Finally I got so tired of listening to him trampling through the underbrush that I asked, "So I guess you found out where the Wizard Eirnin is, then."
"Yes." He stopped his pacing, glanced at me, and then looked away. The wind pushed through the trees, and the leaves shimmered and threw off dots of pale light, and the tree trunks bent and swayed. The chiming was everywhere.
"That's it?"
"What else is there to tell?"
I narrowed my eyes at him. He still wasn't looking at me, and I could tell he was leaving something out. He'd done it so much when we first left Lisirra I'd become a master at spotting all his omissions.
"I don't know," I said, "or else I wouldn't be asking."
"The Wizard Eirnin lives in the center of the island," Naji said. "It isn't far from here. That's all I know."
I sighed and refilled the water jar one last time. "Well," I said. "I guess we ought to go look for him." I straightened up and rested the jar against my hip.
"Are you going to take that with you?" Naji asked.
"Course I am. It's impossible to tell east from west on this damned island. Chances are we'll wind up wandering back around to the shack before we ever find the wizard."
"I tracked him," Naji said. "I know exactly where he is." His expression darkened. "Exactly how I knew where you were when the Otherworld attacked."
I shoved past him, jostling water. He didn't say nothing more about the Otherworld attack, and I let him lead me out of the chiming forest and into the darker parts of the woods. The rain had been threatening us the whole time I laid out by the spring, and now it started again in earnest. Naji plowed forward like it didn't even bother him, like he didn't even notice the rain and the gray light and the scent of soil.
We walked for a long time. The rain hazed my vision and filled the water jar to overflowing. The trees crowded in on me, looming and close, and I started wondering if it was the Mists. Echo coming back for one last fight. My hands started to shake.
And then, like that, the trees cleared out and there was this little round house built of stone sitting in the middle of a garden, smoke trickling up out of a hole in the roof.
Time seemed to stop. I forgot about the Mists and about the island: when I saw that house, there was only Naji's curse, which was also my curse. And we'd come so far across the world to get it cured.
This stone-built house hardly seemed capable of that sort of magic.
Naji was already knocking at the front door. I ran through the garden to join him. They looked like normal plants, not the weird ghost-plants Leila'd had growing in her cave. They drooped beneath the weight of the rain.
The door opened up a crack, and a sliver of a face appeared. Naji didn't say nothing. Then the door swung all the way open and this man was standing there in a rough-cut tunic and trousers. He had that look of the northern peoples, like somebody'd pricked him and all the color had drained out of his hair and skin.
"Well, look who's on my front porch," he said, speaking Empire with this odd hissing accent. "A murderer and a cross-dressing pirate."
I looked down at my clothes, ripped and shredded and covered in mud and sand and dried blood. I'd forgotten I was dressed like a boy.
"So are you here to kill me or to rob me?" the man said. "I generally don't find it useful to glow when undertaking acts of subterfuge, but then, I'm just a wizard."
You know, that pissed me off. We'd traveled half around the world to get to him, and there were monsters chasing us and Naji's curse was impossible to break, and here he was cracking jokes about our professions. I took a step forward, pushing Naji out of the way and spilling water on the porch.
"Mister," I said. "Do either of us look like we're capable of any kind of pillaging right now?"
The man looked like he wanted to laugh. "That one might," he said. "But you look halfway crossed over to Kajjil."
"How do you know that word?" Naji asked.
"What? It's not one of the secret words." The man winked. "Though I know plenty of those, too. You two come on in. I'll fix you something warm to drink, get you a change of clothes."
Naji slumped into the house, and I followed behind, setting the water pot next to the door so I wouldn't forget it on my way out.
It was nice, everything clean and tidy, with simple wooden furniture and bouquets of dried flowers hanging upside from the rafters. A sense of protection passed over me when I walked through the doorway, rum-strong like the feeling I got when I put on Naji's charm for the first time. I headed directly for the hearth, cause there was a fire smoldering in there, licks of white-hot flame. Naji sat down beside me, his hands draped over his knees. The firelight brightened his face and traced the outlines of his scars.
The man hung a kettle over the fire and pulled up a chair. I felt like a little kid again, sitting at Papa's feet while he told me stories. But the man didn't tell no stories, he just leaned forward and looked at me real hard and then at Naji. Then he stirred whatever was in the kettle.
"Are you the Wizard Eirnin?" Naji asked.
"I surely am." The man glanced over at him. "Leila let me know you were on your way. She told me about the curse." His weird pale eyes flashed. "And I've heard your name on the wind's whispers these last few days." He turned his gaze to me. "I see you emerged from your encounter with the Mists unscathed."
I looked down at my hands.
"From what Leila said about you, I wouldn't have expected it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Eirnin stood up. "I promised you clean clothes, didn't I? Getting dotty in my old age. Wait here." He strolled across the room and rummaged around in a dresser. I watched him. Naji watched the fire.
"Here we go." He pulled out a long pearl-colored dress, the fabric thick and warm, the edges trimmed in lace, and a gray man's coat and tossed both at me. "You can go change in the back room if you want."
It'd been awhile since I wore a proper dress, but really, having any clean clothes was a blessing from Kaol. I ducked into the back room and peeled off my old damp clothes and piled 'em up on the floor. It would've been nice to have a bath before changing into the dress, but I didn't know if I trusted a bath in a wizard's house. Still, putting on new clothes made me feel better, despite everything that had happened – warmer, too, cause these were dry.