Will chuckled. “And what calendar year is it where you’ve been staying?”
“That’s why I counted days, their calendar isn’t the same as ours—” she stopped suddenly, putting a hand in front of her mouth. “Forget I said that.”
“Well now that I know, I’ll have to ask Aislinn why—”
“Please! Don’t make things worse for me! You have no idea how she is.”
There was genuine fear in her eyes, and Will felt a sudden pang of guilt. “I wouldn’t. I only meant to tease you.”
She took a deep breath, then changed the subject. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what I’m supposed to be learning?”
He shook his head. “Not really. It isn’t as much something you learn with your head as with your body, so there’s not a shortcut.”
“At least I know she isn’t deliberately wasting my time. Why do you think Laina wanted my help?”
Will blinked, trying to shift mental gears. “I have no idea, except she didn’t think I could help her. It was you or no one.”
“It wasn’t necessarily capability,” opined his wife. “In fact, knowing Laina, it was probably a matter of trust. She doesn’t trust very many people.”
“Certainly not me.”
Selene’s expression turned sad. “That’s my fault. She blames you for my disappearance.”
“She didn’t like me before that,” countered Will. “Marrying you and then having you vanish only made it worse, but I think it’s better now. We were sort of getting along when I left her house.”
She brightened. “That’s good. Are you going to see them again?”
His face darkened. “Probably not. Our—their father doesn’t want me around.”
She kissed him forcefully, then stared in his eyes. “I’m going to fix all that when I’m done with this stupid training.”
“You can’t—” He was forced to stop as her finger pressed against his lips.
“I will,” she said firmly. “Believe in me.”
Will’s eyes began to well with tears. “Goddamnit,” he swore. “I didn’t want to be sad. We’ve only got a few minutes more.”
“Then let’s not waste them,” she suggested as her lips closed in on him again. When Aislinn opened the door a few minutes later, they were still in each other’s arms, locked in a quiet embrace. Will felt Selene’s grip tighten momentarily, then she reluctantly released him.
He struggled to do the same, then turned to face his grandmother. “So soon?”
“You’ve had as much time as I can give you. Find my daughter as quickly as you can. The slaughter will likely begin tonight. Be prepared,” she told him, gesturing to Selene to approach. “We must go.”
“Wait,” he protested. “What do you mean, ‘slaughter’?”
“The ring will explain.” Taking Selene’s hand, she led his wife from the room and closed the door behind them. Will rushed to follow, but when he opened the door, he saw no sign of them. He ran down the corridor, the stairs, and out the door, but he found no trace of their presence.
How the hell did she do that? he wondered. There was no congruence point in the house—he had searched for one the day he had moved in. The chameleon spell coupled with some type of silence spell was a possibility, but he had adjusted his vision several times while he searched, and he was fairly sure no spell could hide them perfectly enough to cover all the types of light he could see.
More puzzling, he hadn’t seen any changes in the ambient turyn outside the room. It was as if they had faded away without a trace. Irritated, he walked back into the house, only to find Blake waiting for him. “You have a visitor, sir.”
Will frowned. “Since when? I just went in and out.”
“He’s in the parlor. I brought him in while you were occupied upstairs.”
“You let him in the house? I’m fairly certain I was emphatic when I said I didn’t want any visitors. You should have gotten his name and sent him away.”
Blake smirked. “Trust my instincts. I’ve been doing this for many years. I’m sure you’ll want to meet this fellow. His name is John Shaw and he says he’s an old friend of yours.”
A scowl was etched on Will’s features. “I don’t know anyone named Shaw.”
“From the army,” added Blake. “Big enough to be a squad all by himself.”
His brain finally snapped into motion. “Tiny!” Will ran into the parlor, where sure enough, he saw a living mountain sitting on one of the delicate chairs. “Tiny!” he shouted. “Is that really you?”
The chair groaned dangerously as the big man shifted his weight and rose to his feet, a wide smile painting his face. “If it isn’t, no one’s been brave enough to contradict me when I told them my name,” Tiny answered.
Will stomped across the room in his haste, nearly tripping and sending one of the end tables over on its side as he threw himself at his old squad mate. Will wasn’t short, being almost exactly six feet in height and square-shouldered, but when Tiny threw his arms around him he felt like a child again. Fortunately, while the hug was fierce, Tiny knew his strength and he stopped squeezing just as Will’s ribs started protesting.
Releasing each other, they stepped back, and Will gave his old friend an appraising glance. Tiny had changed. The big man was still enormous, but the last of his baby fat had melted away, leaving a lean, heavily muscled giant who stood just a hair over seven feet tall. His face had been tanned by long hours drilling in the sun, though his neck was still fair, since the soldiers usually trained in their armor. He was dressed in a well-made leather jerkin over a brown linen tunic and gray trousers.
“Did you get the mail?” asked Will. Just over a year past, he had paid the local armorer to arrange for a full mail hauberk and leggings for Tiny and Dave, their other squad mate, back in Barrowden.
Tiny pointed at a large oilskin bag sitting in one corner of the room. There were several other bags beside it. “It’s there, along with my breastplate and other sundries. I’m still grateful for it. When I’ve saved enough, I’ll be able to—”
“Stop,” ordered Will. “You know how much my situation has changed. It was a gift. Don’t make me angry by trying to pay me back for it.”
“That much money, though…,”
“Doesn’t mean much to me anymore,” Will reassured him, then he added a small lie. “It isn’t as though I had to work for it. Just accept the gift.” In fact, he’d worked extremely hard to make the money during a time when he’d thought he would need the gold to pay his way out of a prison sentence, and while it was true that he was technically wealthy now, he had no real way to access the money while Selene was absent. Fortunately, he still had hundreds of gold marks tucked away in the limnthal.