones. Calloway moved in, a lighted candle that smelled like rosemary burning in his hand. He touched Kevin’s shoulder and joined in the prayer. When they were done, Glenn winced as Aamon drove the needle into Kevin’s flesh.
Glenn’s vision shifted and swirled. Her face burned.
I won’t cry. Not here. Not in front of them.
Glenn threw open the front door and slammed it behind her.
Thankfully the villagers had gone, leaving the road and the land in front of the shacks empty. The temperature controls in her clothes kept her warm, but the night was still icy cold against her face. She relished the pinprick pain of it. Glenn stuttered back a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She wouldn’t succumb to this.
The torches throughout the village had been extinguished, but there was a spill of flickering light from the candles and fire in the house behind her. Glenn walked farther out into the street. Here, far from the light of the nearest city, the stars were in multitudes Glenn had never seen outside of a 3-D projection. They were a glittering jumble, packed shoulder to shoulder as far as she could see. She searched for Orion and the stars that pointed to 813, but they were hidden in such dense crowds that Glenn couldn’t pick them out.
The enormity of the day descended on her all at once. Tears slipped down Glenn’s cheeks as what felt like an immense hand clenched her throat and her chest. She stumbled farther out into the dark and away from the houses. There, she fell to her knees and wrapped her arms tight around the deep ache in her stomach. Glenn tried to picture the jungles of 813, but they wouldn’t come. Instead she saw Kevin lying in the snow surrounded in blood, she saw the shock in her father’s eyes, and the awful impossibility of Aamon Marta. The world had tipped on its axis and was spinning out of control.
“Are you all right?”
Glenn turned with a start. Aamon loomed between her and the thin candlelight from Garen Tom’s quarters, eclipsing it. He had barely made a sound as he crossed from the house to stand behind her. How could someone so large be so quiet? Glenn turned her back to him, scraping the tears away from her face with her sleeve.
“Fine,” she said. Her throat was raw.
“Decker is with Kevin now. He’s giving him medicine. Praying.”
Glenn made a soft sound of disgust. “Praying.”
“You’re not home anymore,” Aamon said. “Things are …
different here.”
Glenn sucked back her tears, forced herself to her feet, and turned to see Aamon towered behind her. He was a massive shadow, dim firelight brushing his shoulders. Glenn swallowed her fear. Whatever he was, he was there. It was a fact she had to deal with. Right now there was more she wanted to know.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Haymarket. A town of the Magisterium.”
“How far does it go, the Magisterium? How far past the border?”
“To the western ocean and beyond.”
“That’s not — ” Glenn protested. “Everything beyond the border is a wasteland.”
“Glenn — ”
“All of this was destroyed over a hundred years ago! I’ve seen the pictures! We learn about it in school.”
“Here, children learn that a haunted forest lies on your side of the border. Scary stories dissuade the curious better than stone walls.
Glenn …”
Aamon took a step closer but Glenn scrambled away.
“How do you know my name?”
Aamon held up his hands, palms out.
“Please,” he said. “You don’t have to be afraid. The way I was earlier, in the woods, with those men …”
Glenn saw the agent again, prostrate and bleeding in the snow.
“They were trying to hurt you. I had to stop them. I had no choice.
That’s not … it’s not what I am.”
There was a strange delicate quality to his voice, tremulous, like someone trying to convince themself of something they hardly believed.
“Then what are you?” Glenn asked.
“A friend,” he said. “You should try to get some rest. We’ll have to leave here tomorrow morning. If Garen Tom returns and sees what you have — ”
“I don’t have anything.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
Glenn rubbed at her wrist where the bracelet pressed into her skin.
She looked over Aamon’s shoulder to the glow of the house where Kevin lay.
“Where will we go?”
There was a creaking of wood as one of the town’s watchmen
approached on the wall above. Aamon tracked him as he went by, staying silent until he was out of sight.
“Somewhere safe,” Aamon said. “Someplace where we can
figure out how to get you two home.”
Aamon turned to go.
“How did you know my name?” Glenn called out.
Aamon stopped, studying the dusty road at his feet, then turned until their eyes met. There was something about them, and something about the way he tilted his head to watch her that was familiar. Glenn couldn’t place what it was, but the moment she saw it, a strange calm descended on her. How was that possible? What — who — was he?
The door to Garen Tom’s house opened. Calloway stood in the doorway, framed in firelight, head down. There was a large serving tray in his hands.
“Come,” Aamon said as he turned to go.
“No, wait. How — ”
But Aamon was already stepping up into the house. After he
passed through the doorway, Calloway stood there waiting for her, but Glenn turned her back to him and soon the door closed and she was alone again.
All around the empty street moonlight glinted off the silver-tipped feathers that hung from every door and danced in the wind.