And that was about it, for a time. Any attempt to find out more or to offer help was gently rebuffed. The rumor mill didn’t have much to add.
Once Tasmin and William wandered together past the Wise Woman’s house, and saw puffs of smoke coming out the chimney, though nothing…nothing at all…could induce Tasmin to walk down that path again. William was not surprised and he did not push.
He worked on his chocolates. They sold some cordials and teas. It made him content, to see that Tasmin’s additions to their inventory were popular. He wanted her to be part of the shop, part of its success, because he knew that she could have had a different life and he hoped that the life she had would not make her wish for the one she lost. Cleaning, cooking, research…life was turning neatly as ever, and he was fairly content.
One would say that life went back to normal, save Tasmin couldn’t stand an unsolved mystery and William was less than pleased that there was still, possibly, a target on his wife’s back. He found himself watching carefully whenever he walked with his wife, wondering if anyone was looking at her with any special meaning. He went with her now when she was called out at night, and though she feigned annoyance, he thought part of her was relieved that she did not have to face the shadows alone.
“Master Carys apparently sent someone to try and find Mistress Anne’s relatives,” William said as they walked home late one night. “We employ guards at the warehouse to deliver cargo, and he borrowed one of them. You’ve met him—John Doxen?” She nodded and he continued. “He tells me that they couldn’t find anything, so he went up as far as the University where you trained. They didn’t know anything—couldn’t find a trace of the relatives she was supposed to be visiting.”
“Oh, dear. And nothing of the lady herself?”
“It is as if she disappeared when she crossed the town line.”
“I suppose they should be looking for a body, then. Soon the thaw will be upon us, and they will be dredging the ponds.” Tasmin said softly, leaning on his arm a little. She had actually conducted a fairly serious cleansing spell, and she wavered a little on her feet. He placed an arm around her, stroking her back before settling his arm around her waist.
“Aye,” he said.
They were not far from home, and perhaps they would have tea, warm her up and give her a little energy, before turning in to bed.
“The idea of her being murdered doesn’t fit, though. There was no reason to kill her. She was fairly well respected, even loved in some circles. She precipitated no tragedy that someone would wish revenge on her for.”
“Which sounds a bit like Cherise. Except I don’t think she was around enough for people to feel a great depth of respect or affection. She was as innocuous as a daisy.”
He felt her nod against his arm. “Ailiani heard that Anne talked Cherise out of marrying.”
“That must not have been easy. The laws are fairly clear on the matter, that one must marry who the spell chooses.”
“But Wise Women are so hard to find in the South that they will waive the law for those with the right affinity to train. Sometimes they are let go—allowed to become Wise Women, sometimes the would-be spouses petition, and win.”
“It seems a bit hard on the rejected spouses. Who are they to marry, then? And if you do not have to have much of a magical spark to be a Wise Woman, how does one really choose to become one?”
William unlocked the door and ushered his wife into the warmth of the kitchen.
“Good questions,” Tasmin said wryly. “I don’t know, perhaps since most people don’t meet until the wedding day it seems less personal? It must be very daunting to realize that you’ve been rejected.” She slipped off her shoes and stood warming her feet on the fireplace stones. “Certainly in Cherise’s case, the gentleman was less than pleased, he petitioned to have her still wed him. He lost, and from what Ailiani could gather, he was not very happy. He had several arguments in public with Mistress Anne, eventually got arrested for throwing rocks at the Wise Woman’s house and breaking windows.”
William took her cloak, and when his offer of tea was rejected, he asked, “How long ago was this? I never heard anything about it.”
She wavered a little and he led her up the stairs. “A few years ago. I would think too long for this to be an issue. He was sent to sea to avoid prison.”
“I wonder when he came back? That could explain the lapse in time.”
She nodded and they stripped their clothes. She was practically asleep on her feet. William resisted the urge to pick her up and carry her the last few steps to bed. “In any case, I am sure Carys knows all this, too, and more.”
She hummed her assent, so tired that she dropped her clothes on the floor, missing the chair. He quickly pulled back the covers just as she fell into bed, and she was asleep before he finished covering her. He took a couple of pins out of her hair that she had missed, and kissed her softly before getting ready and joining her.
It would have been better, had he not shut his eyes at all.
He was alone, in a clearing, with a stone throne. The throne was cracked, the manacles that had once held captured a great Sea Witch covered in rust, the seat of the throne was covered in blood that pooled and flowed down the front. He remembered there was a monster, in the woods, and he crept carefully, looking for the woman he knew must be there.
