Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The afternoon was crisp with fate.

Mollymauk Tealeaf was aware of this, if only on a subconscious level. It was like a really good card reading. Not the ones he made up, aided by his intuition and a flare for the dramatic, but the rare ones that had a little destiny in them. It was as though a fragment of possibility was hovering in the long shadows cast by the afternoon sun, but the feeling was nebulous, malleable. He couldn’t put his finger on it. So he carried on perusing the market stalls, picking up bundles of herbs to sniff, perhaps with a wink for the shopkeeper if they looked at all receptive. One of them reddened and offered him an apple, which he took with a flash of fang and a wink. He shinned it on his coat and took a bite.

Somewhere behind him, Beau was complaining. "All that work for a lousy fifty gold.”

Ordinarily, he might have considered it whining; however, couched in Beau’s grouchy tone was actual discomfort. They’d been hired to clear an abandoned tunnel at the edge of town, and a trapped door had gone off right in her face. She lost both eyebrows (and a layer of her arms and belly), and, magicked or not, new skin had a way of tingling with remembered pain.

“That's fifty gold we didn't have this morning," Fjord reasoned. "Besides, the job wasn’t even that hard. If you hadn’t been caught in that blast, then –”

"Fjord, I swear," Beau said. "I'm gonna punch you in your pretty boy face if you say another word. It’s not like I’m a rogue, you know."

Fjord's expression did some acrobatics, remorse mixed in liberally. There was no reason for him to feel that way. They were all consenting adults, and it wasn’t like Fjord had twisted anyone's arm. But, to be fair, Beau had looked genuinely dreadful. They’d found her lying in a pile of splinters, oozing blood and scraped raw to the ribs. It had been enough to make anyone feel at least a smidge bad for her.

Jester pressed close. "If it still hurts, I could try to heal you again, Beau.”

Beau put a palm on Jester's forehead and shoved her away. "No thanks. What I really need is some action. This place is almost as dull as my old mentor, Xenoth. And let me tell you, nothing is more boring than him."

Yasha, who was examining a bundle of flowers displayed in a woven basket, remarked, "I don’t think it’s that bad. Sometimes a slower pace is nice.”

Beau made a noncommittal sound. Everyone knew she had a soft spot for their resident barbarian, and if there was one person she might hesitate to outright contradict, it was Yasha. “Sure, sure, but you have to admit, it’s got a certain same-y quality to it. I mean, have you seen so much as a halfling around here? This close to Felderwin? It’s freaking me out.”

She had a point. Their group would be an unusually diverse one anywhere in the empire, but it was still strange to look around and see only humans. "It’s plenty pleasant," Molly temporized, glancing around the cheerful market. "Though I could do without the crownsguard." There were two in view, and they’d been eyeing him since the moment he strolled into view. Paranoia or prejudice?

“They are keeping an awful close watch,” Fjord said. “Better we keep to ourselves and head out early tomorrow morning. One more night of clean beds and hot meals, and then we hit the road. How about it, guys?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Molly answered and sauntered off into the crowd. If they were going to hit the road, he wanted enjoy town life while he had the chance.

He’d discarded the apple core in a trash barrel and was peeling off toward an enticing strand of music when he heard the ugly laughter. It was followed by a sharp noise, like a hammer striking wood. It made the hair on the back of Mollymauk’s neck stand up, and he changed direction to investigate.

He found a group of adolescents at the edge of a courtyard, throwing rocks. The sun was hot and bright after the coolness of the market awnings, and at first, their target was indistinct. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw what appeared to be a pair of planks set in a wooden framework. But no, it wasn’t just planks. It was a pillory, and it was occupied. He caught a glimpse of auburn hair and a lolling head which sagged against the boards holding it in place. As Molly watched, another stone struck sharply by the captive’s ear.

“You couldn’t hit an ox yoked to a cart, Marxis," one of the children teased as he wound up for another shot.

An snarl wrenched itself from Molly’s throat. "Hey, you little brutes, you get away from there right now, you hear me?"

That got their attention, and they looked up to find an angry tiefling striding toward them. Most took off right away, but a few refused to give ground. "We're not doing anything wrong. The magistrate put him there as punishment.”

“That doesn't give you the right to harass a helpless man. You might as well tie a tin can to a cat’s tail.” The adolescents exchanged guilty glances at the mention of the metaphorical cat, and Mollymauk’s tolerance sunk even further. “Enough. Get lost before I forget my manners.”

“Who’s gonna make us, you?”

The kid glanced at the far side of the courtyard, where a crownsguard was loitering at his post. If the soldier had taken any notice of their minor confrontation, he didn’t seem to care. However, if Molly decided to do more than exchange terse words with these kids, who knew if that neutrality would shift? Molly’s teeth came out in a feral sort of grin. If this brat though a little potential trouble would stop him from kicking their asses...

Fortunately, he didn't have to take the risk. "How about I make you, you little shits,” said a familiar voice, and Beau, bless her violent heart, didn't even wait for them to register her presence before she grabbed one kid by the ear and cuffed another so hard he burst into ignominious tears. It was too much. They ran, while Beau stung them in the backside with the same stones they’d been tossing moments earlier.

Afterward, she brushed off her hands. "Ah, justice."

"Spoken like a true sociopath,” Molly said.

She snorted. "Don't even start. If I hadn’t shown up, you’dve spanked them yourself.”

It was true, but dealing out a well-deserved reproach to a bunch of kids wasn’t at the top of Molly’s mind at the moment. Levity draining from him, he turned on his heel and headed for the pillory.

Beau trailed after him. “Molly...”

He ignored her. His attention was fixed on the captive human. From a distance, he’d looked bad. Up close, it was worse. His hair was positively caked with egg yolk, and when Molly drew up his face he found it streaked with a mixture of manure and blood, the later mostly clotted but still oozing from a cut beneath his hairline.

“Someone’s beat him to hell,” Beau said, and she was right. The planks were clamped over his neck and wrists, forcing him into a bent position. That, along with the fact that his upper body had been striped, left evidence of a brutal lashing on clear display. Molly had seen that kind of punishment before, but this was a damn farming village, for crying out loud. What could this guy possibly have done to warrant such a punishment?

Beau spoke through her teeth. “I’m going to get Jester.”

Mollymauk barely heard her. His attention was on the prisoner. Why he was so transfixed, he didn't know. I mean, sure, the guy was in a pathetic state, enough to inspire pity in anybody with half a heart, but there was something else about him, something Molly couldn't put a name to...

“Hey,” he heard himself say. He gave the man a pat on the cheek to rouse him. “Hey.”

The prisoner stirred. His throat worked, lips parting, and Mollymauk became aware of how chapped they were. There was a bucket with a dipper at the foot of the pillory, but it stood empty, without a drop of water. Nearby, Molly spotted a rain barrel.

“Wait a moment,” he murmured and scooped up the bucket handle. A moment later he was able to offer a brimming ladle, and that was when the captive showed the first real signs of life, reviving enough to take the water with weak but grateful sips. “There,” Molly encouraged while he drank. “Not too quick or you'll get sick, and neither of us wants that.”

“More,” the man rasped, cracked and whisper thin, but Molly shook his head.

He wanted to check those pupils if he could. “Can you look at me a moment?”

The man haltingly lifted his head, and for a single moment, something in Molly resonated with the spark that flickered in this stranger’s face, and he was certain they weren’t strangers at all. Then, as suddenly, it was just him and the most tired, pained blue eyes he’d ever seen, gazing back at him without recognition.

Molly worked up the will to smile. “Hello, friend. You look like you’ve had a hard time of it. But don't worry. Mollymauk Tealeaf is here, and I'll do what I can to help.”

Confusion and weakness were making it difficult for the man to answer, but he tried. “M-mol –”

“Molly!” It was Jester. She bounded onto the platform. “Beau said you found someone who needs my super amazing healing powers.”

“See for yourself.”

“Oh,” she said in immediate commiseration. She brushed the man’s bangs back. “Oh, Molly. He looks terrible.”

“I think that’s by design,” said Fjord. He was standing at the base of the pillory, shifting uneasily. It brought to mind just where they were. The pillory stood outside the magistrate’s office and town jail. Its imposing facade was studded with iron and hard-lined with brick in uncompromising edges. There was a wall around the courtyard as well, though apparently it remained open during daylight hours. All the better for public displays of humiliation.

It made Molly angry. There were versions of pillories and stocks all over the Empire, but most criminals served for an hour, perhaps two, with general discomfort and the shame of being seen by friends and neighbors acting as the teeth of the punishment. This went far beyond that.

Yasha stepped closer. “Can you get a sense of his condition, Jester?”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she reached out with her magic. “It's pretty bad, guys.” She took a closer look the pillory. The wooden planks holding him in place had bruised the skin, especially his wrists. And his hands...

“Oh,” Jester gasped.

They were pulverized. Angrily purple in a way that made Molly fear he was looking at dead meat instead of living human flesh. "Looks crushed,” Beau said grimly. “I've seen that done. Usually ‘cause –”

“He's a mage,” said a crownsguard, who had sauntered over to get a better vantage. “Not much they can do without their hands. Or tongue. But Castus just broke this one’s jaw. Didn't want him to choke before he finished his sentence. Mouth wounds bleed like a stuck pig, you know.”

The callousness got Molly’s back up, and he wasn't the only one. Fjord had stiffened, and even Jester was staring, silent and contemptuous. “And what exactly was his crime?” Fjord asked. How he managed to keep his voice even, Molly would never know, but Fjord had a knack for hiding his emotions behind something more socially acceptable. It was not a skill Molly himself possessed.

“Conspiracy to commit theft.”

“Theft?” Mollymauk looked again at the furrows on the man’s back. “What the hell did he steal, a lord’s fortune?”

“That amount of lashing does seem extreme,” Fjord said. “There must be more than a dozen.”

“Two dozen,” the guard said. “Twelve for him and twelve for his accomplice. It got away because of him.”

Heat was rising in Molly, itching in his blood. “Two dozen lashes, and you left him out here in the sun. How long has he been like this?”

“Two days, and he'll stay until his time’s done. If he doesn't make it, the streets will be that much cleaner with one less dirty crook, now won't they?”

“You –” Infernal hissed through Molly’s teeth, but Beau, of all people, whacked him in the shin with her staff.

“We want to talk to the magistrate.”

The guard looked over the group, with its strange assortment of weapons and apparel. They looked anything but affluent, but Beau had a way of looking damned official when she wanted to, and right now her posture was ramrod straight. It had an effect. The guard jerked his head toward the building. “Be my guest, if you’re that much of a fool. It’s a waste of time, if you ask me.”

“We'll see about that,” Beau said. She glanced at Fjord, communicating wordlessly in some way that had him nodding.

“Let's go, Jester,” he said.

She fretted, indicating the stricken prisoner. “But, shouldn't I stay with him?”

“I'll keep an eye out,” Molly said. “Make sure no more brats have a go at him with rocks.”

“No one will come near him with rocks,” Yasha agreed, positioning herself at the edge of the courtyard. Just her presence, formidable as she was, would keep most at bay.

“Go,” Molly said, wrestling his purse off his belt and handing it to Jester. “Nobody deserves this.”

The prisoner was breathing shallowly, his panting carrying an undercurrent of pain. Molly tried to support his head, knowing how much of a strain it must be to hold this position so long. Unmindful, his hand began to rub the man’s neck, trying to impart some small comfort.

The guard caught his eye and jeered. “Don’t mind me. Keep on stroking all you want. A man on public display has no rights at all in this town.”

Molly’s stomach turned over. It was bad enough these people had whipped a man and locked him a pillory without water or protection from hecklers, but this new implication was more sickening still. “I’ll be damned if I leave you here,” he whispered to the prisoner. “Not with these bastards.”

Shadows began to stretch across the cobblestone, the afternoon putting on her evening colors. It was near sunset before the others returned. Fjord emerged first. Behind him, Jester had her hands clinched in uncharacteristic fists. Only Beau remained stoic. An officer walked alongside, looking bored, a ring of keys hanging from her fingers. Success then, if not a clean one. Molly looked to Fjord for details, but the man shook his head. Later.

The officer worked the padlock. “Might want to grab him,” she said. “He’ll probably drop once I loose the framework.”

Molly positioned himself on one side, and Beau jumped up to take the other. They seized his armpits as the guard jerked a plank up to form a narrow wedge, though which she shoved the prisoner’s head. “Watch it!” Fjord snapped when the captive’s chin clipped the wood.

The officer only shrugged. “All yours,” she said. “Though I don't know why you want him.”

As the former prisoner sagged, wobbling on the edges of bare feet, Beau asked, “Where’s his stuff?”

“Excuse me?”

“Woman, his stuff. Don't expect me to believe he walked into this place without even shoes on his feet or a shirt on his back.”

“Fine, fine. Come on, then.”

While Fjord handled that, Jester took the man’s face between her hands. “Let me do a little work. Just a bit, to hold him over.” There was a faint glow, and his breathing became noticeably easier. His fingers looked less distorted, too, with a flush of healthy pink to them. It relieved Molly. Maybe they weren't past mending after all? Jester exhaled, then smiled. “There. That’s better, right?”

Her patient didn’t respond. If he was conscious, it was only by measures. Molly and Beau were the only thing keeping him up. Fjord appeared, carrying a bundle of fabric, a pair of boots, and – weirdly enough – two leather-bound books. “Let's get out of here,” he said, and Molly couldn't have agreed more. They put the courtyard and the hateful pillory behind them.

Their first priority was to get off the street, where curious and judgmental eyes might be watching. Amidst barrels, crates, and refuse bins they paused. “What are we doing? Are we bringing him back to the inn?”

Fjord shifted. “That doesn't seem wise, taking a stranger to our rooms.”

“We were all strangers once, and not too long ago either,” Molly said. “Besides, what's the alternative? Dump him here with a ‘good luck, pal,’ and a slap on the back? He'll die, Fjord, or crownsguard will come along, and he’ll be right back where he started. I won't be party to that.”

Beau crossed her arms. “Well, I sure as hell won’t leave him in an alley after what we went through to convince that scumbag magistrate to hand him over. Talk about theft.”

Yasha approached Molly. “Do you need me to take him?”

He smiled. “No, dear. I've got him, but thank you for asking.”

“Seriously, what are we doing?” Jester demanded.

“He's ours,” Beau said. “We paid for him, and we’re taking him with us.”

A guttural shriek tore through the ally. It was all the warning they got before a bundle of rags launched itself at Beau and beset upon her with a dagger that she didn’t quite dodge. Beau grunted, grappling over the weapon with her attacker, who was half her size but strong.

Molly grabbed the creature, trying to pry it loose. Beau had managed to seize the pressure points in its wrist, and it howled as it was forced to drop both Beau and the dagger. Which left it in Molly’s arms. It flailed, screaming, and chomped down on his arm. With a bark of pain, he threw the beast away from him with such strength it hit the wall and collapsed into a pile of crates.

He clutched his arm, which was bleeding, even as Yasha came alongside him with sword drawn. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, fine,” he hissed. “Little beast just got its teeth in me.”

“Oh, oh!” Jester was saying. “Look!”

Their attacker had crawled out of the debris and was crouching on all fours, growling like an animal. But animal it was not, at least not in the traditional sense. At first, all Molly had was a hectic impression of a figure in a tattered tunic with large green ears and huge golden eyes that glowed in the dim alleyway like a cat. And teeth, he thought, as he rubbed his arm. Quite a lot of jagged-looking teeth. A goblin. Though it was a weirdly dissident thing to find one here, in the middle of town.

Fjord called on his falchion, but before he could do more, the man from the pillory staggered forward on hands and knees. “Nott!”

“Caleb!” shrieked the goblin, launching herself through their arms and legs and Fjord’s sword, and throwing herself bodily at the wounded man.

If she had intended to hurt him, she would have succeeded. None of them were close enough or fast enough to stop her. However, instead of attacking, the goblin wrapped her arms around his neck and started sobbing. His trembling arms came up to embrace her.

“Oh, Caleb,” the goblin wailed. “I’ve been watching all day, but I couldn’t do anything, not even when those beastly children wouldn’t leave you alone, and then these weirdos took you, and I didn’t know what to do, and they – they –”

“Stop, stop,” Molly spoke over the near-hysterical babbling. “It’s clear enough you two know each other, and that’s all well and good, but we deserve an explanation. So,” he spoke to the goblin. “Who are you, and, for that matter, who is he?”

The goblin turned to him, tears dribbling down her cheeks. It had moistened the bandages she wore, presumably in an attempt to hide her identity, and while he watched, a snot bubble filled and burst. She sniffled loudly, arms clasped around the mysterious prisoner.

Jester brought her hands together. “Isn’t she just the cutest.”

‘Cute’ might not be the right word, but sure, the reunion had certain poignancy to it. Especially if this goblin was the ‘accomplice’ the guardsmen had mentioned, and Molly was willing to bet she was. He waited, along with the others, for an answer. It took patience, as now that her initial attack was over, she seemed more scared of them than anything.

“Please let us go,” she stammered. “We won’t do anything bad. We’ll disappear, and you’ll never see us again.”

“Now wait a minute,” Molly said. “You can’t just scamper off. For one thing, your friend here is hardly in any shape for running.”

If anything, Nott – Nott? – managed to shrink to an even smaller size. “I’ll take care of him.”

Under other circumstances, it would have been absurd – a goblin, swearing to take care of a human. Yet something about her convinced him. “I’m not doubting you,” Molly said. “Because I’m sure you would do your best, but your friend –”

“Caleb,” she told him.

“Caleb,” Molly agreed, “needs a healer.”

Jester pipped up. “And this is your lucky day, because it just so happens I’m the best healer in the Marrow Valley.”

“You figure that’s true?” Beau whispered, and Fjord elbowed her in her side. “Hey! I’ve been stabbed. Can’t I get any damn sympathy?”

Nott, for her part, was fixated on Jester. Caleb’s brief flirtation with consciousness had faded. He remained in her loose embrace, but his forehead had sunken onto her shoulder. She petted his hair, looking torn. “You’re a healer?”

“Yes,” Jester said.

“And you would – you would heal him?”

“Of course!”

“And how – what would you want us to do for it?” The way she spoke, it was like she was asking which finger would be lopped off. It was clear that, at best, she viewed them as dangerous allies with an ulterior motive.

“My dear,” Molly said. “I, for one, didn’t pull that man off a pillory to extort anyone.”

She grew angry. “You’re lying. I heard you. You said he was yours. Well, he’s not. He’s mine, and I won’t let you hurt him. I’ll kill you and bite off your faces before I let you do that.”

She sounded feral enough to do it, but it was hard to take her seriously, wrapped as she was around an unconscious human, looking for all the world like a very small, very angry child. Molly didn’t believe in feeling sorry for people, but it was hard not to be moved to pity in such a case.

Fjord was the one who finally cleared his throat. “You misunderstand us. We aren’t the kind to buy and sell people. That talk you heard was just the five of us being facetious about a weird situation. We did pay for his release, but not because we intended to indenture him. We saw a man being treated in a way that didn’t seem right, and we decided to do something about it.”

“Why?” Nott demanded.

“Because what was happening wasn’t justice,” Beau said. “I don’t care what he stole.”

“It was a bracelet,” Nott said, ears drooping. “And I’m the one who stole it, not him.”

It had been the obvious conclusion, but Molly sensed her admission was significant. “If it was you who stole the bracelet, how did he end up in the pillory?”

Nott fidgeted. “I get itchy fingers. When I’m drinking, it’s not so bad, but we’ve had a hard time in this town. They’re not very forgiving of grifters or beggars. Once my flask was empty, my fingers started itching, and when I saw that bracelet sitting in the street, I snatched it. I knew it was from one of the booths, and I knew someone might see, but I did it anyway. One of the crownsguard grabbed me. My mask fell off, then all the soldiers came running.”

Jester coaxed her, “Is that when Caleb stepped in?”

A fat tear traced the side of her nose. “He burned the guard who was holding me. I crawled into the crowd on my hands and knees, but he couldn’t get away.” Her lip trembled. “His poor hands.”

“That’s terrible, Nott,” Jester said. “It must have been very scary.”

“I thought they were going to kill him.”

“But they didn’t.”

Anger bubbled up again. “No, but they brought him to the magistrate, and then they put him in that cage thing for hours and hours. I tried to come up with a plan, but there were always people watching.”

“It would have been suicide to try anything,” Fjord reasoned.

Nott squeezed Caleb’s neck. Her voice was barely a whisper. “If he dies, I don’t care what happens to me.”

It was pretty heartbreaking, and Molly knew he wasn’t the only one affected. One look at Jester’s googly eyes and he knew where this was going. ‘In for a penny,’ he thought.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but for tonight, why don’t you and Caleb come back with us to The Chuckling Pheasant? Jester will do a little magic, we’ll share a few rounds, and Caleb gets tucked into a nice, warm bed for the night.”

The offer, kindly meant, seemed to overwhelm Nott. “A…bed?”

“Yes, in the inn. You know. A place where there’s ale, passable food, and a basin of cold water to splash your face in?”

“It’s not a total dump, anyway,” Beau said. “No bedbugs. No fleas.”

Nott scratched un-subtly under her armpit. “Um.”

Molly rolled his eyes. “Forget the fleas. You’re still invited. So what do you say?”

She looked at each of them. A huge barbarian. An intimidating half-orc. An angry monk. A manically grinning blue tiefling. And Molly – a purple man with horns and a tail who had thrown her into a wall. She shrunk a bit. “Do you…promise not to hurt us?”

She hadn’t even asked for their names. Just, ‘please, don’t hurt us’. Molly couldn’t stand it, but a rending of cloth wouldn’t help. Instead, he swept his coat back and spread his arms in what he hoped was a welcoming gesture. “You have our word. Right, everyone?”

There were murmurs of assent. With a little wheedling, Nott allowed Yasha to help Caleb, and the group headed back to The Chuckling Pheasant with two strange additions in tow.

If Mollymauk were being honest, the tavern in Edenbridge was just like the rest of the town. It was serviceable: alcohol, food, privy, stable. It was just bland and joyless. Still, it was safe enough, and once they got Caleb installed in one of the rooms, Jester approached Nott, who had placed herself between them and the bed.

“You will have to let me closer if I’m going to heal him, Nott,” she coaxed.

Nott inched reluctantly aside, allowing her access to the bedside. Once there, she grimaced at the state of her patient. “Fjord, we’re going to need a tub and warm water.”

A shudder went through Nott, and she scrabbled for her belt, which no longer held the dagger. “No water.”

“Nott,” Jester reasoned. “He’s really dirty, and not just the normal kind of dirty. People threw things at him, and I can smell that some of it was really not nice. Besides, if I’m being totally, totally honest, both of you smell so bad it’s going to attract attention. So why don’t you have a little bath while we take care of your, ah –” she looked at Nott’s bandages. “– clothes. And then we’ll all have a good night’s sleep and talk more in the morning.”

The tension in Nott’s body was so severe she was shaking. What story lurked there, Molly didn’t know, but it was more than a general aversion to water. “Nott, my dear, we promised we wouldn’t hurt you. So what’s the problem?”

“I know what you do with people like us.” She made a gesture, like shoving kittens under water for culling. “Like this,” she said, and gagged, as though in remembrance.

Fjord caught on. “Nott, no one here is going to drown you. But Jester’s right.” He looked at Jester. “Maybe a basin and a rag?”

She sighed, as though greatly put upon. “Well, okay, but it’s not going to be nearly as good. Plus they’ll miss out on the nice smells and hot water.”

“Needs must,” Molly chirped. “Anything else?”

“Just help me sit him up,” Jester said, pulling out her holy symbol. “I need to see his back to be sure I don’t make any mistakes.

In the end, Nott had submitted to only the very briefest scrubbing, but she had given up her filthy clothing. Now she sat on the bed in one of Beau’s sleeveless shirts, which pooled around her knees like a tunic. She was holding Caleb’s hand while he slept. “Thank you,” she said.

Molly was leaning against the wall by the window. He was curious, but didn’t want to push by asking too many intrusive questions. Fortunately, Beau possessed none of his restraint. “How the hell did you two end up together?” Fjord coughed, but she ignored him. “Well! It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Beau.”

“No, she’s right. It is weird,” Nott agreed, and her shoulders sloped downward.

“You don’t have to tell us anything,” Yasha told her. “You don’t owe us an explanation.”

Nott shook her head. “You got my Caleb out of that courtyard. I don’t have any way to repay you, but I can answer. Me and Caleb, we’ve been traveling together for a while. At first I thought he would leave because…well. But it’s been more than a year, and we’re a – a family. I know it shouldn’t be that way. He deserves better, but he needs me, and I need him, and –” Fresh tears fell.

Jester patted her back. “That’s lovely, Nott. We don’t always chose our family, you know? Sometimes the Traveler brings us really strange, really unexpected friends.”

“Like these idiots,” Beau threw in. “Lord knows this isn’t who I expected to be traveling with.”

Nott dared to look curious. “You’re all really…colorful,” she commented.

And Molly laughed, loud and long. Jester snickered, too, and even Yasha cracked a smile. “You could say that.”

Nott picked at a loose bit of thread at the edge of the blanket. “Does…does that mean you really don’t mind about me? What I look like?”

Jester picked up her hand, overlaying the green and blue. “No, Nott. We don’t mind. You and Caleb, you’re safe with us. Right, guys?”

Molly looked at the others, gauging their response. Beau was sold. In fact, Molly was willing to bet she would punch anybody who so much as frowned in their direction. Yasha, too, had a familiar gleam in her eye, one Molly knew from personal experience. Of the five of them, only Fjord looked noncommittal.

Molly himself was very clear on how he felt. “Sleep easy, Nott,” he told her. “You're among friends.”

That night, leaning against his pillow, neck craned so he could see the stars, Molly broached the subject that had been on his mind for the last few hours. “Fjord.”

The man shifted on his own bed. “Yeah?”

“You get the feeling we’re missing something? Like, maybe we were supposed to find those two a long time ago, but we just…didn’t?”

There was a long, telling silence. Then Fjord turned over, presenting his back. “You sound like a lunatic, Molly.”

“Says the guy with an eyeball in his magical destiny sword.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

Healed and rested, Caleb was like a different man. Jester had apparently attacked him with a brush, because his hair was combed behind his ears, and he was wearing a worn but freshly-washed brown tunic. It was a far cry from how they’d found him, half-naked and covered in blood. Amusingly, he was also wearing an expression of total, utter confusion as Jester led him to their breakfast table.

“Ta-da!” Jester said. “Doesn’t he look, like, a million times better?”

He did look a million times better, and Molly couldn’t help but feel a bit proprietary about it. Caleb took the open place beside Nott and they were treated to their first, fleeting glimpse of a rare sight indeed: an almost smile. “Nott.”

“Caleb, they have bacon,” Nott said eagerly, pushing her plate between them. Several strips of partially masticated meat were piled on it. “I saved you some.”

“Gross.” Beau assembled a much more palatable looking plate of bread, eggs, and unchewed bacon before shoving it in Caleb’s direction. “He doesn’t need to share your nasty leftovers.”

Nott hissed, but not in an unfriendly way. Caleb, for his part, was staring at Beau’s gruff offering. “Ah,” the man said quietly.

Molly took pity on him, leaning close enough to whisper, “Don’t worry. Beau’s bark is worse than her bite. Underneath that hard, outer shell...” He paused. “She’s secretly a husk without a soul.”

Beau kicked him under the table. “Shut up, asshole.”

“You first, darling,” he answered sweetly.

Caleb, meanwhile, had picked up a piece of bread, but made no move to eat it. He gazed instead at Molly as though he recognized him. “You’re Mollymauk,” he said.

Molly smiled, delighted that something of their first meeting had stuck. “That’s correct.”

“I must thank you. Much of yesterday is hazy, but I remember you. You were kind.” The way he said it, it seemed he wasn’t much used to kindness.

“These are nice people, Caleb,” Nott informed him. “They healed you, and they didn’t even ask for any money.”

“That is good,” he said, “because we have none.”

“It does sound as though you’ve been down on your luck,” Fjord said.

Caleb traced the grain of the wood with a finger. “You could say that, ja.”

“We’ve all been there,” Fjord said. “Well, most of us. I’m Fjord. This is Yasha. You’ve already met Jester, Molly, and Beau.”

“In a sense, though it is good to see you all while I am…well.”

“We’re glad to see you well, too,” Yasha said. “We were concerned about you.”

Caleb didn’t seem to know what to do with that information, or else he was just a man of few words. Yasha, a woman of very few words herself, accepted this with a nod and a small smile. It was gratifying to watch Caleb relax under her non-judgmental scrutiny. He nodded back in acknowledgement.

Fjord said, “Nott told us a little of your story. How you met, what you do. She says you study magic and are quite a powerful wizard.”

“She thinks too highly of me, but I do know a few tricks.” He raised his hand, the one which had been swollen and purple the day before, and snapped his fingers. A ginger cat appeared in the center of the table. It arched its back, yawned, and chirped at them. Then it hopped onto its master’s lap as Jester squealed.

“She’s adorable!”

“Frumpkin is male, actually,” Caleb said. “At first I imagined he was female because I named him after a childhood cat, but he is not really a cat. Well, he is a cat, but he is also my familiar, which makes him a fey, and somehow he keeps coming up –”

Molly laughed. “And here I thought you were shy, but clearly we just needed to get you onto the right subject.”

Caleb’s face flushed under his freckles, and he buried his hands in his cat’s fur. Both Frumpkin and Nott cast him irritated looks, but Molly just winked.

“I guess what we’re getting at, ah – Caleb,” Fjord fumbled. “Is, if you and Nott are so inclined, we’re heading north as a sort of adventuring party, earning a little coin along the way, and we wouldn’t mind having another couple of people.”

Nott blurted, “You want us to join your group?”

“I got blown up by a trapped door, like, yesterday,” Beau said. “It would have been nice to have someone catch that. You know, before the explosion.”

Yasha asked, “Is that something you can do, Nott?”

Nott fidgeted shyly with a piece of bacon. “I do have experience with that kind of thing. But I just got caught. Maybe I’m not so good at it.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Molly said. “And this is speaking as a person who regularly stabs themselves with their own swords.”

Caleb’s head jerked in his direction. “What?”

Molly wagged his hand. “It’s a…thing.”

“As for you, Caleb,” Fjord said, “I don’t think any of us would say no to a little more magic. Assuming you can do more than summon fluffy animals.”

“I can do…a little more.”

“So, what do you say?”

Caleb looked at Nott. She whispered, “You did say there was safety in numbers. Maybe it would be better if there were more of us, in case something bad happens again, and I can’t save you.”

“You have already saved me, my friend. Many times. But if you would like to expand our group, I am willing to give it a try.”

Nott gave them all a side-eye, as though they weren’t right there, well within hearing range. “Even though they’re weirdos?”

“Hey!” Beau said.

Something faint and smile-like passed over Caleb’s face once more. “Perhaps beggars cannot be choosers.”

