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“How many bounty hunters were out there?” she asked.
Gavin undid her mother’s nightgown and exposed the bloodied skin of her stomach. “Two.”
Two bastards had caught him alone, while Violet was coming face to face with Julius inside. Probably the same ones they’d met at the inn. They’d left one body behind in the sea and the other in the boathouse.
She sighed and reached for his shoulder. “You’re hurt. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “She’s dying, Violet. If I don’t heal her now, she won’t make it.”
She looked at her hands and recoiled. They were red with her mother’s blood. When she lifted her face, she found his quivering smile. “I’ll do everything I can to save her,” Gavin said. “I promise.”
“I know.” She withdrew and rose. “I’ll get the fire going and heat up some water for a bath.”
She let Gavin do what he could for her mother and allowed herself to sleepwalk her way through the tasks. By the time the home was warm and the smell of stew was strong, night had fallen. Dargan’s storm still raged.
Violet dug one of her hands into the pocket of her coat, pulling out the uneven green stone with rainbow highlights. She had found it right beside Julius’ broken body when they’d picked up her mother before leaving the boathouse. Such a small, powerful thing, a sharp contrast against the lighter shade of her palm.
Even though Thalea had been seeing spirits since she was young, Dargan hadn’t felt her before. Had her sister’s magic gone unnoticed by everyone for a reason? Perhaps it was only palpable if she used it to its fullest extent, like she’d done today.
Perhaps he’d been so focused on Violet, he’d never thought of looking at Thalea. Or there were enough god stones to dull one’s power underneath this town, like in the mountains. Come to think of it, hadn’t the Crows only picked her up after she’d rowed out far, far to sea with father that one time?
Hadn’t Violet once read of a non-magical town, Willowbrook?
What if it wasn’t? God stones might be behind hiding innocents away from the Crows and the gods throughout the kingdom. The myth about them being so rare might be just that—a myth created to keep people in the dark. Maybe the Crows didn’t want people to know that these natural deposits existed in the very soil they all trod on. After all, she had never found a spell that could dull magic for long with our being tracked.
These were all questions she would likely never get the answers to, but ones she would seek.
“She’s stable for now.” Gavin’s voice jolted her out of her reverie, and she closed her hand around the jewel, half afraid it would fall between the cracks of the floor and vanish forever.
“Thank you.”
He limped toward her, dragging his right leg behind him. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the only standing piece of furniture in the room, the bench which rested against the wall.
She waited for him. He was so handsome with his long, messy hair, his tanned skin, and his sharp jaw. He caged her body with both arms and leaned closer to her, his breath caressing her face. “That smells good.”
Violet brought her hand to his cheek, stroking the raspy texture of his stubble. The fluttering in her stomach spread a subtle warmth through her that chased away the icy grip of sadness. “I get to keep you now. I guess I have to start being nice…”
Gavin grinned, although the gesture looked tired at best. If she closed her eyes, she could almost fool herself into thinking today was a joyful day to celebrate.
He pressed a kiss to her lips. “I like you just the way you are. What others think is their problem.”
She might have to remind him of that later on, when he got annoyed at her snarky nature. They ate standing in the kitchen, watching the high waves that clashed too close to the house for comfort and rocked the pier beyond. The boathouse continued to fall apart in chunks, but the sounds of its demise didn’t bring her much sorrow.
When night rolled around, they bathed and warded the building. Gavin discovered that he could fit into her dad’s clothes and used his army coat as additional kindling for the fire, trading it for a light brown one instead.
“Do you think Mios and Ellie will come?” Violet asked. Even though they got rid of Julius and the bounty hunters, they couldn’t stay in Sagewood long. Not only had the Commander found her family’s property, but so had two of the bounty hunters. With the flyers still out there and offering a handsome reward for her capture, staying in her family home—or this town at all—was sheer idiocy.
“They’ll come, but not tonight in this storm,” Gavin said, and reached for her hand before pulling her towards her old room. “Let’s get some sleep.”
* * *
Morning arrived, though the darkness of the sky remained. Rain patted the clay rooftop. Her mother’s odds of survival were small, and yet Gavin had spent most of the night caring for her, even knowing that she was probably too weak to handle this kind of trauma.
Violet was feeding a piece of the broken chair to the fire when there was a knock on the door. Or rather, on the wooden planks that Violet had used to board it up where Julius had smashed it. Gavin, who was already walking better, picked up his sword from the counter.
“It’s us,” Ellie screamed.
Mios and the wolf weren’t alone. Next to them, a tall man with tanned skin and wide shoulders greeted her. His salt and pepper hair, oily from lack of washing, was tied back into a mess of braids.
