The Last Orellen

Yarda, who had never once given Kalen an order or even an instruction couched as anything but a polite request, was suddenly a big believer in rule-making. She had raised a son of her own to adulthood. It turned out she had only shelved the knack for bossing children around; she hadn’t left it behind entirely.

Kalen found his freedom seriously curtailed. There were now half a dozen things he would do every day and just as many that he would not. He would spend hours every day at the church for volunteer work. He would not go to the bookstore again. He would practice his new, more powerful spells only out of sight in their room. He would not go around sticking his spying board in interesting places where it might be discovered or remarked upon.

He could not go to the graveyard and cast. He could go to the ocean and meditate if he could stand the icy water.

Yarda had no real power to enforce these rules. She was laid up in bed most of the time, with every trip to even the inn’s common room hard-earned and exhausting for her. Yet Kalen followed every one of them no matter how they annoyed him.

It must be some mysterious talent mothers have, he thought while he crouched in the floor of the chapel, running an oiled cloth over the legs of a pew. I know I don’t have to do this, but I’ll feel like I deserve the worst of the hells if I don’t.

At least the junior priestess who’d helped with the choir was happy. Nerth was a good singer. He had hair like Clywing. He was a hard worker compared even to the other adult volunteers.

Kalen was afraid it was only a matter of time before he was pushed toward holy vows.

Clywing wasn’t the worst god to serve. She was associated with fertility, springtime, and life. And it was hard to argue against any of those things. But from what Kalen had seen, being a priest involved a lot of putting up with other people. Somebody always seemed to be asking them for miracles or money, and in turn, they always seemed to be asking people for good behavior or money.

It was clearly a troublesome life.

Kalen finished up his current pew and moved on to the next in the row. At least the work didn’t require thought. Kalen could give just the smallest part of his attention to the task while he devoted the rest of it to practicing his internal pattern formation. Merely pulling his pathways into the right shape wasn’t spell casting. As long as he didn’t flood them with magic and push it through, he wasn’t going against the rules.

It’s almost as good as regular practice, he told himself.

Pathway manipulation was the thing he struggled with. It was what he needed to practice the most. It was just so very unrewarding to do it without actually obtaining the magical result that was the usual end reward.

At least I’m getting a little faster at some of them. Ears of the East, Magnify Breath, Startled Bird… of course it would be best if he could shave whole minutes off his casting time, but he would take the seconds he was gaining instead. And the certainty. Building the spying spell and the combat spell in particular was becoming second nature.

Kalen was still slow but he didn’t feel so much like he was doing hard work.

Occasionally he tried to pull together Casting Pearls, but that one still eluded him. He had a tendency to stop polishing the benches and just stare off into space while he built it.

I was so proud telling Lily Acress I was going to finish mastering the book by midwinter. But there are still so many left to learn.

Just as well since he wasn’t allowed to go shopping there again. Not that he was sure he’d have the courage to do it no matter how tempting their wares.

The loud creak of a hinge echoed through the empty chapel, and Kalen’s thoughts as well as the pathway pattern he’d been constructing fell apart. He looked up to see a young man in the the drab, scratchy robes of a priest-hopeful walking through the chapel.

Oh. It’s him.

Kalen didn’t know his name, but he’d seen a lot of him over the last few days. It was odd. The man, who might have been young enough still to be called a boy, had never walked through the chapel once during the weeks of choir practices.

Now he did it all the time.

And he never did any work as far as Kalen could tell. Nor did he offer to help Kalen with his, though he often glanced over as if to check that the new volunteer was doing his job properly.

Go away, you walking priest. It’s distracting to have you around.

“Walking priest” was how Kalen had been thinking of him, since periodically walking through spaces appeared to be his only purpose as a servant of the church.

Today, he looked at Kalen three times on his way through the chapel, smiled briefly when their eyes met, and then disappeared.

He’s strange, Kalen thought as he returned to oiling the pew. He’s a strange walking priest. He needs someone like Yarda to give him some rules so that he actually has to do something useful with his days.

#

When Kalen left the church that afternoon, it was cold enough outside to make him rub his arms as he headed down the now-familiar streets toward the inn. I should open the good clothes at last.

