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“Aye.” Owen looked at his boots. “Sorry, Alem. It won’t happen again.”
That was a lie if Verve ever heard one, but it wasn’t her job to discipline this kid. She waited for Alem to scold him again, but the dendric mage only embraced the lad, squeezing him tight. “I know you want to help, Owen,” Alem said softly. “But if anything happened to you, Lio would be all alone, and the rest of us would be heartbroken. Please, don’t run off alone again.”
Owen leaned into Alem, eyes shut. “I’ll try.”
Now, that was true.
* * *
Hours later, back in the village, Verve stood with Ivet and Alem outside the Tipsy Willow. The late afternoon sunlight cast the painted sign in fresh, vivid colors, but the tavern itself had seen better days.
“Hadiya’s barn would make a better shelter,” Ivet said, sighing.
Verve pursed her lips. “Clearly not, since mages already burned half the damn thing to ashes. Is there no other structure that could be fortified? You’ll need a place to retreat if more renegade mages tear through here again.”
Alem skimmed a hand along the tavern walls. “It’s cedar. It holds up against the damp. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Sure,” Verve replied. “If the mages attack with raindrops. But it seems the local moon-bloods prefer fireballs.” A flash of metal on the tavern roof caught her gaze. “What’s that?”
Alem didn’t look to where she pointed. “Busted weathervane.”
His tone brooked no more discussion and the errant piece of metal sticking straight up out of the roof didn’t seem worthy of more inquiry. But it was still odd.
Verve glanced at Ivet. “I know the answer, but I’ve got to ask: have you any hematite?”
Alem grimaced, but Ivet shook her head slowly. “‘Fraid not. That stuff’s far too rich for the likes of us.” She skimmed a glance over Verve’s jacket and hood, where flat hematite beads winked in the light. “I see that’s not a problem for you, though.”
Hematite: the dispelling stone, one of the few natural elements that could withstand magic’s effects. The ore had once been far more common before the destruction of the hematite mines well over a century and a half ago.
“Hematite’s pretty necessary in my line of work,” Verve replied. Guilt tugged at her, but she shoved it aside. It wasn’t her fault these folks barely had enough coin to buy salt.
“What about brushthorn?” Alem asked. “It’s a local weed, fairly resistant to flames. We could mash it up, make a paste, patch up the walls like tar.”
“Brushthorn…” Verve considered. “It’s common here?”
Alem nodded. “And then some. I’m constantly trying to keep it out of my garden.”
“You’d need a lot,” Verve replied. “And it wouldn’t solve the problem of the mages who can dismantle wood with a touch. But it’d be a good start.”
Alem beamed at her and her stomach did a weird, tumbling dance that she blamed on all the liquor she’d consumed last night.
“Stone would be good, too,” Verve said to Ivet. “Got a bricklayer nearby?”
Ivet chuckled. “Unfortunately not. Though there are some clay deposits to the north, according to Klaret.”
“Clay’s better than nothing,” Verve replied. “It can supplement the brushthorn. But really,” she glanced around the village again, “walls would be best. Nice high ones of stone and hematite.”
“If we had the coin for that, we’d not be living in the middle of nowhere,” Alem muttered.
An image of Freehold’s sturdy walls came to Verve’s mind. She’d never considered how valuable such walls were — or how difficult they must have been to fortify with hematite. But somehow, Danya had scraped the coin together.
“Well, it’s something to consider.” Verve looked at Ivet. “You should also set up some sort of warning system—a bell or other loud noise—that will notify anyone within earshot of trouble, and recall them to the safe house. And you’ll all need to practice, of course.”
Ivet’s brows knitted. “Practice?”
“Aye, you know, run drills. Make sure everyone knows what to do when trouble comes.” Verve gestured to Lotis’s center, where Lio and Kinneret were playing with Owen, who pretended not to watch the three adults. “Especially the little ones, or anyone who can’t move easily and quickly. Get them to safety first, so you only have one place to defend. It’s just common sense.”
Ivet and Alem only blinked at her, and Verve was torn between laughter and bewilderment. “Have I stuck my foot in my mouth?”
