“Sorry it took me so long,” Mistress Harkness said as she bustled toward them at least an hour later as she wiped her hands on a mostly clean rag tucked into her waistband.
Hearing her, Pax popped his head up from where he’d been resting it on the table in front of him. Next to him, Titus grunted, suddenly back to fully awake, too.
He and Pax were the only ones left at their table in the deserted dining hall. Servants had cleared all the perishable food and dishes long ago. They’d turned the lights down low and arranged a few shelf-stable snacks on a table close to the door for those who worked odd hours and got hungry.
When the promised thirty minutes had passed with no sign of Mistress Harkness, Pax had convinced the last of his friends to head back to their rooms. Rin and Amil had objected. But when both of their heads kept twitching from fighting off sleep, they’d finally given in. Crissim, the flame mage and last holdout from Titus’ crew, finally gave in too, and accompanied them back to their quarters.
Both Talpa and Whisk had tried to avoid accompanying the final departing group. But Pax could see the tiredness in his companions and sent them both back with the last of their friends.
Pax thought that had been about an hour ago, but he’d drifted off himself, so wasn’t sure. Now he was fully awake. The surge of adrenaline from finally getting some answers banished the cobwebs of sleep instantly.
“As suspected, the upset to Jane’s routine tonight made it much more difficult to get her settled.” Mistress Harkness gave them a narrowed look as she sat down across from them. “You won’t know this, but she rarely speaks at all. She’s usually happy to complete any tasks assigned to her, as long as it’s something she’s capable of. But even then, she’ll just nod instead of verbally acknowledging the instruction. But tonight?”
Harkness stopped and gave a weary shake of her head. “She kept getting up out of bed and fussing around her room muttering nonsense words and trying desperately to complete some unknown task. Now, I’m here to find out if she was just upset about you grabbing and confronting her tonight, or if there’s something to your claims. What exactly makes you think she’s your long-lost mother, besides a similarity in appearance that, by your own admission, would rely on childhood memories from more than a decade ago?”
Titus narrowed his gaze. “Would you forget what your own mother looks like, even if it’s been years?”
Harkness gave him a half shrug that acknowledged his point.
Pax jumped in, having had plenty of time to gather his arguments for this conversation. “Plus, she called us by our pet names from childhood when she served us our desserts. If you say she hardly speaks, that isn’t normal behavior for her, right? Plus, there’s no way she’d know those names, even if she’d heard our regular names at some point here in the dining hall.”
Her brows rose in surprise. “What names?”
Pax felt a mild flush of embarrassment, but said them anyway. “Tough Titus and Plucky Pax.”
She silently mouthed the names while narrowing her eyes in thought. “You’re right. Those aren’t something that someone would come up with randomly. But then she didn’t recognize you when you talked to her, right?”
“No.” Titus’ frustration was easy to hear in his voice. “But there’s obviously something not right with her mind, right? Can you tell us what her history is? I’ve never seen a name listed like hers is in someone’s menu.”
Harkness let out a slow breath, but nodded in concession. “I asked around about the two of you after I got Jane settled. The few people who’d heard of you verified that you’re supposed to be decent, so I’ll level with you.”
When she paused to gather her thoughts, Pax fought back his impatience and clenched his jaw to keep from telling her to hurry up.
“I know it’s late, so I’ll try to summarize. Jane first came to me about ten years ago, and not by normal means.” A worried look crossed her face, but she shook her head as if trying to dispel a thought. “I have to remind myself that I’m part of the rebellion now and out of the reach of the cursed Inquisitors. So, it was late at night and I was the last one in the kitchen of my restaurant when I heard scratching at the back door. At first, I thought it was some animal or maybe a street kid trying to trick me into opening the door. But then I heard noises that were unmistakable.”
She gave them a look jaded with too much knowledge of tragedy. “Do you know what a wounded woman sounds like? One whom someone has hurt so badly, she’d rather be dead?”
Titus almost looked sick as he glanced at Pax. Pax felt his stomach twist, too, already suspecting where this story was going.
“Yeah. Once you know, you can always recognize it.” She swallowed and continued. “So, I opened the door and found her. She was in terrible shape. According to everything sane, I should have just called the guard. But we all know how fickle they can be. If you get a good one, they might really help. But there are enough of them in the pockets of the powerful that it’s always risky. And it wasn’t like I was powerful enough to have a connection with a guard I could trust.”
Pax both wanted and didn’t want to hear the rest of the story.