At this point, he had to admit to himself that he was only delaying because once he did it he could never do it again. He would not be receiving another parcel from home, filled with things made especially for him by his mother and Aunt Jayne. They had taken on an entirely ridiculous amount of meaning in his mind. It was as if…so long as they remained unopened, Kalen still had an untainted piece of home with him.

“That’s just me being silly,” he muttered to himself as the soles of his shoes clacked against the cobblestones. “There’s no reason for it. At this rate, I’m going to grow right out of them before I ever open them.”

He was twelve now. Lander had had a big growth spurt when he turned twelve. One that felt like it had lasted for two years straight. Kalen’s turn had to be coming at some point.

Raised voices pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked up in confusion. He couldn’t see any problem on this street. The shouting seemed to originate from up ahead and to the left, where a main thoroughfare called Port Lane connected to the Street of Churches. He approached slowly and peered around the corner of a building with boarded-up windows.

A wagon had stopped in the middle of the street. The breath of the horses was steaming in the cold air, and a woman sitting in the front was wiping something from her face and the shoulder of her cloak. The man who’d been driving had leaped from his post, and he stood red-cheeked and shouting at another man who stood glaring at the wagon like it had done him harm.

“It’s fine, Yew! It’s fine!” the woman in the wagon called, still trying to comb whatever it was out of her long dark hair. “Let’s just get back to the store.”

“Filthy bastard!” shouted Yew. “I ought to—”

“What ought you to do?” the bigger man said in a deep rumble of a voice. He threw out his chest. “Practitioners strut around expecting decent folk to be scared of them.”

He spat in the street, so close to Yew’s shoe that missing was probably an accident.

“Well, I’ve never seen an Acress start a fight. Much less win one.”

Kalen’s breath was stuck in his lungs. The wagon said Barley & Daughters in gold lettering on the side. The woman in the seat, struggling to clean what he thought might be fresh horse shit from herself, was Lily Acress’s more mild-mannered sister. Moss. The man was her husband.

Kalen clung to the brickwork with both hands, staring. A crowd was gathering. A few people were nodding in agreement.

“How dare—?!”

“Asslickers are trying to sell Circon to the Leflayn’s!” someone cried.

“How much money did you get for ruining the harvest?!”

“Please everyone calm down!” Moss called frantically from the wagon seat. “Yew, get back here!”

“We didn’t ruin anything!” her husband shouted. “Sometimes crops have bad years. And my wife and I work in a bookshop. We aren’t even at the Enclave often. This is—”

The big man punched him in the jaw. Yew stumbled back, spitting blood.

Moss cried out, her dirty hands going to her face. Her eyes were wide and frightened.

Kalen stood there, too petrified to run away. He tried to unravel what was happening even as the big man who seemed to have started the fight stomped toward Yew Acress and drew back his fist again. He struck him before Yew could raise his own fists in defense, and the practitioner fell to ground, spitting more blood, a dazed look replacing the fury on his face.

An instant later, the big man’s clothes caught fire.

Kalen’s own cry of surprise was lost among everyone else’s shouts and screams. The man was bellowing, flailing at himself with both arms. But the fire had started at the back of his heavy shirt. It was still blazing, wicking up toward his face. His hair was alight. He made a horrible high sound.

Someone called for water, several people fled, and Moss Acress, her face pale as paper, dropped the hands she’d used to direct her spell and leaped down from the wagon. She ran toward her fallen husband and dragged him upright.

“Onto the wagon! Onto the wagon! We have to go.”

“Fire magic! They’re using fire magic against us!” a woman shouted. “That’s proof that they’re in league with those murderers to the south.”

The screams were getting worse.

Kalen’s ears were filled with half-understood cries of anger, fear, and accusation.

Murdererstraitorscowardstheives.

“Calm down everyone. Calm yourselves!” one of the shop keeps was shouting hysterically, while people dashed away from the burning man or toward him.

Moss shoved her husband toward the wagon. She threw herself into the seat.

What is this? Kalen thought. What’s happening here? What am I supposed to do?

Something struck Moss. Blood blossomed against her temple, and she cried out, clutching her face.