“You won’t find me,” she whispered defiantly in his ear. “You who could have helped me, you who could have freed me. You won’t find me now.”
“I don’t want to find you. I just want you to leave me alone.”
And then, as if the ground had fallen away, he found himself deep, deep in the water. He was being pulled down by a tangle of ropes, and he could see, so far away, the bottom of a ship, his ship. The Sea Witch was there, a woman of delicate beauty, she looked like she was spun from clear glass. “But what if I don’t want to leave you alone?”
“Why should you not? If you are free, then why bother with me?”
She laughed. “Because it amuses me.” She touched his face. She smiled, her teeth like a shark’s. “Drown.”
And he did.
When he woke, it was dawn, and his heart thudded in his chest, the weight of his fear crushed the breath out of him. He forced himself to breathe, over and over, one breath, a second breath, until the fear eased and the feeling of the cold water left him. It was not the first, nor, doubtless, the last time he had such dreams, but he could certainly do without them.
He found himself getting up, though, and drawing a robe around him. He crept across the room, carefully removed some things from the window sill, and lifted the sill carefully, popped up and out.
There, in a little space between the sill and the wood work, was a plain gray stone. Once it had been a powerful artifact, but now it was nothing. He stared at it a long moment in the weak light from the world outside, he knew it to be smooth, off-shaped, a soft stone that had been pieced by an iron pin. He could see the hole from it. He picked it up reluctantly, but in his hands it remained just a stone. No voices, beckoning in his head, nothing. It felt cold, and a little damp, like any soft stone.
Once, he’d visited an island that had been the prison of a very powerful Sea Witch. Immortal, half mad, she had been manacled to a stone throne and left. He had not freed her, though sometimes he wondered if he should have. Maybe it was that guilt that fed the visions. But everyone knew that the three sisters of the sea were evil and far too powerful to let free.
Something had happened to the island not long after, and it was said she had poured what was left of her magic into a curse, that any man who had walked on her island would never be free of her. He shrugged it off as superstition, at least until he spent too long in the ocean.
Not too long ago, the stone he held had once spoken to him. It had once held the soul of a powerful Sea Witch, probably sister to the one he’d seen once, not so long ago. But now it was just something they hid because they thought they should. After all, Ithalia had been so frightening that her sisters had imprisoned her. It didn’t seem prudent to just cast the one-time prison away.
He looked at the familiar and beloved form of his wife, who slumbered on peacefully, then carefully closed the secret compartment. He set the amulet on the table instead, looking at the banked fire and trying to let his mind settle. It took a very long time.
The next day started well enough for Tasmin. She was still a little tired, but she made a full breakfast, stacking flat cakes high on a plate and ignoring the ones that floated away. The sprites had been spending a great deal of time in the pantry, and she reminded herself to take a look later.
“Chocolate shells always do well. Mistress Nugent bought some to send to a friend overseas to the Silver Isles. Apparently she has friends in the Human Court,” Ailiani said, and William added to the list.
“I don’t think the rose flavored chocolates did well, though.” William said.
Ailiani shuddered dramatically in answer.
“It was a good idea!” William protested. “The rose and lavender flavored cookies that Tasmin’s mother sent were quite popular with you, after all.”
Ailiani shook her head. “But you could make more things with nuts. I swear, you get accused once of killing someone with poison almonds, and you take it as a sign that no-one wants to buy them.”
Tasmin tried to keep her expression schooled as she put food in front of them, and poured some more tea. Both of them smiled at her in gratitude before continuing on.
Settling down, Tasmin pointed out, “I do think you should invest more in the cacao from the Lombard—what do they call themselves? A cooperative? Chocolates made from that stock sell much faster than the cacao from Eschavelr,” Which of course caused a grave discussion between William and Ailiani. Ailiani had met one of the men from the Eschavelr plantation and thought he was quite wonderful, so of course she was more interested in working with them. Plus they were less expensive.
So Tasmin allowed her mind to drift as she ate. The sprites had been acting oddly, less rambunctious. In fact, she could not remember the last time they’d played slam the cupboard doors or chase the hankie. Or annoyed Tasmin when she was studying.
In the distance she could hear bells tolling. “What’s that?”
