Page 20 of On Broken Bonds

It takes my mind a second to adjust, and when I blink at him, some of the effect of his appearance falls away. I remember why I’m here. My sister. Lyra. The Trials.

I lean back, stiffening and eying him warily. “You were.”

“I was,” he says, nodding and picking up his spoon. “I witnessed it, and I know that you need a partner for the Trials. To gain entry, you need someone at your side. Someone willing to fight alongside a lady. A lady who, I’m assuming, has never had a minute of training in fighting in her entire life.”

I consider telling him I’ve had precisely one minute of training. Ivor giving me the dagger and telling me to pull and stab.

Instead I say nothing, my stomach beginning to roil, no longer wanting the stew. It’s not just the reminder of my situation, the reality he’s dragging back to my doorstep like a cat with a dead bird. It’s the anticipation of what he’s going to say.

Forcing myself to eat, I prepare myself for whatever will come next. Perhaps he thinks he’d be doing me a kindness to talk me out of it. Perhaps he’s witnessed the Trials before, and plans to detail them to me, to explain exactly why it’s not worth it. I prepare myself to completely ignore him, to push his words and sentiments from my mind.

I came here to save Lyra. And I’m not leaving until I do.

Then he says the absolute last thing I’d expect from him. “Well, I’m volunteering.”

“Volunteering?”

“To be your partner.” He turns to me, fixing me with the full weight of those heavy brown eyes, and I realize with a start that we’ve both finished our stews, our ales already lingering down to the bottom of the cups. Time seems to move differently when I’m talking to him, slipping through my fingers quickly.

If my silence bothers him, he doesn’t show it, and goes on, “I’m a skilled fighter. In fact, I’ve been fighting since I was a boy. I trained with some of the best in the city. Won a few big fist fights, you know, the kind people bet on?”

I blink at him. I have no idea what he’s talking about. It’s a city thing, and he waves his hand like it doesn’t matter. “What I’m saying is that I’m experienced. More than just fist fighting, obviously. Weaponry. I think we could win together.”

My mind has finally caught up with this exchange. “Why would you want to partner with me? You already seem to know that I’m no trained fighter. That I’ve never used a weapon in my life.”

The dagger hanging around my waist seems to burn, and I feel, with a rush, the pulse of magic in my palms, a weapon I carry with me constantly but am powerless to use around others. I’ve practiced, out in the woods behind the manor, when I was sure nobody, not even Lyra, could see me. Theoretically, I know how I could hurt a person with my magic.

Balling it up, gathering it like ammunition, and using my power to throw it at another. The same movement that took out bushes and trees in our forest, leveling them easily.

It’s one thing to understand the theory, and another to actually use that power against another. Once again, the dagger is a reminder of that.

“I have my reasons,” he says, eying me, as though wanting to ask what I’ve been thinking about.

But before he can, something shoves into my back, hard, and my new acquaintance is on his feet.

“Get down!” he shouts, and I don’t need to be told twice. I slip off my stool and lower my head as a stray bar chair sails through the air, hitting the wall and bursting into a million pieces, many of which drop down onto the glass bottles below.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Bertha shouts from behind the bar, but then she’s ducking, too, narrowly avoiding a flying tin cup in her direction.

From my place huddled under the bar, I watch as my bar mate stands in front of me protectively, pushing away fighters who draw near. Slowly, perhaps knowing I shouldn’t, I start to crawl in the direction of my room, wanting to get out of the fray.

It’s scuffing up my nice dress, the one I wore to see the gods, but there’s nothing to be done for it.

My heart flies into my throat when a hand fists in the back of my dress, hauling me up, the fabric cutting sharply into my neck at the sudden force. I feel like a kitten being lifted by its scruff, then I’m looking into the eyes of a large, gruff man, who grins at me with several missing teeth.

“Well,” he says, his rancid breath blowing over my face as his eyes peruse my body. “What do we have here?”

I raise my arms, perhaps to push him away, but then he’s gone, the man from the bar dispatching him swiftly, sending him stumbling into another drunkard, who turns and swings merrily, without even looking to see who has bumped into him.

“I told you to stay put!” the man tosses angrily over his shoulder.

“No,” I correct, though maybe now isn’t the time. “You told me to get down. They’re quite different, actually⁠—”

The look he gives me is equal parts exasperation, amusement, and surprise, and I can’t stop the smile that tugs at the corners of my lips, the satisfaction at teasing someone, even a stranger, and even in this situation. It’s like the tiniest vent to the frustrations of the day.

When I continue my path to my room, he protects me all the way, pushing men back into the throes of the fight, catching flying objects, and threatening those who even look at me wrong.

As I watch him, I realize there’s an unsettling precision to the way he moves. Faster, surer, more fluid than even the other skilled fighters in the room. He shifts as though he knows what’s going to happen next, as though he can predict it perfectly each time.