“You sure this is the right street, Blue?” Raff asked. The two of them were peering around a corner as if they were warriors stalking a binyi. No one wanted to confront one of the ice-lizards, especially not in their den, but they couldn’t be allowed to breed unchecked, or they could render an entire level unlivable.
Kaz nodded. He had his sense of direction, of course, but beyond that he now had a faint awareness of certain beings he’d met. Their presence wasn’t always there, like Li or the mountain, but when he reached for them, they almost seemed eager for his attention. This time, he was following the trail leading to the only dog he’d met, Brute.
Sighing deeply, Raff stepped around the corner of the building they’d been skulking behind. He glanced furtively down the street, as if expecting an attack. Nothing happened, of course, because this was a quiet street in a quiet part of town, where young humans played without fear. Or at least they had, before the xiyi plot was exposed. Now, people watched each other with suspicion, and the children stared longingly out of windows. In spite of the King’s announcement that the conspiracy had been quashed and the conspirators routed out, it would take time for people to fall back into their easy habits and assumptions of safety.
“It’s just, I know some folks who live around here. I know it’s ridiculous to assume that out of an entire city, you’d manage to find them, but given that it’s you-” Raff glanced sidelong at Kaz.
Li laughed in the back of Kaz’s mind.
“There,” Kaz said, turning toward the muffled sound of a bark. His ears couldn’t twist, but he wished he dared remain in his kobold shape so they could. Unfortunately, he was currently in human form, since the humans were already enough on edge without seeing a kobold wandering through their city.
“A girl named Nadia, with short hair because she hates to brush it. An older brother, and no idea on the mother’s name, but she has brown hair, too.” Raff shook his head. “Not much to go on, Blue.”
Kaz paid no attention. He was following that faint, excited sense of ‘Here!’, which was now accompanied by an increasingly frenzied barking. If Raff would stop talking, he would probably hear it as well, but that seemed increasingly unlikely. All Raff had done since they left his family den was ask questions and tell Kaz about things that he didn’t really care about. What did it matter to him if King Maleim had decided that Prince Lucas might not be the best choice for his heir? Kaz could have told him that two minutes after meeting the young male.
Somewhere not too far away, wood creaked, then struck loudly against something much harder. It sounded like a door being flung wide against a stone wall - probably because that was exactly what it was. A second later, a large, furry shape rounded the corner ahead, ears flapping and tongue lolling as he lunged toward Kaz, only to scramble to a stop just short and roll over, exposing his belly.
Raff stared down, bemused, and Kaz crouched, rubbing his hand over the dog’s fur. Brute gave a deep, satisfied groan, drooling on Kaz’s foot. Kaz smiled. He could feel the creature’s pleasure at seeing him again, and the dog didn’t feel worried or sad, which was a good sign.
Sure enough, a brown-haired child came careening after the dog several seconds later. She started to chastise her dog, then stopped, staring at Kaz with her mouth hanging open. Kaz was wearing a hood pulled up to conceal his blue hair, because no matter how he tried, he couldn’t imagine himself with fur of any other color. It was obvious that Nadia recognized him, however, because a huge smile spread across her face, revealing a gap in her lower teeth. Without greeting him, she turned on her heel and ran back around the corner, screeching for her mother and brother.
Kaz straightened, and Brute stood with another groan that somehow held as much protestation as the previous one held happiness. He followed along as Kaz and Raff rounded the corner, however, and even took the lead as they passed two buildings and reached a third, whose door was torn away at the bottom. The dog passed inside this house, but Kaz and Raff hung back on the doorstep, uncertain.
Mikal appeared next, coming down the stairs in the back of the room with an expression that wasn’t quite disbelief on his face. This vanished as he caught sight of Kaz, and he yelped, turning around. A moment later, Nadia, Mikal, and their mother were all on the steps, looking thrilled, horrified, and astonished according to their natures.
“Kaz,” the mother said, the word slurred through the swelling on one side of her face. Kaz quickly slipped deeper into his other sight, but could detect no trace of her former injury. Her left arm was still stiff against her side, but he thought that was more from habit than necessity. At least he did until he saw the edge of a bandage beneath the collar of her shirt and realized that she was leaning against the wall.
Starting forward, Kaz said, “Are you all right?” She obviously wasn’t, but he didn’t think there was anything wrong beyond the physical. She would recover without his help, but he could help her, at least in this moment.