“But I couldn’t just leave her.” Her gaze had lost focus, wrapped up in the memory. “Not in the way others had just left me.” The last came out in a whisper. Then she seemed to realize what she’d said and cleared her throat. “In any case, I brought her in, stashed her in the sick room I kept for workers who needed it. Then, I fed her and nursed her back to health.
“When her injuries finally healed, and she stopped flinching every time I walked into the room, I gave her a low-level worker job in my kitchen. I got nothing when I tried to Identify her, which was the strangest thing. She had no class, and I didn’t see her use any of the typical worker skills or abilities. Just nothing.”
Pax shook his head. “Maybe that’s because she started as a mage, and by the time we came around, she and my father pretended to be skilled crafters.”
“What?” Harkness looked skeptical. “How is that possible?”
“I’m sorry.” Pax shrugged. “It’s just another mystery we’ve been trying to solve about our parents. Please continue.”
Harkness narrowed her eyes at him, but relented and fell back into her story. “So, I gave her the name of Jane and, once she started working, Identify showed her as a worker class at level 1. Not a crafter and definitely not a mage.”
When Pax didn’t object, she continued. “I told everyone she was a mind-challenged niece from the outskirts whom I’d agreed to help and to treat her gently. And now she’s a level 4 worker who’s become a friend, as much as she can. I’ve been looking out for her for too long to let you agitate her any more, without good reason.”
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Emotions roiled inside Pax as he did his best not to imagine what had happened to his mother to leave her in the state Harkness found her in.
When it was clear Harkness was done with her story, Titus asked, “So, you have no idea what happened to her? How she got into that state at your back door.”
Harkness shook her head. “Some of it was pretty obvious. She’d run afoul of some nasty people who’d hurt her and almost killed her. She was malnourished. Vicious marks had swollen on her wrists and ankles from being held captive and fighting it. Someone had beaten her face, leaving her jaw and eyes swollen. There were abundant bruises in different stages of healing scattered across her body. I had to use one of my two healing potions to keep her alive. Getting her clean and fixed up that first time made me want to kill someone.”
She shuddered a bit, jaw clenched, before sitting up straighter. “When there was noise about a search for a missing woman the guard was looking for, I kept her hidden in my sickroom. By the time my niece came to work for the restaurant, enough time had passed that no one made any connection between the two.
“I was sorely tempted to ask questions about the woman they were searching for, but that would have drawn attention to us, which was obviously a bad idea. So, I contented myself with saving her life and giving her a safe place to live and work in the world. And until now, she’s never hinted about any details from her previous life.” Harkness peered at them, looking them over with an inquisitive eye and an underlying suspicion. “You really think she’s your mother?”
When both Titus and Pax nodded, she sighed. “I don’t know where you can go from here. If she remembered your childhood names, that could be something. But she does the best with a routine that doesn’t vary and tasks she takes pride in, like making that batch of trifled tort for all of you. She jumped in to grab that assignment first.” Harkness sagged back. “If that was a family dish, then I guess that’s more evidence that she might be who you think. But I still don’t know how anything good is going to come of this. The mother you knew is gone. Now, Jane is a simple worker with a good heart and a damaged mind.”
Titus blinked back his emotions and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We can get to know Jane and see if being around us eventually stirs something. Even a chance to spend time with the woman she’s become is better than thinking she’s gone forever.”
Pax nodded his agreement.
Harkness nodded. “I can understand that.”
“And I’ve got a new kind of magic as well as a bunch of mana skills,” Pax said.
“How would that help?” Harkness looked confused.
Pax shrugged, doing his best to replace his desperation with patience. He wanted nothing more than to run to Jane’s room and use his mana to see if he could fix what her enemies had broken inside her. “I’ve been able to awaken additional elements in mages and help calm beasts enough so others can Tame them. I do most of this by making connections with their mana. I’ve also got a Heal Others spell that might help.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone, except the most experienced mage healers, being able to do anything for mind injuries. And even then, it’s supposed to be an iffy proposition.”
“No one has magic like mine,” Pax said, already running through various skills and spells he could try with Jane.
Harkness looked skeptical, like she’d heard plenty of promises in her life that people didn’t follow through on. “I can see you spending a bit of time with her to get to know her as Jane. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to disrupt her routine or throw her off balance with too much pushing to remember her past. It’s obvious she has plenty of things she would be much better off not remembering.”