Everyone was quiet, and William’s eyes went distant as he counted the bells. “Not an attack from sea. But still, an emergency. We need to gather in the square.”
Ailiani had gotten up and was reaching for the rifle they kept over the cabinets.
“How do you know?” Tasmin asked.
“I can tell from the tone of the bell, dear,” he said kindly. “’Tis not the harbor bells, and the timing of the bells tells us that they need us to come, but they are not afraid.”
Ailiani shuddered. Tasmin knew she had once been kidnapped by pirates. She took the other woman’s cool fingers in hers. “It is hard not to worry. Shall we go and see what they want?”
A puff of air grazed Tasmin’s cheek and Ailiani jumped as she was hit by a worried sprite. She reached up and petted her invisible visitor. “No, no, don’t be worried. I am just letting silly fears overtake me,” she whispered.
“I told you they liked you,” Tasmin teased.
“They have been so calm of late, it is easy to forget that they are there.”
We are here, Nee-no, the Chief and Father of all the Wind Sprites, said in Tasmin’s ear as he settled onto her shoulder.
“We had best go and see what the fuss is about,” William said, helping Tasmin with her cloak. Ailiani pulled on hers, a bright thing made of every scrap of blue, purple or green cloth she could find, lined with soft fur. It made her look faintly fantastical.
They joined the flow of people heading towards the square. Tasmin listened carefully, but no one seemed to know what was going on. She was not sure what worried her more, the alarm raised to gather them all together, or the fact that Nee-no was with her. He rarely accompanied her anywhere.
Master Carys and Bishop Aberghast stood on the wide edge of the main fountain. The Bishop saw Tasmin and turned to say something to Carys, who nodded. The Bishop turned to address his flock.
“Very well. We have called you all together to conduct a search for Tara Alraziev. Her mother, Magda Alraziev, went out early this morning, as is her wont, to gather shell fish. When she came back to her home, her daughter was gone. The house is secure, there was no evidence of a struggle. We don’t know if she wandered outside of her own accord and was lost, or if she were taken, but we need you, good people, to help us organize a search.”
There were a lot of murmurs. Sometimes, being a port town, there would be a string of abductions, even though it was very rare. Though Azin Shore had done all it could to prevent it, it was not unheard of for someone to go missing, either shanghaied for a crew or impressed and sold as slaves.
“If she is a shell-fish gatherer, she must live close to shore.” Tasmin whispered to William, who nodded.
Master Carys held up his hands. “I know, you are all worried, especially in light of other disappearances, that we are being attacked by slavers. Let me assure you that no ship will be allowed to make way until we are satisfied that the child is not aboard. Azin Shore is rarely a target for such infamy, but we shall do all we can to ensure that no stone is left unturned. Now, the girl is of eight years of age, dark brown hair, green eyes, slight build. If you personally are familiar with the girl, please step forward, we would like you to lead one of the search parties.”
As people separated out into groups, Tasmin caught sight of Magda. She worked her way over. Magda was holding a rather large set of prayer discs, strung on a chain heavy with stone beads that clicked and clattered as she prayed. Tasmin had never seen prayer discs, only read of them. “Mistress Alraziev?” she asked quietly.
The woman stopped and looked at her dully. Her light green eyes stood out from her dusky skin. Pandrazzi. The prayer discs clinched it. If someone had taken against the Pandrazzi woman and her daughter, things could get uglier.
“Ah. Good. I hoped you would come,” Master Carys said at her shoulder. “This is Herb Mistress Tasmin, she is acting for the town Wise Woman right now. She trained in one of the great universities to the North, and I am sure if she can help…”
“I came to ask if you had some of your daughter’s hair, perhaps from the last time you brushed it? If I had a strand, I could work a finding spell.”
The woman looked at Carys, and he produced a small, threadbare cloth bag. In it was a small comb, wound about the tines was more than enough hair for what she needed. Tasmin took it reverently, “That is perfect.” She’d had him pegged for one of the new men, those who wanted to pull away from magic, because they felt it was keeping the kingdom in the past, instead of progressing forward and competing with the rest of the world. He smiled slightly.
She turned her attention back to the woman. “I will go and conduct the spell as quickly as I can.”
“It may be best if we came with you?” he said in her ear, and looking at the girl’s mother, she could understand why. It would both be more efficient, and give the woman something to focus on. She nodded, and led the way back to the shop. William caught up with them on the way. “Ailiani is with a group going near the sea caves.”
