The Iron Butterfly (Iron Butterfly #1)(26)

“NO! She balked, “my father is really old. He is thirty five winters!”

“Well, I am thirty eight winters. So therefore I am older than your father and must be considered ancient, and by that note I am halfway to the grave already,” he chuckled.

“Avina! Let it go.” I smiled as I saw her brain working on a comeback to bring her out of the hole she kept digging herself into.

“Adept Cirrus, thank you for handling the vendor and paying for the fruit, but I really don’t think we can accept this.” I held the gold coin back to him feeling the weight of it in my hand along with a feeling of guilt.

“Nonsense, Thalia,” he interjected. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when the Adepts first met with you and this is my own way of apologizing that you have to work as a servant at the Citadel. It’s not the future I would have chosen for you.”

He curled my fingers around the gold coin in my hand, the feel of it burning in implications. “It’s guilt money, plain and simple. Mostly because of our lack of results in resolving this horrible conflict with the Septori. We are trying, believe me, we just aren’t getting very far.”

“You know that isn’t necessary.” I held the coin back up to him, feeling that if I took it I would somehow be indebted to him. And I did not want the feeling of being indebted to anyone; it caused a sense of helplessness. Similar to how I feel toward Joss and Darren, as though I owed them for saving my life. Cirrus stepped back away from my hand, tipped his head in farewell and disappeared into the crowd of people.

“I didn’t thank Cirrus for his gift,” Avina said, sticking her small bottom lip out pretending to look hurt. But recovering in record time, she grabbed my arm and pulled me down the street toward more shops. “Come on, I want you to meet Pim.” Racing down the street, she dragged me through numerous twists and turns until we ended up in a dead end alley where we found Pim playing a game with wooden sticks and stones.

Pim turned out to be a young boy of about eight or nine years, wearing brown britches that were too big for him and had been rolled up at the hems in an effort to fit him better. His blue shirt and yellow vest was speckled with colorful patches, and his bare feet were covered in calluses and dirt.

But despite his appearance and obvious lack of wealth it didn’t affect his demeanor; for this young boy’s smile was contagious. Avina handed him a pastry that she had saved from earlier for him and promptly plopped herself down on a wooden crate.

“Sorry it’s all squished,” she grimaced. “I had an incident earlier today.”

“Mmfffittsss fokay,” he said through a mouth full of food. When he had swallowed his mouthful, he carefully split his pastry in two and set it aside to save it. Looking at me wearily he asked, “So, who’s your friend?”

“Pim this is Thalia, Thalia – Pim,” she said making the introductions while perched on her crate, legs swinging in contentment. Looking around she asked, “Where’s Jury?”

“Right HEEERRRREEE!” someone shouted, and I heard a small giggle as a little tow headed girl dropped down from what appeared to be an attic door in a side building of the alley to land in a wheelbarrow of straw. The crates we were sitting on were stacked so they could easily access the door and pull it closed behind them.

Rolling out of the straw, Jury was a little thing wearing a dress in about the same shape as Pim’s clothes. With pieces of straw sticking out of her hair and clothes every which way, she resembled a moving scarecrow as she ran over and grabbed the other half of Pim’s pastry; eating it in two bites.

“Do you live here?” I asked in the kindest way I could.

“Yeah,” Pim stated nonchalantly. “It beats being put in a workhouse or orphanage. There would be a good chance Jury and I would be split up if we went there.” So that explained it; they were orphans.

Avina leaned over to me and whispered, “Jury is a Denai and neither one wants to be separated from each other yet. So no matter what I do, I can’t convince either one to come back with me to the Citadel.”

I didn’t want to ask them how they survived, because it would seem like I didn’t think they could, so I asked something less intrusive. “So how do you get along out here?”

“Oh, Pim works odd jobs doing deliveries,” Jury piped up.

I was just about to ask more questions when I heard a low growl from behind us. Looking over my shoulder I froze in mid-sentence as five of the largest dogs I have ever seen approached us, teeth baring. Each dog looked like it outweighed me by at least 50 pounds and blocked the exit out of the alley.

Never in my life had I seen a mixed breed like these; they were size of a Dane, the build of a Doberman and the jaw of a Bulldog. I moved across the alley to stand in front of Pim and Jury protectively. The dogs growled threateningly at my movement, the biggest one moved away from the pack and shadowed my movements.

“Avina! I whispered urgently. “Get them up the crates and into the attic, NOW!”

As soon as she moved to help Jury climb, the dogs charged. I grabbed a broken piece of crate, the splinters digging in my palms and swung at the lead dog as it leaped for Jury’s leg hitting him squarely on the nose.

Yelping, the dog backed off and pawed his nose before turning on me again, an angry red gleam in its eye. The other dogs began to try and climb the crates after Avina and Jury.