“We need to leave,” someone hissed right in Kalen’s ear. His body unfreezing in an instant, he spun around to see the walking priest in his dull gray robes standing right there.

“What are you—?”

The young man grabbed Kalen by the hand. “It’s not safe here,” he said in a quick whisper, hurrying away from the scene and dragging Kalen along after him. He pulled him down a nearby alleyway and into the shadows at the back then stopped. He looked almost as pale as Moss had after casting his spell.

“Let go of me,” said Kalen, yanking his hand free and stumbling back into a wall. “I can take care of myself.”

“You were just standing around gawking at a fight!” the priest hopeful said in an exasperated voice. “Don’t do that. Especially not one with practitioners involved.”

“What business is it of yours?”

“We’ll head back to the church for now,” he said, ignoring the question. “As soon as things quiet down out there, I’ll walk you to your inn. It’s the best thing to—”

A horse screamed.

Heart pounding, Kalen looked behind them to the alley’s entrance. A man dashed by, a young girl held in his arms and older boy running after him. The Barley & Daughters wagon wasn’t appearing. The Street of Churches was how you got to the bookshop from here. The wagon should come charging down it any second.

His companion was staring right along with him.

Maybe now wasn’t the best time to argue with this person. Going back to the church sounded like a good idea.

“Should we run there now?”

“Running makes you look suspicious,” the young man said automatically.

Kalen raised his eyebrows at the fellow. “Lots of other people are running,” he pointed out. “Or at least hurrying. Someone just…a man just got beaten up. And someone else got burned. And the horse…”

“Oh. Right. That’s true.”

Maybe he’s dim, thought Kalen. And that’s why they just let him wander around staring at people.

The dim person cleared his throat. “Let’s hurry, then. Together. Stay close to me.”

They scurried out of the alley and down the street; Kalen ran to keep up with the young man’s longer strides. When they reached the churches, Kalen was surprised that they didn’t go in through the main door but around back to a small one he’d never used before. It opened into a narrow cubby of a room that had no clear purpose and from there into a small hallway that passed by a steep, ancient-looking staircase.

“What’s up there?” Kalen asked as they headed down the hall.

“The attic. If you just keep climbing and searching through corridors. It’s like a maze.”

“What’s a maze?”

“You’ve never heard of one?” he asked in a surprised tone. “I just mean it’s hard to find your way around upstairs. A maze is a puzzle that you can walk through. They’re built of plants or stones or dirt paths, and you try to navigate your way to the center and back out again.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It is. I haven’t seen one in…several years. But I used to like them.” He opened another door, and Kalen saw the chapel just beyond it.

This is the door he usually comes in through when he walks past me.

The chapel, which had been empty when Kalen left it behind a short while ago, was now home to around two dozen anxious people who were gathered around one of the priests. Kalen assumed they had run here to seek refuge from what was happening nearby, too.

To his surprise, his companion took one look at the people and shut the door firmly.

“We’ll just wait here in the hall,” he said, when Kalen opened his mouth to ask what that was all about.

“Shouldn’t you go in there, though?”

“Why would I do that?”

“To help the senior priest. And comfort Clywing’s children in their time of need.”

A baffled look appeared on the young man’s face, and Kalen sighed.

“You should go help because you’re in training to be a priest,” he said slowly. “They’ll all think badly of you if you don’t help sometimes. You can’t just wander around watching everyone else work. You’ll be fired. And left to starve out in the street. They let that happen to people in this city. It’s very strange, but it’s the way things are.”

“In training to be a priest.” He looked down at his robes, and his cheeks turned rosy pink. “Yes. I am. I am a priest aspirant. But I’m ministering to you right now. So, it’s best if I don’t leave you alone.”

“I’m fine.”

“No. No I’m quite sure you must be very scared after what you just saw, so…”

Kalen drew in a breath. His heart was still beating fast. His palms were sweaty.

“Moss Acress just set that man on fire.”

“I saw that,” he said. His eyes widened in alarm. “You know her?”

“I’ve met her. At the bookshop her family runs.”

“You shouldn’t go to an Acress bookshop!”

Oh, so he’s a priest of Clywing when it comes to this at least.

“Well, I went there before I joined the church choir,” said Kalen. “I don’t go there anymore.”