“Hey,” said Molly.

Without another qualm, Nott turned to the rest of them. “Alright, we’ll come.” She extended her tiny hand, which Fjord shook gingerly.

“It’s settled then,” he said. “Welcome to The Lucky Bastards. That’s what we’ve been putting on the paperwork, anyway.”

Nott protested. “That’s a terrible name! If we’re going to start traveling together, I demand we come up with something better.”

Jester perked up. “I’ve been saying that forever. What do you think of The Steel Manticores. Oh! Or Malefactors, Inc.”

Beau groaned. “Look what you’ve done. I can practically feel the chaotic energy intensifying.”

“I’m not sorry,” Molly said, leaning back until his shoulder bumped Caleb’s. At first the man tensed, then slowly he began picking food off his plate while Nott lurched over the table to exchange horrifying team names with Jester. Beau was getting into it by way of commentary, and even Yasha had her ear cocked. Molly caught Fjord looking amused, though his expression transformed into one of dismay when Jester offered up a particularly…inappropriate suggestion.

Molly let the sounds wash over him. He’d done such a thing dozens of times in other taverns, but this was different. It felt right. He didn’t attempt to explain it. He couldn’t have if he tried. It was like a good card reading. It had a little destiny mixed in. And though he didn’t know exactly where it would lead them, he was more than happy to be along for the ride.

Chapter Text

Yasha swung her sword and felt the resistance of bone. For an instant, the Magician’s Judge scrapped, then jerked free in a glut of viscera. Blood sprayed across her face, twisted into a grimace. Another goblin sprang at her. Its shriek filled the starry night, and she struck again. After that, it was just a matter of keeping going.

Yasha could see her friends as they fought. Beau was deft, surging between fighters who were, for once, almost as dexterous as she was. She grunted, using her fists, her staff, her heel. There was blood on her face, too. Hers or her foe’s, Yasha didn’t know. There wasn’t time to find out.

Green fire, Fjord’s eldritch blast, flared in a darkness mitigated only by the fires they’d set, bales of hay burning. Jester’s high, chanting voice hung over the field, as did her translucent, deadly lollipop. And Molly, an icy shadow of infernal curses and slashing scimitars, weaved in and out of the fray. Yasha noted them one by one, anchoring herself as she tore through their hissing, clawing enemies. Then the furor of her rage rose up, and she knew little more than the cracking of bones and the snapping of teeth for some time.

When Yasha came back to herself, the battle was over. The ground was littered with bodies, and the fires burned on, though lower. Jester was picking though the corpses, and Yasha saw Molly and Fjord with their heads together in conference. They seemed relatively unharmed.

“You alright?” It was Beau, limping up beside her. She looked exhausted, drained of her usual post-victory exuberance.

Yasha looked around the battlefield, feeling a pang of regret. The goblins had been creatures, and murderous ones at that. She’d heard the stories, of babies snatched from basins, of the mutilated remains they left behind, discarded and desecrated. Still.

“I’m tired,” Yasha admitted. Her sword hung in her hand. She needed to clean it before it could be sheathed, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch the warm ichor, which seemed to steam in the coolness of the air.

Beau nodded. “Yeah I get that. You want to look around for the kid?”

That was what had sent them here in the first place. This clan of goblins, native to the area, had grown arrogant as they bloated in numbers. The local community had ignored the missing sheep, the lost dog, the mangled cow, but not the child. The child had been the last straw.

“I’m afraid we won’t find him,” Yasha admitted.

“Gods, let’s hope not,” Beau said. She really did sound weary. Her staff was sinking into the ground, and as she leaned against it, the wood bit into her cheek. “Still, we could look for proof. For his mom.” So the poor woman could lay him to rest, so she wouldn’t have to wonder.

Yasha inhaled deeply, centering herself. She seated her blade, not in its sheath, but in a loop of her belt. “I’ll take the south.”

They picked through the encampment, if it could be called that. Goblins weren’t known for their infrastructure. There were fire pits, and hollows insulated with straw which might have been sleeping places. There was evidence of past meals. Yasha examined it all methodically, alert for a patterned bit of fabric from a child’s tunic, a small shoe. She found nothing.

While scanning a horizon hazy with smoke, she tripped and nearly fell over a corpse. Yet when she looked down, she found the body partially obscured. Intrigued, she shifted a bush, and the entrance to an underground tunnel was revealed, crumbly with dirt. “Beau,” she called.

Beau arrived shortly and squinted at her discovery. “That looks nasty. You sure you want to go down there?”

“I can hear breathing.”

Beau lifted her staff. “A lot?”

“No, and they’re trying to be quiet.”

“Well, we did get hired to clean this place out. Guess it wouldn’t be right to leave it undone.”

Beau started to limp forward, but Yasha put a hand on her arm. “Flank me,” she requested.

Beau looked as though she might argue, but in the end she lit a torch and gestured forward. “Go slow. That passage is narrow, and I won’t be much help until it broadens out.”

They pressed inside. It was a hollow more than a cave, with bits of tree root hanging down, and chalky earth, and frost. Yasha was alert for traps, but the only one they encountered – a trip wire attached to a crossbow – had already engaged. Yasha and Beau had to step over the dead goblin, a bolt sticking out of its eye socket. The breathing grew louder, until finally, as the ceiling cleared overhead and the tunnel widened, Yasha saw them. The first figure was a bundle of rags whose skin was gouged with blood. When it shifted, chain links slid together. A living captive.

The other was a goblin.

The light from Beau’s torch was barely visible behind her back, but it did catch the goblin’s eyes. It shrieked, and Yasha raised her sword, but instead of attacking, the goblin wailed, “Stay away! I’ll tear your throat out if you touch him.”

Stunned, Yasha took a step back. She’d seen goblins take hostages, but this was different. For one thing, the goblin’s face and arms were livid with claw marks, like it had been fighting its own. It pressed into its captive, not like it wanted to hurt him, but like it wanted to hide. Yasha didn’t know what to make of it.

The captive was human. He was gagged, but his eyes were open. Yasha could see him squinting at her in the sudden brightness of the torchlight, and she couldn’t help but notice the way his hands, chained at the wrists, held onto the goblin. Not to struggle, but with a kind of desperation. Both of them stared at Yasha, and in both of them, she saw fear. Like prey animals hiding in a thicket who’d found themselves in the jowls of a wolf.

“Hello.” The word fell out of Yasha’s mouth. She spoke in Common, of course, not Ghukliak, and it snapped the human’s eyes to her. They widened, and his hands scrabbled at the goblin’s back.

“Mm,” he said.

Then Beau pushed through the hanging roots, coming upon the confusing scene, and the first thing she saw was a goblin crouched on top of a living person. Her reaction was instinctual. Yasha called to her, but the staff was already snapping toward the goblin’s skull with bone-crunching strength. It was a perfect blow. A killing blow. The goblin’s huge, globular eyes stretched for one final moment. It had time to give a warbled yell.

And then the human lunged from his prone position, turned his shoulder, and curled around the goblin. The staff struck his back. Bone crunched audibly, and a muffled cry of agony joined the goblin’s scream and Beau’s grunt of surprise.

Beau dropped her staff, shocked. She clasped her forehead. “Gods, I didn’t mean –”

The man crumpled. Though the gag prevented him from speaking, he was putting off little sounds of pain, and the goblin was in something like a panic. It nuzzled his neck, stroking his hair with claws that caught and pulled. “Please don’t die” it cried. “You can’t. Not after everything.”

Beau returned to herself. Striding forward, she grappled the goblin. It fought back, but not well. Yasha went to tend the captive. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his shoulder was shattered. He was also almost naked, and without the protection of clothing, she saw pits of gouged flesh, the bite marks. He’d been with the goblins for some time.

She could try to strongarm the chains, but not in this confined space. The leather gag, though, was another matter. It had been tied behind his ear so tightly she couldn’t undo the knot, and despite her care, she left a shallow cut on his face when she cut it free. It came loose crusted with saliva, and he coughed, the edges of his mouth raw. After a long moment, his eyes fluttered up, and he blinked at her, his rescuer. Then he went rigid.

“Not,” he rasped, and his voice was like an unoiled crank. His croaky words had no meaning to her, even as they grew in volume, and he began to struggle. “Not, not!”

Yasha tried to calm him. “Hush, now.”

On the other side of the den, the goblin started keening again, renewing its struggles. “Let me go! Stop it! You’ll hurt him!”

“What do you mean, we’ll hurt him?” Beau snarled.

“Don’t harm her,” the man begged. He stretched out his arms feebly, and there was no longer any doubt that he was, in fact, trying to reach the creature.

“Beau,” Yasha said. “Restrain that goblin, but don’t kill her. There’s a story here, and we’d better hear it before we make any decisions.”

Someone distant called, “You okay in there?”

It was Molly. Jester could be heard in the background, which meant Fjord wasn’t be far behind. Yasha looked at the man she was holding upright. There would be time to figure this out later, but for now they needed to get him out of this hole.

“What the hell is that?”

Fjord was staring at the goblin, bound with ropes and shivering on the ground at the edge of their camp. They’d moved north, away from the carnage. Not far, though. The man had not been fit for travel, and then there was this other complication...

“She’s a goblin,” Yasha said.

“I know it’s a goblin. Why didn’t you kill it?”

“She was protecting him,” Yasha said, glancing toward the tent where Jester was working on their reclaimed captive. The man was filthy, and so skinny it was hard to know how he was alive. They’d given him all their blankets, but he still shivered.

“Goblins don’t defend people,” Fjord said. “They barely defend each other.”

“This one did,” Yasha insisted.

“Then it was being territorial or something. It’s a goblin.”

Beau tucked her arms around herself a little too tightly for it to pass as anything but a self-soothing gesture. “I don’t know, Fjord. I’m the last person to throw in a good word for somebody, but this was different. It cried. Like, cried-cried. And that guy, when he got the gag out of his mouth, the first thing he did was plead with us not to hurt it.”

“Not to hurt her,” Yasha corrected.

Fjord passed his hands over his face. “This is ludicrous.” He looked down. “I don’t suppose you have anything to say for yourself.”

The goblin shuddered but refused to look at them. “She’s afraid,” Yasha said softly.

“Afraid? You saw that place, Yasha. You know what they probably did with the kid, and look at that poor bastard. How long has he been with them, do you think?”

Molly peeked tiredly from inside the tent. “He’s coming around. You want to try and talk with him?”

“Go. I’ll keep an eye on this. Whatever this is,” Beau muttered beneath her breath.

Inside the tent, the atmosphere was hushed. The lantern was turned down, and Jester put a finger to her lips when they came inside. “He’s still a little out of it,” she explained, “and he’s very weak.”

“He keeps saying ’not’ over and over,” Molly added. “Plus a jumble of other words. Not sure it’s common.”

“He spoke common before,” Yasha said. She sunk down near the head of pallet, placed a hand on his repaired shoulder.

The man seemed to recognize her, because he tried to sit up. “You –”

“Just relax. You’re in a tent on the Amber Road near Felderwin. We were sent here because of the goblin encroachment. We found you in their camp. You’re safe now.”

The man was shaking his head. A tear ran down his nose. He sounded incredulous. “Safe?”

“Yes, you’re safe,” Yasha told him.

“I did my best to heal you,” Jester said. “But you were hurt really bad, and your lungs sound crackly, so you should take it easy. You’re going to need time to get well.”

“Can you tell us your name?” Yasha asked.

He looked at her, and she could see the captivity in him. Who knew how long it had been since anyone had asked? “Caleb,” he whispered.

“Hello, Caleb,” she said, squeezing.

“Can you tell us what happened?” Fjord spoke up. “How you came to be there?”

“I was with a caravan passing through the forest,” Caleb said. He had a strong northern accent, which interested Yasha. “There’d been rumors of trouble, and it seemed unwise to travel alone. We were past the twelfth mile marker when they attacked us.”

“Goblins.”

“I burned some of them. Maybe that’s why they didn’t kill me. Maybe they were angry. They dragged me back to their camp.”

“What did they want?”

“Information. On town, roads. But I’m not from here. I don’t know much of anything worthwhile.”

“Did they torture you?”

The man closed his eyes. It was answer enough. That he was alive at all to face those memories was a kind of miracle, though one that came at a price. Yasha asked, “How did you survive?”

He came a little more alive. “Not,” he said.

“We don’t understand you, friend,” Molly spoke up. “What do you mean by ‘not’?”

He shook his head. “No, Nott. The girl. She saved me.”

“That goblin outside saved you?”

He jerked. “She’s here? She’s alive?”

“We brought her with us,” Fjord admitted. “Beau’s keeping an eye on her.”

“I need to see her.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

It was then that Caleb showed the first spark, a glimmer of the steel that lay beneath the pale and weakened surface. “You don’t get to decide that. I would be dead without her. She fed me, gave me water. She kept the others from killing me when everything went to hell. I want to see her.”

Fjord looked to Molly. “I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this –”

“What is there to understand?" Yasha interrupted. “The two of them connected in a moment of extremity. They both deserve to see if that still means something.”

“Yasha. I’ll say it again if I have to: It’s a goblin.”

The man made a sound like a snarl. “I don’t care. I don’t care. She –”

“Hush,” Yasha shushed him. “Do you want to see her now?”

“Ja,” he said. “Yes.”

Yasha was the one to loosen the ropes. “He’s asking for you,” she said.

The muscles in the goblin, which had been tensed to run, went slack. She drew her hands to her chest. “He does? But why?”

“He said you saved him.”

She sniffled. “Goblins hurt him. They starved him. Tortured him.”

“Did you do those things?”

“Sometimes,” Nott admitted. “When I had to.”

“But you also fed him and looked after him and spoke to him,” Yasha said. “I think we’d all like to know why.”

For a long moment, it seemed like Nott wouldn’t answer, like maybe she didn’t even know the answer herself. She twisted the ragged burlap she was wearing between her fingers before finally, she admitted, “I don’t like hurting people.”

“No?”

A pair of tears streaked through the gore on her face. “I’m not a very good goblin. It was lonely. He made me less lonely. That’s selfish, right?”

The shame in her voice was so cognizant, so reflective. Recognizing it, Yasha felt a little shame of her own. Goblins were monsters. That was what she had always been told. But it was hard to give that viewpoint credence listening to this girl. Yasha gestured toward the tent. “Do you want to see him?”

Nott shuffled closer to the warm light, almost compulsively. She looked up at Yasha. “It’s really okay?”

Yasha’s heart pounded. She was caught between a feeling of self-recrimination and the sensation of wild hopefulness. “It’s okay,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

Yasha had only twice witnessed fate. Once was on a tundra when she met the Stormlord, lightning in her heart and the wind on her breath. The other had been on the road near Rexxentrum when she met a lost-looking purple tiefling who could only say the word ‘empty.’ Now, as she stood just far enough outside the frame of the tent as to lend some privacy, she found herself privileged to be in attendance at a third such meeting.

In the shadows thrown by the lamp, Caleb looked tired. His face was sunken, and Jester’s healing had not left him without scars. Some of them raked across his cheek, and they were unavoidably the marks of claws. When she saw them, the goblin warbled with grief.

“Nott,” Caleb said.

“You remember my name?”

“How could I not remember? It was one of the things you gave me, at great risk to yourself.”

She shook her head. “I should have given you more. I should have helped you escape.”

“They would have killed you.”

“How can you say that?” Nott cried. “How can you care?”

Caleb stretched out his hand. It wavered between them, but he was stubborn and refused to lower it until her reluctance eroded and she shuffled closer. There, facing one another, he said, “You saved my life, Nott. I must thank you.”

“You shouldn’t thank me.”

Caleb’s voice was soft and so earnest. It filled the tent with a sense of sacredness, a place where the world could not reach. “Even before the caravan, I had been alone for years and years. No one had been kind to me. Not for a very long time. When you held my hand in the dark, I didn’t want to let go.”

“But I’m a goblin,” said Nott.

“I’m a murderer,” Caleb answered. “Worse than your kinsman. Worse than that...butcher who hurt us both.”

“No,” Nott denied. She clutched his hands. “Don’t say that. You’re good. I know you are. I can see it in your face.”

“I’m not,” he insisted.

“Then I don’t care.” She threw her arms around him. “I don’t care, if it’s you.”

He embraced her in return, clutched at her with all the strength his body had left. “Stay with me,” he asked in a voice that broke.

Her voice wavered. “Can I?”

“Don’t leave.”

“Please,” she begged.

For a long while, they stayed like that, locked in an embrace that seemed equally desperate on both sides. It was like seeing a key nestle into its designated lock. They fit together. Only after a long time did they draw apart, both wrung out. Nott used her sleeve to rub at his face, and he gave a chuckle that sounded only a little unhinged. He caught her hand. “I couldn’t tell you before. I’m Caleb.”

Yasha stood outside, keeping vigil and thinking. Viewed from the lens of the world, she knew what she was witnessing would be been seen as wrong, perhaps even perverse, but what she saw was two friends brought together by a storm – two souls, destined to be together, bound by invisible threads.

Beau came up beside her and peeked into the tent. “They really are going to stick together, aren’t they?”

Yasha would have wagered her wings. “Yes, I believe they will.”

“Dangerous,” Beau muttered. “People won’t understand. They’ll try to hurt her, and they’ll hurt him if he tries to interfere.” She fidgeted with her staff, uncomfortable with the memory of what she’d almost done.

“It was an accident,” Yasha said. “You acted on instinct.”

“Yeah, well, my instinct was to exterminate without question, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen if those two are stupid enough to go waltzing through a marketplace or try booking a room in an inn. What are they going to do? Live in the woods and become hermits?”

Yasha set her shoulders. “We could look after them.”

Beau’s eyebrows flew high onto her forehead. “Us look after them? A goblin and some homeless guy?” She barked a laugh. “Oh, Fjord is going to love this.”

“Jester likes them.”

“Jester likes everybody,” Beau retorted. “And don’t get me started on Molly. I’ve seen him feeding strays when he thinks we aren’t looking.”

Yasha didn’t bother arguing. Instead, she gestured toward the canvas. “Just listen, Beau.” There was sweet music coming from inside the tent; Nott was sitting in Caleb’s lap, and she was giggling. Even from here, they could see the grin on his scarred, weary face. “I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I want to get in the way of.”

“It’s cute,” Beau admitted begrudgingly. “Plus, did you hear the way that skinny hobo barked at Fjord? Now, that was funny. As for Nott, she packs a hell of a punch.” She rubbed her ribs in rueful memory.

“So we keep them,” Yasha said.

Beau looked at her. “You’re really asking me to back you on this.”

“You were there.” As far as Yasha was concerned, no further explanation was needed.

With an aggrieved sigh, Beau folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah, yeah, alright. We keep them. Even though I just know we’re going to regret it.”

Yasha turned toward the tent, that fluttering, wistful hope stirring once again in her stomach. She wanted to believe in this; that borders and boundary lines could be surpassed. That traditional foes, even ones who with a history of terrible violence, could mend and become friends. “I want to watch them grow together,” she admitted.

“You’re such a softie, Yasha,” Beau accused.

Yasha said, “Yes.”

Chapter Text

The bookstore was called The Friendly Cat, which was a strange name for a bookstore. However, when Caduceus pushed inside, heralded by a bell on a silver string, the first thing he saw was a handsome, spotted feline who sat on its haunches and chirped at him. “Well, hello,” Caduceus greeted. “You must be the cat.”

The cat gazed at him with eerie perception; however, before Caduceus could decide whether there was something uncanny about him, a voice from within called, “Close the door, please.”

Caduceus did as requested and made his way farther into the rambling shop. Shelves of books stretched upward, there were niches with cushioned chairs, and desks with lamps for those who wanted to study. Overhead, the ceiling had been painted the color of the night sky, complete with pinprick stars, and hanging from delicate threads was an apparatus made of rings and spheres, rotating around one another as though by magic. Caduceus cocked his head, puzzled by the beautiful contraption. He continued, stopping at times to touch a spine or lift a tome. In truth, though, it was the atmosphere of the place that had drawn him more than the books.

In the back he found the proprietor, reading a letter as he leaned over the counter. “Hello,” Caduceus said again.

The man who raised his head was a human in his late thirties or early forties. His plaited hair was the color of autumn leaves, and someone had gone to the trouble of weaving in tiny blue flowers that matched his eyes. It was a little messy, but it went well with his freckles and with the soft, hesitant smile tugging at his lips.

“Can I help you?”

Caduceus drifted closer. He liked his man instinctively. “Not with anything in particular. I was just enjoying your shop. It has a nice feel to it.”

The man pinked beneath his glasses. “Oh, well, I’m pleased you like it. It was my dream to own a shop like this. Not my first dream, but one that came later and stuck closer.”

Caduceus nodded with understanding. “I get that. My own destiny has gone a little haywire since I met a strange group of people and decided to travel with them. That was some time ago now.”

The bookstore owner hummed with interest. “Are you an adventurer, then?”

“Oh,” said Caduceus, thinking over their expeditions, some of which he was proud to recall, others dubious and full of pain. “Something like that. How about you?”

“Hm,” the man said, and his eyes shifted to a display case farther down the counter. The top was made of glass, and inside Caduceus could see a shattered stone lying on a bed of velvet. “I’ve already had my journey. A very long and painful one. I sacrificed much for it, but in the end I achieved the things that were most important. Now it’s done.”

Caduceus smiled. “Then you’re lucky. It isn’t easy to find the end of things.”

The man gave a short laugh and stretched out his hand. “Just so. My name is Caleb, and you have an interesting feel to you, too, Mister –”

“Caduceus Clay,” he answered. “You have an interesting smell. Like ash and cloves. And molasses?”

Just then, the bell over the door tinkled, followed by the patter of dashing feet. Caduceus caught a glimpse of a child-sized figure just before she launched herself at the counter, pulling herself up so she could give Caleb a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

“Welcome home, Nott,” said Caleb. He nudged her with the letter. “Günter and Captain Leeta send their love.”

She put her weight against his shoulder and glanced at his offering. It was familial, the action of a person who needed no invitation to draw near; however, the pressure seemed to cause some discomfort, because the muscles in Caleb’s face leapt. Nott frowned. “If you’re hurting today, you should use the tincture.”

With noticeably stiff movements, Caleb shifted. “It’s nothing. A twinge, is all.”

“Caleb,” Nott said, and the disapprobation in her voice did not sound like a child talking to an adult. Caduceus couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but for some reason he thought of his mother.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Perhaps later. At the moment, we have a customer.”

The girl who faced Caduceus had almond-shaped green eyes, set in a face that was even more densely freckled than Caleb’s. Her complexion was darker, however, and her hair, which was plaited far more neatly, was brown. She scrutinized him. “Weird.”

“Nott,” Caleb chastised.

“Caleb, he’s pink! And a cow.”

“Firbolg, actually.”

Caleb and the girl shared look. What exactly it meant, Caduceus didn’t know, but it was apparent these two had a long-standing ability to communicate without words. Finally Nott huffed, sliding off the counter. “Fine.”

Caduceus watched her wander off. “I’m sorry about that,” said Caleb. “Nott is eccentric, but she doesn’t mean to be intentionally rude.”

“Kids are like that.”

An odd expression passed over Caleb’s face. “As a favor, please do not call her that within earshot.”

Caduceus rubbed his hands together until they radiated a dim glow. “If you’re in pain, Mister Caleb, I could try something. I’m very good with old wounds.”

At first, Caleb didn’t answer. Then he said, “It’s kind of you to offer, but I am afraid this is a bit beyond healing. But please do not worry. It’s normal for me.”

Caduceus couldn’t stop his nose from wrinkling at the idea of a hurt beyond healing. Then he sniffed. Caleb had a cup resting beside his knuckles, and it smelled even nicer than the man’s hair. “Is that tea?”

Caleb set down his letter. “Would you like a cup?”

Caduceus was studying a framed parchment mounted on the wall. There was a faint shimmer to its inscriptions, which had the look of a very complex magical invocation. The parchment itself was ancient and in very poor condition. There were three quite distinct reddish-brown stains, and the entire center was burned away with tendrils of fire damage spiraling from the center. It had attracted his attention because it seemed odd to display something so ruined. He considered asking, but…manners.

He and Caleb had settled into two very comfortable plush chairs when the bell over the door rang again, only this time the silvery jingle didn’t stop once the door was closed. Caduceus recognized the sound of those chains even before their owner swung around the corner and threw open his arms. “There you are, Caduceus. Making yourself comfortable, I see.”

“This is a very comfortable place,” Caduceus said, blowing on his tea. The steam tickled his nose. “Good company, too.”

“Oh?”

His traveling companion fixated on Caleb, who didn’t seem bothered when the tiefling leaned into his space, one hand on either of the armrests. The jewelry on his horns clinked as he gave his most charming smile. “Well, hello there. Mollymauk Tealeaf is the name.”

“Ah. Hallo, Mollymauk Tealeaf. I am Caleb. Are you a friend of Mister Clay’s?”

“So polite,” Molly said, straightening, but Caduceus could tell he was charmed. Molly was a friendly person, but he had a different kind of smile when his feelings went beyond amicability. Caduceus understood. This Caleb fellow – and the girl, too – had a shine to them.

“Were you looking for me because you needed me?” Caduceus asked. “No one is hurt, I hope.”

“No, nothing like that. I just got bored listening to the magistrate fawn over Fjord and Beauregard, so I decided to see if you were up to anything fun.”

“Books are very fun,” Caleb said. “If you’d like, I can help you make a selection.”

“Got anything stimulating?” Molly asked, waggling his eyebrows.

Caleb pointed. “It is the section in the back, by the curtain. Though, I warn you, children who touch the shelving get a nasty shock.”

Molly’s eyebrows flew into his bangs. “Did you just call me a child?”

“Forgive me,” said Caleb. “Common is not my first language. There must have been a misunderstanding.”

This was obfuscation. Caduceus could tell, and probably so could Molly. However, Mollymauk had an excellent sense of humor, and he just shooed Caleb’s hand off the armrest so he could perch there. “I see why you like this place, Cad.”

A shriek from the back drew their attention, and Nott shouted, “Caleb, Caleb, come quick!”

Caduceus had a funny feeling he knew exactly what was going on, and if the grin on Molly’s face was any indication. They followed Caleb to the back of the shop where the shelves were closer together. There, amidst haphazardly stacked towers of books turned upside down or opened like window shutters, was Jester. She wasn’t moving. In fact, she seemed frozen in place, her muscles bunched with the effort of resisting whatever force held her in place.

“Oh dear,” Caduceus said, looking at the mess.

Nott swung around, her face flushed with excitement. “I caught her messing around with the books, turning them all around and ruining everything, so I triggered the glyph. I caught her red-handed!”

“Oh, Jester,” said Molly, full of mirth. “Looks like you finally hit the wrong bookstore. Apparently, this one belongs to a wizard.”

Caleb asked, “You know this woman?”

“Oh, yes,” Caduceus said. “Jester’s in our party. She’s also a high priestess of the Traveler. Pranks are her religious practice. Usually she targets shrines and temples, but rearranging shops has been a hobby of hers since our early traveling days.”

“I see. So she didn’t intend any real harm.”

“No, she didn’t. And I’m sure if she damaged something, she’ll replace it.”

Caleb’s expression turned pensive. “Books are a bit like individuals. They can be valued, but they can’t be replaced. Not really.”

Before Caduceus could suss out his meaning, Jester protested. “I totally didn’t hurt your books, okay? It was just a joke, so can you please let me go?”

“Very well,” Caleb agreed and snapped his fingers.

The magic dissipated, and Jester relaxed. “That was a really strong spell, you guys. Pretty cool, Caleb!”

“Ah, have we met?”

“No, but I was tiptoeing around while you were talking to ‘Deuces.”

“Sneaky,” Nott approved. “Unfortunately for you, Nott the Brave was on the case.”

“Oh, are you a detective? Because I’m really good at finding out secrets and stuff.”

Nott showed immediate interest. “Really? What kind of secrets?”

“Like, did you know that the magistrate of this town wears leopard-spotted underwear? I saw it myself when my duplicate snuck up on him and pulled up his robe. And that dwarf who runs the blacksmith shop down the street – he’s dating a bugbear.”

“Harold?” Nott clapped her hands to her face. “Really?”

Jester gestured toward Molly and Caduceus. “Don’t even get me started on these two. I could tell you the craziest stuff about them.”

“Ah, ah,” Caduceus said. “You promised Fjord you’d stop eroding the party’s reputation by ‘disseminating slanderous stories’. And you told me you were going to stop gossiping.”

Jester giggled. “Seminating.”

“Jester is Jester, Cad. I don’t know why you or Fjord have any hope,” Molly said. The bell on the shop sounded, and he turned. “Well, speak of the devil.”

“You’re one to talk about devils,” Beau snarked.

He joyfully gave her the finger.

Caduceus meanwhile, smiled at Fjord and Yasha. They were dressed elegantly for the sake of appearances, but Caduceus could tell Molly had been right about their meeting being boring. Though outwardly distinguished as usual, Fjord had a glassy look to his eyes. “Who’s this, Cad?” he asked.

Caleb extended his arm, and as his sleeve stretched, Caduceus noticed his hand and wrist were a mass of burn scars. The pink furrows crisscrossed his entire palm, and though they were visible for only a second before Fjord covered them, Caduceus saw the intricacy of their pattern, almost as though an array of arcane sigils had been seared into his skin.

Curious.

“My name is Caleb Widogast, and this is my shop,” Caleb said. “From the way your friends talk about you, you must be important.”

“Well.” Fjord coughed uneasily. “That’s debatable. We’ve gotten a little notoriety. Done a little good, too, I hope.”

“That’s nice,” Caduceus said. It was good to hear Fjord talk that way. He hadn’t always been so sure their strange, chaotic group would lean in that direction. It had been very tenuous at times, and there had also been moments when something just felt...missing. Incomplete. Sometimes it still felt that way. But not today. Today was a good day.

“What about you?” Beau asked Caleb.

“What about me?”

Beau cocked an eyebrow. “Please. There are wards all over this place, and apparently you just pinned our battle cleric to the wall. Obviously you pack a punch under that dorky looking sweater you’re wearing. So what’s the deal?”

“I have never thrown a punch in my life,” Caleb said.

“I believe that.” She looked with contempt at his skinny arms. “You’re a battlemage, then.”

Nott had come over and slid under Caleb’s arm. The way she looked at Beau was definitively unfriendly. Caleb, however, seemed unmoved. “Actually, I’m a bookstore owner.”

“You’ll have to forgive Beau,” said Molly. “She was born with an overdeveloped sense of sarcasm and the inability to keep her nose out of other people’s business.”

Beau crossed her arms. “It’s my specialty.”

“It may be your profession, Expositor Beau,” Fjord said, “but curiosity killed the cat.”

“And satisfaction brought it back,” said both Beau and Caleb at the same time.

Jester giggled. “Look, Beau. You made a friend.”

Beau rolled her eyes. “Please. Just look at this guy. Total dweeb.”

