“Always,” I said, leaving him with a parting kiss.
I met the crowd as the last of them turned off the road toward the little spit of woods behind the mission. The first few were already on their way back, buckets sloshing over with dark, murky water. The rearmost man saw me coming and held out one of his buckets.
“Pond’s this way,” he said.
Sure enough, not far into the trees was a meager body of water that was more puddle than pond, but a blessing just the same. Someone had hacked through the thick sheet of ice over it, and an axe lay abandoned on the bank. The townsfolk cycled through, filling buckets and rushing back toward the fire. I took my place among them.
By my third trip, my muscles were burning and the cold was biting at the sweat cutting streaks through the soot on my face. I thought I’d been tired to start with, but exhaustion crashed in like a landslide weighing down my limbs.
Still, the fire raged. No matter how many buckets of pond water we hurled at the inferno, the flames refused to abate.
Little by little, the townspeople gave up. They dropped their buckets and stood back with Penny and the Symbiarch until it was just me and one other man left. We worked in tandem for several minutes more before he caught my arm on my way back to the pond.
“It’s no use,” he said. “Better to lose the building than for anyone to get hurt when it comes down.”
As if in agreement, the ridge board in the roof creaked and popped and sent us both scrambling. When the other rafters groaned, I knew he was right. The whole building threatened collapse; there was no saving it.
None of this was supposed to happen. We were supposed to be in and out, and no one was to be the wiser. The loss of supplies was bad enough for a small community like this. Now they’d lost their infirmary, too.
The man took my bucket from me, and I retreated to join the rest of the throng looking on as the fire consumed everything. Penny tucked himself against my chest the moment I got close enough. I let him bury his face in my shoulder while I rubbed soothing circles over his back as if that could make anything better.
Everyone stood in silent stillness until the roof finally caved in.
The crowd began to disperse, then. The Symbiarch was caught up by a group of what looked to be brothers who ushered her toward town, and most of the others turned to follow. One woman approached Penny and me and offered a faint smile.
“Come on. You’re coming home with me.” She motioned back toward town. “Warm up, wash up. My wife has soup on, and there’s plenty to fill your bellies.”
Guilt burned my throat like bile at the thought of taking anything more from these people. There might be plenty of souptoday, but how long would that last?
“We couldn’t impose,” I said.
She waved off my protest. “Nonsense. Can’t let you help just to wander off in your sorry state and freeze.”
I opened my mouth to argue—crushed under the knowledge that I was only helping with a disaster I had no small part incausing—just as Penny pulled back with the first of a flurry of wracking coughs. He swayed on his feet as the fit robbed him of air, and I caught him around the waist to steady him while he whooped in heavy breaths.
There was no choice. I needed to get Penny in out of the cold, even for just a little while. Without cloaks we weren’t dressed for the weather, and I was in no position to refuse whatever help we were offered.
The woman simply gestured again and smiled warmly when we fell into step beside her.
14
Penny
Kit pulled me along like I was a human anchor, stumbling and wiping my sleeve across my eyes that wouldn’t stop leaking. I wanted to leave, go back to Eastcliff and hug my sister and mother. Run away because I hadn’t felt so much like a child since the day my father died.
But Kit held me against him, struggling to keep up with our hostess until she realized the growing gap between us and slowed her pace.
We arrived at a modest cottage in the middle of a row of similar homes. There was a tree out front with an old wooden ladder leaned against the trunk—presumably some kind of fruit tree—and a small stable visible around the back that might have housed goats or pigs. The cold had set deeply into me, stabbing like icy fingers through my shirt and trousers and making me shake. Kit snugged his arm around my shoulders, sharing his body heat but doing little good since he, too, was chilled through.
Coming up the stone-paved walkway, the woman went ahead, pushing into the interior of the house. Kit hung back. Heturned toward me, taking hold of both my elbows and ducking into my line of sight.
“Pen?” His eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, and sweat had cut channels through the soot on his face. He looked and smelled like smoke. We both did, and I wanted to scrub it off. Strip out of my clothes despite the cold and the snow just to be free of the stench of char and ruin.
Kit brushed my hair back, touching my skin with fingers creased with black. They looked like that after he’d worked long hours in the smithy, and I hadn’t minded before. I’d grown accustomed to the sight, even enjoyed the scent clinging to his curls before he bathed, but this time, I cringed away.
He frowned at my retreat but spoke anyway. “We’re going to get a bit to eat and warm up for a while before we head back to Ashpoint. You just rest. I’ll handle any questions.”
I nodded, feeling numb inside and out.
