The Widow Giselle turned to look at Charlot, frowning at his outburst. He blinked again. Had his vision improved? He did not recall making out impressions so well the day before. As he rose, there was an absence, as if he’d forgotten something, and it was a moment before he realized what was missing.

Pain.

The aches of his joints were only just a whisper, the coarse feeling at the back of his throat was gone, and he raised a hand to his shoulder. There was no pain from the wound. Only when they were absent could he realize what a constant commotion of minor hurts his life had become, every motion braced against the pain it would provide.

Perhaps the mask had taken him after all, and this whole thing was but a fever dream as the Asyndagrim devoured his mind. His eyes flickered through the planes of magic, looking for signs of deception, but it was only a simple cabin.

He looked at his hands. Was that the faintest hint of silver at his outline or was that merely the echo of the silver dust he’d used on Siyabros? Did she have her finger on him now? Was he beholden to her? How much purchase did she have on him? He’d lived his whole life unfettered, and the notion of being a pawn in her game filled him with a sudden fury.

“Are you well? Your eyes are flickering,” Giselle asked, her hand subtly creeping toward a knife on the counter.

“A quirk of magicians. I am much improved, thanks. What of the boy?”

With a slight roll of her eyes. Giselle nodded at Henriq, who was still in bed, seemingly unconscious.

“The bow is by the door, beneath the cloak. I can fire it for you after breakfast,” Giselle offered.

The skillet crackled on behind her, and she turned back to it. Charlot sniffed at the air. Why, that was lamb bacon! Wonder of wonders. She was cracking eggs into the pan, saving the shells in a little pot. No doubt she intended to make paint with them.

With daylight streaming into the cabin, he could see colored accents in many of the ornamental carvings around the house. It was a technique that could have easily looked gaudy, but it had been done with restraint and made the whole home look lively and festive.

The kitchen was well-stocked, with strings of sausages, smoked fish, and garlic hanging near the hearth. It was a pleasure to look around and see so much thought had been put into everything, from the clever joints of the rafters overhead to the placement of the windows so that the cabin caught as much of the sun as was possible.

“Tch!” sniffed Giselle. The fire in the hearth had burned low. She piled in more wood and returned to the skillet.

Charlot crossed the room to the door, again surprised by the absence of pain and expecting it to return with every step. Drawing the cloak off the bow, he spent some time inspecting it. He ran his fingers across the smooth varnished surface, eyed the stacked layers of laminated epee wood, took it down and tested its pull.

“You can draw this?” he asked. It seemed impossible.

“Here,” she said, sliding the skillet to the cool part of the range. Taking off her cooking mitt, she took the Shenden bow from him. Skinny as she was, she could draw the bow fully, though he could see it took every bit of her strength.

With great care, she eased the string back, and then hung it back on its rack and covered it over with the old cloak again. Afterward, she flicked her wrists, trying to get the feeling back in her fingers.

Charlot could not help but feel the sting of seeing her draw a bow he could not. He consoled himself with the thought that he had needed no bow to deal with legionnaires the day before. The thought reminded him of Flaccaro and, for a moment, he was afraid they’d left the staff out all night in the cold. But then he saw it leaned against the wall near the chimney.

“Tch!” sniffed Giselle again. The fire was burning low once more.

“I just put those logs in, and they’ve burnt up already! Is this some hex?” Her suspicious gaze fell on Charlot.

“There lies your culprit,” Charlot pointed to the copper stave. “Flaccaro is siphoning power from your fire. The staff must be famished. Usually, it would be too haughty to trifle with a mortal flame. If there were time, I would ask you to build a bonfire, but I must be going soon.”

“Stars above. A staff that eats fire and a wizard with glowing eyes. I thought I was going mad. I must have fed the hearth half a dozen times.” She shook her head, blinking at the weirdness of it all. At her side the kettle had begun to whistle, and soon she was pouring the boiling water into clay mugs, sweetening them with honey and then adding tea. “Breakfast is ready. Please, sit. Quit pretending to be asleep, Henriq!”

The widow’s voice rose, and the boy’s eyes flicked open.

“About the boy…” Charlot said. He noticed Henriq beginning to try and rise. “Stay in bed, boy! Put no weight on that knee,” Charlot commanded. Henriq dropped his cane, and it clattered against the floor.

“He is likely not crippled as you believe. If it is a tendon injury as I suspect. It will heal if he only stops aggravating it. He should be off the leg for a season. Fashion him some crutches, and he should put no weight on the knee whatsoever. If he is lax with it, put a plaster cast on the leg to keep him off it. He should drink bitter willow tea each morning and night. Furthermore, he’s a bit of a porker, and it’s surely making things worse. Feed him less, trim him down! He should eat oily fish, and fresh berries wherever possible.

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“At the end of the season, he should walk a little more each day, stopping when he feels pain. Extend the knee until it hurts in each direction twenty times a day. In a year’s time, he should be able to walk unaided,” Charlot finished his lecture and looked over at Henriq to make sure he’d understood.

“A year!” cried Henriq. His cheeks were hot at Charlot’s blunt speech.

“A year of crutches or a lifetime of limping, which do you want? Remember your lifetime was nearly cut short. Another boy could have simply run away.”