Nott snarled. It was a very peculiar noise coming from a little girl. “If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head, then leave our store.”

“Your store, huh? What are you, nine?”

“I’m thirteen,” Nott said. “And fully adult, so don’t start.”

“Oh, dear,” said Caduceus, clapping his hands to cut though the banter. “It’s getting late. Perhaps we should head out.”

Caleb said, “You’re welcome any time. I enjoy hearing stories, and you sound as though you have some interesting ones.”

“Are you going to share any?” Beau asked slyly.

Caleb smiled, but not the soft smile from before. This one was rather sharp. “I’m sure I would only bore you.”

Nott cackled. “Right.”

Caduceus looked at her, and her face hinted at something underneath, something just out of reach of his perception. He caught her eye, and she winked at him. Mm. Mysterious. He considered using detect magic, but he didn’t want to be rude.

Fjord was looking at Caleb. “Perhaps we will stop by again. Or we could invite you around for drinks. We’ve just taken a big job, and if you’re truly an experienced wizard, we –”

“Not interested,” Caleb interrupted.

Molly put a hand on his hip. “In the job or the drink?”

“My days of adventuring are over,” Caleb clarified, sharing a look with Nott that was full of meaning. She put her arm around his waist, and they leaned into each other. “We’ve fought enough battles and come though enough fires for a lifetime. But I thank you for the offer.”

Fjord accepted this, though not without a twinge of something. Curiosity? Regret? “Of course,” he said. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

They headed for the door, Beau pausing to punch Caleb’s shoulder. Jester waved, promising to come disorganize the merchandise again sometime soon, to which Nott retorted, “I’ll lay a snare!” Which left Caduceus, who handed Caleb his cup. “Thank you for the tea. It was lovely.”

Caleb’s smile was genuine. “Sincerely, you are a person I would not mind seeing again. I hope you come back.”

“Oh, I will, if there’s time. The road can lead lots of strange places at unexpected times.”

“That is true,” Caleb agreed.

Caduceus waved. “Goodbye. And be happy, Mister Caleb.”

“You, too, Mister Clay.”

He and Nott walked deeper into the shop, disappearing amidst the shelves of books and strange objects and pleasant smells. Caduceus gave one more appreciative sniff, then opened the door. The little bell on the silver thread jingled, and he left the bookstore owner and the girl wearing a very convincing mask in his shadow.

A cat sat in the window and watched him go.

Chapter Text

Three hours. For three hours they’d been fighting, and the party was close to being overwhelmed. Fjord’s muscles burned every time he raised his falchion, and each eldritch blast grew weaker and more insubstantial, until finally it was a mere fizzle. His breathing grew heavier as heart and lungs labored to oxygenate thickening blood. Sweat poured from him, sticking in every joint and fold of his armor, and through the fog of exhaustion over his mind, he wondered, ‘Is this the end?’

A dire wolf stalked out of the darkness, foam on its jaws. It circled Fjord, vocalization roiling in its chest in a way that made Fjord’s guts watery. It wore a bib of blood, and its weirdly intelligent eye moved like a gimble over the veins of Fjord’s neck, as though waiting for an opportunity to snap those delicate lines with the teeth sitting like shattered glass in its mouth.

Fjord fell back, his knees trembling. ‘You were a fool to come down here,’ his mind berated. ‘You knew you didn’t have the numbers or the firepower, but then Beau got into a snit, and Molly started talking about how they did things in the damned circus, and Jester started whining about how nasty the inn was. You took the easy route because you didn’t want to argue with them, and look where it’s gotten you.’

Regret choked him like a dark current he hadn’t had the wit to see. Yet as he dwelt on these thoughts, a sizzle of magical energy burned through him. Out of nowhere, his muscles surged with returning strength, leaving him as fresh and untired as though he’d just woken up from a long rest. What was this? As his heart raced with jubilation, an accented voice answered in a whisper he heard inside his head and not with his ears:

“I’ve hasted you. Take advantage of it while it lasts.”

The voice could have been from friend or foe, fiend or patron, but there was no time to question it. The dire wolf surged forward, but Fjord had become a conduit of power. Every nerve jumped with vitality, and when he carved through the beast with his falchion, the hide and muscle parted as easily as fabric rending, leaving his enemy in two gory pieces at his feet.

He looked up, blinking through the spray of blood misted over his face, and saw it wasn’t just his own battle which had turned. Where before there had been dimness, the cavern was now lit with four baubles of dancing light. Illuminated by that light, the pack of dire wolves and the sorcerer controlling them had momentarily quailed. Now they were rallying. However, it wasn’t only Fjord’s exhausted friends ready to repel them. They’d been joined by seven new fighters, spread over the battlefield.

He saw the cleric first, because how could you miss this cleric? As far as Fjord could tell, she was a half-orc like himself – but enormous, easily seven feet tall and built like a battering ram. In her plated armor, she barreled through her opponents, even as her voice pumped the air with healing magic that Fjord could feel pulling at his tired bones and closing the gristly gaps in his flesh. She was flanked by the strangest fighter Fjord had ever seen, and for a moment he was convinced it was a halfling riding a pony, though how a pony had been convinced to trespass these dripping caverns, he did not know. Then the woman reared, lunging forward with her lance, and Fjord saw the truth. She was a centaur. Her braid lashed around her shoulders as flashing hooves came down. She laughed afterward, calling to the half-orc, who answered with a grunt.

There was music underpinning the conflict and, all of a sudden, two of the wolves squealed and ran. Yasha cut one down, while the other fell with an arrow through its eye. Another arrow flew, and another, but Fjord couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Finally, in the center of the melee, two warriors encroaching on the sorcerer, and it was these two warriors who drew Fjord’s eye.

They moved together, one with swift and decisive movements, the other in the shadow cast by his passing. The first carried a pair of swords shaped like sickles. His tail lashed behind him, and his ribbed horns rose over his ears. There was a radiance to him, as though he had a spell simmering over his skin. The other fighter – if he could be called that, for he was wearing no armor – was diminutive by comparison. The only thing that stood out about him at all was his flame-colored hair and the fact that he was human.

The sorcerer was angry, but not defeated. He moved his hands in complex patterns, voice echoing like thunder, and Fjord braced himself. Yet even as the air began to fold, the glyphs form, the human stepped out of the paladin’s shadow and raised his hands, shouting in a language Fjord didn’t know.

The sorcerer’s magic fizzled. Enraged, he threw a firebolt, which skittered harmlessly off the paladin’s shield. Eager to contribute, Fjord fired two eldritch blasts. One glanced off purple mage’s armor, but the other flared and caught in the sorcerer’s hair. He screamed, dispelling the magical fire, and in that moment of distraction, the paladin was able to bring his vibrating sickles to bear.

Engaged as he was, Fjord feared the paladin would be vulnerable to attack by one of the dire wolves. But no. The mage remained at his back, and when a snarling animal lunged forward, a magical shield snapped to life. The animal was thrown back by its own momentum and spun along the ground.

Fjord had a close call of his own. He was so engrossed in making his way closer to the sorcerer, he didn’t notice the dire wolf until the hoarse rattle of its breath was in his ear. Too late, he raised his arm to defend himself, but before he could suffer a messy evisceration, a short sword stabbed in and out of the wolf’s neck, felling it instantly. The crouching figure who’d killed it looked up at Fjord with luminous yellow eyes that seemed too big for her face. Her green ears twitched, and she snarled, “Watch what you’re doing, or you’re going to get killed.” Then, before Fjord could come up with a retort, the rogue was gone.

“Well,” said Fjord, stepping over the corpse of the dire wolf.

Fjord reached the paladin and his foe, who were locked in a mortal embrace. For long moments, it wasn’t clear who would prevail. Then, with his shield, the paladin bashed the sorcerer prone. This should have been the moment of victory, but instead the paladin collapsed under the weight of an unseen injury. His comrade seized him before he could go down, but their size difference was too great. Both staggered. In that fraught moment, Fjord found himself pinned by the mage’s eyes. He jerked his wrist to his mouth, and through the clamor of battle, Fjord once again heard a whisper:

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

It kicked Fjord into action. His weapon sang with arcane power as he called on the mist. It teleported him directly over their wounded adversary, and then it was only a matter of bringing his weapon to bear. It carved down, an arc of ending, and it was done. A wet rattle was the last sound the sorcerer ever made.

Fjord rested the tip of his sword on the ground as a tremendous wave of lethargy came over him. “It’s because of the haste spell,” said a voice beside him, and he twitched, half raising his falchion. The mage raised his hands. “Steady. We are allies.”

“Who are you?” Fjord asked, aware of how croaky he sounded. It was like a thousand elephants had sat down on his shoulders.

The human gestured. “Come. You will recover quickly, but better to let a healer look at your wounds. Velda, have you any healing left?”

The half-orc woman he’d seen earlier was standing over the paladin, holding him immobile with a huge glowing hand. Gruffly, she said, “Wait a minute. Laurent’s turn.”

“I’m hardly injured,” said the paladin, presumably Laurent. “Anyway, much better than that poor fellow Caleb hasted.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” the man named Caleb said. “He was barely standing, and we were spread too thin.”

“And I’m grateful,” Fjord said. He flashed back to the jaws of that beast, its bib of blood. “It was mighty close, and not just for me.”

“We’re fine, thanks for asking,” said Molly, limping out from between two hulking bodies. He was leaning heavily on Jester.

“Oh Fjord! You look terrible.” Jester’s mouth made an ‘o’ of distress when she saw Fjord’s state. Her hand stretched out. “Here. Let me heal you.”

“Better let Velda do it,” said Laurent. “You look tapped out, my lady.”

Jester’s face flushed with color. She swished her dress, which was only slightly ragged at the edges. Nothing a quick mending wouldn’t fix. “Well, I am pretty tired. I used most of my spells to help Molly.”

Fjord became concerned. “Was it bad?”

Rubbing his side, Molly grimaced. “Might have gone down for a bit, but Jester had things under control.”

“What about Beau? And Yasha.”

“There’re around. Yasha, darling! Where are you?”

Yasha and Beau were, in fact, not far from them at all. Beau was standing in front of an elf holding a lute, who was attempting to kiss her hand. Only Yasha’s quick reflexes stopped her from punching him. They drifted closer at the sound of Molly’s voice. The pony centaur reached them first, and she went directly to Caleb, playfully flicking him with her tail. “I see you survived, you squishy thing.”

The bard grabbed him around the neck. “Plus that excellent use of counterspell. Steller work.” Caleb tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but the bard held on stubbornly, shoving Caleb under his armpit and ruffling his hair. “Good wizard.”

In a voice slightly muffled by his position, Caleb mumbled, “We all do our part. Some more visibly than others.”

“Speaking of which, where are the shadows?”

“Right in front of you, as usual,” said a feminine voice, and a woman in a green cloak stepped out from behind Yasha, striding into their midst with an air of authority. She had a longbow over her shoulder, and Fjord remembered the arrows whose source had been unknown. She gave the paladin a scathing look. “Did you get an ouchie while you were barreling directly into range of the enemy?”

“Caleb had my back,” said Laurent.

“I barely did anything,” Caleb said from beneath the bard’s arm.

The woman flicked his forehead with a long, elegant finger. “Take a compliment,” she said. “I saw that counterspell, too.”

“Hear that?” said the bard. “Mommy thinks you’re just awesome.” However, before he could finish his taunt, he yelped and jumped back, rubbing his backside. “Nott! What have we said about putting holes in the seat of my pants? This is high quality linen, you know!”

A scratchy, high-pitched voice answered. “Then quit teasing my boy! And keep your hands to yourself!”

The source of the voice materialized, wearing a grey cape. She pushed it down, revealing familiar green ears. “That’s a goblin,” Beau said.

Molly rolled his eyes. “Oh, very good, Beau. As usual, you’re just oozing with couth.”

“Hey, shut up. It’s a little unusual, okay?”

“Perhaps,” said Laurent. “But Nott just so happens to be the best rogue this side of Rexxentrum, and we are very fortunate she chooses to put up with us.”

There was no mistaking the warmth of his voice or the way the half-orc cleric shifted to move a little closer to Nott, as though to protect her should Fjord or his friends decided to take exception to her. Fjord wanted none of that. They’d been in a real bind, and they were damn lucky these people showed up when they did. Best they started off on the right foot.

He held out his arm to the paladin, who seemed to be their leader. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Fjord.”

“And I’m Jester!” said Jester, wiggling her fingers in a fluttery movement.

“Beau.” Beau had her arms crossed and looked suspicious, which, to be fair, was her default expression.

Molly struggled into a more upright position and gave a bow. “Mollymauk Tealeaf at your service, and this is my friend Yasha.”

The paladin clasped Fjord’s arm willingly enough. His complexion was an almost cobalt grey with white eyes and a bearded face under sharp cheekbones. Something about him suggested a soldier’s bearing, but Fjord didn’t know exactly what. At the moment, at least, he bore no insignia. “I’m Laurent Creed,“ he said. “My companions and I are The Mighty Nein.”

Yasha was the one to state the obvious. “There are seven of you.”

The centaur giggled musically, and most of the others spared at least a chuckle. Laurent’s mouth twitched around a smile. “It’s a bit of a joke,” he said. “You’ve met Harper, I think.”

“Harper ben Lyon of Greystone,” said the bard, whose bow was a clear parody of Molly’s. Fjord had a feeling the two would get along famously.

“The others are my second-in-command, Wren Montspire, Velda, our cleric, and Fern is the troublemaking centaur with the lance.” His eyes shifted, and again that warmth seeped in. “And this, of course, is Caleb and Nott.”

Fjord looked at Caleb. “You saved my butt out there.”

“Twice,” said the goblin. Caleb gave her arm a tug, but she insisted, “What? We did.”

“And it’s a very nice butt,” Jester said. “So thank you.”

“Thanks to all of you,” said Fjord. “But I have to ask, how did you come to be down here?”

Wren, the woman Laurent had called his second-in-command, was the one who spoke. “The short answer is that we knew you were here. A merchant in the Pentamarket was worried you’d bitten off more than you could chew and asked us to check.”

“Pumat,” said Molly. “Well, that was nice of him.”

“He likes you, apparently,” the centaur said. Then, more cheekily, “Maybe it’s the ragged edges.”

“Fern, stop,” Laurent said. “Why don’t we have a look around?”

It would mean sharing the spoils, but fair was fair. Fjord said, “That sorcerer had a nasty edge to him, and I wouldn’t put it past him to leave some surprises.”

“Agreed,” Laurent said. “Caleb?”

The man nodded, sitting down and drawing a few runes on the ground with a piece of chalk. “I’ll need a few minutes.”

While he worked his magic, the rest of them began a preliminary search. They began with the outskirts, searching for an alcove or a hidden room. Fjord was testing a pillar when he heard Beau’s voice. She’d found something on the sorcerer. It turned out to be box, wooden, ornate, and hooked with a latch. She poked it with her toe. “I ain’t doing it this time. You know it’s going to explode or something.”

“I got it,” said Nott, scurrying into view. She took some tools from her belt pouch. “It’s trapped alright, but I can see the mechanism. Just give me a second.” She worked at it with the tiniest pick Fjord had ever seen, and then finally, there was a soft click. “Done,” she said, and tossed the box to Laurent.

He looked at Fjord. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Fjord worked the tiny latch. Inside, he found an amulet on a chain. It had a sigil he didn’t know and a weight that went beyond the physical. “You got anybody in your party who can identify this?”

Laurent’s voice echoed in the cavernous space. “Caleb.”

Caleb wasn’t where they’d left him. The ritual circle was entirely abandoned. Fjord’s gaze swung around until he caught sight of the man’s robe sticking out from behind a pillar of stone. He startled when his name was called, and his furtive response made Fjord suspicious. He watched the man carefully as he approached.

“Yes?”

“We were hoping you could identify this.”

His eyes were already glowing. “It’s defiantly magic,” Caleb said. Then he blinked, and the glow was gone. “I’ll need ten minutes to identify it.”

The answer turned out to be interesting but not very helpful. “It’s an arcane focus,” Caleb said, glancing at the corpse Beau had shoved out of the way. To Fjord he said, “It might have value to the right person, but I am afraid it won’t be of any use to you.”

For some reason, the assessment of his source of power put Fjord even more on edge. Aside from the arcane focus, there was a paltry amount of other loot. Some gold, leather collars. A few gems and other rarer components. “Oh, lovely,” said Jester about the jewels, holding them up to see them sparkle. Fjord wasn’t interested. He had his eyes on Caleb.

“I think it’s time we leave,” Beau said. “It’s starting to stink in here, and I want a drink.”

“I doubt we’ll be getting back into Zadash tonight,” Caleb said. “It’s near sundown.”

“How do you know?”

The bard rapped his knuckles on Caleb’s head. “Man’s got a timepiece for a brain. Can tell you down to the minute.”

“Only with the sun or stars,” Caleb corrected. “I’m approximating based on the time we’ve been down here.”

“Approximating.”

“Ja.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Approximately...four hours and seventeen minutes.”

“Approximately.”

Caleb sighed, but a smile peeked out. “Yes.”

They headed toward the exit, walking or trotting, picking through bodies. Beau attempted to strike up a conversation with the archer, Wren, which the woman answered in monosyllables. Nott was riding the centaur, both of whom chatted happily with Jester. Yasha and Velda ended up beside one another and were mutually silent but somehow companionable as their shoulders brushed. Fjord, however, was preoccupied, his eyes pinned on Caleb. He followed the man as far as farthest pillars before his temper got the better of him. Then his arm shot out, grabbing Caleb by the collar. His falchion came to his hand, which he kept by his side for now, and yet it winked, steely in the light of the dancing orbs.

“That’s far enough, I think,” he said.

Instant pandemonium. Sounds of confusion from his own people, anger from theirs. Caleb had gone still.

Laurent stalked forward, and when Fjord began to raise the tip of his weapon, he barked, “Drop it,” in a tone of Command so strident the weapon disappeared from Fjord’s hand before he could think to defy the order.

“What the hell –” he began, but he barely had time to parse the words before Laurent was putting pressure on the tendons of his forearm, the one that held Caleb in a chokehold.

Anger burned in Laurent’s eyes. “That is my comrade you’re threatening, Fjord.”

“He took something,” Fjord hissed through gritted teeth. “And now he’s trying to walk out of here, all sneaky, and keep it for himself.”

Laurent looked at Caleb. “Is that true?”

The stress of the situation made the whites of Caleb’s eyes more pronounced. “I did take something, ja.”

“Why didn’t you tell the rest of us?”

Caleb’s gaze darted like a prey animal under the shadow of a hawk. They leapt from Fjord to Laurent, then to the various people in the cavern. His jaw was tense. “Because I cannot do so safely.”

“What does that mean?” Fjord demanded, his fist tightening to the point where Caleb put up both his hands to support himself. In the background, Nott made a sound of outrage, which Fjord ignored.

Laurent, however, remained calm. “Can you now?”

Caleb looked conflicted. “I’m not sure.”

Laurent withdrew. “Then we’ll wait.”

“Wait? What?” Fjord protested. “You’re going to take his word, just like that?”

“This is one of my people, Fjord. I trust him with my life in battle. Why wouldn’t I trust him now?” And while Fjord was busy processing this, he stared hard at Fjord’s fist. “I’m going to start by asking nicely. So far we are allies, and I’m willing to mark this off as an unfortunate misunderstanding, but not if you don’t release him immediately.”

Fjord hesitated, thinking feverishly. Then Beau snapped, “Fjord, come on,” and he withdrew, allowing Caleb to rock back onto his own feet. The man kept one hand near his throat, watching Fjord warily. Laurent put an arm around his shoulder.

“That’s enough,” he said softly, and for the life of him, Fjord didn’t know if he were speaking to Caleb, Fjord, or the group as a whole. “Let’s all calm down. Okay?”

A sense of calm did come over everyone, and Fjord heard the cleric Velda mumbling beneath her breath. Everyone inhaled deeply.

The bard asked, “Ready to blow this joint?”

“You know it,” said Molly.

Even without having to peer around every corner for traps or enemies, it took them a good two hours to navigate the caves and emerge into the cool evening air. The sun had since fallen, and it was by the illumination of dancing lights they found a place suitable to camp.

“It would be safer to stay together for the night,” Laurent suggested diplomatically.

Despite the tension that remained, the others agreed, and they made adjacent but separate encampments complete with two fire pits and a circle of bedrolls and supplies. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was tired, but there was unfinished business that needed resolving first.

“I’ve waited,” Fjord said, arms crossed. “Now I want to know what your wizard is keeping all to himself.”

“Caleb wouldn’t steal,” said Nott, and Fjord knew he’d well and truly lost all possible liking she might have had for him.

“Says the rogue,” Beau said sarcastically. Yasha elbowed her. “Ow!”

Nott was looking surprisingly wounded. “I,” she said, fidgeting with her sleeves. They were clean leather bracers, neat and tailored to her tiny body. She ducked her head. “I don’t do that anymore.”

Velda put a huge hand on her head. “We know you. Don’t doubt now.” Nott sniffed, leaning into her hand, and the half-orc woman hummed, a sound like river stones rubbing together.

Laurent gazed at Fjord grimly. With measured tones that didn’t accuse, he asked Caleb, “Is now the time?”

Caleb breathed out. “It seems we have no choice. Do any of those in your party claim no allegiance?” Non one answered, so he clarified. “Are any of you non-religious? No deity, no patron?”

Fjord looked around, saw the confusion staring back at him. He grew impatient. “What are you saying?”

“There are artifacts,” Caleb said. “They bring madness to certain minds. Those whose allegiance is to the law, perhaps, or – and I am speculating based on symbols carved into this particular piece and on books I have read – who claim a higher power. I was wary to share this until we could do so safely, away from those who might be harmed. Even a glance could –”

Beau spoke up, “I’m as non-god-fearing as they come,” she volunteered. “And I certainly ain’t got a higher power. So, what do we do?”

“I would take it away from here,” Caleb said. “I can identify it more carefully, and, if it is what I think it is, it would probably be best to destroy it.” He glancing at Fjord out of the side of his eye. “Perhaps it would be better if Beau came with me, as a sign of good faith.”

“I want to go too!” Nott spoke up.

“No,” said the centaur, sidling up beside her and giving her a gentle pinch. “That might make our new friends uneasy. Best let the humans deal with this.”

Laurent asked Fjord, “What say you?”

What choice did he have? He didn’t like sending Beau off with a strange magic-wielder, but he knew that opinion would get him nowhere fast with Beau, and he wasn’t really her leader. It was one things to be the face of the group to crownsguard and innkeepers, but there was too much about himself he preferred to keep hidden, and that prohibited him from drawing close enough to be anything like a ‘leader’.

Which is why he shrugged and said, “Beau?”

She stomped up to Caleb. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go. The faster we handle this, the faster we can eat. My stomach is chewing its way out of my body, man.”

They went far enough away that they couldn’t be seen, even accidentally. There was a long period of waiting, enough for a ritual spell and then some. Fjord was beginning to grow uneasy when they heard a noise like a small explosive going off, fluent cursing, and a very distinct smashing sound. Only by a great exercise of self-control did Fjord hold his position.

Yasha called, “Beau?”

“We’re good,” said a slightly strained voice. “Just a second. We’re going to bury it.”

When they came into view, Beau was dirty from the elbows up, and Caleb looked exhausted, his face covered in tiny cuts that oozed nastily. Nott ran to him. “Caleb, are you alright? What happened?”

Beau was the one who answered. “Ugly looking statue-thing, shaped like a dog. It made my hair stand straight up, I swear. Caleb said it was too dangerous to just smash. Apparently, even the pieces could send someone around the bend, so he dispelled magic. It worked, I guess, but it, like, bit back or something.”

Nott whined with distress, but Caleb reassured her. “I am fine. No permanent harm done.”

“I’ll be judge of that,” Velda rumbled, but she didn’t move to examine him yet. Her eyes, like the rest of them, were still fixed on Beau.

“After that, I sort of pulverized it with my staff. It didn’t feel rotten anymore, but we dug a nice deep hole for it, just in case. Fjord, man, I’m going to have nightmares for weeks. That was not something we wanted to mess with.”

Velda was lifting Caleb’s chin, gently touching his bleeding cheeks. “Mind or body?”

He sighed. “My head feels a little tender, but the ache is already fading. The cuts are superficial.”

Wren came over, her eyes like ice. “Are you hiding the truth?”

He paused. “No. I’m just...tired.”

“I think we’re all tired,” said Molly. “So, can we put this whole mucky business behind us and start up a nice fire?”

Caleb’s mouth fluttered into a half smile. “We should listen to the purple man in the funny coat. He has a good idea.”

Molly’s pacifying expression turned wicked, a grin leaping onto his face in an instant. “Watch what you say about my coat. You’re the one wearing a bathrobe.”

Caleb plucked at the lining. “It’s a wizard robe. Harper made it for me.”

Jester chuckled. “Really?”

Harper flashed all his teeth at her. “Oh, yes. You should have seen the shabby getup he was walking around in when we first met. I thought that coat would animate itself and crawl right off his body, it had so much blood and crap worked into it. I couldn’t very well let people keep thinking he was a hobo. Besides, a proper wizard deserves a proper robe.”

“It still took way too long to pry him out of it. And those bandages of yours, too, Nott.”

Nott’s answer was surprising. It came after a pause drenched in reflection. “Outsides reflect insides. We just weren’t ready.”

Caleb put his arm around her shoulders. “That is nicely said.”

From the edge of the clearing, Fjord watched the heartbeat of both camps playing out side by side. His own was familiar. Molly and Beau spent several minutes arguing over who would get the fire going before letting Yasha do it. Food had been haphazardly assembled, with Jester attempting to convince everyone to just eat stale pastries out of her bag. Bedrolls were laid out or piled in the cart in a haphazard arrangement, while the group itself lounged around, laughing, making small talk, and bickering. It was like a pair of old socks, well-worn and comfortable. Fjord thought they were coming together well, or at least as well as a bunch of dysfunctional, traumatized pathological liars could. They watched each other’s back, and if they didn’t always trust one other, then at least they had grounded expectations. Fjord might not trust Molly’s attitude, Beau’s self-control, Yasha’s presence, or Jester’s sobriety, but he liked them, and he knew them, flaws included. Until today, he’d considered them a tight-knit group.

Now, as he observed the other camp, what he saw cast doubt on his mind and stirred a restlessness in his spirit he hadn’t known existed.

A warm fire crackled in a pit. Harper sat with his back against a tree and strummed his lyre. Fern, the centaur, was dancing coltishly to the melody, her blond mane and tail flicking and swaying. At one point, she drew Nott to her feet, and the two of them did a strange, prancing waltz that ended with everyone laughing. Velda had made a savory-smelling stew and ladled it into bowls, which she passed around to sounds of appreciation.

A crack of a branch underfoot alerted Fjord to someone approaching, and there was Caleb. “Ah,” he said. “I apologize for intruding.”

“No bother,” said Fjord. “Call of nature?”

“Yes, returning.” He paused. “Listen, I want to apologize for earlier. I did not mean to put you in a difficult situation.”

A thrill of shame went through Fjord. Knowing the reason for Caleb’s reticence, it didn’t seem right for him to apologize. “Ah, no. I mean, I apologize as well. My response might have been a little hasty.”

“You don’t know me,” Caleb said, “and you have no reason to trust me.”

“Your team seems to trust you well enough.”

“Well,” said Caleb, and the quality of his voice changed to something warm and fond. “They are good people. Perhaps too good for me. Still, I’m striving to live up to their expectations.”

“How did you all end up together, if you don’t mind me asking.” Fjord saw the marginal stiffening and backpedaled. “I don’t mean to pry.”

“No, it is...not rooted in good memories, but I don’t mind telling you. When I met Laurent, I was in jail.”

“Jail?”

“Yes, I’d been living on the street for nearly five years, and I admit not all of that time is clear to me. I wandered a great deal, and – a few times – came close to taking my own life. If I had been more cognizant, more clear headed, I might have. But I am a coward. I subsisted, and my body, if not any real human part of me, continued to limp onward. Then I made a nuisance of myself in a small village. The authorities decided to make an example of me, and so I was arrested for vagrancy.”

It was an old story. Poverty and homelessness were everywhere, in every city or town of any size Fjord had ever been to. Still, it was hard to look at this man, with his combed hair and neat clothes and imagine him in the state of utter destitution he described.

Caleb said, “I met Nott in that prison. She’d stolen some things. Trinkets mostly, but her race was condemnation enough. Most people judge her on sight, by her complexion alone. You know?”

Fjord, who knew something about prejudicial behavior, ground his teeth together in his mouth. “Yes.”

“I don’t know who they intended to punish, me or her, but they housed us in the same cell. We were afraid of one another. But eventually, our mutual suffering created common ground. She took care of me, though I had the face of those who hurt her. In the end, there was a bond. I think if we had walked out of that prison under our own power, we would still have stayed together. Of course, I cannot know.”

“Because Laurent showed up.”

“He did. He was invited to tour the barracks. They...they hurt us, Nott and I, in what I assume was an attempt to impress him, but Laurent does not relish cruelty in the name of justice. As I understand it, it’s a bit of a blasphemy to him.”

Fjord thought of the sense of focus and command surrounding Laurent, the calm confidence with which he had ordered Fjord to drop his weapon. It made him think of a different man he’d admired. Vandren had also encouraged Fjord to listen rather than react. “He seems like a good man.”

“A very good man,” Caleb agreed. “He bought our release, though we were a very poor bargain, I’m afraid. If things had gone as intended, Nott and I would likely have walked away from him and his friends, rid of our sores and parasites, fed, encouraged, and with enough coin in our pockets to make an attempt at a better life. But circumstances intervened. The town was attacked by a manticore.”

Fjords eyebrows flew up. “A manticore?”

It had been disturbed by a party of adventurers, we later found. It’s nest was destroyed, and it was in a rage. Fires and screaming; I remember that night vividly. The others engaged, but Nott and I hid. We were not warriors. We were a vagrant and a pickpocket. Then it got Fern – she is the centaur – in its jaws. I saw it happen.”

“And you defended her. With magic.”

Caleb looked at him. “Once,” he admitted, “I was a student of magic. It was not part of who I was then, but she had been kind to me. She had washed my hair, kissed my forehead, and told me a joke that made me laugh, though I could not remember what my own laugh sounded like. I couldn’t let her die, not if there was something I could do.”

“A fight against a manticore. That’s how it started.”

“Nott joined in. She is very adept at waiting for an opportunity to strike. And once the dust settled, the group became...attached, I suppose. They made it very difficult to part from them. I was – I was very afraid. I did not trust them, could not care for them. I felt I would poison them, and I tried more than once to leave.”

“Surely if you had really wanted to leave, you could have. So why didn’t you go?”

“Nott. She was happy with them, but she wasn’t like them. She and I, we knew dirt. We had been dirt. It’s not something easily forgotten. So I kept putting off going because, as poor a friend as I was, as destructive as I might be, in some way she still needed me.”