To his surprise, however, she grasped Nadia’s shoulder with her good hand and pulled the little female back. She couldn’t do anything about the dog, who was now terribly confused, looking between his family and Kaz with drooping ears and a tucked tail.
“Who are you?” the mother demanded through her swollen lips. “What do you want?”
“He’s a friend, Blythe.” The answer came from behind Kaz, and everyone turned to look as Raff ducked through the doorway. It was just a bit too low, only an inch or two, and he didn’t even seem to notice as he did it. No doubt he was used to everything around him being a little too small for comfort, even here in the human city.
The female’s jaw started to drop open, but then she flinched and released Nadia so she could press a hand to the purple bruise on her face. The smaller female immediately took advantage of her mother’s distraction to dart forward, kneeling beside Brute and throwing her arms around his neck. His tail relaxed and began to thump.
“Raff?” The female - Blythe - said uncertainly.
Raff tapped the wall twice as he stepped up beside Kaz. The small room just inside the door seemed suddenly much smaller. “Yep,” Raff said. “And I wish I could say I was surprised to see you, but-” His voice trailed off and he shrugged as he lifted a brow at Kaz. “I met Kaz a couple months ago. He’s an odd one, but means no harm. At least, not unless you start something. Then I reckon he’ll finish it.”
Kaz blinked. He hadn’t realized Raff took him that seriously. It was an interesting description. Turning back to Blythe, he pressed his hand to his chest, bowing slightly. “I’m sorry to enter without a howl,” he said. “The door was open.”
Mikal scowled. “The door was open because that dog just went crazy a few minutes ago. Started barking and scratching and throwing himself at the doors. Mom had to get out of bed to see what was wrong. And now the door is broken, and I don’t even know how to fix doors!” His voice cracked as he said these last words, making him sound more like a worried pup than an angry warrior.
Raff craned his head around to look at the broken door. “Well, I’ve fixed a door or two in my time,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength, you know.” He flexed an arm, and Nadia giggled as the muscles bulged. Then Raff grew serious again, his eyes searching what he could see of the small building. “Is Corvin here, or is he off on a mission?”
“He’s…on a mission.” Blythe answered, but her hesitation and sidelong glance toward her pups made Kaz question the truth of her statement. Raff was smarter than he liked to appear, so Kaz doubted the big human had missed the telltale pause either.
“Well, that’s all right,” Raff said, taking a step back and gingerly moving the door until it stood upright. “No doubt I owe you two more than a door after all the times you bought drinks for us.”
Blythe almost managed to laugh, and her body relaxed slightly. “No doubt you do.” She gestured weakly at the opening. “Just set that in place and come in. I need to sit down.” Mikal helped her down the last few stairs, and then led the way through a doorless arch, directly into another room, without a tunnel to connect them. Which meant they were really one big room with an extra wall in the middle, and Kaz had no idea why such a good-sized space had been made smaller for no apparent reason.
The room contained several shelves - many of which were empty - and a round wooden table with four chairs arrayed around it. A cup of something sat precariously on the edge of the table, still gently steaming. It looked like someone had set it down abruptly, without realizing that it wasn’t completely stable.
Kaz reached out and caught it before it could fall onto the large dog, who went directly to the space beneath the table and flopped down, lifting the table with his broad back before thumping against the legs as he collapsed. Mikal immediately snatched the cup from Kaz, sloshing hot liquid over his hand as he did so. He bit his lip, but didn’t say anything as he handed the drink to his mother, who was sitting down with obvious relief.
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Kaz sniffed. He thought he recognized some of the scents rising from the spilled liquid. Honey, certainly, and milk, but there was something that smelled like flowers. One of the ones Raff had shown him, that was good for pain.
Blythe sipped the drink and sighed softly. A bit of liquid dribbled from the swollen corner of her mouth, and she flushed darkly, swiping at it before wincing. Without looking at Raff or Kaz, she set the cup down and wrapped her hands around it, allowing the heat to seep into them.
Finally, she turned her eyes to Kaz. “When we heard monsters were pretending to be people, we remembered you,” she said. “Forgive me, but you’re a bit…strange. The way you appeared, out of nowhere, and healed me-” She shook her head.
“But then you vanished, and we heard about a young man with blue hair and a golden wyvern fighting in the tournament. I bought tickets and we went at the time you were supposed to fight. Except you didn’t, and then those terrible lizards appeared and started killing people.”
