Барб Хенди - First and Last Sorcerer

“Oh, damnation!” Wynn whispered, and then, “Leesil, get her back in the other room.” When he turned on her, she cut him off. “Do it— Chap, you too. Neither of you understand all that’s at stake. I’ll explain soon. Now ... just go!”

Leesil still hesitated. He looked so worn and pale, even for his tanned complexion, that only anger and fear probably kept him on his feet. He finally turned away and shooed Wayfarer off around the partition. When Wynn turned back, she was caught by Chap’s glare.

I will be waiting.

Wynn cringed but nodded, and as Chap went off around the partition, she looked to Chane, who still held Ghassan at sword point.

“Back away,” she said.

He was a minor conjurer, self-taught in his living days, as well as anything else. Perhaps something in that had clued him in more quickly than anyone else. She should have listened to him sooner, but it didn’t matter now.

“Chane, please,” she added.

His jaw muscle clenched, but he stepped back. The tip of his sword was the last thing to withdraw out of the domin’s reach.

Ghassan turned slowly around, poised and composed, as if nothing had happened.

“I suggest you all get some rest,” he said.

With the rise of one dark eyebrow and a slight tilt of his head, he nodded once to her. Even that was not going to settle the worst of this as exhaustion took Wynn, but he was not wrong about most of them needing rest.

Eventually, and hopefully soon, Magiere would recover.

The next morning, Leesil opened his eyes to dim light. Lifting his head from where he lay on a bed beside Magiere, he looked out toward the main room and saw muted sunlight spilling across floor cushions outside the bedchamber’s entrance. After a moon in that black cell with only a candle, even that much light hurt his eyes. Squinting, he rolled his head to the side and faced a mass of black hair.

Magiere still slept with her back pressed against his chest beneath the light blanket over both of them. She was so quiet, like the long silences between screams when he hadn’t known where she was.

He almost pressed his face into the back of her neck to be certain she was really there. And then everything from the previous night came back.

Leesil remembered being roused by loud voices in the outer room. He’d wanted to go and quiet everyone before they woke Magiere or Wayfarer. As he’d rolled carefully out of bed, one oddity caught his eye.

Chap was gone from Wayfarer’s bed.

He’d rushed out to find everyone else arguing, and not long after that, everything had come apart. Later, once he’d put Wayfarer back in bed, Chap had sat on the floor between both beds and stared at the doorless entrance until Wynn finally came.

At least she’d been smart enough to come alone, though upon entering she’d flinched again when she looked at Chap. Whatever he’d said in her head must not have been kind or even grateful. Yes, Wynn and hers had gotten her friends out of prison, but what had she dragged all of them into?

Leesil had heard too much in that outer room amid the squabble and near bloodshed, and Osha had sided with that undead. By the time Wynn finished explaining all that had happened since her arrival in the city, Leesil had been even wearier than when he’d dragged Magiere into this place.

And now he didn’t want to think about any of it anymore.

Peeling the blanket aside, he forced himself up again, but then he sat on the bedside and hung his head, uncertain what to do.

“Are we still here and ... not there ?”

Those weak words in the room’s half-light wiped away all recollection as Leesil raised his head. Wayfarer and Chap were still sound asleep in the other bed, and he quickly turned the other way.

There was Magiere with her head upon the pillow. She’d rolled partway to look up at him through half-opened eyes. By her expression, she didn’t know how he could be there at all. Part of him felt that same doubt, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. When he sat back up, her pale face was still confused.

“Yes, we’re here ... not in the prison,” he assured quietly.

He was still weak, and more so with relief, at the sight of her beside him, of being able to hold her, touch her, protect her. Until she regained her strength, that was all that mattered.

“Rest,” he told her. “I’ll see what’s around for you to eat when you wake up again.”

Magiere latched a hand on his forearm so tightly that it hurt. He didn’t pull free of the pain. It was a relief she had even that much strength.

“I’ll be quick,” he whispered, “and Chap and Wayfarer are right over there.”

When he cocked his head toward the room’s far side, she rolled hers and saw the girl and the dog asleep on the other bed. Her grip slackened, but he still had to peel off her fingers and gently tuck her arm under the blanket.

“Go back to sleep,” he urged.

He waited until Magiere closed her eyes before he got up. As soon as he stepped out, he saw several changes.

On the sitting area’s nearside, someone was sleeping atop arranged floor cushions and stirred beneath a blanket. It was the one Wynn called “Ghassan,” the one everyone had turned on the night before. The partition was gone, folded up and leaning against the wall near the window. That gave him a clear line of sight to the entire room, though more likely it allowed the others to keep an eye on the domin.

Leesil headed around the sitting area, and there was Osha standing with his back to the front door.

Osha had his bow gripped in one hand even with his arms folded. His horselike face twitched around those big amber eyes of his. He bowed his head once, and Leesil nodded back.

Likely, Osha felt guilty over having left Wayfarer for Wynn. Good, he should, and Leesil wasn’t certain the girl should forgive him. When he turned toward the table, he paused.

In the far corner along the front wall sat Brot’an on the floor with his long legs folded and hands cupped together in his lap. Though his eyes were closed, his head was upright, as if anyone could sleep that way. And there was Wynn, sitting in the table’s far chair as she stared at a small smoked-glass cup encircled in her hands. The chair’s tall back made her look that much shorter.

The one person Leesil didn’t spot was Chane. He didn’t have time to really look, for Wynn raised her tired eyes, looking almost as worn as he felt.

“Did you sleep?” she asked.

He went over and dropped in the chair opposite her. “Some ... so now what?”

Wynn took a long, slow breath. “Magiere needs better food than what we have here, perhaps some warm broth or stew—you all do.”

So that was how it was? They’d just pretend last night never happened? But he agreed and was eager to do something—anything—after being so useless and helpless over the last moon. He knew no one should leave this strange hidden sanctuary unless necessary, but finding proper food for Magiere certainly qualified for that.

“I’ll put on a cloak and find a market,” he said.

“You will not.”

Brot’an’s voice didn’t startle Leesil at all, and he countered, “Don’t fake concern about us after what you—”

“The imperial guards are searching for you,” the aging assassin cut in, and his eyes opened slowly, one always caged in those four scars. “If you are recaptured, you place all of us at risk.”

Leesil leaned forward in his chair, about to get up.

“He’s right,” Wynn agreed. “Even cloaked, you could be spotted, arrested, and worse. I’m the smallest, and I’ve already been to the market without mishap. I’m less noticeable than you, and the imperial guards don’t know I exist.”