“And then what?”

“I took too long.” He touched his chest, over his heart. “I didn’t know how subtly, how persistently the others had been casting mending. One day, I realized I would die for these people. More, that I would live for them. I gave up the destructive ends that kept me living in the past, unable to accept what I had done or what others had done to me.” He looked at Fjord. “I am not fixed. I am still what I was. I can’t change that and neither can they, as much as they love me. But I’m not ruined. I have a purpose now, and new friends. It has been...an experience.”

An experience. That seemed the smallest way to describe something so profound, but there was power in understatement. The word resonated, like sound waves in water. Experience. “Your group,” Fjord said. “It’s close.”

Caleb looked discerningly toward the second fire. “Do you worry yours is not?”

“We aren’t, any of us, what I’d call…upfront. That makes it hard. To know each other.”

“Perhaps. But before knowing, there can be feeling. Is there feeling, Fjord?”

He considered. The way Molly slapped him on the back. When Jester’s sweet smile grew wicked, a merchant’s stock stacked to the ceiling or a mound of poop drawn on the Platinum Dragon’s snout. The strength and certainty he felt when Yasha put her back against his. Lessons in etiquette with Beau. “Yes,” he said. Just that: “Yes.”

“Then perhaps all they need is a person to lead the way,” Caleb suggested.

“I’m not much of a leader. I’m –”

Fallible. Insecure. Quick to avoid confrontation. Fearful of attachment. Terrified of exposure. Hiding.

“Over cautious,” he finished.

“They say that an abundance of caution can prevent much harm. But also that a missed opportunity can never be regained.”

Fjord grunted with frustration. “Which is true, then?”

“Both,” a masculine voice said from beyond a tree. “Balance is best. Take it from someone who learned the hard way.”

“Laurent,” Caleb greeted.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Laurent said. “I walked into your conversation on my way to check that our wizard had not been kidnapped by a pack of gnolls again.”

“That happened only once,” said Caleb. “And I was barely gone. Days. Perhaps a week.”

“Nott was frantic. I thought she was going to make jerky of the entire pack once we finally hunted you down and found out they’d pierced your ear. It was attached to a chain,” he clarified in response to Fjord’s bewildered look. “Like for a pet.”

“One of their pack lords took a shine to my hair. It was embarrassing.”

“It was lucky,” said Laurent. “It gave us time to find him. Even off the menu or the pike, gnolls are brutal to their slaves. You wouldn’t have lasted long.”

“A comforting thought,” Caleb groused.

“If you can admit that, you shouldn’t begrudge your friends the right to keep a closer eye on you. Though perhaps if you let Velda kit you out in armor…”

Caleb tugged at a leather thong tied around his leg. “I have mage armor.”

“Which you consistently forget to activate.”

“Must we list all my faults in front of our new ally?”

Laurent turned, and Fjord saw something in his eye. He would have called it shrewdness, except that seemed unkind. Perhaps ‘perceptive’ was a better word. “Taking a walk, Fjord?”

“Clearing my head.”

Laurent asked, “Caleb, are you heading back now?”

It was a dismissal, which Caleb accepted with grace. He disappeared into the brush, leaving Fjord alone with Laurent. Neither spoke, but Fjord found the silence was not uncomfortable. Nonetheless, it was he who broke the silence. “Gnolls, huh?”

Laurent’s chin tightened. “Caleb finds it easier to make light of the situation, but in truth is was a harrowing experience, one that still wakes me in the night with a pounding heart. Nott is worse, if anything, but she and Caleb sleep together, so it’s hard to know how bad her nightmares are.”

“You’re awful protective of them.”

“Nott has known little acceptance all her life, and as a result of that, she struggles with self-hatred. As for our Caleb, he is burdened by both a keen intelligence and a tender heart. They work at cross purposes too often for his comfort, and unfortunately, an unscrupulous few have exploited that to do quite a lot of damage.”

“Damaged,” Fjord repeated.

Laurent looked at him sharply. “Are you passing judgment?”

“No, no. I just, Caleb told me some things. About how you met. I found it hard to imagine.”

They stood together, watching over their people. Voices lifted over the canopy, mixing with the stars. Caleb had gone to sit by the fire. When he joined Velda, the half-orc woman clucked at the scrapes still populating his cheeks and chin. She pressed a kiss into his forehead, which no doubt came with a little burst of healing, because Nott and Fern giggled. Across the fire, Harper was plucking his lyre lazily now. The melody was almost a lullaby, close and intimate. Wren was suddenly visible. She carried a blanket, which she draped over Caleb’s shoulders. Then she picked up her bow and left, perhaps to do a perimeter walk.

As he watched them, a peculiar feeling came over Fjord. He didn’t know why, but something about the scene seemed wrong. It felt like Caleb’s back, tucked under the blanket, ought to be hunched over a different fire. Harper’s voice felt like it should have a sarcastic edge, cut by the sound of shuffling cards. Nott should be counting buttons in a different woman’s long shadow, and Beau should be the sentinel watching over them all.

‘And me,’ he thought. ‘There would be a place for me, too.’

“You’re wearing a contemplative face, Fjord,” Laurent said. “Will you be traveling back to Zadash tomorrow?”

Fjord ran a hand though his hair. “I think we should. The Gentleman will be looking for a report.” He paused, wanting to be generous. “Would you like an introduction?”

Laurent’s nose wrinkled. “I know The Gentleman by reputation, and I don’t want my people anywhere near his organization.”

Fjord felt the sting of guilt. He had walked right into their relationship with The Gentleman, which he’d rarely thought of as anything other than a mutually beneficial business relationship. Yet Laurent wasn’t wrong. The Gentleman was a criminal, presiding over a criminal underworld.

“I’m sorry,” Fjord said.

Perhaps it was the conflicted tone of his voice, but Laurent spoke to him in a confidential way, as though they were more than strangers who’d met only hours before. “Fjord,” he said. “I can see that you’re troubled. It’s in your eyes and in these cold shadows, where you linger instead of going to your people. Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Then let me give you a piece of advice, something that took me many years to find out. We have no guarantees in this life. That is our reality. Some chose to agonize over it. Still others forsake all responsibility. After all, how can they have any control over such a chaotic system? Better to focus on themselves, to take no risks. But I have found that we must take life as both a gift and an opportunity.”

“I don’t know if I follow.”

“Okay. An illustration then. You said Caleb told you how we met? But there is another side to the story.”

“What do you mean?”

“When we reached that town, I was still divided between my old life – the life of soldier who was never quite enough because of the color of my skin, the horns on my head – and the life I was then living, as a man bound to a justice higher than any man-made law. I was confused by my new role. At times, I despaired that any good I did would matter. I was in such a crisis when I accepted that invitation to visit the barracks. I wanted a break, a glimpse at a life gone by. That’s when I saw them. A rail-thin human, being beaten by a cane as he tried to prevent a goblin from being drowned in a bucket for my entertainment. And when Nott was thrown back into that cell, she and Caleb curled around one other, bleeding and raw and soaked, and just sobbed. Barefoot and lousey and covered with sores from how filthy they were, abused by these men of justice, and they were the ones with enough personhood to cry. It was...overwhelming.”

“Caleb said you bought them,” Fjord said.

“I know that sounds terrible,” Laurent said, “but while some systems can be broken or subverted, others are best simply used.”

“You took them in.”

“It wasn’t my first thought. I was still struggling, you know. I thought to myself, ‘You can’t save the world by pulling every beggar off the street.’ I believed I’d done my best by giving them a chance.”

“You changed your mind. Because you saw them fight?”

“No. Because a man I thought broken put himself in mortal danger, and in fact nearly died, to protect a life. Why did he do it? That night, he became more than a single man among all the suffering people of Exandria. He became Caleb, and Nott became Nott. Two individual lives with personality, character, and need. By helping them, I knew I might not change the world, but it would change them, and it would change me, and I decided that was enough.”

“They changed you,” Fjord repeated.

“Frightening, isn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t take it back?”

“Not in this life.”

Fjord extended his hand. “Thank you, Laurent. It’s been good talking to you.”

“It’s been good talking to you, too, Fjord. I hope you find peace, and purpose.”

Laurent made his way back into the clearing. Fjord lingered, and so he saw when Laurent paced up behind his friends and teammates. Their conversation didn’t break; Laurent was too fully integrated to create ripples. Yet Fjord saw Caleb’s chin tip up, and some quiet word pass between them. Then Laurent rested his hand on Caleb’s shoulder and his tail made lazy contact with his back. Such small things, yet they spoke of a closeness that did not need grand gestures or profound words. It was apparent even to an outsider, which Fjord was.

That feeling from before came over him again, the sensation of an opportunity lost, and then it passed. He left the woods and the shadows behind, returning to his own fire, his own people. They parted to make a space for him. Like five odd-shaped puzzle pieces that came together at the corners. Yet, even so, Fjord couldn’t completely put off the sense that something was missing, that the center was gone. And while they might indeed find their identity as a group, he wondered if it would always feel as though they’d left someone behind or failed to make some divine appointment.

“Are you okay, Fjord? Jester asked.

Fjord glanced over his shoulder, to the sound of faint music. Then back to them.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

Chapter Text

It was midnight. One moon hung heavy overhead, lending a ghostly light to the gently bobbing boats tied at dock, while the other, a purple sickle, lingered like a watching eye. There was mist coming off the river, enough to draw goosebumps from Beauregard’s skin. She refused to grumble as she adjusted the lenses of her darkvision goggles; they were uncomfortable and made her look like an idiot, but she would need them if they were going to move this merchandise. Operations were being shut down all up and down the trade route, and a mistake could mean more than lost profit.

“See anything yet?” asked Quindel, and Beau jerked her head, by which she meant both ‘no’ and also ‘shut up’. Reading her easily after their months of collaboration, Quindel whispered a few disgruntled curses in halfling but settled down into the cramped positions they’d both assumed to wait.

Finally, movement on the water. A figure came to the head of the vessel, looked around, and surreptitiously lifted the hood of a dark lantern once, then twice.

Beau stood, knees twinging after so long in a fixed position. “That’s it. Come on.”

She and Quindel moved silently down the docks. Beau knew every board, every moldering nail, and so avoided any noise other than the natural creaking of a structure with water rippling below. They stayed out of sight until their contact, a dwarf, stepped out to meet them.

“Beauregard,” she said, and the beads in her hair sparked in the moonlight. They were silver and intricately worked, like all dwarvish craftsmanship.

Speaking of which. Beau gestured impatiently. “Not that I’m unhappy to see you, Daerselle, but I’d rather make this quick.”

“Things have been heating up,” Daerselle said, handing over a leather sack that had an admirable heft to it. Beau weighed it with her hand, a skill she’d picked up after long experience. As expected, everything seemed right. Daerselle was an honest crook.

“It’s the damned war,” Quindel muttered. “As if the empire didn’t have enough problems without dragging us into an conflict with the Xhorhassians.”

Daerselle looked around the long shadows with uneasiness. “I’m more interested in immediate concerns. You have your payment. Are we good?”

Beau shoved the leather bag into her belt pouch. “Let’s get to it.”

Between the three of them, they were able to shift the five crates onto the barge without much trouble. Afterward, Daerselle pried up one of the lids, and relief overcame her usual tense and crusty expression. “Thank Moradin,” she murmured. Her gaze met Beau’s. “There are many people who will be grateful to have this.”

Beau shrugged, trying for nonchalant. “What do I care? Profit is profit.”

Daerselle gave her a shrewd look, but before she could retort, a metallic glint caught Beau’s eye. Her head snapped to the bank of the river where the reeds were heavily overgrown, and – there – she saw it. Two yellow eyes, staring dead at her. Their gaze met, and then a crossbow bolt went whistling by Beau’s ear.

Beau snapped, “Run!” and fled into the dark. Quindel did the same, putting that halfling dexterity to use. Poor Daerselle fumbled with the rope of the barge, but it was already too late. There was the sound of boots, and then a shill voice called out, “One apprehended. Two at large.” Beau caught sight of their colors, and swore bitterly. Those weren’t crownsguard. They were imperial military.

As she wove through the outbuildings that surrounded the docks, the feeling of being followed crept up Beau’s spine. If she could reach her father’s warehouse, she felt sure she could slip away in the tunnels underneath, but as she turned the final corner, a weight dropped onto her shoulders. “Halt!” her assailant shouted in that same screechy voice from the docks.

Her first instinct was to fight. Even as she fell, Beau was turning so that she landed on her back and not her face. The impact forced the breath from her body, but she was able to seize one of her assailant’s scrabbling hands as it reached for her throat, and that was when she got her first good look at her attacker.

Green skin. A catlike, coiled body. A goblin.

This couldn’t be one of the empire’s people, could it? Yet she saw the lines of its uniform. This was the one she’d seen in the reeds, the one who’d spied on her rendezvous with Daerselle and shot at her with a crossbow. Had the empire sunk so low they were recruiting even those they hated to do their dirty work?

Holding onto her with its knees, the goblin drew one hand to its mouth, and Beau saw a copper wire. “I’ve got her, Caleb. We’re just south of the –”

Beau twisted, freeing herself and raining down a flurry of blows. As her fist made impact, she felt something give and heard the goblin’s cry of pain. Then she was off, forsaking the tunnels and heading straight for the tree line.

She never made it.

Heat billowed up in front of her, a literal wall of fire. She jerked away from it, but not so quick that she didn’t feel the heat against her arms. Her sleeves caught, and she had to drop to the dirt to put them out. Which is when she received the blow to the back of her head.

“Careful,” someone said over her. There were multiple sets of legs, backlite by fire. “She’s dangerous, even without being armed.”

‘Not armed,’ Beau thought hazily, ‘I’ll show you not armed.’ But her consciousness was already slipping. The muscles in her arms were weak as noodles as someone pulled them behind her and she felt the coldness of iron nipping at her skin.

As she lay on her belly in the dirt, she saw the goblin limp out between buildings. For a moment, its eyes glowed with fox-fire, reflecting the conflagration that was still burning, but then a curious thing happened. There was a man wearing a soldier’s uniform, and Beau must have been hit hard, because he seemed to have hair the same color as the fire. He reached down, cupping the goblin’s chin.

“Are you hurt? Let me see your teeth.”

The goblin touched his hand and said, “I’m okay, Caleb.”

Then someone jerked Beau’s arms in such a way that a spike of pain went through them. The world went black-white-black, and then she couldn’t see anything at all.

When Beau woke up, she was in chains, on her knees next to the unfortunate Daerselle. Further down the line was Quindel, whose escape attempt had proven as unsuccessful as her own. Seeing them looking so downtrodden, anger surged through Beau. She staggered to her feet with a mouthful of curses, ignoring the pain in her head and the pull on her arms.

One of the soldiers cast down his cigarette. “She’s up. Get Widogast.”

His compatriot shifted back and forth uneasily. “Why do I have to do it? Guy gives me the creeps. All that talk about him coming unhinged and being sewn back together by Iki –?”

“Shut up.” The first soldier kicked a stone at a stray cat, sending it skittering away. “You never know who might be listening.”

They were still near the river, and the sky had turned charcoal grey. The lonely dock had become a hub of military activity. A dozen or more soldiers were examining the barge, which had been offloaded, and Beau could see all of the crates sitting open on the dock. Daerselle kept glancing at them, head hanging low. Then a new layer of sound joined the ambiance of men and water – a pair of boots, and a pair of not-boots. Beau looked up and saw two figures she recognized. It was the goblin and the flame-colored man.

“Warmage Widogast,” the soldier reported. “She hasn’t said much aside from oaths. We thought you’d rather interrogate her yourself.”

The soldier gave Beau a dour look as he said this, and she resisted the urge to snap his ankle like a twig. She could probably do it from this angle, but not without giving herself away. Now that she was in custody, her best bet was to be just another good-for-nothing bootlegger scrapping off a bit of cream for personal gain. It was a role she played well, because it had once been true.

“Thank you,” said Widogast, and Beau was struck by his voice. She was well acquainted with Rexxentrum’s pretentious accent, but this man didn’t speak that way. His accent, though partially masked, was far more provincial.

Whatever his origins, the man who faced her was highly decorated. His uniform was the usual vermillion with copper trimmings, yet there were small demarcations, and embroidered over his breast was a symbol Beau had only seen sketched on bits of paper that were then chucked in the fire: three diamond shards, centered around the mark of enchantment. The ones who wore it were said to be arsonists, infiltrators, and interrogators. It chilled her to the bone. What the hell was one of them doing out here?

Widogast watched her eyes. “I see you know who I am.”

“Not you specifically,” Beau said. “But your boss has a reputation as a heartless bastard.”

Warmage Widogast didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he quietly cleared his throat. “You also have a reputation, Beauregard the Blackguard.” He glanced over his shoulder at the opened crates. “Tell me, are you aware that stealing goods from the Dwendalian Empire in a time of war makes you traitor?”

“Traitor,” Quindel stammered. “Does it make us traitors to provide food for our families? People are starving while the empire wages this war.”

Widogast looked at the goblin. “Is what he’s saying about the shipment true, Nott?”

The goblin – a female goblin – pulled out a piece of parchment from her belt. She was also wearing a uniform, one perfectly tailored to the dimensions of her body, and there was something very wrong about that. Goblins weren’t empire citizens. Yet here one was, all dolled up like a miniature soldier, following at this man’s heels.

Except… Beauregard’s mind went back to the wall of fire, to that cupped hand, the soft inquiry. She stared Widogast hard in the face.

The goblin studied the paper. “Fifteen sacks of wheat, fifteen sacks of cornmeal, and thirty-three sacks of flour.” She looked up. “Plus a set of wooden blocks. They were buried in the cornmeal. We though they might be hiding something, but they’re just blocks.”

“It’s a toy, you bastards,” Beau snapped. “One of Daerselle’s kids is turning seven.”

There was a pause. “I see,” said Widogast.

“I highly doubt it,” Beau retorted.

Widogast tilted his head, and Beau couldn’t help but notice the scarring that peeked out from the high collar of his jacket. And now that she was looking, really looking, she saw there was a hang to his shoulders, a squint to his eyes that looked…weary. She’d seen eyes like that, on men who staggered back from the front line minus a few limbs. She wondered what this guy was missing.

“Food and toys,” the man said. “It seems you are not so hard as your reputation would suggest, Beauregard.”

“I could say the same of you.”

That got his attention. His eyes, which were pale and almost colorless in the lantern light, took on an edge. “Oh?”

“I’ve seen that symbol you’re wearing. You’re one of Archmage Ikithon’s, aren’t you? They say he takes children from their mother’s arms, breaks them, and trains them to be killers.”

“That is a very good rumor,” Widogast said, still in that infuriatingly soft voice. “Very useful against an enemy who might be intimidated by such stories. But make no mistake, Beauregard. I may not look like the figures from your fairytales, but I am still not a man you want to make light of.” He held up his hand, and she could see the center of it crackle and blacken, his fingers shaking as flame formed there, long enough for her to imagine her flesh cracking that way, burning, and then he closed his fingers and the heat was gone.

A drop of perspiration drew down her temple. Still she managed to smile. “You’ll have to try a little harder than that. Because I don’t buy what you’re selling.”

“No?”

Beau jerked her head at the goblin standing in Widogast’s shadow, watching her with wary eyes. “That’s right, and my proof is right there.”

The man’s tell was almost invisible, but Beau was watching, and she saw it happen. The tiniest, most imperceptible twitch. The next instant it was gone, and he looked at Nott with an impartiality that would’ve convinced a sage. “She’s just a goblin,” he said.

Beau took advantage of his inattention. The mage was too far away, but Nott’s nose was right in line with Beau’s elbow. She struck like a snake, ready for the sensation of delicate cranial bones fracturing under the force of her blow. Instead, she felt another kind of crunch, that of her own elbow giving as it slammed into a glowing, irresistible barrier.

The goblin shrieked as Beau fell back, immediately grappled by two guards. It didn’t stop her from seeing Nott peeking out from behind Widogast, whose magic shield flickered and died. Shields like that only protected their owner, and he’d had a fraction of a second to decide whether or not to put himself in front of Beau’s attack.

As the soldiers propped Beau up in front of the warmage, elbow now throbbing alongside her head, she said, “Just a goblin, huh?”

Widogast looked at her with haunted eyes, Nott still pressed too close to pass as unimportant. Beau watched him try to draw his composure back together, but now that she’d found this weak spot, she could see the cracks in his armor spidering out. Very quietly, he said, “It seems you have good eyesight, even without those goggles we confiscated from you.”

Despite the pain of her injuries, Beauregard was feeling cocky, more in control than before. “Yeah?”

“Perhaps,” Widogast admitted. “But I also have good eyesight, and this is the second time tonight you’ve made me wonder.”

A bit of coldness went down Beau’s spine. “What?”

He looked at her dead on. “You have a bit of cobalt in your eyes, Beauregard. Or is that just the light?”

Beau’s guts turned to ice water, because that was it, wasn’t it? As a low-tier bootlegger, she would end up in a prison cell for a few weeks before the right leverage had her walking back to her real work. But if the empire suspected her façade was just that – a façade….if they somehow suspected the Cobalt Soul were not completely loyal…if they pushed her hard enough…

For the first time that night, Beauregard was truly afraid.

A soldier approached. “Sir, we’ve finished collecting evidence and are ready for transport. We have your orders on the dwarf and the halfling, but what about the woman? Is she going with them or with you, to Rexxentrum?”

Heart pounding, Beau stared into Widogast’s face. The spaces around his eyes were creased with wrinkles, which made him look like an old man, though he couldn’t have been much past thirty. From under his hands, the goblin gazed at him with concern. Beau waited for his judgement, the one which would end in her freedom or her painful and ignominious death.

“Caleb,” whispered Nott.

Widogast broke eye contact with Beau. “Send her to Ikithon.”

“What charge?” the soldier asked impartially.

“Conspiracy to overthrow the empire.”

Beau felt detached from reality, like she wasn’t a part of what was happening. She knew what this meant, and, judging by the looks of grief that passed over Quindel and Daerselle’s faces before they were jerked in another direction, they knew, too. They had made a fatal mistake, all of them, but none so much as Beau. Images flashed through her head of sharp-edged tools and heated metal and magic that sliced and burrowed into the mind. She was heading into the heart of the Empire.

Before she was drawn out of sight, Beau looked over her shoulder. Widogast had his back turned, staring at the flames. Despite the uniform, he did not look like a soldier. His shoulders seemed bowed and broken, and as she watched, he reached out and took Nott’s hand.

Chapter Text

Snow was falling. It was coming down heavily, sticking like soft burrs in Mollymauk’s curls as he wandered through a winter wood. The temperature had dropped overnight, and frozen fractals snapped under the pressure of his boots. The forest had been calling his name since the first tent peg went into the ground, and when the morning light illuminated black branches against a milky-white sky, Molly had sloughed his chores, thrown on an extra coat, and eloped into the trees.

And it was beautiful in its own stark way. There’d been icefall the night before, and every surface glistened as though encased in a petticoat of jewels. There was a hush to it all. It stilled his heart, usually a whirling dervish of energy, and though he usually preferred heat and volume and the feverish movement of a crowd, sometimes…sometimes, the stillness called to him, too. In those times, the name Mollymauk Tealeaf seemed like his own, and the quiet didn’t scare him.

He reached a narrow pathway where the undergrowth grew sparse, probably a game trail where deer ambled on the way to hidden thickets. Molly’s head was high as he passed a dense, low-hanging bush which he might have taken no notice of had the toe of his boot not caught an unevenness of surface. He stumbled, staggering to one knee in the snow.

‘Clumsy, even walking in a straight line,’ he thought with a chuckle, and started pushing himself upright. However, instead of hard earth, his hand pressed down on a leather-clad foot.

His first reaction was to jerk back. He could see a huddled shape obscured by the bush’s thick branches, and Molly’s first thought was that the poor bastard had frozen to death. But how? The town of Harthwaite wasn’t far, and it was hard to imagine losing yourself in this tame copse of woods. Feeling under obligation to make at least some kind of identification, Molly attempted to drag the body out into the open. Two things happened almost at once. First, he heard a faint metallic sound, and then the man moved. Molly fell straight onto his backside.

“Well, I’ll be damned. You aren’t dead, are you?” He drew nearer, with both more caution and more eagerness.

His cheerfulness died as he brushed away the snow. The guy was in bad shape. His limbs were stiff, his eyelids bruised blue pockets, and his lips had no color at all. Mollymauk sat back on his heels. Obviously, he couldn’t leave the man here. He didn’t have much coin, but there was a silver or two in his pocket and a handful of coppers. Enough to get a meal and a warm bed if Molly could get the guy back into town.

He took a firmer grip on the man’s legs. “Sorry, buddy,” he said. “First things first. You’ve got to come out from under the bush.”

A strong tug moved the man a few inches, but after that Molly encountered resistance. It was like something was holding the body in place. Molly gave another experimental tug, and this time he saw the chain. With a sinking sensation, he recognized it as a foothold trap, a snare with a metal mouth held open by a spring. If he moved aside that shabby coat, would he find a mangled arm or worse? Steeling himself, he pulled back the concealing fabric.

He was prepared for pulverized bones or a wound, messy with congealed blood. What he wasn’t prepared for was a child. She was braced against the man’s chest so that no part of her face or neck was exposed. All he could see was a fringe of dark hair. Worst of all, it was clear she was the one caught in the trap.

The story was coming together. Somehow, the kid had gotten caught in the snare. No doubt her father attempted to free her but hadn’t been able to do so. Rather than abandon her, he’d offered the only protection available – the warmth of his own body. What Molly didn’t understand was, if he couldn’t release the trap, why not return to the village to get help? And if he had been afraid to leave her, why not light a fire to protect them both from the cold?

Molly tried to rouse the man, going so far as to slap his face and pinch his ear. Nothing. Finally Molly drew his boot knife and began sawing at the bush. That was when he saw the cat. It gave a thin, tired cry, startling him. He looked up, seeing the animal hunkered down in the snow. “Well, hello,” Molly said.

Of course, the cat had nothing to say, so Molly went back to the bush. He was sweating by the time he’d cleared away the obstruction, so he took off his outer layer and laid it over the man and his child. Afterward, he pressed his fingers to their necks. The father was ice cold, but Molly could feel his pulse. He had a harder time with the girl. Then, faint and thready, his fingers detected a heartbeat.

“Still some time,” he muttered. “But not much.”

The foothold trap was much as he’d expected. There was no release mechanism, which meant it was magically operated. Which was fine. Magic was smart, but Molly had already learned that smart could often be subverted by savvy. Which is why he ignored the magically reinforced hinge and instead followed the chain to ground. With a little digging, he found the peg, and – surprise, surprise – there was no magic here. Because, of course there wasn’t. Nasty as this thing was, it was meant for a beast, not a person. That still didn’t make it easy. The anchoring peg had been pressed deep, and it required a very stressful hour of digging to free it from the ground. It was such an effort that, when the chain finally did come free, Molly almost cried with relief.

“Next,” he said to the cat, only to discover it had curled itself around the man’s neck. He got a fire popping and crackling, then dragged the man as close as he dared. “Time to get warm, buddy.”

The guy started shifting. Not much. A few spasmatic twitches of muscle, a tiny groan, and the movement of eyes behind translucent lids. They cracked open, hazy and barely cognizant but alive. Molly grinned fiercely.

“Hey. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

The man’s eyes were a vivid blue. They traveled slowly over the landscape of Molly’s face, then drifted to the fire. For a moment, they closed against the warmth. Sharp cheekbones jutted, frostbitten and raw, and his lank ginger hair hung like straw on a scarecrow, lifeless. Molly’s heart compressed with pity.

“I know this is hard to understand,” he told the frozen man, “but I was able to free your girl. We need to get back to civilization, but I can’t carry you both, so we’re going to get you warmed up enough to walk. I’ve got a fire going, but I’m also going to give you a cuddle, alright?”

Chucking his embroidered coat, he added it to the pile and crawled under. He was instantly shivering, all heat leeched from his body, but even though his teeth were chattering, he nestled closer. Eventually, the man began to squirm and make uncomfortable noises, circulation returning with pain. It was when he actively struggled that Molly felt ready to make a go at getting back to Gustav and the others.

Disentangling himself, he hauled the man into a sitting position. “You with me?”

The man blinked without much awareness, but at least his muscles were working again. His hand, which had been locked in a death grip, rose to press the back of his daughter’s neck.

“That’s right,” Molly soothed. “Your girl. We’ve got to get her out of here. So, you ready to walk?”

The man clumsily attempted to get to his knees. He couldn’t, not with the child.

Molly extended his arms. “Here, I’m stronger. Let me carry her.”

He didn’t know what to expect. Dull incomprehension, maybe, or passive obedience. What he didn’t expect was the anger kindled in the man’s eyes. Beside them, the cat arched its back and hissed. Why? What did this guy think he was going to do? Hurt her?

Molly didn’t want to wrestle an enfeebled man. Instead, he made his voice soft and compelling. “You’re too weak to bear her weight, and I’m worried if we don’t get help soon, she could die. You’re going to have to trust me.”

There was a tense moment, and then the man loosened his grip. Molly took the little bundle.

“That’s it. I’ve got her.”

Keeping hold of the girl, Mollymauk hauled the man to his feet. At first, he almost dragged all three of them to the ground. After a moment, though, he steadied, and they began their long, lurching journey out of the woods. Eventually, the trees thinned, and the stripes of the carnival tent came into view. Molly could see activity, and one particular silhouette made his chest ache with gratefulness. “Yasha!”

She immediately began moving in his direction. “What’s this?” she asked when she reached them.

Molly let her take the child and stretched out his back with a groan. “Found them in the woods. The kid was caught in a foothold trap.”

“They’re in rough shape.”

“You can say that again.” He looked with concern at the man, who’d sunk to his knees as soon as they stopped moving. “I thought we could call the crownsguard and find out if they have people in Harthwaite.”

“I don’t think involving the crownsguard is a good idea,” said Yasha.

“Why not?”

“Because,” said Yasha, pulling away the wrapping obscuring the girl’s face. “Child or not, I have a feeling this one wouldn’t be welcome in any village.”

Folded against the girl’s neck were two overlarge ears, and just peeking out of chapped lips were the tips of pointy teeth. Moly knew what he was looking at. He just couldn’t make any sense of it. “Well, that’s a surprise,” he said.

Yasha wasn’t the kind of person to roll her eyes, but her level expression conveyed her feelings about the depth of his understatement. “You didn’t look?”

“I was trying to keep them from freezing to death! Plus this guy had a death grip on her. What kind of person sacrifices themselves for a goblin? I thought she was his kid.”

“Sacrificed?”

“He could have left her,” Molly said, more soberly now. “It was…” He stumbled over his explanation, as he had little frame of reference for what he’d witnessed. There was no cradle in his memory, no hearth. “Tender,” he decided. “I’m not making it up, Yasha. He was protecting her.”

