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“He felt you catch the bridge.”
“He did, and I think—I’m not certain—the wave was meant to collect us. He doesn’t want us—well, me, at least—dead.”
And everything—everyone—else was unimportant, Aric guessed. Bodies on a bridge. In danger. Only human. Gnats, ants, petals on the wind. He shoved down simmering fury at someone who could think that way. “He wasn’t prepared for you to have help.”
“No. Though I wasn’t prepared for me to have help.” Emrys actually pulled a laugh out of tiredness. “That was interesting.”
“Lady Caris Ayling,” Aric said. “Disgustingly wealthy. Terrifying in trade negotiations. Secret mage.”
“I suppose that answers the question of whether she knew.”
“She was keeping it hidden. For some sort of advantage? Some secret plot—”
“I don’t think so. Not like that. Or only a little; she would be the type to strategize about weather conditions or good luck in a weaver’s house. But…” Em hesitated. “I don’t think it’s that.”
Aric took the defenseless carrot-berry pie and broke it in half and held half up to his other half’s mouth. Em ate it out of his fingers, teeth small and sharp and white and tidy. Swallowing, went on, “It’s more…what you just said. I mean the fact you said it at all.”
“What did I—”
“The first question you asked was whether she had some sort of secret selfish plan.”
Aric couldn’t answer for a minute, and then got out, “No.”
“It’s how most people feel.” Em was studiously regarding the other half of the pie, not Aric. Berry filling commiserated but couldn’t assist. “Even when they hire us. You know magic’s tricky. Unpredictable.”
“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t what I meant!” He waited until Em lifted that gaze from pie to him. “I meant, I don’t trust her because she is keeping that secret, even from us, and she hired us knowing there’d be a threat, and she was planning to use you as deflection. That’s not about magic, that’s about her lying to us. Which I don’t like, and neither do you.”
“I suppose I don’t.” Em tugged the blanket back up onto his shoulders; it was sliding. “But I understand. She loves her work, her life…it’s what she wants. What she’s always wanted, she said. Her father’s heir.”
Being a magician, embracing magic, would change that. Suspicion. Comments. Rumors about cloth, quality, spells. Broken contracts. People coming to Caris for charms, ill-wishes, or demands. Her life would not be the same.
Noises echoed, beyond the wagon. Preparations. Continuing south, in a very few moments. Caris directing the world, hiding any exhaustion, being the woman who dictated wool prices and supplied dukes and princes.
“I know,” Em said, hushed and grey as ashes, “how it feels, to want so badly to not be what you know you are, because if anyone else ever knew, you’d lose everything you were trying to keep…like walking on glass, every day, every hour. I wonder whether her father knew. She said he loved her.”
Aric knelt on the rug in front of Em’s makeshift throne of blankets and fabric-bolts. Gathered up both Em’s hands. Held them, his own fingers and thumbs stroking sparrow-fine skin and bone and cleverness and cold. “I love you.”
And Em’s expression eased, back to the present, out of the past and a literal stake and fire and betrayal. “I know you do. I’m all right.”
Aric nodded but didn’t let go, only transferred both of Em’s hands to one of his, and picked up the other half of Em’s abandoned pie and devoured it in one gulp.
“I was eating that.”
“You were destroying perfectly good pie-crust. There’re three more. I’ll feed you if you want.” He wanted to. “Everyone’s seen it now. What she can do.”
“Yes.” Em accepted the next pie when handed it. “Though—it’ll be easy enough to pretend otherwise, if Caris asks for that. It’s only the six of us, and mostly people were looking at me, or listening to you. Thank you for that, by the way; you’re good at shouting at people.”
“Any time. What do you want to do? Not right this second, but tonight, tomorrow. We can leave if you say so.”
The wagon’s door opened again. Caris said, putting her head back in, “I’ve had Asni take care of your horses. I’ll ride, if you want privacy. We should be going, though. Unless—I would understand, if you chose to leave. But you could travel with us, to rest, for a day.”
Aric waited for Emrys; Em glanced at him, drew a breath, let it out. “You did hire us for protection. And there’s a threat. Your father’s former assistant, you said. We’re not done yet.”
True; and Aric nodded, because Em was right. He didn’t like leaving threats on the loose, either.
Caris’s shoulders did not sag with relief, but the emotion lay in her eyes, her face. “Thank you.”
“He’ll think it worked,” Em said. “It did work; we just had the means to deal with it. We had me, and you. So it’ll be a surprise for him when we arrive.”