“She is a better swimmer than most around here,” Tasmin said, trying to reassure herself. The sea caves were treacherous. They seemed to change themselves on a whim, so the path you took in suddenly could not be the path you took out.
William unlocked the shop for them and she ran for supplies. In a moment she had a bowl made out of alabaster in the middle of one of the customer tables. She had a vial of agate, crushed, and a vial of pansy abstract, which she shook into the bottom of the bowl, mixing well. Some water, some essence of Phytolacca. She took a brass needle and wound a hair around it.
“Why brass?” Carys asked.
“Because an iron needle would risk becoming an actual compass. We don’t want it to magnetize, this is a compass for a soul’s direction,” she said.
Carefully, she set it in the bowl, careful not to break the surface of the liquid. It spun, round and round. It did not settle, it did not stop. At least it does not point down, down would be dead for sure. But it did not do anything useful.
“I thought you said she was Talented,” Magda whispered, pulling her fingers through her wild, dark hair.
“Let us go outside, perhaps the spell would work better outdoors,” William suggested, probably more to forestall the mother, who was starting to lose her deadened calm. Sadly, the needle did not work any better outside.
“Did you do the spell correctly?” The mother asked. “Could you do it again?”
“It is a very basic spell,” Tasmin said.
“Then you are useless! Useless!” The mother slapped the bowl, sending it skittering across the counter, slopping the contents all over Tasmin, soaking into her skirts. Tasmin grabbed for it, but her fingers were slippery, and it tumbled out of her hands, shattering onto the floor. “Well, that was not helpful.”
Magda backed off a few paces, mouth working as if she was trying to say something, whether an apology or more invectives, Tasmin did not know, before running off. Carys sketched a little bow and followed.
William cursed under his breath.
Tasmin sighed. “I rather liked that bowl.”
“I am sorry. What will you do now?”
“Change my clothes,” she said wryly. “I smell like a florist. Where are you going?”
“Aye. I shall pick somewhere suitably cold and dangerous and join the party, there, specifically so you can worry about me instead of feeling sorry about your bowl.”
She laughed. “No, you will choose it because you are not one for searching through tiny cupboards. I will join a party as soon as I have changed.” She sighed. “The damnable thing should have worked. ’Tis a basic spell, and impossible to foul up.”
He placed a quick kiss on her forehead. “It could not be your fault. Maybe something else was wrong.” He strode out to join the search, and she quickly picked up the pieces of the bowl. By some stroke of luck she also found her needle.
Tasmin changed quickly, trying to think of what she could do to help.
Nee-no perched on her shoulder again. Now we find the child, the Father of Sprites said.
“Of course,” she said, feeling like smacking her head. The solution was obvious. No one could go everywhere as quickly as a clan of wind sprites, for who could defeat the wind?
But obvious did not equate easy. The first step was to have an anchor. That was solved long ago. Tasmin was the anchor for the sprites.
The second step was to put that anchor on the highest point closest to the center of the town as possible.
The Bishop had a church, a lovely, tall spired creation in the perfect place. She borrowed a pair of William’s breeches and belted them on under her skirt. It made her feel fat and unwieldy, and by the time she climbed the many, many stairs of the tower, she was sweating profusely and hating everything.
She reached the windows at the very top of the spire and stuck her head out. “Good, you think?”
In response, Nee-no sent a wave of confidence to her, and a mental image of the outside of the spire tower, where bricks had been left pushed out to form steps to the roof. The roof itself had steps of wood on it, as if to facilitate repairs.
“Oh, no.” She pushed away from the window. “I…oh, no.”
A swarm of warm, confident, loving sprites swirled around her. Not let you fall! And, This is so easy, were the general messages. “Oh Lord of all that is good,” Tasmin whispered, and carefully stepped out onto the ledge. The windows were tall, at least, that made things slightly less dangerous.
But not by much. Sprites whirled around her, pushing her gently up the brick foot holds, lifting her skirts away from her feet, and she concentrated on them, on their warm confidence pushing and coaxing her up and up. Standing at the zenith was the hardest part, she felt like whimpering as she climbed to a standing position using the metal of the finial itself, her feet felt fairly confident on the base of the finial, so she turned and pressed her back to it.
See? Nee-no said. Not so bad.
She laughed in response. It sounded faintly like a madwoman’s cackle.