“Then perhaps we should do the same, at least until we know their story. But Gustav won’t like it.”

Molly grimaced. It was inevitable that not every town or province welcomed a traveling carnival. In those places, they conducted their business and moved on quickly. Molly wasn’t sure what kind of town Harthwaite was, but it was suggestive that a pair of crownsguard had shown up before they even pinned the first flyer. Chances were, Gustav wouldn’t delight in additional complications. And yet… Molly’s chin set stubbornly. He hadn’t saved these people just to dump them now.

“I know that look,” said Yasha. “And I’ll support you.”

Molly smiled. “That means a lot to me, you know.”

“It may not be so bad as you think. Gustav is a compassionate man.”

Molly’s mouth twitched. “He’s been known to help strays before.”

Yasha swatted his arm. “You’re not a stray. Now take this girl. I think the other one is going to need my help.”

“Right,” said Molly. He pulled up the goblin’s hood, and the two of them made their way down the hill, toward an uncertain future.

Edwina Greenhand was an ancient crone. On performance nights, she peddled elixirs of dubious and colorful effects, but in another life the woman had been an herbalist, and she often cared for the minor ailments of the circus troupe. Edwina took one look at the people Yasha and Molly brought to her and snapped into action. “Take them into community tent and build up the fire. Yasha, fetch blankets. Also, stop by my tent. You’ll find a warming pan tucked under the bedroll. Bring that, too. We’ll need it.”

“Right,” Yasha said and disappeared.

“They can’t stay in those wet clothes. You strip him, Molly, and I’ll take the girl.” Molly attempted to warn her, but she’d already peeled back the hood. He watched her freeze. Then she cleared her throat and started unfastening buttons. “No doubt this is quite a tale, but we don’t have time for it now.”

When he’d seen the man’s sharp cheekbones, his sunken eyes, Molly had known to expect the physique of poverty, yet when they peeled away the bottommost layers, his heart sank. These people weren’t merely scrawny, but nearly emaciated, their skin stretched tight over their hip bones and across the boney knobs of their ribs. It was clear the specter of starvation loomed here, and had for some time.

“Damn,” Molly remarked, and for the first time he felt doubt. Hypothermia was hard on even a healthy body. Could ones so weakened possibly have a chance?

He looked to Edwina, who shook her head. “Don’t give me eyes like that, Mollymauk Tealeaf. I’ll do my best, but I have no miracles. If you want one of those, you’d better pray.”

“Is there any chance at all?” He looked at the somnolent faces. “Or are we being cruel not letting them just sink down and sleep?”

Edwina slapped his shoulder, hard enough for Molly to exclaim, “Ow! What –?” but the halfling woman thrust a boney finger under his nose, cutting off further protest. “Now, you listen to me, young man. Death isn’t something you invite to your door. You have to fight it. According to you, these two fought to survive. They’re losing, there’s no doubt about that. But I’ll be damned if I decide it’s time to let the Stranger trespass the gates and take what he pleases when they haven’t. Are you?”

“No,” Molly said immediately. “I won’t.”

He could see the approval on her face. “Then fill that pan and hand it to me.”

It took ages. Hours of fighting that thin, stalking shadow Edwina had called the Stranger. First they went to battle with coals and warm water and wool. Molly spooned tea down their throats, massaging with his fingers to ease its passage. He warmed rolls of blankets packed under their armpits and groin. He helped a grim-faced Edwina free the goblin girl from the her footwear, revealing a misshapen foot and several frostbitten toes.

Edwina frowned. “The cold is all that saved this. There’s almost no swelling. I can’t fix what’s crushed, but I can maneuver the rest back into line. She’ll walk again, if she lives.”

Yasha, who was sitting with the girl’s leg propped in her lap, ran her thumbs over the arch of each green foot, and there was a brief moment when they almost seemed to glow. The next blink it was gone, leaving Molly unsure what he’d seen. He caught Yasha’s eye, and she didn’t look away, but she did touch a finger to her lips. Which, okay. Molly could keep secrets, even ones he didn’t understand.

It was as the light was sinking into the woods and shadows began filling spaces between tents, carts, and outbuildings, that Gustav finally made an appearance. Molly had been waiting for him all afternoon, eyes jerking to the tent flap every time it moved. Finally, the familiar face squinted into the room, zeroing in on the two strangers. Molly tried to read his expression. Was he angry? Curious? The features of his usually lively face were too rigid to tell.

Molly drew himself up. Time to face the music.

The strong, dark ale put a welcome heat in Mollymauk’s belly. For the first time all day, his muscles relaxed, and he sunk down on the bench, luxuriating in the relief of it. Gustav shoved a plate of cold meat and cheese in his direction. “Eat that,” he said. “You look done in.”

Molly obeyed with relish. He hadn’t realized how famished he was. Gustav watched him down his food and wipe his mouth with a satisfied, gusty sigh. “Thank you, Gustav,” he said, both for the food and the chance to get his feet beneath him before this conversation happened.

“Don’t mention it. Now, though, Molly, I want to hear. What kind of trouble have you brought here, and how likely is it to bite me in the ass?”

“Literally or figuratively?” Molly asked. Gustav gave him a look, and he huffed, spreading his arms. “I don’t know, Gustav. I don’t know either of them from Adam.”

“And yet you couldn’t leave them,” Gustav said.

Molly shook his head. “You know me. Better than I know myself, sometimes. So, yeah. No.”

Gustav sighed. “Well, it is a unique kettle of fish. Tell me the whole thing, start to finish. In case I need to know.”

Molly did, including the identity of their smaller guest. Afterward, Gustav reached into his pocket, drew out a pipe and tobacco pouch, and took the time to pack and light it. Molly knew it for the ritual it was and waited. It wasn’t until the smoke was drifting between his lips that Gustav answered. “There’s a chance, a good chance, these people are personae non gratae in these parts, even more than we are. Best case scenario, we end up with two dependents. At worst, I end up having to explain to crownsguard why I’m harboring undesirables. Does that sound wise?”

Gustav’s points were good ones. And yet… “We were all undesirables in some way. Maybe, somehow, these two are my chance to pay it forward.”

“They may not even live,” Gustav warned.

“Then I’ll bury them myself. Yasha will help me,” he added, because virtually any endeavor seemed more reasonable when Yasha was involved. As a final measure, he cleared his throat and said, “Please, Gustav.”

It was enough. Gustav passed a hand through his ashy brown hair, tapped twice on his pipe, and said, “Alright. They’re free to stay, Mollymauk. In your care.”

“Thank you,” Molly said, and he stood. Now that he’d eaten, he felt energized. Time to get to work.

The man and the goblin didn’t die, though there were moments when that was in doubt. On one particularly bad night, when fever had set in, the tiny goblin began to convulse under Yasha’s hands. Molly had been forced to pin her companion, who, despite being sick himself, emerged from febrile unconsciousness to try and reach her.

As Edwina worked in tandem with Yasha, Molly tried to calm him. “It’s alright,” he said, stroking sweaty bangs and refusing to break contact with those frenzied blue eyes. “She’s going to be fine.”

Edwina didn’t make a liar of him. Using every trick she’d learned, the woman drew the goblin back from the brink, and the very next morning she woke for the first time. Molly was the only one there when her eyes opened. When he saw panic began to build, he rolled her in the direction of her friend. Once she saw him, the tension ran out of her. Molly moved them onto the same bedroll after that, and they began to improve much quicker.

Feeding and hydrating them by the spoonful, Molly spent long nights sitting with them. It became a war of attrition. But it was a war Molly was determined to win, and finally the day came when the man was not just awake but truly aware.

“Hey,” Molly said.

And in a voice that was rasping and thin, the man swallowed and whispered back, “Hey.”

The man was hunched by the fire, a bowl of broth in his lap. He gazed around the tent with amazement and incomprehension. Molly understood. The poor guy had gone to ground in a snowbank. Now here he was, being hovered over by a purple tiefling.

The man shivered, and, without thinking, Molly drew the edges of his coat closer together. Only afterward did he think better of it. He’d grown so used to taking care of this man it had became second nature, but now that he was awake, new boundaries would need to be drawn. They were, after all, strangers to one another. And yet Molly wasn’t able to easily erase these last days from his mind. “Sorry,” he said. “Habit.”

The man stared, but not with contempt or fear. He seemed more…bewildered.

Which begged the question. “Do you know who I am?” Molly asked. He wasn’t really surprised when the man shook his head. It was disappointing, even if it was expected. “No memory at all?”

The man looked down at his lap, his brow furrowed in thought. “You.” His voice was so hoarse it was almost painful to listen to. “You were in the forest. There was a fire and…and a coat.” He tugged at the jacket draped over him even now, colorful with its patches of patterned fabric. Moly had gotten into the habit of settling it over him while he slept, and when he woke that morning, he’d been clutching it so tightly Molly hadn’t even attempted to get it back.

He held up his hands. “Guilty as charged.”

“I see you in my memories. Or maybe my dreams.” The man touched his forehead. “Confused.”

“I’m not surprised. You’ve been very sick.”

“You cared for me,” said the man. It was a question, though it had the wrong inflection.

“You seemed in need of help,” said Molly simply. “I came upon you in the woods and brought you here to see our medic. It’s been several days now, and Edwina says both you and your friend will recover. Minus a few toes on her part, but essentially intact. You’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” the man said belatedly. “Are you a…circus person?”

Molly laughed. “You could say that. I read the cards, draw the crowds, occasionally do a bit of fancy swordsmanship. But enough about me. I want to hear about you.” He saw the way the man’s eyes strayed to the blankets by his hip where the goblin girl was sleeping soundly. “We know about her, but you don’t have to worry. No one is going to hurt her. You’re safe.”

The look the man gave him was blatantly disbelieving. “Forgive me if I doubt you,” he said, and there was a bite to his voice for the first time. “We’ve found few so forgiving of her race, no matter how decent they seem otherwise.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“And what will we be required to pay for this kindness? I don’t have anything.” He plucked at his ill-fitting shirt. “At least, nothing I believe anyone would want.”

Molly was quick to disabuse him of that notion. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No one here expects repayment.”

“I know how the world operates. You don’t have to tell me half-truths.”

The bitterness in this man’s voice and the implied accusation sent a thread of anger through Molly. “Look,” he said. “Doubt me all you want, but the carnival has already put themselves out for you, and I’ll be damned if I let you slander them. Of course the world is a steaming pile of garbage a lot of the time, but the people here are good people, and none of us helped you because we expected to get something out of it.”

There was silence for a long time, both of them retreating to their corners to consider what the other had brought to the table. Molly was starting to feel guilty for getting mad, when the man said, “I’m sorry.”

Molly let out a breath. “Nah, I’m sorry. You’ve got every reason to be suspicious. It’s just, this place is my home, and I can get a little touchy when it comes to family.”

“Loyalty is important,” the man said with such underlying melancholy it sent Molly’s mood plunging.

“Just, eat your soup, okay? It’s going to get cold.” Molly didn’t know if the man believed a word he’d said, but he attempted to lift the spoon. However, the tremors in his hands were so bad that he couldn’t balance the utensil, and, after a few tries, he gave up. Molly scooted closer. “Here. Let me.”

“You – do not have to – to –”

“Who do you think’s been doing it these last few days?” Molly asked, then, seeing the humiliation and helplessness on the other’s face, he spoke more gently. “Please. It’s a small thing.”

The man allowed Molly to take the bowl from his lap. They didn’t speak for the first few spoonfuls, but eventually, very quietly, the man said, “Thank you.”

Molly sensed this ‘thank you’ was for more than just soup. Nonetheless, he exercised no pressure, making sure to keep his voice light and undemanding. “Don’t mention it. I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf, by the way.”

“It’s a colorful name.”

“Well, I’m a colorful person,” he said, tilting his head in a way that set the charms on his horns jingling.

Another of those distinct pauses. “I’m…Caleb.”

And just like that, the face he’d watched for signs of fever, the hands he’d massaged to restore circulation, all of it had a name. ‘I guess I won’t be naming you,’ Molly thought with good humor. Still, ‘Caleb’ suited him.

“I’ve been worried about you, Caleb. I though you might die on me before I got a chance to hear what brought you into those woods.” He looked toward the goblin. “I thought she was your daughter, the way you were wrapped around her. You saved her life, you know.”

“You have it backward,” Caleb said. “She saved me.”

He told Molly the story between tiny sips of broth. It had many twists and turns. There was a prison, a fire, and an escape. There was hunger, and – as the season turned – cold. Finally, there’d been the snap of a trap, a squeal of pain, frantic attempts at freedom hindered by physical weakness, and finally, resignation.

“When it came down to it, I couldn’t leave her. Not for noble reasons. Selfish ones. I couldn’t bare to go on living alone.”

The bowl lay, forgotten, to one side. “That’s quite a story,” Molly said.

“It had a different ending than expected,” Caleb admitted. “More than anything, I’m thankful Nott survived. She deserves to live.”

“Nott?”

A strange expression crossed Caleb’s face. It wasn’t a smile, but it flirted with the edges of the same feeling, like a bud promising a flower. “Nott the Brave, actually. Her name suits her very much. She is not like other goblins. She’s been hurt far more than she hurts.”

Molly had to admire the protectiveness in his voice. Here this guy was, barely able to sit upright, and he sounded ready to fight anybody who took exception to his friend. Selfish? Sure, probably. Molly could tell that Caleb was fragile mentally as well as physically, but there was a strand of steel running through him, and it seemed it was wrapped around a goblin named Nott.

“You don’t have to worry,” Molly reassured. “This is a carnival. We’re all weird. Nobody will bat an eyelash, at least once they get to know her.”

“Are we intended to get to know you?”

“Do you mean, can you stay? Definitely, at the moment. As for later, I suspect that will be your decision to make.”

“I can tell you’re a kind person, Mollymauk. So I feel it is only fair to warn you. I am not a good person. I’m garbage, and if it were not for Nott, it probably would have been better for you to let me die in the snow.”

This tone was so somber, so convinced of its own truth, and yet Molly was unconvinced. Actions spoke louder than words, and the only proof Molly had of Caleb’s character was self-sacrifice. Hardly the act of a garbage person. Which is why he leaned back, hands behind his head, and said, “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”

It was almost comical how wide Caleb’s eyes stretched. “Was?”

“Look,” Mollymauk said, leaning forward. “I’m not gonna go digging around in your past to figure out why you think you’re such a bad person. In truth, I’m not much a fan of the past. So, tell me, do you plan to do any deliberate harm to this carnival or anyone in it?”

Caleb stared. “No.”

“No thefts, assaults, arsons, or vandalism?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then let’s just wait and see,” Molly said. “And if things turn out to be a problem, we’ll deal with it then.”

“It may be you come to regret that decision, Mollymauk Tealeaf,” Caleb said.

“Oh, shut up and take a nap, why don’t you? I can see your eyelids drooping from here.”

He had to help Caleb stretch out on his bedroll, nudging Nott safely under his arm for good measure. Blinking heavily, Caleb said, “Mollymauk?

“Yes, Caleb?”

“Whatever happens…thank you again.”

Molly’s eyes softened. He yanked the blanket more snuggly in place. “Yeah, yeah. No problem. Now you two sleep tight.”

Molly had fallen asleep in the communal tent. To be honest, he hadn’t slept much of anywhere else, what with his charges needing such constant monitoring. However, with Caleb’s return to consciousness, he’d been planning to give himself the night off – go into town for a few drinks, take a hot bath, and turn into his own bunk for once. However, it seemed he’d drifted off, and when he woke up, it was to a tent filled with blue shadow.

His arms had broken out in goosebumps, and he rubbed them bracingly. The firepit had died down to coals, and it was frigid. At first, he wasn’t sure what had woken him, but then he heard suppressed grunts and a bitten off moan coming from the bundle of blankets where Caleb and Nott slept.

His first thought was that the fever had returned, but as Molly approached, he saw that wasn’t the case. Caleb was moving restlessly, his expression twitching with fear even though his eyes remained closed. While Molly watched, he let out another gasping cry. “No, get out, stop!” and his grasping hands clenched and unclenched as though responding to an unseen calamity. His hair was damp against his forehead, and then – horrifyingly – his panicked expression morphed into despair, and he began to cry.

“Hey, hey,” Molly heard himself saying, going to his knees without thinking. He even dared shaking Caleb, wanting to wrestle him out of whatever space in his mind had made him break down like this.

Caleb came awake, his eyes wild with emotion, and his chest, still thin and wont to struggle in its duties, laboring. His gaze swept the room, transported with fear, until he saw Molly. He scrabbled, grabbing for the tiefling. “I killed them.”

“Killed? Killed who?”

“My parents.”

‘It’s probably not true,’ Molly thought. ‘The poor guy just woke up from a dreadful nightmare, and he’s not thinking clearly.’ Yet the desolate look on Caleb’s face as he pressed his forehead into their joined hands, and his hollow sounding cries, made it hard not to wonder. ‘What happened to you?’

“Caleb,” he said. “It was just a dream. You’re here at the Fletching & Moondrop Carnival, with me, Molly.”

Caleb lifted his head. His cheeks were streaked, but he was no longer crying. “Mollymauk.”

Again with the questions that weren’t really questions. “Yeah, it’s me.”

Caleb withdrew his hands. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to bother you. It was…I was dreaming.”

“You didn’t bother me. I was worried. Are you alright?”

He asked this because, as the panic fled, it left something even more chilling in its wake: Emptiness. Molly gazed into that blankness, and, without warning, he was thrown back into the days of his own invalidity, when a great nothingness had stretched out in front of him like the long shadow of a grave, and he could still pick dirt from under his fingernails and smell it on his breath. He saw some echo of that nothingness in Caleb’s face, and his response was panic.

He scrapped in his pocket, drawing out a handkerchief, and shoved it against Caleb’s face. “Blow,” he demanded.

It was unexpected enough that Caleb’s eyes widened, but when Molly didn’t pull away, he gave a weak snuffle to clear his sinuses. Molly sloppily moped the rest of his face, drying it of tears, then yanked Caleb into a seated position.

“Molly, what –”

“Just go with it,” Molly said. “This will definitely help.”

He pulled Caleb into an embrace. It was too tight, he knew it was too tight, especially for someone who had been so sick, but Molly was shoving back against more than just Caleb’s memories. That they had encroached so near had scared him, and he thought if he could squeeze the hurt out of Caleb, then maybe he could keep them both from being consumed.

Stupid, but it didn’t stop him from gripping Caleb’s neck like his life depended on it and blurting, “You’re okay. I’m with you, and we’re both fine.”

Initially stiff, Caleb began to loosen, until finally he brought up his arms to circle Molly’s back. Exhaling, his shoulders lost their tension. “You are very strange, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

Molly choked on a giggle. “Sorry, sorry. I panicked. Is this alright?”

Caleb let his head fall against Molly’s shoulder. “It’s alright.”

There was a goblin staring at him.

She was sitting on a cushion in front of the firepit, holding a bowl of porridge. Her foot was wrapped in a swathe of bandages, and she was glaring at Molly with a pair of yellow eyes he swore were refracting the light of the fire like a wolf or a weasel. It made it impossible not to know her for what she was, even without the teeth or the way her elongated ears twitched at the sounds of people socializing in other parts of the tent.

To Yasha, Molly whispered, “Why is she looking at me like that? I’m starting to feel like a rabbit.”

Yasha whispered back, “Perhaps it’s because you were wrapped around Caleb when she woke up.”

Blood rushed to Molly’s ears. “He had a nightmare, okay? And you know I get a little clingy when I’m worried.”

Yasha, who had grown used to disentangling Molly from her person whenever the man was fretting, nodded solemnly. “I think it’s nice how attached you’ve gotten. You could use another friend besides me.”

“I’m not attached. And I have lots of friends. Tons! Everyone likes me.”

“I can tell you relate to him. He does have a bit of that look, the one you had in the beginning.”

“Empty,” Molly murmured.

“Yes,” she said. “It easy to draw the comparison, at least for people who really know you.”

His shoulders slumped. “Is that bad?”

“No. That’s empathy. Maybe you can even help him. So don’t feel bad about comforting a person who had a nightmare or laying the foundation for a new relationship. You just need to remember one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“She doesn’t know any of that, and, judging by the way she’s squeezing his hand, that protective streak runs both ways.”

“What does she think I’m going to do, eat him?”

“Use your head,” said Yasha. “These are socially isolated, systematically abused people. I’m sure you can imagine what kind of exploitation she’s seen and endured. And you and I are strangers who have her totally in our power.”

“So how do we explain that she’s safe?”

“I doubt explanations will cut it,” Yasha said. “We’ll have to show her.”

They’d recovered enough to be given simple work to do. It was a relief. Not only was Nott restless and irritable with inactivity, but she also kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when the halfling crone, Edwina, declared she and Caleb fit to do light chores, Nott had jumped at the opportunity. Still off balance with her missing toes, she’d been given a length of old cordage and instructed to mend it. Splicing the frayed ends took dexterous hands and attention to detail, which kept her occupied. Yet she couldn’t help but fret.

Caleb was gone, off with that Mollymauk character, and she didn’t like it. Caleb was so bright and talented – talented in ways these people didn’t even know – but even though Caleb was smart and good, Nott wasn’t delusional. Her Caleb was like one of those beautiful panes of glass that temples had instead of windows, all glittery with color and shaped into patterns that showed important histories. But Caleb had been mishandled, and now there were cracks running through him like spiders’ webs. Too much pressure and he would shatter. What if these people took advantage of him?

Or else… What if Caleb decided he liked it here with these people who were more like his own kind and less like a dirty goblin who stole things and got them run out of villages to freeze in the forest? What if he decided he wanted Molly to be his friend and left Nott behind like she’d always secretly feared he would?

“Mrrp.”

The sound drew her out of her anxious spiral. She scratched behind Frumpkin’s ears. “Did Caleb send you to check on me?” The animal stepped into her lap and tucked himself into a comfortable roll. He started to purr, and the heaviness and warmth of the feline body calmed her immediately. She buried her fingers in his fur and whispered into his soft ear, “I love you, Caleb.”

“He’s a very affectionate cat,” someone said.

Nott’s eyebrows slammed down, a hiss lodged in her throat. She looked up, ready to glare whoever it was away, but her resolve faltered when she saw the big, dark-haired woman who always hung around Molly. She was called Yasha, and despite her size, she’d never been anything but careful with Nott. Even her voice was quiet, and she moved with a smoothness that reminded Nott of a deer, slow and deliberate, but able to leap powerfully into motion at any time.

Nott looked down at Frumpkin. “He’s Caleb’s.”

Yasha sat down across from her. She did it slowly, giving Nott time to say something if she didn’t like it. Nott stayed silent. Yasha scratched Frumpkin beneath the chin. The animal leaned into it, his purring intensifying.

“I ate him once,” Nott blurted, for lack of anything better to say.

Yasha blinked. “You…”

“Ate him, yes.” Nott felt a bead of sweat go down her back. She was terrible at small talk. “And after Caleb brought him back, Frumpkin refused to sleep beside me for weeks. But we’ve made up by now.”

Yasha was quiet for a long moment as she considered. “I had wondered. Those books we found tucked in his coat, and the cat, of course.”

A surge of panic went through Nott. Had she said too much? Had she given Caleb away?

“Relax,” Yasha said. “If you want it to be a secret, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Even Molly?” Molly and Yasha were friends. Maybe even as close as Nott and Caleb. Would she tell him?

“You know,” said Yasha. “I think you’re misjudging Molly. He’s a good person.”

Frustration made Nott stubborn. “I don’t think he’s that great.”

Yasha didn’t answer. Instead, she opened a journal she’d been holding and started flipping through it. Flashes of color caught Nott’s eye, and she leaned forward curiously. “What are those?”

“Flowers,” Yasha said, shifting out of the way so Nott could see the dried blossoms. A faint perfume wafted in her direction as Yasha turned the pages. “I collect them from the places we travel.”

Nott perked up. She’d had a collection once, before those bastards in the jail took everything. “Why do you collect them?”

“I suppose I find them pretty. Something to remind me of happier times. Plus, all girls like flowers, don’t they?”

Nott prevaricated, uncertain. “Um?”

“Would you like one, Nott? This bunch would go with your eyes.”

The offer took Nott so much by surprise she didn’t know how to respond. Why offer it to her? All girls… But Nott wasn’t a proper girl. “I’m a goblin,” she blurted.

Yasha tilted her head. “Do goblins not like flowers?”

“Not most of them, no,” said Nott. She touched the sprig of yellow flowers. Maybe, if she asked, Caleb would let her keep it between the pages of his spellbook. She looked at Yasha. “Are you really not…disgusted with me, or scared, or something?”

“I think it’s better to reserve judgement until I see how people behave,” Yasha said.

She was talking about Molly. Nott felt a pang of guilt, which annoyed her. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

Yasha shrugged. “Would you like help with that rope? It will make time go faster.” She reached for the coil laying across Nott’s lap, and in doing so, their hands brushed. And rather than yanking away, Yasha let her hand settle there for just a moment, applying gentle pressure. Nott stared. Caleb had been the only one who…

Maybe Nott was a little fragile herself. “Okay,” she said quietly.

They worked together for the rest of the afternoon.

Caleb had been set to peel potatoes in the mess tent, and it was taking up a great deal of his attention. The knife felt strange in his hand, and the potatoes – still quite fresh this early in the winter – were rough against his skin, which was still over sensitive after his episode last night. He could feel every grain of dirt, and the puckered eyes had a horrifying quality to them, but Caleb kept on doggedly. This was the task he’d been given, and so he must do it.

‘After all they’ve given you,’ he told himself, ‘and all they’ve done for Nott, you can peel some damn potatoes.’

Bo, or Bo the Breaker as he had introduced himself, was leading meal preparation today. He came over to inspect Caleb’s work. “Not bad,” he said. “At least you’re not taking half the flesh off like that lazy scoundrel Mollymauk. Lad’s too flighty by half to give them the proper attention.”

“’Perhaps his skills lie elsewhere,” Caleb said, because he felt compelled to say something in Molly’s defense, even if it was clear from the fondness in Bo’s voice he meant no harm.

Bo gave Caleb’s back a bracing pat (Caleb tried desperately to hide his wince) and pulled a bowl filled with nuts nearer. “Don’t be shy about nibbling while you work,” he said. “You need to put on more weight.”

Then he left, thankfully. The carnival, Caleb had discovered, was full of colorful characters. Some were solitary and aloof, like the Knot sisters, who had barely looked in Caleb’s direction when they came in for lunch. Others were flamboyant and eager to be friendly. It was overwhelming after so long isolated from any person expect for Nott.

Speaking of Nott, he wondered how she was. He’d sent Frumpkin to check on here, and now he blinked into his familiar’s body to reassure himself she was alright. What he saw made him smile, his thumb poised against the knife handle. Yasha, the big woman with the gentle hands, wasn’t one he expected to forge a friendship with Nott. Still, it was sweet. He blinked back into himself, not wanting to invade their privacy, and was surprised to find someone talking to him.

It was a dwarvish girl with blond hair done up in braids. “I said, can you hear me?”

He cleared his throat. “I can now. What can I do for you, Miss – ah?”

“Toya,” she said. “Why are you wearing Molly’s coat?”

Caleb looked down at the garment, which he’d been plucking between his fingers. He flattened it, smoothing the wrinkles. There was a blue spider embroidered to the right of his fingers, a constellation of stars by his left. It had been with him since he woke up, and he hadn’t thought to question its origin. “Molly’s coat?”

“Well, yeah!” Toya laughed. “It’s kind of hard to mistake.”

No doubt. Likely, Molly had given it up sometime during his convalescence, and because of Caleb’s clinginess, he hadn’t asked for it back. Caleb would have to correct that, though thinking of it gave him a pang of loss. He felt safer in the obscuring folds of a heavy coat like this one, and his own had apparently been too ruined to salvage. Still, he couldn’t cling to someone else’s things for security. He needed to heal, get stronger. If something went wrong and they had to leave suddenly, Caleb would need to be well enough to do so.

Now if only the buzzing beneath his skin would stop.

He came back to himself with Toya staring at him. “Did you…need something?”

“Oh! Yes. I was supposed to tell you that Gustav says, if you’re feeling better, he’d like to talk to you in his office.” She whispered, “It’s not really an office. It’s where he and Desmond sleep, but there’s a desk and a big chest full of papers and books, so maybe it’s kind of like an office.”

Caleb looked at the half peeled potato in his hands. A hot, prickling sensation crept up his spine. Gustav Fletching was the carnival master. Was this when he would be told they had to leave? Or, despite Molly’s reassurances, was this when Gustav would lay out his terms? With Nott still so weak, Caleb would agree to almost anything, but the memories associated with such a prospect stirred uneasily in him, bringing up silt and dead leaves, mudding the waters of his mind until he felt choked.

“Mister Caleb?” It was Toya, who sounded worried. “Are you okay? I could go get Molly.”

“No. I am well,” Caleb said, setting down the knife with care on the table’s surface. It was pitted and smooth with many hundreds of meals. “Can you tell me where I can find Gustav’s tent?”

After so long in the tent’s moody lighting, the intensity of the morning was almost too much. Caleb stared until he started shivering, then realized he’d drawn Molly’s coat around himself and was clutching it. With an effort, he forced himself to release the sleeves, to loosen his hands. Steady.

To get to Gustav’s office, he had to cross the common area between the circus’s residential spaces. It was a large clearing, open to the sky. A horse was tied nearby and flicked its ears at him. Caleb made his way slowly, feeling the wobble of his legs, which were still growing used to supporting his weight. It left him with a feeling of drunkenness, a lack of control, and he began to wish he’d stayed in the tent and hidden with the potatoes.

Halfway across, he passed the firepit. At the sight of it, Caleb froze. It brought the dream back, the image of floating cinders rising in the evening sky above the cottage of his boyhood home. The glow of the ashes left in the aftermath, vivid in his mind’s eye in spite of the veil of madness that had already come down at that point. He stared, and from the depth of the firepit, he heard screams…

A hand clamped down on his shoulder, steely as an iron manacle.

Fear blazed through Caleb, who was no longer between the tents of the Fletching & Moondrop Carnival. He was somewhere else, a wailing wreck of a man, and they were about to drag him away and lock him inside cold, clinical walls of confusion and abuse. Terrified, he lashed out, and for the first time in a long time, he had strength enough to call on the stores of magic within. Fire spurted from his fingers, and somebody shouted with alarm. The hand that gripped him was gone, but Caleb’s legs collapsed, sending him sprawling to his knees. A strangled, panicked sound escaped him as he grappled to bring past and present together.

People were running. The common area filled. Some were familiar faces. A horrified Edwina, who’d pressed her hands over her mouth. Bo the Breaker, still wearing an apron and a rolling pin. Desmond, the bald man with the scared face. Why did they all look so upset?

Two crownsguard came sprinting into the clearing, weapons in hand. They went to their wounded comrade, who was holding a blackened sleeve. He pointed to Caleb. “That man burned me!”

