Gently, he grabbed my wrists and turned them so he could see my palms, dotted with drying blood and puncture wounds.
Not long ago, I’d been convinced it was more than that. Not blood at all, but flesh dripping like candle wax, leaving behind raw, red patches. Those frightful thoughts came in flashes even now, and I looked back toward the barren fruit tree while Kit lifted my quivering hands and kissed my knuckles.
“We’ll bandage these too,” he murmured. “And wash up.”
He stayed quiet long enough that I worked up the nerve to catch his gaze. The moment our eyes met, he wrapped me in an embrace, and I felt a tremor in him I hadn’t noticed before.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
The overwhelming smell of smoke made me want to gag, but I forced myself to stand still, soaking up the warmth and Kit’s words as he spoke near my ear.
“If I’d known what that bastard had in mind, I would never have sent you in there. We would have found another way. Or never come here to begin with.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the tears to stop. I would already look quite the coward to our hostess and her wife, as I must have been the only man in town who hung back and watched their mission burn while everyone else tried to save it.
I hadn’t rescued the Symbiarch, either. Kit did that.
I crumbled. Broke.
I was broken still.
Maybe I always had been.
“I’ll see him punished, I swear it,” Kit said in a gruffer voice. “If Levitt won’t protect us, I’ll do it my damned self.”
“Excuse me?”
A different woman came to the door. She was plump, with ringlet curls and an apron spotted and smeared with the evidence of a meal in progress.
Kit and I looked at her, and she waved us toward the open doorway. “Can’t be letting all the heat out,” she explained.
With a nod, Kit slung his arm around my waist and guided me into the cottage.
It was appointed differently than the houses in Ashpoint, with the entry leading into the dining room. The fixtures and fittings were familiar, though. Wooden furniture with a table set for six and a stone fireplace churning out warmth.
Even that small blaze made me tense. For months after the barn fire, I’d refused to sit near the hearth in my own home, wary of logs that hissed and popped. They sounded like breaking beams and loosed sparks that singed the rug and sent me scurrying to my room. I wouldn’t be reduced to that now, though. I was too grown to live that way. But, as resolved as I was, I struggled to tear my eyes away from the licking tongues of flame as Kit and I advanced into the home.
The woman who had approached us outside the mission flurried into sight. Dark hair hung to her waist in a single braid, and she wore trousers like my own. She took one of the open seats at the table while her wife returned to the kitchen where a large stockpot steamed on the stove.
“I’m Elise, by the way,” she said, then motioned toward her apron-adorned spouse. “That’s my darling Margot. She’s a wonderful cook. You two are in for a treat.”
“Kit Mosel.” Kit gestured to himself, then squeezed my shoulders. “And this ismydarling, Penny.”
I glanced aside in time to catch his smile. He was showing me off even in this sorry state. Rather than warm to his affection, I wanted to hide.
“Well, Kit, Penny,” Elise nodded to each of us, “it seems you’ve come upon our town at a difficult time. Thank you for trying to help with the fire. You certainly weren’t obligated.”
My teeth ground together. Kit and I may not have set the mission ablaze, but wewereresponsible. And obligated to do more than stand and watch it be consumed like I had done. I twisted the toe of my boot over a knot in the floorboard.
“It was no trouble,” Kit replied. “I just wish we could have done more. I can’t imagine the hardship such a loss will cause for the town.”
Elise’s expression sobered. “We’ll manage. Wendwood is small but full of good people. We take care of each other. But you should sit! No doubt all that scurrying to and from the pond stoked your appetites.”
“I’d hoped we could clean up a bit first,” Kit protested. “We aren’t quite fit for polite company.”
Elise’s cheeks pinked, and she bobbed her head. “Of course! Silly me. I’ll show you to the bathroom, and you can join us when you’re ready.”
The house proved not only structured differently than Kit’s childhood home, but also much smaller. Besides the kitchen, dining, and living areas, it had only one bedroom we had to pass through to reach the washroom.