She was clutching her cup so tightly that her knuckles shone white beneath her skin. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it out, especially when the walls started coming down. That’s when I got hurt.”
“Mom protected me when the dragon broke the wall,” Nadia put in. She looked like she wasn’t sure whether to be frightened or thrilled by the memory. It was over, after all, and her mother was supposed to be fine, but it must have been terrifying. Lifting her hand, she reached under her messy hair and fingered a lump Kaz hadn’t noticed before. So the child hadn’t escaped unscathed after all.
“I thought I saw you there, running toward the smaller dragon,” Blythe finished, watching Kaz. “You looked like you were trying to help him. So we weren’t sure… We thought…”
“That I was one of them, or an ally,” Kaz said, finally understanding. “That dragon was Intong, and his brother is my friend, but none of us are friends with the xiyi who tried to take over your country.”
Blythe didn’t look like she knew what to do with that, so Raff opened his mouth to speak, but Nadia beat him to it. Throwing her arms around Kaz, she said, “I told them you weren’t a bad guy. And I was right!” She gave her brother a superior look that Kaz distinctly remembered Katri giving him more than once.
“But they were right to think I could be,” Kaz said, feeling compelled to defend the brother who was still standing stiffly by his mother’s shoulder. “It’s good to hope that people will be kind, but best to assume that they won’t. The xiyi do have a way to look human.”
“But you’re not one of them, are you?” she asked, and he smiled. He wasn’t what he seemed, either, but this wasn’t the best time to mention that.
“No, I’m not. I saw you and your mother there, as well.” In Heishe’s vision, but that was another thing that didn’t need mentioning. “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
Turning to Blythe, he held out his hand. “May I heal you again? You look like you’re in pain.”
He could see the denial on her face before she opened her mouth, but then her gaze shifted to Raff, and she said, “Yes. All right.”
So Kaz leaned across the table and rested his fingers on her cheek, pushing his now-plentiful blue ki into the swollen flesh until her lip pulled in, and a partially-healed cut closing completely. The colors of her bruise shifted from deep blues and blacks to green and brown, and he could see her sit up straighter as he sealed a cracked rib with ki.
He could have done more, but he didn’t think she would actually appreciate it. Instead, he gently brushed Nadia’s hair aside and repaired the small clot of blood that had formed within her skull. That could have been bad if it was allowed to remain, so he was glad he had come, and not only for his own peace of mind.
Blythe blinked, opening the eye that had been almost swollen shut, then brushing her fingers over her lips, feeling the way they closed fully again. Her jaw shifted, and she said, “Did you grow me a new tooth?”
Kaz drew back. “Was that wrong? It felt like the tooth on the top would grow down into the gap, which could make it hard to chew.”
“No, it’s just-” Blythe stuck her finger into her mouth, feeling the spot where Kaz had sensed an oozing hole in her gums. “Usually it would take a healer who specializes in teeth to repair it.”
“Oh.” Kaz nodded, and didn’t offer to urge Nadia’s missing tooth to grow in more quickly. He hadn’t realized that young humans lost their puppy teeth just like young kobolds, but he could tell the new tooth was there, waiting. He hadn’t fixed it, but he had wondered if it would be all right to hurry it along.
Silence fell as everyone there realized that they didn’t really know what to say to each other. Brute was happy enough with his muzzle laying across Kaz’s foot, and Nadia was staring at her mother, but Raff, Blythe, and even young Mikal seemed awkwardly uncomfortable.
At last, Blythe stood, pushing away the cooling cup of liquid. Walking across the small room, she took a jar down from a shelf, turned it over, and pulled off a false bottom. Taking out a silver coin, she handed it to Mikal. “Get us some of those war dogs, Mikal. As many as you can get with a silver. Take your sister with you.” Mikal tried to argue, but eventually gave in and left, dragging Nadia along even as he stared back with frustrated eyes.
Blythe wrinkled her nose, staring down into the almost-empty hiding place. “The vendor was calling them war wieners, but that was obviously a terrible name. I suggested he use war dogs instead, and they suddenly began selling much better. He gives us a discount on them as thanks.”
Kaz and Raff exchanged a glance, but neither told the female about their previous experience with what Kaz guessed was the same vendor. Instead, Raff leaned forward and asked, “Blythe, where is Corvin really?”