Pax could feel Harkness pulling back. The last thing they needed was to have her actively oppose their access to Jane. He quickly adapted his plans to something he hoped she’d find reasonable as Jane’s protector.
“How about this?” Pax paused for a moment to glance at Titus for approval to take the lead.
His brother nodded for him to go ahead.
“Could we come help with the last bit of work closing down the kitchen in the evenings so Jane gets used to seeing us around? And then maybe we all go together somewhere quiet, and I offer to help her, using my mana.”
Harkness looked fine with the first part, but immediately began reacting negatively to the last.
Before she could say anything, Pax hurried to reassure her. “We’ll make sure not to harass her with questions about the past and let her initiate any of those topics. And I’ll use the lightest touch of my mana skills to start first with healing, especially anything I can find in her mind that has been damaged. It sounds like you never took her to a healer, just used that initial healing potion on her?”
“That was the best I could do for her. Who knows what a healer would have found and—”
“I’m sorry.” Pax waved one hand in apology. “I didn’t mean that to come across as critical. You’re the only reason she’s alive now, so we owe you everything. My point was that no one has looked inside to see if there is something that can be healed. I don’t expect it to be simple, and I promise to work slowly and cautiously. But I have some advanced mana skills for my level, one that’s even been evolved twice. So, there’s a good chance I can do something for her.” Pax remembered what the Inquisitor had said to him about mana skills being useful for her job and was hoping their talents in probing minds could be adapted into a way to heal them. He deliberately kept the idea of delving into Inquisitor skills to himself.
Harkness looked thoughtful, but didn’t agree right away.
“We’re happy to have you there with us any time we visit with her. If she shows any signs of distress, we’ll stop immediately.”
That seemed to reassure her. But then she gave them a suspicious look. “You’d actually come help clean up in the kitchen? A fancy warrior and mage like you?”
Her response surprised Pax for a moment. He laughed and quickly explained when it looked like she was taking it the wrong way. “Ask your friends for some more information about the two of us. Before we became a fancy warrior and mage, we were both orphans who grew up on the streets. Remember? We were kids scrounging through the trash cans behind restaurants like yours. We’re more than happy to work in the kitchen cleaning up.”
Titus was smiling, too. “Especially if there’s food involved. We’re thrilled to help clean up any delicious leftovers that won’t keep until the next day.”
“Now that I can believe about two strapping boys like you.” Harkness nodded, smiling as she stood up. “I’ll give you a shot. How about a week of only an hour in the evenings, helping Jane with her kitchen duties and then doing whatever fancy magic you think will help her? Then we’ll reevaluate after a week. Alright?”
Part of Pax wanted to object that she didn’t get to decide for Jane, but he realized she’d been deciding for Jane for years now. And her help would also make Jane more comfortable around two young men for whom she’d only had a flicker of recognition while handing out desserts. Reconsidering the facts, he felt a rush of gratitude for the bossy and prickly woman.
Pax stood and held out a hand. “Mistress Harkness, I’d like to thank you for not only taking Jane it that night and saving her life, but taking the risk of keeping her all these years and shielding her from the attention of the authorities. If she really is our mother, like we think, we owe you everything.”
She looked surprised at his words. Her gruff attitude softened as she shook his hand. “I won’t lie and say anyone would have done it. But I couldn’t have made any other choice.”
Titus stood, holding out his hand, too. When she shook it, he said, “I’m grateful, too. Just don’t forget that you now have a fancy warrior and a mage who are happy to do anything they can to help you out.”
She made a pfft sound and waved a dismissive hand at them. “Help with clean-up is more than enough.”
“Well,” Pax said slowly. “You’ll be seeing more Tamed beast companions around the base soon. My crew’s in charge of that. So, if you see one you like that might help you out with your work, be sure to let me know.”
She looked surprised and then interested. “I’ll do that.” After a curt nod, she turned and strode back toward the kitchen, disappearing through the swinging doors for a second time that evening.
“Well,” Titus said, turning to look at Pax. “I think that went about as well as could be expected. Let’s just pray to Vitur that your fancy magic can bring our mama back.”
Pax nodded solemnly in agreement before straightening and stretching out the cricks in his neck. “So. Time for bed?”
“Definitely,” Titus said in a weary tone before something made him grin. “We need to get you your beauty sleep so you can find that altar and make everyone here squirm tomorrow.”
Pax wasn’t sure if he wanted to groan or grin at the idea. Hopefully, a good night’s sleep would improve his outlook.