He held up his wrist to show off his symbol of devotion. The silver paint was starting to chip off of the wooden charm.

“Stay away from the Acresses.”

“I just said I was.”

“It’s important.”

Kalen frowned. “You’re not going to throw me out of the church or something, are you? The junior priestess likes me so I don’t think you can.”

“No, Nerth. I’m not going to throw you out of the church. You should spend lots of time here. You do great work. With the benches.”

“Thank you,” Kalen said. “You know my name?”

“Um…well, you were in the choir. And you volunteer here. So of course I do.”

Kalen blinked at him expectantly, and the priest aspirant finally said in a strangely grudging tone, “My name’s Matthew.”

Matthew was a fine name. Kalen didn’t know why the fellow seemed so reluctant to share it.

“Matthew, do you think that man is going to be all right?”

“What man?”

Kalen felt his brows draw together. “The man who got set on fire.”

“Oh. I doubt he’ll die. People were running to help him. I don’t think he’ll be all right though. And if…if there’s not some reaction from the Acresses over this I’d be surprised. I heard those people shouting that they weren’t part of the Enclave, but that’s not how it works with practitioners. If they have the last name, then they’re family members.”

“They’re members in good standing. They told me so.”

Matthew sighed. “You really can’t be around them. Promise me?”

“I promise not to go near them.”

Easy to give promises when you already planned to keep them.

“Anyway, this city is one small disaster away from cracking in half. From what I hear. Hopefully this little incident won’t be enough but…” Matthew trailed off. “Do you want food?”

“Yes,” Kalen said immediately.

Free food was the best part of volunteering.

“There’s fruit-and-brandy cake,” said Matthew. “I know where they keep it.”

#

Matthew was generous with the contents of the church’s small kitchen. It improved Kalen’s opinion of him dramatically, but it also made him worried that the priest aspirant would be thrown out on the street far sooner than he’d feared.

That didn’t stop Kalen from eating three slices of cake and wrapping up a large hunk to take back to Yarda before they left.

Matthew disappeared upstairs to talk to someone while Kalen polished off a cup of warm milk, and when he came back, he said, “It’s all supposed to be calm outside right now. Let’s get you back home.”

“I can go myself,” said Kalen. “I do it every single day.”

Matthew insisted that he should travel with an adult. Kalen gave him a pitying look but refrained from telling him that he had been mentally downgraded from man to boy after Kalen had watched him pick perfectly decent fruit from his own piece of cake and toss it into the hearth fire because he thought the texture was slightly off.

They headed back toward the inn. Because of his longer legs, Matthew ended up out in front for most of the trip. Most of Kalen’s attention was on their surroundings. The dark city was quiet in a way that felt unnatural.

Can a place hold its breath?

It felt like Granslip Port was.

The sensation made him nervous and jumpy, so it took him a while to notice the other anomaly. They were nearly back to the inn by the time he did. Kalen stared silently at the older boy’s back as he led the way, and he swallowed around a sudden dryness in his mouth as they approached the front porch of the small two-story building.

“Keep inside tonight,” Matthew said quietly. “And if the city isn’t peaceful tomorrow, you should just skip volunteering and stay here.”

“I-I will.”

Matthew smiled at him. “Goodnight, Nerth.”

“Goodnight.”

Kalen watched him leave. The moon was bright tonight, and he could see the priest aspirant’s retreating figure for a long time. Kalen’s mind raced through every interaction he’d ever had with people at the Church of Clywing.

Never once, he thought with certainty and unease. Never once have I told anyone at the church where I’m staying. An inn, I might have said. But never this inn.

Nerth from Tiriswaith did not live at this inn. Kalen had made it a rule for himself on his very first day in the city.

Here he was Kalen. So Nerth never mentioned it.

The only flaw in the whole of this Nerth/Kalen business he’d started was the fact that he had to check for mail under his real name, since Zevnie and Arlade wouldn’t be sending it to a person they’d never heard of.

He’s been following me.

Matthew had been right there during the incident between the Acresses and the man who’d started the fight with them. He’d been right behind Kalen when he should have been all the way back at the church, wandering around and doing nothing, like usual.