No. Oh, no. Caleb could feel his breathing picking up. He could see it now. While he’d been staring off into the fire, this soldier had approached him. Angry at begin ignored, the guard had grabbed his arm. And Caleb had attacked him. With fire.

The two uninjured soldiers began to walk toward him. “Sir,” one said. “Assaulting an officer of the empire is a felony offence. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t bring down further condemnation upon yourself by resisting arrest.”

Caleb was thinking of manacles, of iron bars and filthy, insect-ridden hay when the flap of another tent was thrown back and a new man arrived, being dragged by Toya, whose face was white as milk. This new person wore a floppy hat and had long, curly hair tied back with a string. Gold earrings hung from his ears, and when he saw the crownsguard, his eyes turned smoldering. He stalked forward. “Gentlemen.”

The soldiers stopped. They seemed to know this man. “Master Gustav,” one said, not aggressively but very firmly indeed. “One of your people just attacked a fellow crownsguard. Do you have anything to say about this?”

Gustav glanced at Caleb, who was shivering on the ground. “Get Molly,” he said to Toya, and she darted off. To the guards, he said, “Gentleman, I gave you my permission to post yourself anywhere you wished on nights the carnival is performing. I even gave you leave to tour our camp when we first arrived, despite the infringement on our privacy. But I did not give you the right to wander our tents at any hour you please. So why are you here?”

“Just an inspection,” said a soldier. “Not that it matters.”

“Damned if it does!” Desmond shouted. “We have a right to defend ourselves against trespassers!”

“He set my shirt on fire!” countered the crownsguard who’d been attacked. “I asked him a question.”

Gustav glanced at the scorched uniform, then at Caleb. “Get up,” he said.

Caleb struggled to do so. His heart was hammering, and he wondered, was this going to be it for him? After years of wondering if he deserved death but too cowardly to decide, would he now be handed over to crownsguard to make that decision for him? ‘Maybe they will let Nott stay,’ he thought. He was almost certain he’d seen Toya talking to a toad demon. Nott couldn’t be any more problematic then that, right?

“Caleb!” He knew that voice, registered it even before Molly was there, helping him to his feet. “What happened?”

“These men were trespassing, and one of them grabbed him. He used fire to get free.”

Molly’s eyes widened. “Fire, huh?”

It suddenly felt important that Molly knew he’d not intentionally broken his promise. “I did not do it on purpose,” Caleb said, eyes watering. Everything was so bright. The sky, white and featureless, pressed down pitilessly. He wanted to beg Molly to understand. “My mind wandered, and he startled me. I did not even know who he was.”

Molly tuned to the crownsguard. “You heard him. This man has been very sick. He’s had fevers for days, and, as you can see, he can barely stand on his own. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that there was injury,” said the crownsguard.

Gustav had been taking this in. Now he spoke. “I have complied with every ordinance you people came up with. I’ve kept my people out of town except for an occasional evening at the tavern. We’ve disturbed no peace and endured your township’s suspicion, despite having done nothing to provoke it. And while I can’t ultimately stop you if you want to arrest an invalid who accidentally lashed out at you in fear, I would take it very kindly if you reconsidered, in light of the circumstances.”

The words were persuasive. Caleb saw the crownsguard falter in their resolve. Even the injured man, still holding his arm, said, “Marcus, maybe we can just overlook it this time. I’m not hurt worse than a bad sunburn.”

Marcus ducked his chin. “Very well,” he said. Then, looking piercingly at Gustav, he said, “We’re careful here in Harthwaite, but we aren’t trying to do your people harm. It’s our job. But no more funny business, you hear me?”

“Thank you,” Gustav said, not very nicely but without hostility either. The crownsguard left, escorted out by the carnies’ accusing eyes. When they were gone, Gustav said to Molly, “I want to see you in my tent. Him, too.”

“He’s done in,” Molly said. “Can’t it wait a bit, until the shock wears off?”

Gustav didn’t answer but his shaking head communicated clearly enough. Once Gustav was gone, Caleb tried to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he said. He touched his forehead, which felt heavy and swollen.

“It’s not your fault,” Yasha said. She’d come up beside them. “Those men should never have been here. It was an accident.”

“I…I hurt…”

“He’s going to relapse,” Yasha said with concern. “Look at him.”

“I know,” said Molly. “But Gustav is pissed. He’s not going to wait.”

The two of them walked on either side of Caleb, letting him take slow steps. Somewhere along the way, Caleb realized Yasha was stroking his hair. “Thank you for looking after Nott,” he said. “For the flowers.”

Yasha leaned down. “Be calm,” she breathed in his ear as she left them, and Caleb didn’t know if she was talking to him or Mollymauk.

It was a little better inside the tent. The light wasn’t so harsh, and it was quiet. There was a rug, old but well cared for, laying on the ground, and a thick quilt separated the space into sections. Both had a muffling effect, and Caleb began to calm down despite what they were here for. Molly directed him to sit on a trunk. “Gustav?”

The man emerged from the back of the tent, which Caleb assumed was a more private area, the place were he slept and ate. He was carrying a flask, which he handed to Caleb as he sat down at his desk and stretched out his legs. “Take a swig of that.”

It burned going down, and as diminished as he was, bodily speaking, even one gulp was enough for him to start feeling the effects. He handed back the flask. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I have questions. Starting with your status. Are you a mage?”

It was a loaded question. Caleb could almost hear his old teachers lecturing. Mages had control, training, a craft. Once, he’d been a mage. Now he barely had the right to call himself a caster. “I can use some magic,” he temporized, knowing Gustav wouldn’t be interested in the Soltryce Academy’s philosophy of magical hierarchy. “By training. I studied, using books.”

“You’re a wizard, then.”

A lifetime ago. The only thing he used magic for these days was to light candles and summon Frumpkin. Frumpkin. He snapped his fingers and the animal appeared in his arms. “This is my cat,” he said.

Both men were staring. “To be fair, I suspected,” Molly drawled. “That cat was too damn smart.”

“Gods,” Gustav was saying. “A wizard and a goblin. What have you hooked us into, Molly?”

“Hey! You’re my example.”

“You’re making me regret it,” said Gustav. He massaged his temples.

It was easier to talk with Frumpkin, even about this. “Gustav, I must thank you,” Caleb said. “You could have let them arrest me. I’m sorry for the trouble we have caused. I can…I can carry Nott, I’m sure.” He hardened his resolve, sought strength inside, though it felt like an exhausted well. “I will collect her, and we will leave tonight.”

“Like hell you will,” said Molly. “I didn’t nurse you back to health just to have you get yourselves killed.”

Gustav said, “He’s right. You have no money. You’re unwell. If you leave, it will go very hard for you. Perhaps too hard.”

“It does not matter,” Caleb said. “Mollymauk, you have been kind. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone – But I promised you. I will not do harm to this carnival. And you are not responsible for our lives.”

What Gustav thought about this, Caleb didn’t know. Molly certainly didn’t like it, which was regretful. If he had stayed longer, Caleb thought the two of them might have become friends, and it saddened him to leave a sour taste in the tiefling’s mouth instead.

Gustave turned to Molly. “I like him. Is the goblin this interesting?”

Tension went out of Molly’s shoulders. “She bit the head off a rat this morning and gave the rest to Yasha as a present. They were roasting it when that nonsense with the crownsguard started.”

Gustav threw an arm over his eyes and guffawed. “Oh, I am going to regret this.”

Molly clapped an arm on Caleb’s shoulder. “But, good news, we have a wizard! And a magic cat. Surely we can find an angle for that.”

“I’ll leave it to you,” said Gustav. “In the meantime, find them a place to bunk. We can’t have them cluttering up the common area forever.”

“Wait, I do not understand,” interrupted Caleb.

Gustav leaned over, and though the intensity in his eyes was a little wild, he looked kind. As kind as Molly. “Young man, the thing about a family is that you look out for one another, even when one person is in hot water. Today it was you, but tomorrow it might be me. Or Molly here. Probably it will be Molly. He’s a magnet for trouble.”

“Guilty as charged,” Molly said cheekily.

“The point is, you’re free to stay if you wish. You can stay for a season, or you can stay indefinitely. I’m sure you’ll carry your weight when you’re able, and I believe you when you say you’ll bring no deliberate harm here.”

Caleb was struggling. His throat had become thick with emotion, his chest tight. “What if, one day, harm comes looking for me?” The amulet against his chest felt heavy.

“No one is without a past,” Gustav said. “So? Shall we plan a celebratory dinner?”

“Oh, yes, please,” said Molly with gusto. But despite his mirth, his eyes were fixed on Caleb, and they were hopeful.

“Give me another drink from that flask,” said Caleb. It burned worse than before, and he coughed. A dazed kind of smile floated up, and he let it come.

Six months after the snowy wood had passed behind them, the Fletching & Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities pulled into the city of Trostenwald. Not much of a place, aside from its reputation for excellent ale, but Molly had met some very lively characters in one of the local taverns, and that had made up for any excitement the rest of the town lacked.

“Wait,” said Caleb, who was listening to this recounting as he practiced his act. A streamer of fire danced along the ground like a burning snake, zigging and zagging with practiced ease. The village children would love it. “There was a blue tiefling and a half orc, both traveling with –”

“The crabbiest woman I’ve ever met in my life, and that counts Orna. And the tiefling – Jester, they called her – blew the shutters straight off the panes using thaumaturgy and messed with all the lights. It was quite a show.”

“I wish I could have seen it,” said Nott. She was sitting on a barrel, wearing her form-fitting leotard. Not that most people would see anything but a gnomish acrobat. Nott had proven to have a bit of magical gifting herself, and under Caleb’s tutelage, she’d learned to disguise herself much more effectively than covering her face with that creepy doll mask Gustav had eventually confiscated.

“I gave them a pamphlet. Maybe they’ll come.”

“That would be fun. Add a little spice to this place.”

“You bored, Nott?” Molly asked and couldn’t help but feel a pang of it himself. He loved the carnival, but sometimes he couldn’t help feeling a little wanderlust.

Nott tapped her heels on the barrel. “Not really. But maybe it would cheer up Toya.”

The mood dampened immediately. They were all worried about Toya. Molly flopped onto the edge of the barrel, almost dislodging Nott, who squawked. “In the meantime, do you want to make a bet?”

Caleb dropped the spell and smiled. It was something he was doing a lot more these days. Security had done wonders for him, filling out his empty spaces as surely as regular meals had filled out his cheeks. In fact, wearing that colorful sash and Molly’s appropriated coat

(“Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Mollymauk.”

“Says who?”)

he looked well and truly at home surrounded by the striped tents and the smell of roasted nuts and the sounds of raucous music. He looked well, is what Mollymauk was saying. And what a long road that had been.

Caleb put his hands on his hips. “And what kind of bet did you have in mind?”

“Just something friendly,” Molly said innocently. “How about we bet on those weirdos. What kind of stir they’ll make if they show up.”

“That’s not fair,” Nott said. “We haven’t even seen them.”

“An arrest,” Caleb said. “And I’m going to bet it will be the woman, the martial artist.”

“Fine. I’m betting on the other girl, the tiefling. I’ve never seen such an agent for chaos in my entire life. She’s bound to cause magical shenanigans. You in on this, Nott?”

She crossed her arms. “No way. It’s stupid. You’re going to win, and then you’ll make Caleb do something dumb, and I’m going to be mad at you.”

Molly clutched his chest. “Nott, I’m hurt. I am always careful with your boy. Besides, you should be thanking me. If it weren’t for me, Caleb would spend all his time reading books on ancient Dwendalian farming utensils, and he would never have any fun.”

“What’s fun about getting thrown into a lake?” Nott demanded.

He’d forgotten about that. “Now, that wasn’t completely my fault.”

“He’s right,” said Yasha, appearing as usual with entirely too much stealth for such a big woman. “I’m the one who threw him.”

“And he was drunk,” Molly said.

“Enough,” said Caleb. “Nott, I’m responsible for my own folly. Still, I have to say, I am interested in meeting these adventurers of yours, Mollymauk. I truly hope they come and bring their havoc with them.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Yasha.

Molly laughed, swinging an arm around Nott’s shoulders and smiling at the three people closest to his heart. “Ah, well, how much trouble can they be?”

Chapter Text

The Lavish Chateau had, in its time, been host to many strange guests. They turned away no races, no class or clan, though they did insist on a certain level of respect and decorum. Enforcing that decorum was Blude, though he generally took care of indiscretions out of view. Which was why Marion was surprised when, just before dawn, he knocked on her door. “My lady, do you have a moment? There are visitors downstairs, and I’m not sure what to do with them.”

Marion set down the comb she’d been drawing through her hair. “Clients?” she asked, because it was unusual for Blude to approach her about that side of the business.

He clarified. “More like...asylum seekers.”

“Oh,” said Marion with understanding. That did happen from time to time. Some came from others, less savory forms of sex work. Others were fleeing abusive spouses. A few merely sought excitement. Marion had taken on a handful, but most she turned away. The Lavish Chateau was a safe place, and she didn’t take that responsibility lightly. Those who threatened or cheapened it were better off elsewhere.

Wrapping a shift around her, she slipped her feet into silken slippers, and Blude took her arm like the gentleman he was. Halfway down the stairs, she noticed the furrows between the protruding horns of his head. It was uncharacteristic. Blude was so reserved, it was strange to see him so openly troubled.

“What is it, my friend?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Perhaps it’s best I do not speak,” he said. “I may be biased about this situation, and I don’t want to sway you.”

Intriguing. Part of Marion wanted to press, but perhaps it was better to do as he requested.

He led her to the common room, a private space where the staff socialized outside of business hours. Supplicants wouldn’t ordinarily be brought here, though it seemed these weren’t typical supplicants. Conversations quieted when she made her appearance, and Marion exchanged smiles and ‘good mornings’. Of course, she couldn’t help but notice the preoccupation in the room. Eyes kept drifting. There were whispers. Was this all because of the guests Blude spoke of?

Nestled around a low table with cushions, Marion saw them – two figures, one small and swathed in bandages, the other a lithe young man in a ratty coat. The man looked up at her, and Marion’s breath caught. His eyes were a pure, unadulterated blue. She was transfixed by the clarity of them, the openness. The other figure stood when she saw Marion, and, in a high, rasping voice, asked, “Is this her?”

Blude introduced them. “This is Lady Lavorre, the Ruby of the Sea. My lady, these two came barreling into the kitchens near closing time. There was quite a lot of commotion. However, they had some interesting things to say when we caught them, and this one begged to see you.”

Marion examined this guest who had come in like a falling star and apparently caused so much chaos before pleading for an audience. She was as small as a child, or perhaps a halfling or gnome, though it was difficult to tell because her features were obscured. Marion knelt, seeking the face inside the hood. She found eyes too large for a pale green face, and – peeking out from thin lips – a set of very pointy teeth. Marion gasped.

The goblin whined, recoiling. Her lantern-like eyes were wet with tears.

Perhaps it was the tears, but something about her moved Marion. She extended her hand. “My name is Marion. Can you tell me what brings you to The Lavish Chateau?”

The hand that gripped hers was strange, small but rough and strangely strong. Marion could feel the claws touch the back of her hand, but they were a whisper only. “I’m Nott,” the goblin said. “Nott the brave.”

There was a chuckle from the room, but Blude silenced it with a look. “Well, Nott the brave,” Marion said. “Why is it that you’re here, asking for an audience of me?”

“We just got into town from the Dwendalian Empire,” Nott said, “We didn’t have much coin, so I took a job from a man named Le Marc. It was just a little job. Simple. But I messed it up, and that made him angry.”

“Were you being chased tonight?”

“Yes. We’ve been hiding for a few days, but we got hungry. Caleb isn’t very good at being sneaky. He tries, he really does, but we were spotted. I was sure they were going to throw us into the harbor or drag us back to Le Marc, and my Caleb...” She trailed off, choked by emotion. “We came here because I was desperate. People say it’s a good place. They say, if you ask, sometimes The Ruby will hire you.”

The Lavish Chateau was a good place. It was Marion’s personal sanctuary. Many had found security within its walls, especially those who needed walls to keep the world at bay. Marion considered. Did she want to entertain this idea? She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to at least take a look.

“Well, let me see him then,” she said, gesturing for the young man to stand. He did so, though he wore a bemused expression as she looked him over from heel to crown. What she saw was a human not much out of his twenties, his features muted by a general lack of cleanliness. However, the dirt on his face did nothing to hide his cheekbones or the dusting of freckles. Under the light, his hair gave off enticing flashes of copper, as though it might shine when scrubbed clean. And those eyes. They gazed at her now, utterly guileless, and when she touched his chin, he moved with her, pliant and receptive. In all, he was full of potential and likely to be even more so after a few weeks of good meals and a bath. Marion smiled at him. “Caleb, was it?”

He smiled hesitantly back, and her heart fluttered. Oh, yes, this one would have no trouble drawing attention. She turned to the goblin, Nott. “Very well. If he’d like to be installed here, I can see to it that he starts training.”

Marion was surprised when, instead of relief, horror bloomed on Nott’s face. “What? No!” She took Caleb by the hand and yanked him behind her. “No, no, no. You don’t understand at all. I’m the one who needs the work.”

Marion didn’t want to be unkind, but she had to be honest. “My dear, without meaning any slight to you personally, there aren’t many guests who’d be interested in spending the evening with a goblin, even one so lovely as you.”

A flare in those golden eyes. The snarling abruptly stopped. “Lovely? Me?”

Marion’s heart broke slightly at this proof of internal doubt. Though so many praised her beauty now, she knew what it was like to feel inherently ugly and unloved. ‘Jester will never feel that way,’ she promised herself, just as she had every night since the baby’s indigo ringlets had first curled around her fingers like perfect crescent moons. To Nott, Marion said gently, “I can see your inner beauty well enough, though you’re trying so hard to cover it with those heavy clothes. Still, you must understand when I tell you that you could not be an escort here.”

Nott hesitated, then slowly drew down her hood, revealing a long, tangled thatch of hair, gnarled like seaweed. She scrubbed her cheeks, which were flushed, but her expression was determined rather than sad. “I know. I don’t want to do that anyway.” She glanced at Caleb, whose was still silent. His long, thin fingers danced in front of him as though he wanted to hold on but wasn’t sure if it was allowed. “As for my Caleb, he can’t. I know he looks grown, but...” Her voice cracked. “Show them, Caleb.”

Caleb showed reluctance for the first time. Nonetheless, he allowed Nott to draw him into a crouch and part his hair above his ear. There, Marion saw a gnarly scar. It must have nearly cleaved his head in two, and it clearly had not received anything like a proper healing.

Grieved, Nott said, “He doesn’t like anyone to see.”

The pieces were beginning to fall into place, and Marion felt a sickness in her belly at what she had considered, though, of course, given the circumstances, she couldn’t have known. “He’s like a child.”

“He’s not stupid,” Nott said with heat. “He’s very smart. He just can’t, cant…”

“It’s alright,” Marion cut her off. “You don’t have to explain.”

Nott caressed Caleb’s face, and the way he looked at her was immaculate with trust. It was an exchange Marion recognized. She saw it when she tucked Jester into bed, or bandaged a splintered finger, or kissed her wrinkled forehead when she cried. It was the bond of a parent and a child, and as one single mother to another, Marion knew she had to do something. The Chateau was a place she could keep her daughter in safety. It would be that for Nott, too. She would see to it.

“What kind of work do you do, Nott?”

It was an amazing thing, hope. It went through Nott like gunpowder, and she dashed her claws with eagerness. “I have quick hands, and I’m really strong for my size. I can sneak and fight.”

Oh dear, Marion thought, but thankfully Blude stepped forward. “I can always use someone with a strong mind and hands, provided you’re not shy of hard work.”

Nott stood to her full height, which at four feet didn’t even scrape the minotaur’s belt. “I’m a very hard worker.”

Blude looked to Marion, who smiled. “It seems it’s settled.”

“And what about him?” asked Lyma, one of the girls. She sashayed up to Caleb and thumbed his cheek.

Nott rounded on her quickly. “No one puts their hands on him or I’ll rip out your liver and eat it for breakfast.”

There was a general uproar, but Marion waved her hand. “Enough, all of you. Nott, first of all, you should know that this establishment has the utmost respect for the autonomy of others, and none of us would dream of imposing upon someone who couldn’t give their consent. Lyma knows that very well, don’t you Lyma?”

Lyma pouted. “I was just teasing.”

“Better to save it for someone who can appreciate it,” Marion admonished, and to Lyma’s credit, she accepted it with good grace. That taken care of, Marion turned back to Nott. “The point is this. Your Caleb will be safe here. No one who lives in this building will harm him, and those who enter won’t be permitted to do so either. Do you believe me?”

Nott looked close to crying again, and Marion knew that exhausted expression well. It was the feeling of a ship finally coming into port after a long journey in very rough seas. Marion extended her hand, this time to Caleb.

“As for you, my dear, I have something special to show you.”

Caleb hesitated, and in that moment Marian was acutely aware of his woundedness. The wheels were turning – but slowly, much more slowly than they were ever intended to. In the end, he looked to Nott for guidance. “It’s okay, Caleb,” she said. “I’ll come too.”

Caleb let Marion take hold of him. His hand was rough, marked with the callouses of a very full life, and Marion felt a pang of loss on his behalf. ‘I wonder who you were before,’ she thought. She tucked his hand gently into her elbow and lead him toward the steps. “Goodnight, everyone.”

A chorus of farewells followed her, and then it was just her, Nott, and Caleb, who walked so lightly she almost couldn’t hear his footsteps. It was much too poised for a child, proof that there were remnants his injury had left behind. In difference to this, Marion patted Caleb’s hand as they ascended, choosing to speak to him rather than about him.

“Caleb, I’m going to show you my greatest treasure,” she said.

Nott startled, but said nothing. Caleb just gazed at her with curiosity.

“It’s a secret not many know. In fact, I actively keep this knowledge from outsiders, so you’ll have to be discreet.” She said this with a glance toward Nott.

The girl nodded aggressively. “Of course we will.”

They’d reached the topmost landing. These were not the rooms were she entertained guests, but the smaller, quieter ones where few were allowed to go. Just ahead was an oak door with an ornate copper doorknob in the shape of a dolphin. Many drawings had been added to the wood panels over the years, some crude and childlike, others skillful and elaborate. Most of the subjects were playful and full of joy: unicorns, trees, seashells. An exasperating number of them were phallic. Mariam allowed a wave of vexation to roll through her as well as fondness, then knocked on the door.

There was a shuffling inside, like someone roused from bed. A voice on the other side asked, “Mama?”

“It’s me, darling. May we come in? I’ve brought someone to see you.”

The door swung open immediately. Visitors here were rare indeed, and Marian knew poor Jester was starved for attention. Her eager face, as freckled at Caleb’s, filled the entryway, and her lilac eyes glinted with excitement. She was still wearing her nightgown, which only made her more dear to Marion. “Oh, Mama!” Jester exclaimed, seeing Caleb and Nott standing there. “Who is this?”

Marion gestured, offering introductions. “Jester, these are our new acquaintances, Caleb and Nott. Caleb and Nott, this is Jester, my little sapphire.”

Taking Caleb very gently by the shoulders, Marion drew him in front of her, presenting him to her lonely daughter, who had gone far too long without friends.

“Jester, I’d like you to meet your new companion.”

If Jester were being totally, totally honest, she wasn’t sure what to think of Caleb. He and Nott had been installed in the room beside hers, and he was supposed to stay with her when Nott wasn’t around to take care of him. He was going to be her friend. A playmate, of sorts. Though that was funny, too, because neither she nor Caleb were children.

She remembered the first time Nott left to do her new job. She looked fretfully at the clock. It was a quarter to eight, opening time. “You’ll be just fine, Caleb,” she said, though it sounded like she was trying to reassure herself as much as him. Finally, she pulled Caleb down so she could press his bangs behind his ears and kiss his forehead. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll be just downstairs, and I’ll come check on you in a few hours.”

Caleb tried to follow when she moved toward the door, but Jester took his hand. “It’s alright, Caleb,” she said, swinging their arms. “You and me will have so much fun, you’ll hardly know Nott is gone.”

How much Caleb understood was up for debate, and as the door clicked shut, he twisted to get free. “Ah,” he protested, reaching for the passage where Nott had disappeared.

“She’ll be back,” Jester promised. “Now come on. If you keep acting like you want to leave, you’re going to hurt my feelings.”

One of the first things Jester found out was that Caleb liked stories. If she gave him something to do with his hands – some yarn to wind around his fingers or a wooden top to spin – he would sit for hours, listening to her talk. It was kind of amazing. Jester hadn’t had such an attentive audience in…well, ever. Everyone was always too busy. He also let Jester braid his hair, though his attempts to return the favor were messy at best.

“No, Caleb,” she told him as he made his fourth attempt to make a plait over her ear. “Over, under. I know you remember. Are you teasing me?”

Caleb cocked his head. It was really cute when he did that, although it was also kind of sad. Nott said Caleb had been really, really smart. Like, a genius. He always knew which way was north, and he never forgot what he read in books, and he spoke, like, a lot of languages. Oh, and according to Nott he had this really nice voice, with an accent and everything.

Caleb didn’t talk anymore, so she didn’t know how his voice sounded. He still liked books, but mostly this manifested in him flipped through them with an aching, uncomprehending expression on his face. He also had terrific nightmares, ones that woke him up, sobbing inconsolably. He only slept when Nott was around, which seemed to sooth him, but Jester could still hear them though the walls sometimes; Caleb’s crying and Nott’s murmuring.

In the weeks that followed, Jester found out more things about Caleb. To her delight, she discovered he was a wonderful dancer. If there was a waltz going on, she would crack open her door, and the two of them would spin around the room. Caleb was almost a different person when he danced. His face seemed younger, and when he looked at her, his lips pressed together almost like he was smiling. These were some of Jester’s favorite times. It made her feel like she really did have a friend.

And! And! Caleb even shared a secret with her. She knew it was a secret because he hid it, even from Nott. He waited until they were alone and tugged Jester into the closet – which might have been weird, except Caleb didn’t mean it that way. Instead, he opened his hand, revealing a bit of fleece between his fingers. He twisted it in a funny way, and then, standing on his palm was a tiny dancer. It twirled and leapt, dancing to some unheard music, and it was so beautiful Jester squealed. “Caleb, you can do magic!”

Caleb stared at the illusion with an almost fierce look of triumph, his eyes shining, and for once he didn’t looked tired or lost or confused.

It wasn’t their only secret.

Just once, Jester had kissed him. They were dancing, music drifting up from downstairs. His hand was pressed firmly into her side, and his gaze, usually so far away, was intent on her face in a way that made her stomach flutter with butterflies. Moved by instinct (and a little curiosity), Jester lifted herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him. Just a little kiss, hardly more than a peck at the corner of his mouth. Just to see what it felt like, you know? She was contemplating the sensation of stubble when Caleb’s hands lifted to bracket her face.

“Caleb?” Jester asked. She was maybe feeling a little ashamed. Caleb wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t, you know, there. So kissing him – even as a friendly experiment – was probably not okay.

She froze as his thumbs caressed her cheeks, and when he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, she closed her eyes and let it happen. Then it was done, and she was left with just the sensation of Caleb, who flickered in that bright, sharp way for just a second longer. Then he shook his head, and the misty cacophony was back in his eyes. He reached up and touched his lips, a confused pat-pat motion, and looked around like he didn’t know where he was. A troubled whine came from somewhere in his throat.

“Oh, Caleb,” Jester said, pulling him down so she could buss his cheeks, not in the exploratory way of before, but noisily, like Nott when she was trying to draw him out of one of the fugue states he sometimes sunk into. He came back almost immediately, blinking with bewilderment. “Oh, Caleb,” she muttered again.

He didn’t seem interested in dancing anymore. He wandered over to his favorite corner, where a bunch of pillows were piled up. Sitting with his legs crossed, he snapped his fingers several times, but whatever he was hoping would happen, it didn’t. He gave up and started stroking one of the silky pillows instead. It always made Jester think of the way someone petted an animal. He did it often when he was at his most confused and in need of comfort, but didn’t otherwise want to be touched.

“I’m going to get you a kitten or something, Caleb,” Jester promised.

He didn’t answer. His mind, as usual, had gone somewhere else.

Jester made good on her promise. All it took was a whispered word to one of the kitchen staff, and the very next day the woman snuck in a basket. Jester skipped all the way to her room and presented it with a flourish. “Ta-da!”

Caleb stared at the basket, but didn’t move to open it.

Eager to see his reaction, she lifted the lid. “This is my ‘sorry’ for what happened yesterday, Caleb. We really shouldn’t have done that, even if it was kind of nice. So, here you go. I call her Muffin.”

Out of the folds of the blanket, Caleb drew a creamy kitten with a dusky face and the most precious little paws Jester had ever seen. She was new enough that her fur still stuck up everywhere, and her blue eyes blinked like clear marbles in the lamplight. Caleb held the animal expertly between his fingers, but remained so still he might have been made of stone.

Feeling self-conscious about her decision, Jester asked, “Don’t you like her, Caleb?”

Caleb let out a long breath and drew the kitten under his chin. He closed his eyes, and when he opened then they were wet. He tapped the back of Jester’s hand, and for once she knew exactly what he was trying to say: ‘Thank you.’

When Nott came back near dawn, she took one look at Muffin, narrowed her eyes, and asked, “Why did you do that?”

“He keeps petting my pillow,” Jester answered. It was an honest answer, even if it wasn’t the whole story. “I thought it might make him happy.”

She wasn’t lying about that, either. Caleb was a lot of things: quiet, stubborn, occasionally content, but he was rarely happy. Yet right now he was laying on his stomach in front of her hearth, running the pads of his fingers over Muffin’s nose.

Nott’s eyes softened. “He had a cat once.”

That was it. No other explanation, but after that, Muffin was never far from Caleb. Caleb, in turn, spent less time staring off into the distance, and even though Jester wasn’t exactly proud of herself for kissing him, she was happy about that.

It was an evening like many other evenings. Downstairs, patrons strolled or lounged or meet with courtesans. There was eating and dancing and music. Upstairs was quieter. There were no velvety draping here. This was a home. There was a fire going, and Jester could see the sheets of her bed with their hamster print and the panels of her walls with their years of sketches and flourishes of paint. Everything was cozy and familiar. However, deep in the pit of Jester’s stomach, there was a restlessness that wouldn’t go away.

“What do you think, Caleb?” she asked, propping a hand on her cheek. “I mean, these rooms are nice, right? And during the day, we can go pretty much anywhere we want as long as we stay inside, but don’t you think we’re grown up enough to have a little adventure?”

Caleb was sitting with his heels folded neatly behind him. She’d given him some paper and charcoal, and he’d been working all morning with great concentration. It just looked like scribbles to her, but Caleb was very serious about it, going over each symbol several times with a shaky hand.

“Wouldn’t you rather draw some animals,” she suggested. “Or maybe a poop?”