The boy nodded, his face cast into gloom. Giselle looked at Charlot curiously, her tongue bulging her bottom lip. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of him.

“GIRLS! BREAKFAST!” Giselle called out the door, and he heard a huff of interest from the bear. Of course, ‘breakfast’ was another of the words Korak knew.

“I have a cart I can bring Henriq home with. But his father is a stubborn fool. He will be hard to convince. And his mother spoils him. He’s an only child.”

“I would imagine the four dead legionaries on the way to Billibee might change his mind. There’s a tidy sum in weapons and armor to be had there, if you aren’t above stripping the dead.”

“Those are beasts not men. It’s no different than seeing to a dead hog. I’ll loot them,” Giselle said, her voice full of scorn for the Wyrth. Charlot nodded in agreement.

“You’ll find one beside an oak tree perhaps a league south toward the river missing his head. The others are on the banks of the beaver pond halfway to Billibee. You may want to set out today. Those beavers are bound to rebuild their dam. If those legionnaires are allowed to stew in it and fester, the pond will become a cauldron of disease, they may sicken those downriver.”

“You’re wise to think of that. I’ll burn them,” Giselle said.

“Apologies that I had no time to do it myself. I hate to leave something like that undone. I had to race to try and save Sylas, only to find he’d managed to give them the slip already. I must be after him soon.”

The girls burst into the cabin giggling. One carried a pail of sheep’s milk, the other had a basket of eggs.

“Ah, girls, what of my charges? How are Korak and Siyabros?”

“They just woke! The bear snores!” Petal cried as Audee lowered her eyes.

“I know where he learned it,” Henriq said, nodding at Charlot. Giselle shot him a warning glance.

“Do I truly snore?” Charlot asked. How odd he’d never noticed! But, of course, how would he know?

“Just about as loud as the bear,” Petal tittered.

“Sit! Eat! Don’t let it get cold!” Giselle admonished, and Charlot blinked away his surprise and the revelation to sit with the others and eat. There were only three chairs. The two girls sat with him while Giselle hovered and fretted, bringing Henriq his plate on a cutting board.

“What a feast! Thank you,” Charlot said as he tucked in. There was sheep bacon and duck eggs, biscuits with blackberry-anise jam, and the good black bread she’d denied the beasts the night before, slathered with rich butter.

There was just about everything he liked to eat except fried potato and pepper hash, and as he thought about it, he remembered the unusual tubers he’d collected when he dug up the shadowflame ring. Charlot waited until the girls had run off to do chores outside the cabin to broach the topic. He would have liked to speak outside of Henriq’s earshot as well, but he wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.

“I have something,” he offered, reaching into his robe when he’d cleaned his plate. From it, he drew one of the three potatoes he’d kept from the field where he’d freed Lak. The widow took a close look, and then shook her head with regret.

“You can’t grow potatoes in the north. The blight will have them.”

“So I thought as well. However, I found these growing less than a day’s ride to the east, north of a shudderstep bramble in the road. There’s a whole hill of them, and not a speck of blight on any of them.”

Giselle drew a deep breath. “If that’s true, this is a greater treasure than the ruby.”

“Now, I haven’t had time to experiment. Perhaps it’s only the soil on that hill, or some other factor stopping the blight. But if these are resistant…”

“It could change the north! Stars, you’re like the Fiddler come again.” Charlot blinked at the comparison to the ancient monk who’d once held half the Arc in her tattooed palm.

“Well, make no mistake, I am not of the Manatramord.” He held up both palms to show he had no black diamond on either. “Nor am I Adon, as I claimed when I arrived. I am Charlot, the Master Arcanist of the Crimson Citadel which sits upon an island in the Cormorbo, a day’s walk north of Fraughten. For many years, I was secluded in that tower until Sylas appeared, drawing me from my indolence. In just a few days, I have saved a poisoned child, befriended a silverpaw bear, aided a peasant revolt, and now I have saved another child. I’ve stumbled upon a crop that might banish hunger from the north and found a bowyer who claims she can pierce legion plate. I am not so foolish as to believe it’s all a coincidence.”

“What then?”

“I suspect the Laughing Star is behind all this, and we are a part of her design now.”

Giselle paused at the gravity of it, and Charlot nodded. When gods meddled, men suffered.

“What is that design?”

“She intends to destroy Urth’Wyrth.”

Henriq stared at him open-mouthed, and Giselle looked at him, searching for something in his face.

“As do I,” Charlot said, his voice hard and certain.

The widow looked around the cabin, and her eyes fell on Henriq’s as he followed their conversation.

“I will help any way I can,” she said at last, clenching her fists. “May the whole island sink into hell.”

Henriq made a peep of surprise at the oath. Charlot’s bushy eyebrows raised as he grinned.

“Henriq, you must never speak of any of this. Swear it to me,” Charlot said, his voice suddenly serious.

“Are you going to curse me if I blab?” Henriq said, a flash of fear crossing his face.

“If you speak of this to anyone and it gets back to the legion, they will raze Billibee and burn this cabin to the ground. Your final thoughts will be knowing that you got yourself and everyone you know murdered. That’s worse than any curse I can lay,” Charlot said. There was no need to embellish. That was exactly what would happen.

“I’ll never say a word,” Henriq swore.