The Poison Season(45)

He barked a laugh, some of the tension leaving his body. “I’m glad you think so. Is everything all right?”

“I came straight from duty. I can’t stay long. Sage thinks I went to visit a friend, but I don’t like lying to her.”

“I understand.”

“How is your leg feeling?” she asked as she scooted inside the cottage next to him. “Better?”

“I can feel it, which is a vast improvement. Thank you again, for helping me.” He’d thanked her a hundred times already, but he figured she’d be less likely to kill him if he was gracious. He still remembered the way she’d kept her blade close the last time she visited and how it had sliced through his flesh like butter in his dream. Fortunately, her hands were otherwise engaged at the moment, as she rummaged through her pack.

She pulled a full waterskin and some more food out and gave them to him. “I’ll take the empty waterskins and fill them before I go.”

“Is there a water source close to here?” Jaren couldn’t rely solely on Leelo, and having access to water would be reassuring.

She nodded. “There are spring-fed pools nearby.”

“So the poison in the lake doesn’t get into your drinking water?”

Leelo’s eyes flicked up to his. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Right. Or you’d all be dead,” he said, then immediately regretted it. “Any luck on finding the boat?”

She shook her head. “No. The day after tomorrow is my day off. I’ll be able to search then.”

Jaren drummed his fingers on the floor. He knew he couldn’t offer to help. He doubted he could keep up, and there was too much of a risk of his being seen. But he also didn’t just want to sit in this hut for days, doing nothing.

“This might be a strange question, but do you think you could teach me how to read music?” he asked.

Leelo blinked, clearly caught off guard by the request. “Why would you want to do that?”

He fished the little songbook out of the pile and handed it to her. “I found this. I’d like to learn the songs. Just as a way to pass the time.”

She snatched the book out of his hands as if he’d stolen it. “You shouldn’t have this.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He watched in dismay as she tucked it into her satchel. “This is an Endlan songbook. It’s not for outsiders.”

Leelo was clearly angry. She was looking at Jaren the way she had when they first met: with suspicion. “I’m not from Bricklebury,” he said, desperate for a change in subject.

“So?”

“So, I mean, yes. I am an outsider. But I’m an outsider to Bricklebury, too. I don’t know a lot about Endla.”

“You know about our music, though. You know how dangerous it can be. Why would you want to read it?”

He realized now that saying he wanted to simply as a way to pass the time was insulting and ignorant. And he knew deep down there was more to it than that. Endla was a mystery, and his involuntary reaction to it, even more so. And while he had tacitly accepted that there was “magic” in the world, all that word meant to Jaren was something people didn’t understand yet. But perhaps there was a way to understand it. Everything had an explanation, in the end.

“Curiosity, I suppose,” he said finally. “To be honest, I’ve never been much of a singer.”

She arched a pale brow. “Much?”

He grimaced. “Okay, I’ve never sung anything before.”

“Never?” she asked, the other eyebrow joining the first.

He shook his head. “Not really. The occasional folk tune, I guess. My mother was the musical one in the family, and even that’s a bit of a stretch. She would sing to us at bedtime or while she was working. But we’ve never had an instrument.”

“What do you mean, an instrument?”

Was it possible she’d never seen a musical instrument? That the only instruments Endlans knew about were their voices? “A flute,” he said. “Or a guitar?”

She looked at him like he was speaking another language.

“I suppose you must not have them here. They’re objects that produce music, with the help of a person. A flute is a long tube that you blow through. A guitar is wooden, with strings over a hole...” He trailed off when he saw that she still didn’t understand. “If you bring me some parchment and charcoal the next time you come, I’ll draw them for you,” he said. “But you’ll just have to take my word for it that they make beautiful music.”

“You said you’re not from Brickle...”

“Bricklebury. A nearby village.”

“Right.”

“I’m from a city called Tindervale. It’s far away from here, far from the mountains. Things were very different there. In Bricklebury, everyone knows everyone. And everyone talks about everyone else’s business. Back in Tindervale, I didn’t even know our closest neighbors. There were so many people, it was almost like they all decided that since it would be impossible to know everyone, there was no point in knowing anyone.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Leelo said, her voice quiet. She fiddled with a loose string on his blanket for a moment, like she was embarrassed by her inexperience.