Brightly Woven(27)

“We’ve been searching all over for you!” he cried. “Going out of our minds with worry, running to the four corners of the world! I thought for sure our boy was going to break down in tears.”

“You mean he sobered up enough to care?” I mumbled. Owain’s large hand came up to stroke my hair.

“How could you doubt that?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice. “Poor sod’s probably torn up half the city by now.”

“And who is this?” Mr. Colar sounded hesitant.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” Owain said to him. “I think we’d best be going now. I hate to leave Vesta alone in this storm….”

I tried to give Mr. Colar the book I had in my hands, but he shook his head. “Please, I insist. It sounds as if you’ll need it.”

“I couldn’t—” I protested.

The old man merely smiled.

He really didn’t look much like my father at all, I decided.

Outside, the storm had faded into a gentle relief that I hadn’t felt since the day I left home. I held out my palm to catch a few scattered rain droplets. The streets may have been converted into rivers of white water, but watching them, I could see they were carrying the darkness and filth of the city down with them into the gutters.

“Looks like the rain’s letting up, lass,” noted Owain, squinting at the first tentative stars against the black sky. And I smiled, because it was.

Mrs. Pemberly greeted us at the door, fussing over my hair and dress.

“Found her!” Owain sang out.

“Oh, my darling!” Mrs. Pemberly ushered me closer to her fireplace. “Can I get you something? Hot cider? Tea? Are you hungry? I just pulled an apple pie from the oven….”

“I could use a little bit more water,” I said, trying for a joke. Owain chuckled. I glanced around the room, surprised to find the parlor empty.

“He’s upstairs,” Mrs. Pemberly said. “He got back a little before you, and I sent him to change into something dry.”

I didn’t think North would be wanting to see me anytime soon, but I began to climb the stairs anyway. I held the book against my side, glancing through the thin crack of Owain’s door. North sat on the bed with his back to me, his drenched cloaks still attached and his dark hair flattened against his head.

The door creaked as I pushed it open, but North didn’t turn around. I set the books down on the table and came to stand beside him. The wizard’s eyes were studying the abandoned loom, taking in the smooth rows of dark and light blue as he shuffled a red apple between his hands. I sat down next to him and forced myself to be still.

He nodded his head toward his old gray blanket, a short distance away on the floor, but I turned my face away from it. North’s hands stopped moving, and he lifted the shiny apple toward me. I hesitated a moment before closing my hand over it. I took the apple, but only—only—because I was hungry.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that North was still watching me, but whenever I turned, he would quickly look up to the ceiling. Still, I felt as if for the first time, he was really seeing me. He could see what his words had wrought, that I could and would leave if he pressed me too hard. And I think I saw remorse in the darkness of his eyes, but mainly I saw unmatched misery. I saw what I had done to him.

In the end, we didn’t need to apologize. We understood.

CHAPTER FIVE

A day later, we were still at Mrs. Pemberly’s, arguing over our next move.

“It makes more sense if we follow this road up to Andover and cut across the plains to Scottsby,” I said, for what had to be the hundredth time. It was the route Henry usually took, and I certainly trusted his sense of direction more than North’s. Yet even with the map smoothed out before them, the two men refused to listen. I was beginning to think I was going to have to knock their heads in and drag them to Provincia myself.

“Wiltfordshire Road runs right from Fairwell to Scottsby, straight as an arrow,” Owain protested.

“But you’ll have to cut around the lakes, and that’ll take you—”

“Going to Andover first would be better,” North cut me off as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “You and I can handle Wiltfordshire, but it wouldn’t be safe for Syd.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why, because I’m a girl? If that’s the case, we’d better stay off all the main roads. There are hundreds of men heading up to the capital, and they’re on every one of them.”

North shook his head. “You may know the names of the roads and where they lead, but you don’t know the kind of people that travel on them. Owain and I will sort this out. Go sit down and weave.”

“That’s rich coming from the wizard who can’t tell east from west, let alone up from down,” I snapped. “We’ll go to Andover, but when it takes us a week and a half to get there, don’t cry to me about it.”

Owain was the one to break the tense silence that followed. “Going to Andover first, eh? I’ve never taken that route before, but I wouldn’t mind trying something new. Never fear the unknown, Mother Bess always says.”

We both turned to look at the fuming wizard.

“Fine,” North said at last. “If we don’t follow her, who knows what kind of trouble she’ll get herself into.”