She took a breath. Then another, calming herself. She tapped into her Talent, into the flow of it in her veins, and let it fill her, let her awareness of the sprites spread into each and every one of her veins them, as the sprites hovered and swirled around her. She spread her arms out. She was steady where she stood. She felt one with the stone, the tile, the metal, and she felt rooted into the spire and from there into the world itself.
Go! Find the child, she told them all, and her awareness spread with the sprites as they flew in their different directions. She had a hard time sorting what she was seeing, so she let it flow through her. In some ways she felt as if they were communicating to each other through her, as if right then they were one massive being, searching everywhere. Some of the places they looked were silly, too small for a child of that age (or any age), and she told them so with a tactful thought, and it modified all the searches. Every time she thought, No, she would not be there, it stopped any of them from looking in a like place. Soon they were looking in much more sensible places, puffing through hayricks and sending straw to the sky, only to have it settle right back down where it belonged, opening closets and pushing aside curtains and looking through basements and attics, and then a group turned itself to the marshes. There will be some very displeased townspeople, if they catch on to what happened.
They reached the marshes, flying through strands of weeds. She saw bright blue and red, and they gathered around the bright color.
“Oh, no,” Tasmin whispered. The attachment she felt to the church spire disappeared and she slipped, scrambled for the finial. She screamed and clung to it, on her knees, her weight on her skirts making it hard to find purchase. Somehow she managed to get a knee around the finial, but she shook as she clung to the cold metal. She opened her eyes and saw, way below, that people had gathered and were looking up at her. She raised a shaking hand, pointing towards the marshes, where the wind sprites circled around a small body, weeping and wailing. The sound was so keening, so pained and loud, that the townspeople thought that the wind that whipped through their town, so cold and bitter, was the weather changing to snow or rain, and several went home to batten down.
She waited, clinging to the finial, and finally, the sprites came and got her. They tapped gently at her cheeks, they pushed at her until she was standing, then formed a warm cloud, loving and sad, that supported her as she backed down and went inside again. She shook as she took the stairs back down to the nave, and she could feel individual tiny little bodies attach themselves to her, burying themselves in her clothes. Nee-no alone stood on her shoulder, he did not bury himself in her hair, but rode like the King he was until they made it to the altar, where the bishop was kneeling.
She waited until he looked up.
“Did you find…?”
“Yes,” she said.
“She is…”
Tasmin’s mouth felt dry. “Beyond our help.”
“Oh,” he said, and looked away.
“She is Pandrazzi, unless I am mistaken. Will her mother want me here for the rites?”
The Bishop stood. “Who told you?”
“Her prayer discs. Her skin color. Is it a secret?” The Pandrazzi did not believe in Wise Women. It explained Magda’s earlier helpless anger.
“We had tried to be discreet about it, as her fellow countrymen are not very popular at the moment. She came to service because she thought it was good camouflage, but she did not believe exactly as we do, so I doubt she will want services done.”
“Do you think someone figured out who she was?”
He played with the things on the altar, straightening them. “I would hope not. Besides, why was Magda spared?”
She had no answers.
A thought caught at her. “Do they believe in magic at all, then?”
“Absolutely. Pandroth is huge, and there are a lot of people who believe. The party line is that technology is better than magic, but the Pandroth Empire has never put away a tool that might still have some use,” he paused. “In fact, I think Tara’s mother wanted to know how we taught magic to people with Talent.”
“And was she less interested when she found she would have to send her daughter far away, as we do not bother with schools here in the South?”
He gave her an impressed look, and nodded.
She said her farewells, and trudged home, her mind full of thoughts.
“And what is this that I hear about you clinging to the spire of the church like a madwoman?” Ailiani asked her. Tasmin jumped. She was only half way home and had not expected to catch up with the other woman before then. She looked around her. Some people caught her eye and nodded at her with respect, a few looked a little afraid and uncertain. They had been this way before, when she had first come into town. The sprites had made it seem like she had appeared out of nowhere. She smiled at people, tried to act normally. Her smile faltered when she realized that William was on the other side of Ailiani. Oh, he is not happy.
“I had the sprites with me. They would never let anything happen to me.”
William shot her a glare.
“Oh, you really aren’t happy with me,” she said. “But I was perfectly safe.”
“Perfectly safe? Ha!” Ailiani said. “And don’t you even start, invisible little king!” she said to someone, Tasmin assumed Nee-no. “You and your clan have gotten Tasmin in serious hot water, and for what?”