He looked up at the sound of her voice, which had gone plaintive. He reached out and patted her hand, which was his go-to method when someone was upset.

She leaned forward, squishing his cheeks. “Aw, Caleb. You’re so sweet I can’t even be mad at you for wasting charcoal.” He went back to his paper, but Jester’s mind kept wandering to the window and the grey cityscape beyond it. “I mean, I like it here, of course. This is my home, but I want to see the world, too, you know?”

“And so you shall,” said a familiar voice.

Jester squealed, spinning around in her seat. “Traveler!”

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” the Traveler said, coming around the table in his usual flowing green robes to hover close to Caleb.

“This is Caleb,” Jester explained. “He and his mom came to live with us. His mom is a goblin. Isn’t that weird?”

“It’s interesting,” the traveler repeated. He gave Caleb a little wave, and the man looked up.

Jester was surprised. “Can he see you?” To her knowledge, no one else had ever been able to see the Traveler. In fact, for a long time, everyone assumed he was her imaginary friend. That is, until Jester cast Sacred Flame and nearly set the drawing room on fire.

The Traveler leaned, tracing Caleb’s face with two slender fingers. “You have a touch of destiny, don’t you, my dear?”

Caleb frowned, then went back to his scribbles.

The Traveler looked a little sad. “Great magical talent, this one. It’s a shame to see it go to waste.”

“Couldn’t you make him better, Traveler?” Jester asked. The Traveler had taught her so many things, and he was really powerful. Surely he could heal Caleb.

“No,” said the Traveler. “I can’t. But…”

“But?” Jester asked hopefully.

The Traveler smiled at her in that sly way she loved so much. “You could. Perhaps someday soon.”

“Oh! You promise, Traveler?”

The Traveler’s presence became a kind of unseen smile that tingled Jester’s spine with anticipation and just a little bit of fear. “Promise? Why, yes, I promise. After all,” he said as his voice faded away. “You and your new friend have an appointment to keep. And we wouldn’t want you to be late.”

Chapter Text

Fjord stood on the quarterdeck of The Mistake and watched his people move onto the surrendered ship. He could taste the salt on his lips as he surveyed his prize. The chase had taken the better part of the morning, but now here she sat, just off their stern – The Imperial Coin – a fat merchant vessel that had strayed into their path just as dawn sketched the horizon line.

With their painted-over gun ports and crowded deck, barely manned except by passengers and hapless merchant sailors, it had almost been too easy. He could see it in their body language as they were lined up and accounted for; these people were afraid. They’d just been taken by privateers, and that was a fate of unknowns. At best, it meant financial catastrophe. At worst it meant enslavement or death.

Fjord made a sound like a laugh as he stepped onto the lower deck. As he if would want any of these soft-bellied merchants on his ship. And as for hurling people haphazardly to their death…

“Captain.”

It was Gallan. The man had come a long way since Fjord took him on. He’d shaped up to be a fine boatswain, and judging by the buoyant look on his face, he had good news to share.

“What’s the score?” Fjord asked.

“To start with, enough lumber, sailcloth, and cordage to keep us for some time,” Gallan reported with satisfaction, as well he should considering the ship’s upkeep was largely his responsibility. “Also several dozen barrels of fresh salted pork, three dozen of peas, two hundred and fifty pounds of butter, four thousand of flour –”

“Gallan, Gallan,” he interrupted. “Not that Marius won’t be thrilled to hear about ship stores, but I’d prefer you cut to the chase, here.”

“Right. Cargo is still being bought up, but it looks like a mixed bag. Textiles, spices, and,” here he paused meaningfully, “a large shipment of those new weapons, the handheld firearms.”

Fjord let out a breath. It was by far the most profitable prospect, and he didn’t deny a kind of mercenary thrill heating his stomach at the thought of the coin he could get if he moved them, but there was also uneasiness. He’d seen what those weapons could do. In some ways, they were more insidious than cannons. Canons were heavy, not easily transportable over land, and required a skilled operator. These new weapons were small and portable, and even the most mean of intelligence could use them to tear ragged, mortal wounds in an enemy. He’d seen it happen. Hell, he’d been on the receiving end. He rubbed the scar over his bicep, remembering.

“Anything else?”

Gallan knew what he meant, and cleared his throat carefully. “They’re searching. Do you want to talk to the captain now?”

“Yeah,” Fjord said, straightening his shoulders and pulling the muscles of his face tight. Assuming the mask of a fearsome pirate captain, one who would as soon gut you as look at you. He stepped across.

The captain of The Imperial Coin was a paunchy dwarf. His beard was braided, setting off a stubborn mouth that Fjord already knew he wasn’t going to like. The dwarf’s eyebrows were like tangled bolts of lightning, and his cheeks and brow were flushed with outrage. He balked slightly when Fjord leapt onto the deck, cutting an impressive figure with his green skin and muscles bulging, unobscured by the tooled leather armor he wore. Yet this dwarf drew himself up like a man ready to fight.

Stupid. Fjord had all the power here.

“So,” said Fjord, approaching with deliberate steps. “Now that The Imperial Coin is under my command, I’d like to know the name of her former captain.”

The dwarf went purple beneath his beard. “My name is Brotter Ungart, and if you think you and your crew can get away with commandeering the goods of a ship sailing under the Dwendalian Empire’s charter, then –”

Fjord laughed into the face of the wind, which caught the scarlet tassels on his armor and whipped them like snake heads. The spray of the ocean hissed against the hull, and Fjord said, “I have news for you, Captain Ungart. These are the wilds of the world, and not just any wilds. There are four hundred and fifty miles between you and the nearest crownsguard. You think they have any bearing on what I do with your charter or your packet? Do you think they have any bearing on what I do to you?”

The man’s mouth, which had been poised to speak, snapped shut. And, ah, there it was. The appropriate level of fear.

“What do you want?” Ungart grunted.

“The usual,” Fjord said. “As much of your cargo as we desire, plus any treasure you might be carrying.” He held out his hand, feeling a tingle of magic as his falchion hung, just out of reach in whatever dimension it existed when it wasn’t in his hand. “Are you carrying any treasure, Ungart? Perhaps a chest under some false paneling in your cabin? A coded message secreted in a barrel of flour? If so, my people will find it. But it will go better for you if you tell me before I have to tear your ship out from under you in order to be sure.”

The dwarf swallowed, his brow wrinkled.

While he considered his answer, Fjord surveyed the other prisoners. There were the ship hands crowded into the bow. Their eyes were flicking nervously toward the colors flapping on The Mistake’s mast. It was a slash interrupted by a thrusting tusk set against a field of emerald. As men of the sea, they wouldn’t be so ignorant of its meaning, and Fjord expected no trouble from any of them. The officers were lined up, slouched and miserable looking. Fjord ticked them off one by one. Nothing of interest there.

He was about to turn back to Ungart and make his final press when there was a commotion from below. Shouting, the sound of blows. Then Boldergut emerged, hauling a resisting prisoner. She lifted her captive out of the hold with a grip under one armpit and cast him onto the deck. “Tiny man…hiding,” she explained after her usual succinct fashion. She rubbed a shiny looking burn on her arm. “Fire hands.”

A mage, on board this ship? Curious, Fjord stepped forward to study this new curiosity. The man was sprawled on his belly where Boldergut had thrown him, and Fjord could see he hadn’t come easily. One side of his face looked bashed in, though Fjord noticed a sharp blue eye beneath the contusion, darting around to take in the situation.

Orly followed Boldergut up from below, his reptilian brow knitted. “Captain,” he said, knuckling his forehead.

Fjord nodded acknowledgement. “He was hiding?”

“Aye. We found him lurking around a set of netted crates. When we tried to move ‘em, he tried to…eh, suggest Boldergut leave ‘em where they was. Mighta worked, but I don’t think he, uh, rightly saw me. I gave her a friendly little jab to help her shake it off.”

Boldergut showed her teeth, and it was impossible to determine whether it was intended as a grimace or a smile. “Stabbed me.”

“Just, uh, a little stab,” the tortle said, jaw askew as he huffed a kind of hissing chuckle that made the pipes on his back wheeze. “After that’s when he started fighting. Really didn’t want us, uh, moving those crates.”

Fjord glanced back at Ungart to gage his reaction, but there was no shiftiness or concern, just blank stupidity and may be a little contempt. Fjord glanced at the prone man. “Stand him up.”

He was human with an underfed look that Marius would grieve to see. Greasy hair hung in his face, and though the man declined eye contact, Fjord could still see the intelligence in him. Moreover, there was a smolder, a stubbornness. He was in their power and he knew it, but he hadn’t resigned himself. This was a man who would fight, given the right incentive. Fjord wondered what might set him off.

Fjord turned to Ungart. “Who’s this?”

The dwarf sneered. “That? Human garbage. He begged me to sign him on, indentured-like, and get him away from the empire, even though he had about four and a half coppers to his name and didn’t have none of the right paperwork. But we were shorthanded, and there’s always scut work. Which is about all he’s good for, aside from making trouble. He’s a fire starter. Comes barking out of dreams with his hands hot as tar. Caught a hammock once, and I practically threw him overboard. If he weren’t a damn sight better at fixing our position than a bloody sexant, I would have.”

Orly perked up, the navigator in him clearly intrigued. “Fixing position?”

Ungart glared at the human hanging in Boldergut’s grip. “Sure. Point him at the stars or the sun, or, hell, blindfold him and spin him around in a circle. He always knows north. Like he swallowed a compass or something. And he never forgets a single line on a map.”

Fjord looked thoughtfully at the captive, who was staring at the deck. “That’s quite a gift.”

Ungart laughed. “It’s hardly been worth it. Caught him steeling food outside of Port Zoon. You’d have thought a sound flogging would teach him, but he’s done it three more times.”

It was a serious charge. On board ship, stealing rations was a capital offense. Fjord lifted the edge of the man’s shirt, and, sure enough, his back was a latticework of marks, both old and new. And it wasn’t just his back that looked whipped. The smolder was starting to make more sense.

“Is that he reason you were fleeing the empire?” Fjord asked. “Because you’re a thief?”

When the man didn’t respond, Boldergut jerked his shoulder. “Answer!” she demanded, but he remained mulishly silent.

“I wouldn’t bother,” muttered one of The Coin’s mates. “He might have a compass for a brain, but he’s brute stupid and practically only speaks foreign.”

Ungart, though, seemed to sense a possibility. “Look, if you want his contract, you can have it. Shackle ‘em around the ankle, maybe chop the ends off to keep him from casting – a compass don’t need hands after all – and then, why, he’s gold!”

Fjord didn’t have to look at the rest of his crew to know they were scowling. And, sure, it was a bit disgusting that Ungart was so willing to give up a man to pirates if it served his own ends. Though perhaps it offered an opportunity.

Fjord leaned closer to the prisoner. “Do you know who I am?”

A slice of eye glanced off his before sliding away. The man’s head jerked back and forth, a denial.

“I’m Captain Tusktooth, master of these waters. Your former captain is apparently too stupid to understand what that means, but despite what they say, I don’t think you’re stupid.”

Still no answer, but Fjord could tell by the rigidity in his shoulders that he was listening.

“I’m going to assume you hid because you were aware the ship was being boarded by pirates,” Fjord said. “And, sure, I’ll give you that. But attacking my people, knowing who they were. Over some cargo you don’t even own, for this bastard who obviously doesn’t give a damn about you. Now that,” he said. “I would like to understand.”

As it happened, a few of his hands were bringing up said cargo. First one crate, then another. The prisoner watched with razor-like intensity as they were stacked on the deck. Whether or not Ungart had anything of special value on this ship, it was clear something he treasured was inside those boxes.

“Open them up.”

Boldergut repeated the order, and the hands rushed to obey.

Iron defanged nail, and lids started yielding their contents. One proved particularly stubborn, and Boldergut went over the help, forcing the wood with a movement that made it crackle and snap before it gave, spilling its contents onto the deck. At first, all Fjord could see was oakum and packing straw. Then, up out of the pile, a figure emerged. It raised its arms, shielding its eyes from the blinding sun, and then it made a tense cry like a rat cornered by a hungry deckhand.

Boldergut snarled, “Goblin!” and shot forward to apprehend the creature, but a flash of iron dragged across her hand. She roared with pain while her quarry fled – though, of course, being on a ship, she had almost nowhere to go. She ended up on top of the railing, hissing and panting and casting fearful looks at the ocean below. Boldergut, her teeth bared, approached with club ready.

That’s when the human murmured a few frantic words, and his hands, which were bound, burst into flames. It brought immediate panic, everyone drawing back and shouting, but the man only stood there, his teeth gritted, while the fire chewed through the rope. Fjord could see from the sweat on his face that he wasn’t unaffected, but it wasn’t until the cord snapped that he smothered the fire snaking up his own arms and turned toward the railing.

He loosed two firebolts at once, both of which struck Boldergut on the shoulder. She turned, her face twisted with rage. “Fire hands!”

The man held his hands out again, his palms blackening, but Fjord didn’t give him another chance. He stepped into the mist, and when he stepped out of it, he was directly beside the mage. The man’s eyes flew open in surprise, and then he was wrapped in Fjord’s arms, held roughly against his chest. The falchion sang as Fjord drew it into existence, and he pressed it hard under the man’s chin. A blistering heat began to build against his arm, so Fjord cut deep and heard the man strangle, blood making a sheet down his neck and chest.

Into his ear, Fjord growled, “Stand down, or the next cut I make will be something important.”

“CALEB!”

The scream was proceeded by sudden, piercing pain, and Fjord came very close to taking the human’s head clean off his shoulders. Instead, he froze. His captive was still secure, but there was a crossbow bolt sticking out of his arm. He looked over at the railing and saw the goblin perched there, a crossbow held in her hands.

“Let go of him,” she shouted.

Fjord took stock of the situation. They had discovered a goblin inside of a crate, a crate which the man in his arms had been caught protecting. Twice. And now said goblin had fired on him, even though she was surrounded by foes and her only escape route was into the sea.

“You listen to me,” he spoke to her. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but if you don’t drop your weapon immediately, this man is going to find a lot more blood on the outside of his body.” To make his point, he put a bit more pressure on his captive’s trachea, enough to bite. He was hoping for a sound of pain, but the man had his lips between his teeth, and the most Fjord wrung from him was a choked moan.

It was enough to make the goblin’s eyes stretch even wider than before. “D-don’t hurt him,” she stammered. Her grip had weakened.

“Then put that down before either of us do something we regret.”

She let go of the crossbow. It clattered onto the deck, and the next moment, Boldergut had her by the neck. Angrily, the ogre held the tiny body over the water, making her squeak with terror, and the mage writhed, drawing more blood off Fjord’s sword before he was able to adjust his grip.

“Boldergut,” Fjord shouted. “Stop terrorizing her and bring her here.”

The human was panting, eyes fluttering. Fjord could see the fear in him when Boldergut lumbered over. He and the goblin were staring at one another, trying to communicate with their eyes alone, and Fjord wondered what it was they had to say.

“I’m going to let you go,” he said to the man. “But if you start throwing firebolts, Boldergut will snap her neck, you understand?”

Fjord released him. He stumbled, his blistered hand covering a wounded throat. Hoarsely, he said, “Don’t hurt her.”

Fjord opened his mouth to speak, but Ungart beat him to it. Practically spitting, he accused, “You. You hid that…that creature on my ship. You helped it stow away and kept it hidden. How dare you, after the way I took pity you on, you lying scoundrel!”

In response, the goblin snarled, “Don’t talk to him like that! He hasn’t done anything but protect me, and you’ve been treating him like garbage!”

Despite the tenseness of the situation, her verve elicited a few approving chuckles from The Mistake. Fjord sensed they were following the scene with interest. Their loyalty wasn’t in question; he knew they would follow his lead, but there was a mood he wasn’t certain he understood. Something in his chest moved, an echo of a voice.

LEARN.

Fjord breathed out, then faced the two prisoners who had dared do violence to his people. “You know, I don’t care for stowaways,” he said. He yanked the bolt out of his shoulder with a hiss. “Plus, that hurt. Really, I ought to let Boldergut here toss you both over the side and be done with this. But I admit, I’m curious. So? Care to fill in any of the details before I pass judgement?”

The man and the goblin looked at one other, and he could read their deliberation. Wherever this gambit had begun, it had been going on for a long time, and they’d both sacrificed a great deal for it. He felt sure their will to survive was enough to loosen their tongues, and he was right. The man turned toward Fjord.

“My name is Caleb Widogast, and this is Nott the Brave.”

Fjord turned the names over in his mouth. “Strange names for strange companions.”

“Perhaps not so strange as Captain Tusktooth,” Caleb retorted.

The crew barked with laugher, and this time Fjord frowned. He didn’t mind their jollity, but it was a bold move indeed for a prisoner. “Saucy words for a man on the edge of a knife,” Fjord said.

Caleb swallowed, but didn’t answer.

It was Orly who asked the next question. “You two don’t look like the, uh, sailing type.”

“We were leaving the empire,” Nott said. “The war was starting, and it was dangerous. We kept getting stopped.”

“We got over the border,” Caleb added. “But with tensions so high, Nicodranas was just as dangerous. We needed distance. Once Capain Ungart agreed to take me on, Nott and I made preparations for her to hide in one of the shipping crates. We loosened some planks so she could get out when it was quiet. The rest of the time she hid.”

Which explained the stealing. He would have been bringing her food. Possibly, they’d tried to manage with only Caleb’s rations, but judging by the skin-and-bones state of both of them, it hadn’t been enough. It was quite a story. The question was…did it matter?

Fjord considered the ship beneath his feet and his intentions. If it were just some merchant ship out of Port Demali, he might have let its captain ransom it, but even if this Ungart bastard did have some treasure or information worth his time, The Coin’s connection with the empire soured his stomach. He would rather make an example of it than let it float free, no matter what its intrinsic worth. As for the men, well. He did have a reputation to keep. And interesting as these two were, they were really just a footnote.

He made his way back to the railing. The breeze stirred his fringe, and he wondered, ‘Why do you hesitate?’ He glanced at the crossbow bolt in his hand.

“Boldergut,” he heard himself say. “Throw the goblin into the sea.”

He felt it in his bones, the way the tide turned. As he spoke, the men and officers of The Imperial Coin stiffened, not because of the goblin’s fate, but because it heralded their own. The first death sentence passed down. The men on his own ship tensed, too. They watched with grim faces that gave away no hint of their feelings, and not a few of them drew their weapons, ready to respond should any of the prisoners grow foolish in their fear.

Boldergut began to move to the side, unmindful of the goblin’s panic. As she did, the remaining blood drained from Caleb. He went pale as a ghost under his freckles and stumbled toward Fjord. Fjord raised his falchion, but the man wasn’t calling on his magic. His raised hand was a supplication. “Don’t do this,” he said. “She can’t swim.”

Fjord pierced the man with eyes as sharp as chips of mica. “I thought we established this. I am a pirate. Would you rather I cut her throat?”

“Spare her,” he begged. “Please.”

“Why?”

“Because she is my friend.”

Fjord laughed. “A human, friends with a goblin?”

The sarcasm in his voice struck a nerve, because the anger was back. This time, though, Caleb held it in check. “Yes.”

Fjord let his falchion disappear. Instead, he leaned into the man’s personal space, letting his absolute authority, his complete control over the situation emanate from his skin. “And what will you do to convince me?”

“Anything,” Caleb said without hesitation.

A murmur spread from the crew. Fjord ignored them. He reached out and put his hand on the man’s neck. He was able to stretch his fingers almost entirely around it, to feel the tendons and even the jugular vein beating beneath the skin. He caressed it with his thumb. “Anything?” he challenged.

Fjord saw Caleb’s thoughts stutter, running through all the things Fjord might ask. He saw, also, his resolve harden. He leaned his pulse point into Fjord’s thumb, making his words even and clear. “Anything.”

Fjord drew back, looked at his crew. They were smiling. Fierce, predatory smiles, but smiles all the same. Fjord laughed, a sound that made the line of prisoners stiffen. He bore his teeth at Caleb. “I like a brave man,” he said. “And I like even more one who’s willing to make sacrifices for a crewmate. So, congratulations, Caleb Widogast. Your contract with The Imperial Coin is up.”

“Was?”

His confusion was comical. It made the crew of The Mistake laugh. Orly shuffled up behind Caleb and gave him a bracing pat. “It’s quite an honor,” he drawled. “The captain doesn’t usually take on new hands, uh, mid-voyage like. But, oh, ho! I’m gonna enjoy you. Do you really always know north?”

“It’s that way,” Caleb said vaguely, but his eyes were fixed on Fjord. “Are you pressing me?”

“Does this look like the imperial navy?” Fjord asked. “I know I said I was a pirate, but I don’t enjoy unwilling coworkers, and I certainly don’t take slaves. I’m offering you a chance to walk off this ship a free man and join The Mistake.”

“As a pirate?”

“As a pirate,” Fjord confirmed. “Unless you have some moral qualms?”

Caleb closed his mouth, looked at the men and women huddled in the bow of the ship. “I don’t want to kill them.”

“You’ve never taken a life?”

His eyes snapped around. “I didn’t say that.”

Fjord considered, feeling that tug of interest inside his chest grow. He very deliberately kept any trace of it off his face. “Lucky for you, The Mistake doesn’t kill people arbitrarily.”

“You won’t murder them?”

“Oh, no,” Orly explained. “Shove ‘em in a couple of rowboats and let ‘em paddle home while we, uh, make a pretty bonfire of their barky. Yeah, sure. But kill ‘em? Nah.”

Caleb looked over his shoulder at Boldergut, who still had Nott restrained. “What about Nott?”

Fjord shook his head. “This isn’t an open invitation. She’ll be fine. Boldergut will let her go, and she can make her way with the rest.”

“If you put her in a boat with them, they’ll toss her overboard the moment we’re out of sight.”

Nott swallowed with difficulty around Boldergut’s grip and offered up a watery smile. “Caleb, this is good. You’ll be safe if you go with them. You won’t have to worry about the empire anymore.”

The breeze was freshening, the sun beginning to sink into the west. It was time to move their business along. “Listen,” Fjord said. “I tell you what. I’ll sweeten the pot for you. As a member of my crew, you’re entitled to part of the prize. Usually, we do that kind of dividing up later, after everything’s accounted for. But since this is your cardinal experience, and since you have a legitimate grievance, I’ll let you choose. You must know what The Imperial Coin has to offer. So pick. Anything on the ship you can carry, you can take as your part of the prize. What do you say?”

There was a bit of grumbling as the crew put in the mandatory grousing about such a privilege, but what Fjord had said, he would stand by.

“Anything I can carry?” Caleb asked.

Amused, Fjord echoed Caleb’s earlier pronouncement. “Anything.”

Caleb pivoted on his heel. He stalked up to Boldergut and held out his arms. “Give her to me.”

The ogre couldn’t have looked more perplexed if she’d been hit overhead with an anchor. “Give what?”

“Nott,” Caleb said, gesturing imperiously. “I want her. As my prize.”

Boldergut looked at Fjord, who coughed to cover a short laugh. “Do what he says.”

With great reluctance (and no small measure of confusion), Boldergut let go of her goblin captive. As soon as she was free, Nott launched herself into Caleb’s arms, and for a moment they just held each other, clinging to each other’s neck. Then Caleb turned and marched across the gangplank into The Mistake.

Orly whistled. “You gonna allow it, Captain?”

Fjord scratched his chin. “I did say he could have anything he could carry.”

“That you did…that you did.”

Fjord stepped onto the railing, then over onto his own ship. As he did, he shouted, “Let’s finish our business and be on our way.”

His people knew their duty. Cargo was moved, the remaining ship was searched, and prisoners were sorted into the boats and lowered into the water. While all this was happening, Fjord kept an eye on their newest shipmates. Gallan was patting Caleb on the back. Orly had trundled over and was wheezing out pleased noises through his pipes. And Marius, bless him, had emerged from below with some hard tack and jerky and was already plying them with it. Nott had stuffed as much of it in her cheeks as she could and was chewing with truly terrifying abandon.

By the time the sun was pooling on the water in gold and purple bands, all was ready. They made way, The Imperial Coin drawing farther to lee, until Fjord deemed the distance was sufficient. He called Caleb onto the quarterdeck. “Would you like to do the honors?”

Caleb turned to face the merchant ship. He raised his hand, and a burst of heat soared through the twilight and hit amidships. The flame caught, first the pile of debris the crew of The Mistake had created, then the mast and sails. Soon it was a burning beacon. Before night fell, it would be nothing but a hulk. The two of them stood, watching it burn.

“I don’t know anything about being a pirate,” Caleb said. “Captain Tusktooth.”

Fjord rubbed the back of his neck. At least for the moment, he was ready to let that mask go. “It’s Fjord, actually,” he said. “And, ah, experience isn’t required. I mean, I’ve been a sailor for a long time, but pirating? It wasn’t exactly my plan. Still, I’ve made it work. We’ve all made it work.”

He waited while Caleb absorbed this. The ocean surged alongside, which always made Fjord feel powerful, in his element. The voice whispered in his ear.

GROW.

Caleb said, “Very well.”

Fjord barked a laugh. “Is that all you have to say?”

“I have been on the run for a long time,” Caleb said. “Even before Nott and I left the empire. I don’t claim to be a good person. I have been a thief, and I have been a con artist. And, yes,” he looked Fjord in the eye. “I have been a murderer. But, if you will have Nott and I, if you think there is a place for us here, we will stay.”

Fjord stretched his back. “Well, by the look of it, Fiskin has already adopted Nott, so…”

A chuckle slipped past Caleb’s lips. “You will regret putting her in the proximity of gunpowder.”

“A pirate’s life is one of danger and calamity,” Fjord said, clapping Caleb’s back. “We’ll just have to take the risk.”

Caleb gazed at him, and in that moment, Fjord regretted nothing that had taken place that day: not the chase, or the bolt in his arm, or his offer, or his honesty. He didn’t understand it, but something in him trusted Caleb. It felt like they were meant to travel together and work toward their goals. Not that he had any idea what Caleb’s goals might be (on a good day, Fjord might admit that planning wasn’t exactly his forte). But, hey, they were at sea, with the wind in their sails and all the world ahead.

They had time to find out.

Chapter Text

Well, this was a pickle. Caduceus gazed around the seedy courtyard. The buildings – mostly taverns with the smell of alcohol wafting out of them, shops with dingy storefronts, and rundown looking residences – pushed toward the sky, obscuring it from sight. This was not where he’d left his friends, and it seemed his wandering had only taken him farther from the Pentamarket. And not to pass judgement, he thought as he gazed into gutters clogged with refuse and the body of a dead rat, but this didn’t seem like a particularly nice part of the city.

“Oh, dear,” Caduceus said.

He noted a tiny hand tugging at his belt and shifted to greet its owner. “Well, hello.”

The girl took a step back, craning her neck to get a look at him. The frock she was wearing had a tattered hem and seemed too light for the weather, which was turning cooler as harvest passed behind them. He knew he must look positively enormous to her, so he kindly knelt. “I’m Caduceus. Did you need something?”

The girl narrowed her eyes with suspicion. It was an expression that made her look much older. Her curiosity, though, was all child. She squinted at his hair, which was hanging over his forehead. “Mister, you have pink hair.”

He chuckled. “I do.”

“You didn’t dye it,” she asserted. “Your arm hairs and eyelashes are pink.”

Caduceus smiled. “What a smart girl you are.”

“You have long ears, too, and your nose is soft, but not like you’ve got a disease or nothing. And you got fur.”

“Yes.”

“So what are you?”

“I’m a firbolg,” Caduceus said then peered around the paved roads and brick buildings and general lack of vegetation of any kind. He sighed. “I guess you don’t see many of us here in Zadash.”

The girl grew bold enough to touch his hand, petting his fur with two fingers. “You seem nice. You got anything to eat?”

Caduceus fished into his belt pouch. When his friends learned he didn’t have much experience with money, Jester had offered to keep most of his wealth for him, tucked away in her inter-dimensional bag. He still had a bit left, though he didn’t really get the denominations. Rather than worry about it, he pulled the entire handful out and let the sea of copper and silver coins flood his palms. “I’m kind of new here,” he confessed to the girl. “How much does it cost for a good meal?”

The girl’s eyes had grown huge at the sight of the coins piled in his hands. Gingerly, she fished out a gold piece and vanished it somewhere into her clothes. Then she curled his fingers over the rest and pushed it back to his chest. “Maybe don’t show those around,” she suggested.

Puzzled but amenable, Caduceus tipped the coins back into his purse. They rattled together, which made the girl wince.

“I better go,“ she said, edging away. “Be careful, Mister Cow Man.”

Caduceus stood, uncertain whether to take offence. It was hardly the first time his traits were considered bovine, but while cows were handsome animals, he just didn’t see it. Ah well. He looked around speculatively. It was early afternoon, but the sun was already dipping, and he would prefer to be back with the others before it got dark. Now if he could only find...

“You look like a man who’s gotten himself turned around,” said a gruff voice.

It was a bearded man, flanked by another with a wild thatch of hair that looked like it had never seen a comb. They were both smiling. The bearded man had gold teeth. Caduceus smiled back.

“Gentleman. I’m a bit lost. Zadash is a big city.”

“Out of towner?”

“Very much so,” Caduceus admitted with chagrin. The unfamiliar courtyard, the stink of the discolored runoff in the gutters. It was a lot. “I only arrived a few days ago the Savalierwood near Shadycreek Run, and I’ve gotten separated from my friends. We were supposed to meet back at the Pentamarket. Do you know where that is?”

“Shadycreek Run! You are from the boonies.” The man scratched his beard. “Well, friend, this is your lucky day! I know exactly where the Pentamarket is, and what’s more, there’s a shortcut that will get you there in a trice. Me and my pal, we’d be happy to guide you part of the way.”

“Really?” Caduceus said, pleased by how kind people could be, even in a place like this, which was a little rough around the edges. It just went to show that you couldn’t judge people by appearances. “As long as you’re not busy, that would be wonderful.”

The man started to lead him toward the far side of the courtyard, where an alleyway extended into the gloom. “Through here. Never was a faster way to the Pentamarket.”

Relieved to be on the right track, Caduceus went willingly, humming now that he would soon be back with the others. They might be annoyed. Jester would understand his need to investigate the herbalist shop with the planters of fungus in the windows, but Beau probably wouldn’t. Jester whispered to him that Beau hadn’t always been so paranoid, but the Iron Shepherds had rattled something in her. In all of them. Caduceus hadn’t known the group before, so he couldn’t say, but he wasn’t so blind as to miss the trauma marks on his friends, who’d seemed to be looking for something as long as he’d known them.

‘Maybe they’ll find whatever it is here in Zadash,’ he thought. ‘This place is certainly big enough.’

He had almost reached the alley where the men waited, but before he could take a step further, he felt another hand on his belt. He turned to tell the girl not to worry – that he’d found somebody to help him – but the person standing beside him was different. Hooded and clothed in dark fabric, the figure glared at the two men. “Recker, what are you doing here? This is our territory.”

