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“Yes.” I almost said more, thought better of it. “So, why?”
“Surely you understand that they have all the advantages over us—physical strength, magic, numbers.” He ticked the points off on his calloused fingers. “Besides, we have many vows constraining us.”
“What’s the deal with oath-keeping anyway? What happens to someone who breaks a bargain?”
“I hope you never find out, Lady Sorceress.” A horrific image dashed across his thoughts, but he suppressed it. Not so I couldn’t see, but because he couldn’t bear it. “Now let’s focus on what’s at hand. Try the figure-eight again.”
“I’ll probably just klonk myself.”
“Aren’t you glad that wasn’t a sharp-edged blade then?” He grinned, back to his sunny self. “Run it again.”
Larch found me tired, sweaty and bruised in several places by the time he returned. The stick was lighter than the sun-and-moon wheels, but not by much, and my shoulder cried with relief when I set it down. Liam slid my wheels into a leather carrier and handed them to me, along with my stick.
“I thought I’d just leave them here? Rather than dragging everything back and forth?”
“No, Lady Gwynn.” Liam winked at me. “Keep your weapons with you. Get used to having them around, at your fingertips like your magic wand. Beside your bed, under your pillow.”
I didn’t tell him I didn’t have a magic wand. Though it would be cool.
He turned back to straightening the weapons rack after telling me to meet the next day, if there wasn’t a battle. I felt his eyes, and thoughts, on me as I walked away. His desire fed and filled me.
Uneasily, I wondered what I was becoming.
Chapter 28
In Which I Receive an Unexpected Guest
‡
Larch and Iwalked in companionable silence back to the tent. I felt pleasantly tired out. Maybe some healthy exercise was what I really needed. Wash that man out of my hair and all that. Nothing like being around a healthy, red-blooded human man to make a girl feel better in her skin. And to fill up her well of magic.
“I shall return later, to escort you to dinner, my lady sorceress,” Larch told me on parting.
“What? What dinner?”
“With General Falcon. He requests your presence at dinner.”
Great, another mad war tea party.
“Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll get ready.”
I dragged the tub back into the tent, happily filling it with steaming water with a thought. At least the magic had come back. Who I would be here without it didn’t bear considering.
Pulling off the dress, I examined the now raggedly torn and dirty hem. I’d stepped on it more than once.
Cocktail length for war then.
Grimacing at my rapidly stiffening muscles, I climbed into the tub, sighing as the heat penetrated the soreness. I let my head rest against the high back of the tub.
“We’re living in atent?”
I started out of my skin, water sloshing onto the floor. “Jesus, Starling! What the hell are you doing here?”
Starling twirled in place, skirts spinning out, blond locks shining. “I’ve arrived!”
“So I see.”
“They diverted me here just as soon as we heard, and here I am! No, no, don’t get out of the tub. Gracious, where are your servants? The page out front told me to come in, but not that you’d been abandoned without serving girls. Are you being punished?” Starling’s hands flew to her mouth in dismay. “You didn’t accidentally turn them into butterflies or something, did you?”