He’s following me. He knows something. I should run.

The last thought sent a flood of panic through him. But it didn’t spur him into action. He couldn’t run. To run, he’d have to leave Yarda. She couldn’t travel. She wasn’t getting better.

To run, he’d have to have a destination in mind. And a means of getting there.

North and east was not a destination. It was just a direction that might be a little safer.

What does he know? What does he want?

Did people who meant you harm try to pull you away from danger? Did they feed you cake?

Kalen didn’t understand. There were so many things here he didn’t understand.

He forced his feet up the porch step. He forced a smile onto his face.

He hurried to the room he shared with Yarda.

“Are you awake?” he whispered as he opened the door. “I brought you cake.”

The floor was a wreck of chalk dust from old circles and runes from new ones. Often at night Kalen couldn’t sleep because he found himself listening to Yarda’s every breath. Wondering. Waiting. Willing them to continue when it seemed there was too long a pause between them.

He stayed up heating the room through the circles when that happened.

He’d brought a pair of doctors to see her since her last visit to the Enclave. Both of them were honest enough to say they could do nothing. The next compassion day at the Enclave was coming up.

Kalen wanted Yarda to go back because what other choice did she have? But she seemed hesitant.

“Yarda?”

“Cake sounds good,” she said in a sleepy voice.

Kalen held back a sigh of relief as she stirred under her blankets.

“Did you stay safe at the church?”

“I did.”

“Mmmm…mayhap you’re a little late tonight?”

“I was talking to one of the priests. That’s how I got the cake.”

Why bring new fears into a room already full of them?

That night, Kalen slept fitfully. Toward dawn, lying on his own blankets in the floor, he woke with the edges of a dream trying to slip beyond his reach. It felt important, so he held onto it, trying to claw it back.

There was grass, taller than his head. Green and brown and golden yellow. Hands against his cheeks. A voice cajoling him, Can you say it? Come on.

Oh, it’s just that old thing. Tomas.

The memory. The very first one. How strange to dream of it here and now when he hadn’t in so long.

Old memories were hard. He knew the facts from them, but he couldn’t see them the way he could newer ones. He wondered if it was the same for everyone, or if it was because he’d spent years trying to forget.

His first memory was just snatches of images and feelings, combined with the facts.

Tomas’s shirt had been sky blue; Kalen knew that though he couldn’t see it in his mind’s eye anymore. The tall grass was always clear, though. The warmth of the other boy’s hands on his cheeks was, too.

He remembered that the chocolates had been wonderful, but he didn’t recall what they’d tasted like.

He could still feel the weight of the coin as the boy gave it to him to hold. He could feel the tug of his tunic against his nose as Tomas pulled it off him and then painstakingly stitched a pocket to the inside of it while Kalen watched.

There had been some bragging about the fact that he could sew, if Kalen’s memory was right. Someone had tried to teach him and his sister—her name had been lost to Kalen years ago—but only Tomas had learned.

He could remember swearing never to tell. Never to talk. Never to breathe a word about the secret name.

Tomas was nine years old. It had been brought up several times. As a nine year old Tomas was much wiser than Kalen, and therefore he was the one in charge of their relationship.

Kalen snorted so hard at the memory that chalk dust blew across the floor. I’d forgotten that bit I think…Lander has always really enjoyed being older than me, too.

He couldn’t remember the Orellen boy’s face. He regretted that. When he tried, it blended with his cousins’ faces. It was just a face. No clear features. Kalen remembered him smiling a lot, but he couldn’t see the smile.

Well, even if I could remember it’s not like I could pick him out of a crowd. He’d be a man now. He’d look completely different.

He’d be…eighteen maybe? Seventeen?

He probably lived somewhere fancy with the special Orellen prophecy child. And the other real children of Iven Orellen.

Or maybe not somewhere fancy. Do they make the future magus live somewhere sneaky, too? Like the Orellens the church protects?

He pulled his blanket up higher around his chin and closed his eyes. Yarda was breathing easily. Maybe a little more sleep could be his.

They’re probably up there in that attic. Those Orellens. They’re probably living in that place Matthew said was like a maze.

Matthew…he’s been following me. Why would he follow me?