The bearded man, who’d seemed so friendly, dropped his cigarette and scrubbed it out under his toe. He was scowling. “Not that it’s any of your business, but we’re just seizing an opportunity.” He eyed Caduceus in a way that set his senses tingling, and suddenly Caduceus didn’t feel so good about walking into a dark, enclosed space with these men.

The figure made a sound in her throat, something growly and mean. “Well, you can take your opportunistic asses and walk right out of here, because shop is closed.”

The bearded man was angry. “You and that uppity wizard think you’re so smart. Well listen here, Nott the Brave, you’re not nothing, and we’re going to move you along one day.”

Nott the Brave snorted. “Try if you want, but in the meantime, get lost. Your pox-marked face is making me sick.”

“Why, you –”

The man took an aggressive step forward, and Caduceus’ hand shifted on his staff, but a soft click stopped their would-be assailants in their tracks. Caduceus looked down to see the tip of a crossbow bolt sticking out of Nott’s sleeve.

“Unless you want to limp away nursing more holes than you started with,” she said, “I would leave.”

The men did go. Begrudgingly and without much grace, but they went. When they were alone, Caduceus said, “Thank you. I didn’t realize it at first, but I think those men meant to harm me.”

He could just see her eyes under the hood. They were yellow, and as Caduceus watched, they rolled. “No kidding. Those guys would have left you dead in a gutter.”

It was an unsettling thing to think about. “I don’t know if they would’ve taken it that far.”

Nott scoffed. “Maybe you don’t, but I know those bottom feeders.” She turned to leave, and he felt another tug on his belt. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re getting you back to civilization. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but I saw you with Missy. You’re a decent person, so I’ll do you this favor to prevent you from getting your furry butt killed.”

“Missy?”

“The little girl.”

“Oh, right. She had never seen a firbolg before. Can you believe that?”

The hooded figure paused. “Zadash is a city for people people. That’s something you should remember.”

He didn’t understand. “People people?”

“Humans, mostly. Elves and half-elves. Even halflings mostly keep to the countryside. Most of these folk haven’t seen anything more exotic than the occasional gnome or tiefling. We’re – you’re weird, and weird makes people curious. And edgy.”

He hadn’t missed way she tripped over her pronouns and wondered what kind of ’non-person’ she was. “My name is Caduceus, by the way.”

She patted his rear end, or at least he thought she did. Both her arms were in plain sight, and he never saw them move. “It’s nice to meet you, Caduceus. I’m Nott. And this is the road that will take you back to the Pentamarket. No detours, okay? I’ve got stuff to do, so I can’t play nanny.”

“Okay,” Caduceus said and waved. “Thank you for your help, Miss Nott.”

She gave him an odd look, one that he found hard to decipher. It might have been amusement or exasperation, but then why did it have that tinge of sadness? She lifted her arm, and the sleeve sagged just a bit. “Take care and don’t be stupid,” she said, and then a cart wheel squealed, and she was gone.

“Well,” Caduceus said. He put his hands on his hips and noticed his belt pouch was hanging loosely. He checked inside, and all his coin was gone. “Well,” he said again. He didn’t know what else to say.

Caduceus was a little embarrassed to say so, because usually he was quite adept at making his way through the woods and using the plants and the shade to sense direction, but the city was throwing off his instincts. Even the sun, usually a reliable guide, cut strange, hard shadows that turned him around completely.

He’d followed the road like Nott said, but then he’d seen a mossy fountain down a little staircase and over a wall and through a few awnings, and he’d been so delighted by the prospect of any plant life that he’d decided to make a detour. Sitting at the edge of the fountain, he’d happily purified the water and spent some time chatting with a very tenacious patch of weed growing up between a crack in the cobblestone. When he looked up, the afternoon was far advanced. When he stood to leave, however, he realized there were several paths heading away from the fountain, and he had no idea which led back to the road.

“Oh, bother,” he said. “I don’t suppose you know?”

The weed had nothing helpful to add, so he made his best guess. He chose the direction with the greatest amount of noise, reasoning that noise meant people, and people might mean a road. And he did find people. Loads of them, milling through a kind of market made of carts. It was very busy. Music was played, children were everywhere, and there seemed to be some kind of performance going on. Caduceus drifted closer and saw a thin man with reddish-brown hair drawing a flourishing symbol in the air. As he finished, he murmured something indecipherable, and out of his hand, a burst of flame streaked toward the sky. The crowd made suitable sounds of awe at this display of magic.

A familiar face drew Caduceus’ attention. It was Missy. She was flitting through the crowd, and as he watched, he saw her put her hand down a woman’s purse. Caduceus blinked. She’d stolen from that woman. He gazed around sharply, and now that he was looking, he saw it was more than just Missy working he crowd. They took advantage of the bigger folk’s inattention, of the utter normalcy of children being underfoot, and Caduceus realized what he was seeing. Pickpockets. Many of them, working in conjunction with the fiery performance.

Eventually the crowds began to disperse. Caduceus stepped into a side street and shifted his appearance. As a somewhat shorter, curly-haired human, he followed Missy onto a connected street. To his surprise, she ran up to a man on a stoop. It was the street performer. He was sitting cross-legged on a grungy jacket, his hair falling across a stubbled face. Curled against his thigh was a cat, and he was stroking it when Missy arrived.

Caduceus watched the man made a gesture with his hand, like he was holding a coin, and then Missy slipped him something that flashed. Caduceus wasn’t sure what it meant, but he didn’t like it. He especially didn’t like it when Missy leaned into the man before she ran off.

She stepped out of the shadows. “Missy.”

The girl stopped, gazing at him with wariness. “What you want?” Oh, right. He’d forgotten he was wearing a disguise. He dropped the illusion, and her mouth fell open. “Mister Caduceus!”

“Can we talk for a moment?”

“I thought Mama Nott sent you home. Why are you still here?”

Caduceus’s eyebrows lifted, momentarily distracted by the reference to ‘Mama Nott’. Not wanting to get off track, he pointed at the man with the red hair. “That man there. Was he bothering you?”

Missy looked genuinely confused. “No, of course not. That’s Mister Caleb. I work for him.”

Work? The idea that the pickpocketing wasn’t some kind of isolated event made Caduceus’s stomach turn uneasily. “I saw you take money from that woman, Missy. That’s not work. That’s stealing.”

Her face fell. “I didn’t take no coin from you.”

“You don’t need to take anything from me. I would be happy to give you any coin I have. Though I am a bit short at the moment. Does this Mister Caleb person force you to take money from people?”

Missy looked at her ragged frock, her dirty fingernails, and Caduceus could see pride warring with shame. “My mama isn’t doing too good. Her back is crooked. She can’t do much work, but we need to eat. With the finger-smithing, me and the other kids get to keep mosta what we make. Plus Mister Caleb can buy things we can’t, like medicine, and he shares things out fair. That way, even if I have a bad day, mama and I don’t go hungry. Plus he and Mama Nott keep us safe from people like Recker.”

“Recker?”

“The guy who tried to rob you. He runs the south streets. I know people who work for him, and some of the jobs he makes them do aren’t...aren’t nice.”

Caduceus listened to her story, growing more and more troubled. He himself had grown up without what the people of Zadash would call affluence. His family certainly hadn’t owned anything the wider world would consider wealth. But despite this, he’d never thought of himself as poor. This was different. This was street culture, with rules and norms Caduceus couldn’t begin to understand. To think of a child pickpocketing in order to eat. It was just –

There was a shout down the street. Caduceus looked up and saw a crownsguard wearing the bronze and vermillion uniform, holding a half-orc boy by the arm. Missy gasped. “Oh, that’s Sord. He musta got caught pinching.”

The crownsguard was shouting, shaking the boy. Sord looked frightened, his greyish complexion washed of color. Caduceus was trying to make up his mind what to do when he saw the red-haired man slip off the stoop. He reached a booth not far from the confrontation and, and while Caduceus watched, the awning took flame.

The cry of ‘fire’ went up, and the crownsguard, distracted by this more urgent situation, slung Sord away and moved with others to douse the blaze. When he did, he spotted Caleb. “You!” he said, moving to intercept him. The man tried to run, but the surge in foot traffic around the booth blocked his way. The crownsguard seized him. “You set that fire, didn’t you, you piece of trash?”

The red-haired man didn’t answer. Instead, he tried to pull himself free until the guard growled and struck him across the face. The crownguard hit him again even as he righted himself. When Caleb still would not answer, he reached for his belt. A truncheon hung there, brutal in its implications. Beside Caduceus, Missy let out a sob.

Before he knew what he was doing, Caduceus moved out of the shadows and strode toward the guard. “Excuse me!”

The guard turned with a ready snarl, but his expression went blank when he saw Caduceus. Eyes wandered over his face, his ears, and finally his armor. His was easily the nicest apparel on the street, which must have convinced the crownsguard to pull back on his antagonism because when he spoke he chose to say, “Sir, while your concern is appreciated, it would be best if you didn’t get involved. This riff-raff is an arsonist. He just set fire to a shop, and now he’s being belligerent. It’s my responsibility to see justice is done.”

“How do you even know it was him?” Caduceus said, even though he knew full well it had been.

The guard cast a contemptuous look at Caleb. “This man is a beggar and a street performer, and guess what he uses in his racket? Fire tricks. I’ve been eyeing him ever since I got assigned to this neighborhood, trying to figure out his angle, and now here we are. Public endangerment, and probably worse.”

To the guard, Caduceus said, “The fact that he uses fire in his performance is circumstantial evidence at best. And besides, there’s barely a scorch mark on the awning. That’s hardly arson.”

Anger surged in the guard’s pugnacious expression. “Look. You don’t seem like you’re from around here, so let me explain something to you. Garbage like this –” He jerked Caleb harshly, drawing a grunt from him. “– are nothing but trouble. They clutter up the street and do no good to anybody. He ain’t a citizen. He’s a parasite. And any time I can put one down, the better off Zadash will be. So you just move along and let me take care of my business so I can put this raggedy piece of trash where he –”

“Hey, now,” Caduceus interrupted, setting his hand onto the guard’s shoulder and releasing a wave of magic. “This is getting a bit too intense. Why don’t we all Calm Down?”

The guard, whose face had been twisted, relaxed into a much more neutral posture. It also affected the nearby ship owner, who spoke up, “You know, he has a point. That awning’s barely marked.”

The guard seemed unsure, but also indifferent. Finally, he grunted and shoved Caleb away. “Whatever. I have better things to do than taking in a homeless bum anyway. But you hear me,” he said, jabbing at them with a finger. “Any more trouble, and I won’t be so quick to overlook things.”

Caduceus hustled Caleb away. Once they were out of earshot he whispered, “We really ought to get out of sight. That spell only lasts a minute, and if we’re still around, he might be a little annoyed with us.”

The man didn’t resist, but he didn’t speak past a grunt of acknowledgement either. Not until they were standing on a much smaller sideroad, swathed in the shadows of the gathering evening.

Caduceus rubbed he back of his head. “Are you alright?” Even in this lightning, he could see the side of the man’s face was bruising, and he reached out with two fingers. “I can –”

Caleb jerked away.

Caduceus smiled. Fjord had told him it was rude to force healing on people without asking, but it just seemed silly when he could so easily fix a cut or a bruise. Still, he held up his hands in a conciliatory manner. “Sorry, sorry. I was just trying to take a look at your face. He hit you really hard.”

The man’s gaze was steady as Caduceus took him in. In some ways, he was like most humans. He had the sweet little round ears and the slender nose, and was, of course, nearly furless. He had nice coloring, though he was so dirty it almost obscured his speckles. The reddish-brown hair extended even to his sparse body hair, and he was blue-eyed. It made Caduceus wonder. Was there such a thing as a merled human? The cat had reappeared and was winding through his ankles.

“Um,” said Caduceus when the man still didn’t speak.

“Mister Caleb!” It was Missy, tearing around the corner. She held onto the man’s coat, scrutinizing him. “You look okay.”

In the child’s presence, Caleb’s face grew more open. He rubbed his forefinger against his forehead, and Missy answered him as though he’d asked a question.

“This is Mister Caduceus. He gave me a whole gold piece! Oh, don’t worry. I know it’s too dangerous to carry that much. Then Recker was trying to mug him, and Mama Nott put him on the big road, but he’s lost again. He’s from far away. Like, outside the Outerstead even. He pulled his purse out right in front of everybody.”

Caleb rubbed his thumbs and forefingers together in a twisting motion, like undoing a button.

“I haven’t seen her since earlier. Do you want me to look?”

Caleb shook his head and raised his arm. On his wrist was a copper wire. He tapped it with his finger in a series of long and short beats. Missy, meanwhile, was examining Caduceus’s armor. “It’s like a beetle!” she enthused. Caduceus endured her interest with good humor until a face appeared over the top of the building, a familiar, recessed visage looking out from under a hood. Nott hopped down, springing agilely from crate to street level without so much as a misstep.

“Mama Nott!” Missy greeted. Nott patted her before turning to Caleb.

“I came as quick as I could. Is everything alright?” Caleb made a seesawing motion with his hand, gazing at Caduceus. She glanced in his direction, rolled her eyes, and said, “Yeah, I get the picture.”

“Mister Caduceus made the crownsguard leave Mister Caleb alone,” Missy said. “You know that one with the twitching eye that stands on the corner and scowls at everyone? He caught Sord stealing from one of the stalls, and Mister Caleb distracted him.”

Nott was looking at Caleb, and specifically at his face. “He hit you? I’m going to chew off his face,” she said. Caleb rolled his eyes.

To Missy, Caduceus whispered, “She sounds very serious.”

“Course she does,” Missy whispered back. “She’s his mom.”

“Don’t you start sassing me, too,” Nott scolded the girl. “Now go back to your mother before she starts getting worried. It’s near dark.”

“What about Mister Caduceus?”

“We’ll take care of him. Now get.”

“Okay, okay,” Missy said. “Bye, Mister Caduceus!”

Caduceus waved to her. “Goodbye.” Which left him alone with the two shady adults who apparently partnered a conglomerate of child pickpockets. It made him uncomfortable, even if Missy had seemed to trust them. He struggled to find the right way to start a conversation. “Well, hello again.”

Nott’s yellow eyes burned out of her hood. He tried squinting to get a better look at her, but not only did the hood obscure most of her features, but she was also wearing a mask. It hadn’t looked like a mask at first because it was shaped with a nose and painted lips, but those features didn’t stand up to scrutiny. They were fixed in place – ceramic, he thought, like a doll. Strange.

She spoke. “You were given simple instructions. Stay on the road, go back to the Pentamarket where you belong, and yet here you are again, harassing our kids and getting involved in conflicts with law enforcement. That was really stupid, you know.”

Caduceus didn’t know if that was fair. “I don’t mind the law as long as it’s reasonable, but what that guard was planning wasn’t justice.”

“If it’s justice you’re looking for, you’re in for a disappointment. Best you can do is look after your own,” said Nott. She paused. “Still, I suppose we’re going to have to do something with you. It’s too late to waltz out of the Outerstead without getting harassed by more guards, and you’re not exactly subtle.”

Caleb laid his hand on her arm, tapping with his thumb.

She waited, then looked at him with an expression Caduceus might have called vulnerable. “Are you sure, Caleb? He’s a stranger.”

Caleb met Caduceus’s eyes, and Caduceus read speculation, curiosity, and gratitude. It seemed Caleb wasn’t insensible of Caduceus’s intervention on his behalf after all. As for what Caleb read from Caduceus, who knew? Whatever it was, it was enough. He nodded.

When Nott’s brow remained wrinkled, he smiled at her, smoothing it with his thumb. She scoffed, shoving at his hand, but it was impossible to miss the tenderness in the exchange. “Alright, come on. Follow us.”

Surprised, Caduceus had to make his first strides long to avoid being left behind. “Wait. Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Home turned out to be an abandoned building. The entrance had been nailed shut with boards, but around the side a stack of crates allowed access to a gap large enough for a person to shimmy through. Caleb gave Nott a leg up, then climbed after her. In the darkness, Caduceus could barely see, and his own accent was far clumsier and less practiced, but he managed.

Inside, the building appeared as though it might once have been a stable. There were wooden partitions and troughs for feeding, all empty except for cobwebs. The musky smell of animals was covered by molder, but Caduceus didn’t mind that. It was actually reassuring after the aroma of the street – of pitch, and waste, and plaster. Wood slowly descending into rot was infinitely more familiar and comforting.

His hosts lead him to a ladder, which deposited them in a loft. Here, straw had been piled, and in the starlight coming through an open window, he saw a bundle of blankets. Nott closed the shutters, and Caleb lit a candle. He seemed to do it with his fingers. A trick of the light or more fire magic? Thus sequestered, an interesting thing happened. Almost at once, the two of them grew smaller. It was as though the elastic tension holding them together released, and now they returned to their real selves.

Caleb settled beside a crate that seemed to serve as a table and began to empty his pockets. A quarter loaf of bread, an apple, part of a rind of cheese. He also handed Nott a purse, which clinked as she took it. She poured its contents onto the floor.

“Not bad,” she said after a moment. “Everyone did well today, even with the distractions.” She seemed to glare a bit at Caduceus when he said that, but Caleb huffed a kind of laugh, and her expression mellowed. “Seriously, though. It’s been a day.”

“It certainly didn’t go as I expected,” Caduceus agreed. But then again, the Wildmother often worked through tiny deviations. A stone shifted in its place could turn the course of a stream, and, with time, change the face of an entire landscape. The beat of a butterfly’s wing could move a seed in a different direction, and boom! There was a tree where it otherwise wouldn’t have been. He often thought that coincidence was almost as magic as spells.

Nott cocked her head. “Who are you anyway?”

They already knew his name, but he suspected they were more interested in his story, what had brought him to the slums of Zadash. As both Nott, the guard, and Missy had put it, he didn’t really belong here. “I’m Caduceus Clay, and my friends and I are here for supplies and, well, work, I suppose? It’s a little unclear.” He smiled. “I think we’re adventurers.”

“Adventurers,” Nott said. “Like, you fight dragons and find treasure and stuff like that?”

“Sort of?” Caduceus remained uncertain about the exact manifesto of his little group, though he was convinced of their good intentions. “We haven’t fought any dragons and there’s only been a bit of treasure, but we did rescue people from slavers. I feel really good about that.”

Nott’s eyes were wide under her cowl. “Slavers, huh? Sounds dangerous.”

“It can be,” Caduceus admitted, “but I’m a healer, so I do my best to keep everyone alive. I even raised someone from the dead once. Not that I usually do that; it can really upset the natural order of things. But there were special circumstances, and the Wildmother seemed okay with it.”

Caleb made a motion with his hand, like he were pulling a string from his heart. Then he clasped two fingers together. Nott asked, “What about those friends of yours? Will they be worried about you?”

Caduceus hadn’t given that much thought since earlier in the afternoon, but now that he was, he frowned. He could definitely imagine a stressed Fjord rubbing his hand over his face and Beau cussing at people on the road, asking if they’d seen a big, stupid pink cow wandering around. However, he didn’t think they’d be too concerned, at least not until tomorrow.

“They’re probably looking for me,” he admitted. “But I don’t think they’ll be that upset as long as I meet them once the sun is up.”

Caleb shifted, hissing as he did so. It was the sound of pain, and Nott immediately went to peer in his face. “That guard did a number on you. And so soon after the last time. Do your ribs still hurt?”

Unable to ignore suffering, Caduceus shifted onto his knees. “Please let me take a look. As I told you, I’m a healer.”

It was painful to see the stark suspicion on their faces, like they thought he was tricking them. It was the antithesis of his intensions, but this time he knew not to push. He waited them out, keeping his expression earnest, until finally Nott shifted backward to give him room. As she did so, she warned him, “No funny business.”

Caleb sat still as Caduceus took his chin and examined the bones around his forehead and cheek, pressing gently to see if anything was out of place. It was always worrying to be struck near the eye, which was a delicate organ at the best of times. Fortunately, despite the painfully nature of the contusion, there didn’t seem to be any damage that couldn’t be undone.

“Ribs?” he asked.

Shucking off his coat, Caleb pulled up his tunic and the shirt beneath to show off more bruises, these spreading over his chest and side. Caduceus’s frown grew deeper as he examined these. There was definitely a little bleeding. Nothing mortal, but enough that it should never have gone without treatment. Fortunately, he could correct that now.

“Just a little tingle,” he said. “Maybe some pressure and discomfort as I guide these back where they belong. Hold your breath if you need to.”

It took a matter of moments for the worst of the damage to fade, well on its way to healing. Both he and Caleb were out of breath afterward. Caduceus wiped his forehead and asked for something to drink. Nott went to a bucket in the corner, which looked like it was rigged to collect runoff from the roof, and brought him a dipper. Then she went to hover over Caleb, who stretched and coughed, twisting with much more freedom of movement than before. Nott let out a long sigh.

She gave Caduceus a more trusting look. “Thank you,” she said, and pushed down her hood.

Caduceus was expecting a halfling or perhaps a gnome like those from Hupperdook. Instead, he discovered the reason for the mask, and it wasn’t just to make her more stealthy. The yellow eyes were joined by a complexion the color of fresh pine needles and ears more like his own than any human or elf – elongated and mobile. One of them was pierced, and both were bandaged, as though she’d tried to hide their nature. Beneath the mask, she was frowning. She was waiting for him to pass judgement.

“It was my pleasure,” Caduceus said. He held out his hand to shake, now that they’d been properly acquainted, but instead of responding, she took a step back.

“I can’t,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted. “Can’t what?”

The look of vulnerability was back. Nott looked at Caleb, who shrugged his shoulders. Nott sighed again, a sound that merged into a growl. “Well, why not?” she said. “It’s not like it’s a secret.” And she began clumsily pushing back her sleeves.

Caduceus saw the damage even before she held out her wrists for him to see. He’d seen animals missing limbs before, either from birth or injury. Once, his sister had taken off his finger with a spade, and he’d had to carefully knit the flesh back together. Despite his best efforts, it had scared, like a ring of pink flesh. Nott’s maiming, though, was on a different level of magnitude. This was not the mangled stumps of a farming accident, or the organic lumps of a birth defect. These were the marks of deliberate, brutal violence. They were cleaner than any tool but a bladed weapon could make, and he could see he heavy scarring of a careless magical healing. No attempt had been made to cushion the joint of her wrist, and he knew the thin covering of skin there must bleed and tear, that the bone so close to the surface must be acutely painful when stimulated. It was horrible.

“Oh, my friend,” he said, with deep sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”

“Crownsguard did that,” she bit out. “Because I’m a thief. They did it the last time I was in prison, nearly a year ago now. The last time we were in prison.”

A creeping fear went through Caduceus, a feeling that grew thicker and more intense as he turned to Caleb, whose sustained silence now had an eerie quality. Caduceus had assumed he was shy, or perhaps just didn’t speak. Nott’s statement was like a puzzle piece slotting into place.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” Nott hissed. “They maimed me, and they silenced Caleb. They thought it would stop him from using magic anymore.”

Caduceus asked Caleb, “Did they,” but his voice failed. Caleb opened his mouth, and Caduceus closed his eyes. He felt he might be sick. Such butchery. How had he not choked immediately on his own blood? “Can you swallow?”

Caleb nodded, and Nott explained, “They didn’t cut out all of it. And they didn’t let us bleed long. They wanted us to live with what they’d done. I still thought he would starve before he learned to eat again. And as for me.” She looked at her wrists. “What creature can live without their hands?”

“But you did live.”

She glared, not at Caduceus, but at some unseen specter of the past, some person or force or system that had done her so much wrong and which she still hated. “We escaped. Because they were stupid, and they underestimated us both. They thought he couldn’t cast any more spells, but he called Frumpkin and got us a thin piece of wire. I picked the lock with my toes. Caleb had to help me hold them steady. It took ages, and I cried the whole time.”

Caleb shifted, drawing her closer. She sunk against his shoulder. “After that, he set the place on fire. Burned it all down. It served them right.”

Horror flared in Caduceus. “They burned – ”

“They laughed at us, while we were screaming! They did things. I hope they died,” Nott said. For the first time, Caleb made a noise that was not a grunt or a hiss of pain. Instead, he hummed. Something soft and simple. Nott sniffed and rubbed her face with her sleeve. “I know it’s bad, Caleb. I know I shouldn’t hold onto it, but it still hurts.”

Of course it still hurt. They had not merely been punished for a crime, they had been ruined by ruiners who had delighted in their ruining. Yet here they were, still surviving. “You came here afterward?”

“We went as far from that stupid town as we could,” Nott said, “but we were cripples. If we split up, I think we would have died. Together, we learned, and when we got to Zadash, we found new ways to make a living. Things are okay now.”

Things were okay. By which they meant they at least had the benefit of a roof overhead. They had something to eat at the end of each day. They had partners in crime who helped them and who they were able to help in turn. As he mulled it over, an odd question occurred to Caduceus.

“Wait. How did you steal my money?”

Nott smirked, and it was good to see a less melancholy expression on her face. She muttered something, and a ghostly hand appeared. It tugged on his sleeve, then disappeared. Proudly, Nott said, “It’s Mage Hand. Caleb taught me. It’s not practical for everything, but I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“That’s very clever.”

“I also rigged my crossbow to my forearm. It’s like a bracer, see? And Caleb has figured out a lot of things, too! He can still do magic, even the verbal ones. He just doesn’t like talking in front of people because he thinks he sounds funny. But I think he speaks perfectly. He even figured out how to make message work!”

“I saw,” said Caduceus, gesturing to his wrist. “You used some kind of code, right?”

“It’s a kind of military code. Caleb learned it when he was younger.”

“And now you live here and work with those kids.” It was the first thing he’d said that bordered on reproachful. He could see they both picked up on it. Caleb’s expression tightened while Nott grew agitated.

“Are you judging us, Mister Clay?”

He didn’t want to. Yet when he thought of Missy, slipping through that crowd, always in arm’s reach of guards like the ones he saw today… “Wouldn’t they be better off in a different kind of work?”

“Like what?” Nott demanded. “Factory work? Do you know what they make the little ones do in those death traps? They loose fingers and inhale so much crap they cough until their teeth are bloody, and they get paid in coppers. If they get paid. And in the meanwhile they have to put with grabby adults who don’t give a damn about how small or young they are. Or maybe you think they ought to be out in the dark collecting night soil, or digging ditches with convicts, or, hell, they could just join the militia, right?”

“I see the point you’re making,” he said. “A lot of work is dangerous.”

Nott said. “Those kids haven’t got a choice. We at least try to make it safe and fair. We don’t cheat anybody.”

“Except the people from whom you steal.”

“It’s hard to have a conscious when you’re starving,” Nott snarled.

Caduceus sat back on his heels. He looked around him, at this quiet niche, hidden away from the streets outside with their squalor and dangerous shadows and dead ends. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be unkind.”

Nott’s shoulders hung down. “No, you’re right. Me and Caleb, we’ve just been doing the best we can, you know?” Caleb made a gesture, moving his finger in a slow circle. Nott smiled. “Someday,” she repeated. “Maybe someday it will be different. Anyway, we should eat. It’s late, and I’m hungry.”

They shared what they had with him, a hunk of bread with cheese pressed into it and a portion of the apple, carefully divided with a knife. Caduceus wanted to refuse his share, knowing he was guaranteed a hearty heal tomorrow, whereas these two were offering the only thing they would eat for another day. Still, he knew he couldn’t. It would be spitting in the face of their generosity.

He watched them eat. Nott tucked herself unselfconsciously into Caleb’s lap, and he fed her one piece at a time. It was clearly an accustomed ritual for them, because they chatted freely the entire time, Nott between bites and Caleb with his hands, little signals or drummed patterns with his thumb. But while it was habitual for them, to Caduceus it was new, and it kindled his heart for these two people who depended on one another with such intimacy and selflessness.

After dinner, it was time to sleep. Nighttime coolness and settled deeply, and it was with gratitude that Caduceus climbed into the hay and pulled up one of the blankets. Caleb and Nott were nestled against one another. Nott seemed to settle right away, but Caleb remained awake, his eyes reflecting in the near darkness. Then, to Caduceus’s surprise, he reached out and touched Caduceus’s hand. At first, his thumb just smoothed over the fur there, an echo of Missy’s curiosity, then he tapped out a message.

“I can’t understand you,” Caduceus whispered.

Caleb licked his lips. Then, very softly, he murmured, “Thank you.” The words didn’t sound right, certain sounds blurred and indistinct, yet Caduceus understood. For stepping in when he didn’t have to. For healing him. For listening without recoiling in horror. Caduceus wondered how few allies they had, how alone they’d been on the long road from the jail to Zadash, how alone they still were now, even as they subsisted.

He gripped Caleb’s hand. “You’re welcome, Caleb. I’m so very glad we met.”

A gust of wind rattled the shutter, and Caduceus felt his hairs standing up. He forced his teeth not to chatter.

“Oh, just shut up and scoot over here,” said Nott sleepily. “Might as well put that furry body of yours to use. You have big arms.”

Caduceus thought of his siblings, soft memories of childhood's hour when he giggled under the covers with his brother or rolled his face into his sister's side to warm his nose from a winter's chill. It had been a long time since he’d been invited that close. He shuffled in the hay until he felt both of his companions flush against him and looked at his own arms. He didn't often think of himself as large, but he was, proportionally. Large enough to embrace them both. Tentatively, he laid his arm over Caleb's shoulder, letting it press down with natural heaviness. Beneath the padded warmth and weight, Caleb sighed. Nott clucked her approval.

“Much better,” she muttered.

The cat – Frumpkin – jumped onto Caduceus’s shoulder and settled between his ear and neck. It made a contented ‘mrrrp’ and began purring. Caduceus laid on his side, listening to the sounds of breathing and the shift in the hay when a mouse slipped past. It was heavy with quiet. Peaceful. He let out his breath, and all the tension of the day went with it. A good portion of another tension – a homesickness he had carried with him since the Savlierwood – was siphoned away too.

He leaned his cheek into Nott’s hair, letting himself drift. ‘Wildmother, did you bring me these people?’ he wondered and felt the answer stirring inside. It came in the form of a sense of rightness, of calm certainty. Which, of course, meant it was settled.

He imagined the look on Fjord’s face when he introduced him to their newest party members. “Seriously, Caduceus?” he would probably say. Jester would like Nott, he knew. They would have enormous fun with that Mage Hand. And Caleb had the kind of look that would kick Beau’s much-denied protective instincts into overdrive. Molly, as always, would be the wild card. Probably he’d say something outrageous, but he would definitely be welcoming. Yes, that sounded about right. And none of them would care about Nott’s green skin (or missing hands) or Caleb’s haunted eyes and hidden voice. They would fit right in, like they’d always belonged there.

Caduceus drifted to sleep with a smile on his lips, a feeling like destiny warming his heart.