“At least we all know,” William said carefully, through his teeth.
“That your wife is insane?”
“Not helping,” Tasmin tried to whisper at her.
“No, I am not helping.”
“Oh, at least I was not swimming around in the sea caves,” Tasmin pointed out, for Ailiani had wrapped her hair carefully in sheeting, the hood pulled tight over the makeshift turban.
“What is your point? He already knew I was mad.”
“Enough,” William said. “You are both making my head ache.”
Tasmin wanted to point out it was probably the way he was holding his back teeth clamped together, but reasoned should he unclamp them she would hear a great deal many things she would rather not, so they went home in silence.
Dinner was a cold affair, whatever the three could scrounge. Ailiani was sat close to the fire, where she ate her dinner, and would not be allowed to leave until she was completely dry.
Their meals finished, William was drying the plates and placing them in the cupboard. He clattered them together and winced.
“What are you thinking of?” Tasmin asked, hanging her washcloth to dry.
“Why a little girl? What possible motive could someone have for such a thing?”
“I don’t know. I spoke to the Bishop, and he mentioned that her mother was asking around to find out if there was someone who could teach a person with Talent. Perhaps they wanted her for her magic. That is what all the deaths have in common, so far.”
“But she is so young.” Ailiani was holding a kerchief over the table, pulling it away from unseen little hands. Sometimes whatever sprites were playing would manage to get it out of her hand, and she would chase it and pluck it back. “Does Talent manifest so early?”
“Sometimes,” Tasmin allowed. William smoothed his hand against her back and she leaned into the touch. “She is part Pandrazzi, I know little of them. Perhaps they manifest early? By our rules anyone manifesting this early would be an exceptional Talent.”
His hand, warm over her back, paused. “But why target anyone with Talent? Once they are gone, they can’t use their powers to help you, though Creighton…and don’t stiffen, love, did have a most intriguing story about a wizard who was also a ghost.”
Ailiani let the handkerchief go. “And why women? Men sometimes have Talent. Less in the South than in the North, but still.”
“And it doesn’t follow for certain that you have to have Talent to be a Wise Woman. An affinity, yes. But you don’t have to have much power. Certainly not what it would take to be a ghost-warlock,” Tasmin added.
“Wizard,” William muttered, rubbing her back again.
“As I said.”
Ignoring her, William asked, “But how would anyone know that Tara had Talent? She was too young to even be tested?”
“That is the question we must concentrate on, I think,” Tasmin said. “If we can figure out who knew, maybe we can figure out who killed her?” She barely resisted the desire to lean against her husband. “Ailiani? Were you tested?”
“The sisters of Shamen are never tested, my dear.”
Tasmin tried to make something to reply, and William teased, “That is a bit of a non-answer.”
Ailiani shrugged. “They never really test. You either are, or not. Things are not so formal, down by the Stairs of Alessyn.”
Tasmin tilted her head and really looked at Ailiani, who studiously ignored her.
“Time for bed,” William pushed himself away from the counter he’d been leaning on, and the moment was broken. “Would you like me to walk you home?”
She rolled her eyes. “If you are worried, I will get the boot maker next door to walk me home. He is always looking to be solicitous.”
“William is less trouble.”
She gathered her cloak. “And less fun.”
“Do you think she’s magical?” Tasmin asked a little later, as she stripped off her dress.
He hung his shirt up, then took her dress and put it on the next peg. She could tell he was thinking, and did not interrupt. “I have never seen her do aught that one could consider so, no. There were men on the ship who thought she had enchanted Deitson into marrying her, but I knew that to be nonsense.” Then he smiled slightly. “In the literal sense, anyway. He was certainly desperately in love. Why?”
Her clean shift was cool against her skin. She sat down and undid her hair, throwing pins into a bowl. “I don’t know. I am used to her answers being more direct, I suppose.”
“It really wasn’t a bad answer. From what little I know her father was very exacting, and she often felt oppressed by the way things where. Perhaps she just doesn’t like to speak of it.”
She brushed her hair. “I worry. We don’t really know why people are being targeted. What if she is in danger?”
He washed his face and settled into the bed. “We will protect her…and you.”
“And you.” She threw a ribbon at him.
He stretched and snuggled into the bed. “I very much doubt anyone wishes to do me harm. I am completely without merit to anyone but you.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “I very much doubt that,” she said, and soon she turned off the light and joined him.