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She picked up her lantern and went up the stairs, still reeling from everything that had come out during the evening. To think, she’d been harboring a wizard who had nearly led her enemy to her—but who had also sent her enemy away from her.
She knew she needed rest, and this could be her last night in a comfortable bed, but she was too restless to sleep, so it was probably better to pack as much as she could before she went to bed, and then she could sleep a little later in the morning. There wasn’t much to pack. She didn’t have a lot of clothing, and she hadn’t taken most of her other belongings out of her bag. All she had to do was put a spare shift, a blouse or two, a skirt, and a few pairs of stockings in her bag, along with her indoor slippers. She’d use her hairbrush in the morning, and she’d pack up whatever food was in the house, along with some herbs that might be useful.
She sat on the bed and looked around the room. It had been a nice enough place to stay, in spite of all of Gladys’s frilly touches. It had felt like home, and she hated to leave. She should have known better than to get too attached. Maybe she should have moved on sooner. She knew now it was dangerous to stay in any one place for very long, since any wizard would be able to track her down. She wondered how far that magic worked. Would she ever be truly out of reach? Maybe Bryn—or Gareth, but she had a hard time thinking of him that way—would know.
Or she could stop running. She wasn’t sure how she could resolve this. Maybe she could go to the duke while the baron was looking for her and explain. If Bryn was right about what the baron had done and why, that would surely persuade Maxen. He would be able to stop the baron. She didn’t have evidence, though. Would Maxen listen to her if the baron wasn’t there, speaking against her?
With the beginnings of a plan, she was finally able to get to sleep, and she woke feeling oddly refreshed. She dressed, putting on the duke’s necklace, in case she needed it to gain access to the palace, and went downstairs to find Bryn already in the kitchen, trying to pack up some food, against Gladys’s objections. When he put something in his pack, Gladys removed it. “Gladys, we have to leave,” he said.
“Yes, Gladys, we have to go,” Elwyn said. “But we will come back. We have to deal with this.”
Bryn turned to look at her. “We’re coming back?”
“I hope so. I was thinking about it, and I can’t keep running. If the baron can have a wizard track me, I’ll never be able to get away from him. While he’s probably on his way here, I plan to go back to the duke and explain everything. If you’re with me, you can tell him what you know, what the baron did to you. I’m sure he’ll listen if the baron isn’t there. And then once everything is resolved, we can come back here. You can deal with your master while we’re at court and collect whatever belongings you have there that you want. You can start over for good here.”
“That sounds utterly terrifying, but you’re right, it’s probably better than staying on the run.” He resumed packing, and this time Gladys let him. While he did that, she went into the shop and collected some of the things that might be useful on their journey. When she returned to the kitchen, Gladys had breakfast prepared and on the table for them, a hearty meal of eggs and toasted bread. Though they were in a hurry, Elwyn tried to savor every bite, knowing it could be the last hot meal she’d have in a while.
Finally, there was nothing to do but leave. The sky was just turning pink in the east and there was enough light to travel. Unless the baron had camped in the woods nearby, he wouldn’t reach the village for hours, at the very earliest. This was their best chance.
She put on her hat, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and picked up her pack. Bryn fastened the sword belt around his waist. “I may not know how to use it well, but just having it visible may make people think twice about accosting us,” he said when he noticed her eyeing the sword. He picked up his own pack, and they headed out the front door.
But they hadn’t made it to the front gate before the smith’s wife ran into them at a full tilt. Her hair was in disarray, still in her nighttime braids, which were coming undone, and she wore a nightdress under a shawl. “Oh, good, you’re already awake,” she said, gasping out the words between labored breaths. “You have to come right away. It’s my husband.”
Elwyn couldn’t help but glance down the lane in the direction she expected the baron to arrive from. She couldn’t afford the delay, but she also had a duty. On the other hand, Sara had done everything she could to drive Elwyn away. Should she put herself and Bryn at risk for someone who didn’t want her there and doubted her abilities?
“It’s urgent,” Sara said. “Come now!”
Elwyn stifled a groan. As much as Sara had resisted her presence, Elwyn knew it had to be truly urgent for her to come seeking help in her nightgown at dawn. “What is the problem?” she asked. She probably still had a few hours to get out of the village. She wouldn’t be as far along the way as she would have liked, but she was still unlikely to run into the baron, if he was even arriving that day. This was merely the earliest she thought he could arrive.
“My husband’s unconscious. He was up early shoeing a horse, and something must have happened.”
“That’s not the sort of thing one treats with herbs,” Elwyn said. “I won’t be able to do much for him.”
Sara caught her gaze with a glare she couldn’t escape from. She wanted to turn away, but she was frozen. “You and I both know that you wouldn’t be able to stay in that house if you didn’t have the gift. Staying in that house means you’re obligated to use that gift to help others, so come see to my husband.” She glanced at the packs Elwyn and Bryn carried and gave a derisive sniff. “Or were you planning to sneak away from us?”
“We have an errand in another town and were getting an early start,” Bryn said. “We’ll be back.”
“I need to collect some things,” Elwyn said. She turned back to the shop and picked up the bag she kept for emergencies, with all the treatments for burns, broken bones, and bruises, as well as the most serious illnesses.
She and Bryn could barely keep up with Sara as she led them to the forge, which lay halfway up the lane toward the castle, near the mill. A lantern burned in the forge, illuminating the man who lay unconscious on the ground by the anvil. Nearby, a horse stood placidly. “Bring that lantern over here,” Elwyn said as she knelt by the smith. A bruise was already forming on his temple, so he must have hit his head, but what had caused the fall, and was the bruise the cause of his unconsciousness or the result?
There was only one way to find out when the patient was unconscious. Elwyn had spent months being afraid of that gift, losing trust in it. But she had used it for the Chicken Lady and Bryn, and even on a more minor level she’d been accurate in selecting the right teas for people. Maybe Bryn was right and someone had killed the knight. Now wasn’t the time to doubt herself. She placed her hands on the unconscious man’s forehead and opened her senses to feel what he was feeling.
The first thing that struck her wasn’t an ache in the head. It was a gripping in her chest, as though someone was squeezing her heart as it beat erratically, fluttering rather than truly beating. That was why he’d fallen. She broke the connection with a gasp and ignored the wife’s queries as she dug in her medical bag for the vial she needed. This tincture could be a poison or a cure, and the line between the two was very fine. She’d have to open a connection with him again in order to read the exact moment to stop the dosage. “I need you to hold his mouth open and his tongue up so I can reach the bottom of it,” she said to Bryn.
When he had the smith in position, she carefully dripped one drop of the solution onto the underside of the man’s tongue. She placed her free hand on his head and opened her senses again. The tightness in the chest had eased, but it was still there. Keeping herself connected, she dripped in another drop. Already, she could breathe more easily, and so did the man, who began to stir. She handed the bottle over to Bryn and went deeper, searching for any other issues. The ache in the head didn’t go below the surface. The problem was all with the heart. He would require ongoing care to prevent this sort of occurrence again, but he was now out of immediate danger.
She dabbed salve on the bruise to speed its healing, and as she did so, the man’s eyes opened. “What happened?” he muttered.
“Your heart tried to kill you,” Elwyn said. “Have you been feeling lightheaded?”
“Sometimes, off and on, when I overdo it. But it gets better if I rest.”
Bryn had to pull back Sara when she flew at him. “You’ve been feeling bad, and you said nothing?” she shrieked.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” he muttered, rubbing his chest. “Did that horse kick me?”
“The horse had nothing to do with it,” Elwyn said. “He’s probably confused about why you brought him here to shoe and then went to sleep.”