Blythe’s fists clenched, and she glanced after her children. “Why?” she demanded. “What does it matter to you? You vanished after I left the guild. I thought we were friends, but you didn’t even come when I hurt my arm.”
Raff refused to look away. “You’re right,” he said. “I should’ve. I didn’t even hear about it until a year or so ago. By then it was old news, and I figured you’d recovered. When Kaz said he’d healed a woman’s arm, and wanted to check on her and her children, I had no idea it’d be you. Though somehow I’m still not surprised. But where is Corvin?”
The brown-haired female gritted her teeth, then blanched, though not nearly as badly as she had before Kaz healed her. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she finally admitted. “Probably better.”
Raff closed his eyes and ran his hand across the red fur growing in along his jaw. “Left, did he? But you didn’t tell the kids?”
“He might come back,” Blythe insisted. “If he does, Nadia and Mikal should be able to meet him as their father, not the man who abandoned them. They deserve better than that, even if he doesn’t.”
Raff gave her a long look, then shook his head. “You always were too easy on him. How long has he been gone?”
“He left after I lost the use of my arm,” Blythe admitted. “Things got hard, and he started to take missions that took him away from the city. Then he just didn’t come back, but they won’t give me a widow’s benefit, because no one believes he’s dead. For a while, I was afraid we’d lose the house, but then Kaz-”
Her voice broke, and she looked away. “I applied to renew my guild membership. I can only take bronze-level jobs; the annoying ones no one else wants. I won’t take a chance of leaving my kids without parents. But it’s better than the part-time stuff I was picking up before. Mikal was even starting to talk about quitting school so he could help. I told him no, but I think he would have done it anyway.”
Meeting Kaz’s eyes, she said, “You saved my life. All our lives. Thank you.”
The sincerity in her gaze made Kaz incredibly uncomfortable, and he nodded once before ducking down under the table, sitting next to Brute, who happily accepted petting while Li complained in the back of Kaz’s mind about the fact that she wasn’t there to receive her fair share. It had been her choice to remain on the roof, basking in the sun, however, so he didn’t pay too much attention.
When the children returned, they all ate the newly renamed war dogs until their bellies bulged. It seemed that the vendor was very pleased with the heightened demand for his product, so he’d been generous. That, and Mikal was fairly certain he had been about to close, and once the meat tubes were cooked, they wouldn’t be edible by the next day.
When Raff and Kaz finally stepped back outside, they found that it was dark, and Kaz could see that the moon was beginning to grow smaller again. It had hung in the sky like a ripe chouchou for a few nights, but now there was no doubt that the night of no moon was on its way.
Raff stood, looking down at Blythe while little Nadia clung to her mother’s skirt with one hand and rubbed her eyes with the other. “I’ll be back with a new door tomorrow,” he told her. “Once I set this one in place, it’s not going anywhere until I get back. Is that all right?”
Blythe nodded, but said, “I can do it myself, you know.”
The big male grinned, white teeth bright in the darkness. “Oh, I know. You always could do ‘bout anything you set your mind to. That was one of the things I admired about you. But if I do it, you can tell me all the ways I’m doin’ it wrong, and then maybe next time I’ll be better at it.”
Blythe huffed a laugh, but stepped back, pulling Nadia with her. Mikal was already inside the room, watching Raff with an expression that was somewhere between anger and hope. Kobolds mated for life, so this was something he knew little about, but Kaz had a feeling that if Raff wanted to spend more time with Blythe, he might find that the younger male was more of an obstacle than he thought.
Carefully, Raff set the door in its frame, and then struck it hard with his fist, jamming it in place. Once he was satisfied that no one weaker than him was going to move it short of taking a weapon to it, he stepped back and offered Kaz a grin.
They walked off down the street together, heading back toward Raff’s home. Neither spoke until they’d put a good distance behind them, when Raff slanted a glance down at his shorter companion.
“I don’t know how you do it, Blue,” he said. “Somehow, whenever you get involved, all the things that have gotten messed up start fixin’ themselves again. It’s usually a pretty messy fix, like randomly shovin’ glue into a gap until things start holding together the way they’re supposed to, but it works at least long enough for someone else to figure out somethin’ better.”
Kaz wasn’t at all sure that was a compliment, but he didn’t say anything. After all, at least the messy part was true.