Kalen frowned. Why would anyone be interested in Nerth from Tiriswaith if they didn’t mean him harm? Nobody in this city was interested in anybody else. Not really.

He and Yarda had talked about what a good thing that was.

Kalen’s eyes snapped open and he sat straight up. What if Matthew is one of them?

The church was protecting them, supposedly. Four portalists who had to be on the premises somewhere since they were still sending mail for a hefty fee.

One of them wouldn’t want to hurt me. Probably. But why would they follow me?

More importantly how would they recognize him? He hadn’t seen that many people on the day they dropped him in the ocean. The other children. The adults in the room they sent him away from. He couldn’t remember faces, but those people had been old. He remembered thinking they looked old.

And the children—some of them could be the right age, but they wouldn’t just remember Kalen, would they? He certainly wouldn’t remember a single one of them.

But Tomas might know. Tomas would be the right age. Tomas might recognize me.

And even if he didn’t…he would remember the name.

The more he thought about it and pieced it all together, the more certain Kalen became that he was right.

But he didn’t have the faintest clue what to do about it.

#

He spent the entire day with Yarda again. When she fretted over him losing his volunteer position, he told her that he wouldn’t. “One of the priests told me to stay in today anyway. In case the bit of trouble from yesterday made problems.”

“The bit of trouble” was what the innkeeper couple were calling it when they spoke of it to folk in the common area. Kalen didn’t tell his cousin that he’d been there to see it happen, though he did share the gossip with her.

Yarda usually loved gossip. She loved hearing about people—their good news, their foibles, their problems. But this gossip was too dark and too close to home, and she only looked worried about it.

In an effort to make it seem less serious, Kalen said, “Moss Acress wasn’t casting some special Leflayn fire spell like people are saying. Magic isn’t like that. Any practitioner can cast a fire spell. Fire practitioners are just a lot better at it. Like me…my wind spells feel different. More natural and like they belong to me. The magic flows easier. It’s probably why I can cast ones that really ought to be too difficult for me. The fire spells I can cast are very, very simple ones.”

“Wind seems to me a much nicer magic,” said Yarda.

“I think so too.”

Kalen had neglected to mention that at least one of his spells seemed to be designed to seriously hurt people. Yarda knew he’d blown up the woods. She could bring it up herself if she wanted to.

“Do you want to have lunch in bed? I could bring you stew.”

Yarda shook her head. “I’m not all that hungry. You go eat and come back.”

Kalen stood up from his chair. “This afternoon I’ll book a carriage for you to go to the Enclave for compassion days?” he suggested hopefully.

She made a noncommital sound.

He took a deep breath. “We’ve only got a day to decide, and then it will be another two whole weeks…”

Yarda shook her head.

The fire was blazing too hot in the main room, so Kalen had his bowl of beef stew—which didn’t have a single piece of meat in it today—out on the porch. He stared out at the city. People were hurrying more than usual. Everyone seemed to be eager to get where they were going.

Maybe they were only trying to escape from the cold. The first snow of the year had begun to fall. It was so much later here than it would have been at home.

Tomas Orellen is in this city.

Kalen had been thinking it all throughout the day.

Tomas Orellen is right here. Just a short walk away.

They had eaten cake together. Tomas knew who he was. Tomas…seemed to want him to be safe.

I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

He scraped his bowl clean and returned it. When he got back to the room, he was surprised to see Yarda was still awake. She was usually napping by this time of day, but she was sitting up in bed looking at…Swift Wind Magery.

“Um…do you want me to read it to you?”

It would be boring for her, surely. But he didn’t mind.

“No, no,” she said with that familiar smile. “Wizarn things aren’t for me. But I did want to see what you spend so much of your time staring at. It looks like a whole lot of complicated.”

“It is,” Kalen admitted. “Because it’s a—” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s a mage book. Because you said I should try the more difficult thing before I gave up, and you were right.”

“Ha!” said Yarda. “I did tell you that, didn’t I?”

She set the book aside.

“It’s my turn to tell you a story,” she said. “One that I’m sorry to share because it is an ugly story from a long time ago. And I very much wish to forget it.”

“What is it?” he asked in concern.

