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The canopy overhead blocked out most of the sunlight and the air felt heavy, oppressive. Someone watched me; some unseen presence raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I stood a much better chance of getting hopelessly lost than I did of finding that cavern again. “Rafe?” I called out, hoping he hadn’t gone far.
To my surprise, he answered me.
“Here.”
A weak sound, but recognizable, coming from a cluster of three trees growing closely together. They were young, their trunks slender enough my hands would have spanned each of them. Past them was an old mother, grizzled and bent, her trunk wider than I could reach.
That’s where I found Rafe, wrists bound and suspended from a branch overhead. Blood trickled down from the bindings on his wrists. A smear of blood marked his other cheek and his lower lip bore a ragged cut.
His glasses were missing and one eye was swollen shut, but the other eye trapped me in its depths. Neither of us said anything. There was no point in asking him what had happened. His injuries were self-evident. Besides, giving voice to my dismay at seeing him so defenseless would have embarrassed us both.
“I’m fine,” he murmured, as if he could read my mind.
“Of course.” I pulled the pliers from my pocket, closed my eyes, and in a breath I held a pair of long-handled clippers. Stretching on tip-toe, I could just reach the rope above his wrists. It wasn’t a clean cut, but I managed to free his hands. He stumbled into me, groaning. His arms flopped forward, his wrists still tied together, but in a moment I had his hands free.
Once he regained his balance, I released him and stepped away, though I would have much rather wrapped him in my arms.
“Do you see my glasses anywhere?”
I wasn’t sure he could wear them with the way his eye had swelled, but I looked for them anyway. On the other side of the mother tree, the forest floor had been kicked up and some branches were broken, evidence that Rafe had put up a fight.
But Lord, who could have done this? We weren’t all that far from where Rafe had created the dome of a protection ward. The idea that someone had broken through his magic made my chest so tight I could barely draw a breath.
Knowing someone had hurt him turned that fear to anger.
A few paces past the mother tree, I found the glasses hanging on the branch of a young maple that had dropped most of its leaves. I glanced back; Rafe was leaning against the wide trunk, rubbing his hands together. He moved restlessly, turning his head from side to side, as if he expected someone or something to come flying out from between the trees.
Wordlessly, I returned to him. “Here.” I kept my voice low because otherwise I would scream. There was every possibility that Rafe’s captors were still nearby. Rafe hooked the arms of his spectacles over his ears. The right side did press against the swelling, but it bothered him, he ignored the discomfort, as if it was enough that those amber lenses gave him something to hide behind.
“Let’s go.”
“My cane.”
Lord.Quickly, I scanned the area. At first I didn’t see it, but then, “there. It’s…broken.”
The cane Rafe used to make his way through the world lay in two pieces, partly covered by dirt and moldering leaves. I scooped them up, more than ready to leave this place.
Rafe took them from me, weighing each with a frown. “They will pay for this.”
“Who?”
He didn’t respond. After a moment, I took hold of his elbow. “We should go before whoever it is come back.”
Still no answer, but he did respond to my touch. If I’d hoped he would lean on me, I was mistaken. Without his cane, Rafe moved with hesitation, but we might have been strangers, as if we’d never touched each other with any kind of caring.
Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go. Rafe’s weakness was painful to witness, and I swear I didn’t draw a deep breath until we were safely inside the house.
“Does the door lock?” I asked.
Rafe pointed at the doorknob and muttered something unintelligible. “No one will be able to open it until I release the spell.”
Nodding, I gestured for him to proceed me into the kitchen, then realized he wouldn’t be able to see me. “Go on,” I said, and he did. I came last, the pliers hanging heavy in my pocket.
At least the kitchen was warm, and Lord bless her, Margaret met me with a mug of coffee. That simple gesture helped me calm down, to let go of some of my fear and my anger.
Rafe flopped into one of the chairs, while Della leaned against the counter, her arms crossed. Margaret brought Rafe a warm rag to clean his wounds. She took charge, wiping away blood and dirt from his wrists and dabbing at the cut on his lip.
“Where’s your salve?” she asked Della, who pointed at a shelf over the table.
