“It’s unlikely to go south, though they might talk about it for a while. We’re a strong house here. Maybe not as strong as a Wing, but strong all the same. They will decide to back us. And we always back our own, Shrikeling.”
“Thank you, Abghar,” I said gratefully. “And umm. I think I should confess something.”
He shot me a worried look.
“Not something bad exactly.” I was suddenly feeling very nervous.
“Just say it!” Raquella said, impatient.
“The man – Osprey – that we’re going to go get. He’s a Wing, too.”
“We should also take Ivo with us,” Abghar said, thinking aloud. “Retger feels strongly about keeping him safe. What if Wing Essena wasn’t bluffing? We don’t want him dead, either.”
I was nodding gratefully before he finished. “And Osprey is also my prisoner.”
“Grabbed one of them?” Abghar asked. “That’s gutsy, sister.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat. “He’s the Wing who came to our house that first night with Le Majest.”
Abghar froze, nearly stumbling over his own feet he stopped so quickly.
“Perhaps we could trade him to Wing Essena for a little peace,” he said. “After all, she’s bent and determined to root the magic out. Maybe she can get it out of him.”
“He’s under my protection,” I said repressively. “I want that to be clear.”
“Retger said it’s rather more than that,” Raquella said with a smirk that only made Abghar’s face darker. “He said he’d left you with a strong young Wing who was looking at you like he might weave you a bridal wreath then and there.”
Abghar swiveled to her. “Retger didn’t share that with me.”
“We can’t tell you everything, Abghar. Not when you get so upset.”
We were crossing the road toward the building I’d first seen when we arrived – the healers. Another group of people was making their way there from the direction of the Council hall. I stiffened and quickened my pace.
“Stop teasing him, Raquella,” Oska said with quiet authority. “We need to pick up the pace. Besides, it sounds like Aella is married to someone else – whether she likes it or not – and we’ll have to dispatch this new husband for the sake of our sister’s honor before anyone marries anyone else.”
That quieted us all and we quickened our pace like he ordered. My heart pounded in my chest. It felt good to have someone else care about my problems like they were their own. But at the same time, it felt terrible to think that I was dragging them into this, too. Just being with them was like salve to the soul. The thought of them being hurt or dying because of me ... my heart shied away from the thought.
We skirted around a group of archers firing volleys on command. They were fast, quickly drawing the next arrow from the quiver and firing the next shaft by the time the order was given.
“Draw. Aim. Loose. Draw. Aim. Loose,” the drill instructor chanted, his eyes on us and on the other hurrying group, but the long poplar branch he held in his hand tapped the shoulder of any archer who allowed himself to be distracted by us.
We were past them and nearing a ring where someone was patiently teaching porcupine fighting techniques to two groups of twenty people. He had them in the porcupine but teaching a group to move like that and fight together wasn’t easy and as I watched one group stumbled and barely avoided cutting themselves on their own swords. They’d need a lot of practice to get that right. My family had years behind us.
All around me, people hustled to work or to train, to move supplies, to cook food – I could smell that! – to ready themselves for the coming conflict. But even what must be a few hundred people couldn’t be enough. When we had Osprey and Ivo secure, then I’d ask my siblings more. Was there a plan? Was it a good one? I felt tense just asking myself those questions. Our futures and lives hung on the answers to those questions.
We reached the House of Healing before the other group and I hurried in the door before any of my siblings could, past the squeak of the little woman by the door who was hanging up healing herbs, past the woman whose scolding words told me to slow down and stop.
“Would you slow her, Raquella Shrike? She should not be disturbing the patients. Or have you brought me a lunatic to cure?”
“No Mother Sawet, she’s my sister,” Raquella laughed. “But there’s been a big scuffle at the Council Hall and my sister claims that Wing Ivo’s life is threatened and that of Wing Osprey, too, so we’ve come to bring them to our house to keep them safe.”
“Nonsense! They’re best kept here.”
I had already looked in every door on this floor and was sprinting up the steps. Mother Sawet could protest all she wanted, but I didn’t trust Essena. I didn’t trust her bird not to fly in here and smother one of those two before I even found them.
“Hurry, Raquella,” Abghar barked. “We’ll hold the doors.”
I cleared the last step and peeked in the first door in the white-washed corridor. An empty bed. The next one – empty.
I turned back into the hall and nearly bumped into a white-faced Alect.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“There’s been a fight. The family decided to stand with me and Wing Essena doesn’t like it.”
His face went from surprise to grim determination in an instant. “We need to get out of here. The House of Healing is no place for a fight.”
I nodded. “We’re here to get Wing Ivo and Wing Osprey, too. Do you know where they are?”
He was already pulling me down the corridor to a large room at the end. We rushed through the door and Retger stepped back from an open window on the far side of the room, shaking his head.
“Fools! We had a plan and fighting amongst ourselves is not it.”
Our eyes met across the room and relief filled his.
“I didn’t like leaving you back there,” he said shortly. “Don’t put me in that position again.” He didn’t wait for my nod before he was hurrying to one of the beds. “Can you stand, old man? I’ve grown too fond of you to let an over-stuffed owl snatch you away.”
Wing Ivo coughed – deep and harsh – the kind of cough that sent a shiver of fear through me, but I didn’t wait to watch Retger helping him up. My eyes were searching across the room. Beds lined the walls with basins and chairs beside them – clearly a room to keep the people who needed constant watch. I caught Zayana’s eye and waved as she hurried to help Retger from the corner of the room she’d been in and she shook her head as if to ask what new disaster I’d brought with me.
And there! There he was. I didn’t realize how tense I was until my bees quieted at the sight of him. He was bound and blindfolded still, and someone had cleaned his face and hands for him.
I rushed to his side, reaching my hand into his shirt to feel where my bee was at work. I felt it buzz against my hand through his skin and I had the strangest feeling that I knew what it was doing. It was still slowly untangling the feather bit by bit from the Forbidding at Osprey’s core, burning out each tendril one by one.
I pushed his sweat-soaked hair back, wishing I could see his eyes. “Osprey? Can you hear me?”