“Pour me a cup of water,” she said. “I will tell it quick and get it over with.”

Kalen went over to the pitcher, and before his fingers had even fallen on the handle, she’d started speaking.

“When I was a much younger woman,” she said, “just barely considered grown, there was another girl my age who was wrong in her head or her heart or both. We all knew it about her, for we’d grown up with her, and she was terribly cruel from the time she was around your own age.”

Kalen poured the water. He couldn’t imagine where this story was going.

“That woman had a sister, and when the sister had her first child, the cruel one was always watching the baby. The same way she watched everyone and everything she tried to hurt.”

Kalen handed her the cup with wide eyes.

“One day, when I and some of the new mother’s friends were over visiting, the baby wouldn’t stop crying. His aunt was holding him, and one of the ladies suddenly snatched him away from her. She had been pinching the poor child’s arm, and it was swollen with bloody marks on it from where her nails had dug in.”

“That’s horrible!” Kalen said. “Why would anyone—!?”

“‘It’s not like I killed it yet,’ she said when we all started yelling at her. ‘It’s not like I killed it yet.’” Yarda took a sip of water. “And that night, the baby’s mother smothered her sister to death in her sleep.”

Kalen stared.

“Well…it wasn’t a thing anyone could say for sure. So we all pretended it hadn’t happened. But years later, she brought her son over to play in the garden with my own little boy, and she said to me, ‘Do you think I’m a bad person for doing it?’ And I knew exactly what she meant.”

“What did you say?” Kalen breathed.

“I think I said something quite cowardly, like, ‘Let’s talk about something else.’”

Yarda looked at him. “She told me, ‘Maybe I am wrong. But when someone tells you plainly that they mean to hurt you, and they show you that they are willing to hurt you, how can anyone rightly ask you to let them go just a little bit farther?”

“Yarda, why…why are you telling me this story?”

This was a terrible story. In so many ways. The poor baby. The poor mother. The dead sister. He had no idea what to make of it.

“Oh, it’s dark. It’s a dark tale. I know. I’m sorry for it. But after what you said to me this morning, I felt like I should tell it to you.”

“Which thing I said?” Kalen asked in alarm.

“That awful fight in the street that everyone is talking about. You said you did not know who was in the right and who was in the wrong, and you sounded upset about that.”

He was upset about it. But he’d thought he’d been doing a good job of hiding it. “I don’t like it. The Acresses are…they’re bad. But I don’t know if all of them are. And that man was beating Moss’s husband. But she set him on fire. And—”

“I don’t rightly know myself. It seems to me everyone was wrong in some way or another. That problem isn’t one you and I have to figure out,” Yarda said. “But I wanted you to know that I have rethought matters since I was young. And I am not as afraid to agree with that woman now as I was then.”

“The baby’s mother?”

Yarda nodded. “If someone tells you they mean to hurt you, and they’ve shown you they mean to do it, too…well, I don’t think you should let them. If you can run, you should run. And if you can’t run, you should be clever and…and keep yourself safe in anyway that you can.”

“Are you telling me to use my magic like Moss did,” Kalen whispered.

Yarda fell quiet. “I’m telling you that if you ever think you have to do it, then you shouldn’t let the good rules we have for friendly wrestling matches on Hemarland hold you back.”

“I’ve never won one,” said Kalen.

“A wrestling match?”

“Not a fair one against anyone of my own age.”

Yarda chuckled.

“Caris threw me down behind the woodpile once because I hadn’t finished my chores for a couple of days.”

Yarda shook her head.

“I also don’t think I can win a…a wizarn fight. I’m very, very slow.”

Moss Acress could have set him on fire ten times before he could cast Startled Bird. And she didn’t seem to be a very impressive magician.

“You’re smart,” said Yarda. “Smart is as good as strong or fast.”

Kalen gave her a skeptical look.

“You’ll see when you’re older.”

“I’m strong too,” he whispered, just so that she wouldn’t worry too much. “It’s only the slowness that’s the problem.”

Well, that and the fact that he only knew a handful of spells.

She passed him the water cup.

They talked about home. He wrote a letter, the fifth since the solstice, to her son and daughter-in-law. He added it to the stack.

By morning, the ground was covered in snow.