“So you can talk, for one,” she replied, “though I’m starting to doubt the wisdom of that part. It was the simplest way to make the spell practical, but the upshot is that if you break wind, sneeze, cough, or yell, it can be heard.” She repeated the spell for her own clothing.
“Too bad we can still be seen,” Will muttered. “Can you make a mist?”
“I can,” she told him. “Syllannus, my water elemental, is good for that, but he can’t cover the entire town, just a hundred yards or so. A mist that small would be suspicious, and any mages in the town will recognize the magic. Besides, we couldn’t see through it.”
Will grinned, an expression that was wasted since she couldn’t see his face. “Make some mist. Just a little.”
She gave him an odd look but did as he asked. Her elemental’s mist was thicker than what Tailtiu had produced, blocking his sight of everything beyond a few feet. Will began adjusting his vision until he found the sweet spot, and the mist vanished. “That’s enough,” he told her.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“I can see through your mist. If things go wrong, make as much mist as you can and grab my hand. I’ll be able to lead us out.”
“A night vision spell won’t do that. Is this more fae magic?”
Will shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it fae magic. It’s the same way they do it, but I think you would call it wild magic since I’m not fae.”
They continued on until they were about fifty yards from the dimmest area of light that Will thought the patrollers could see in. He expected they would find the perimeter patrols about twenty yards or so closer in, but there were none in sight from where they were at the moment. He pulled Selene down to sit beside him. “We’ll wait here.”
“Why here?”
“You see the lanterns in town?” he said, pointing. “Closer to us from those is a dim region. The patrollers will be walking at the edge of that, where it’s hard for them to be seen and where they won’t spoil their night vision. Anyone that approaches without figuring out where the patrollers are will probably be caught, and once they’re in the better-lit region, the patrollers can catch them easily. We wait here a while, and after I’ve got a feel for their timing, we can enter the town in between patrol sweeps.”
“Shouldn’t we find a higher point to observe from? We’re in a dip here, aren’t we?”
He nodded. “That would be nice, but they probably have sentries posted any place we would choose for that same reason. So we have to choose a shitty spot like this, where it’s harder to see as well as to be seen. Fortunately, my eyes are good enough to make up for that.”
“How long do you think we’ll wait?”
“Until I see the same guards come by twice. Probably an hour or two.”
Half an hour passed, and the cold began to eat at them since they weren’t moving. Selene moved closer until their shoulders were touching. With little to do, Will began to think dark thoughts. “Hey, Selene.”
“Yes.”
“If something happens and I don’t make it back, will you do me a favor?”
She gave him a sly look, though she couldn’t see him well. “Wouldn’t that put you in my debt?”
“I’d be dead, probably.”
“Then you have to pay in advance. Your credit is no good.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Tell me your favor first.”
He sighed. “My cousin Eric is still in the army. I haven’t thanked you properly, but this mail saved my life a couple of times. Could you do something similar for him?”
“I don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “That was a lot of coin, and you’ve made me regret spending it several times.”
“Please?”
“Keep me warm.”
“Huh?”
“That’s my price,” she explained. “Keep me warm until we can get this over with.”
He stood and spread his cloak so she could slip inside it, then he eased back down into a sitting position so the two of them could huddle together. His arm was around her shoulders, and he didn’t trust himself to speak.
After a while, she asked, “Are we friends?”
I would love to know the answer to that myself, thought Will ruefully. Over time he had become intensely attracted to her, but that wasn’t friendship. It was lust. Friends should trust each other. There was some sort of warmth between them, both literally and figuratively, but he didn’t trust her much. He decided to be truthful. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Oh.” There was something sad in the way she said it.
“You have other friends, though,” he told her cheerfully. “A peasant from Barrowden wouldn’t be much to brag about.”
She shook her head, tickling his ear with her hair. “No. I have family, that’s it.”
“What about Lord Nerrow’s daughter, Laina?”
“Mark Nerrow and his two daughters are like family to me,” she said. “In fact, he’s been more of a father to me than my own father.”
Will laughed bitterly. “Then he’s been more of a father to you than he has to me.”
She looked up, and he saw her eyes glittering in the darkness. “You knew?”
“Mom told me a while back.”
“Don’t judge him too harshly. He’s one of the kindest men I know,” said Selene. “I’m sure he never wanted things to turn out this way. That’s why he keeps trying to help you.”
“I don’t know enough about him to have an opinion,” said Will, “and while I haven’t met my other half-sister, having met Laina doesn’t give me much hope. She seems thoroughly rotten.”
“She isn’t as bad as you think,” offered Selene. “She just hasn’t seen enough of the world to learn more empathy yet. Her father has kept her sheltered.”
“Yours certainly hasn’t sheltered you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You’re obviously from an important family, but they let you run around loose in the world like this. It doesn’t make sense. I was starting to think you were a princess for a while, but there’s no way a king would let his daughter put herself in such dangerous situations.”
“My family isn’t like others.”
“Do you have any siblings?” asked Will.
“Not anymore,” she answered. “I had an older brother, but he died when I was small.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t be. He was much older. I hardly knew him.”
“How did it happen?”
“An illness. They wouldn’t let me see him, but that’s what I was told.”
Even without names, Will was learning more about her than he had discovered in all the time he had known her. “What about your mother?”
She shook her head. “She died giving birth to me. I have a step-mother, though.”
Damn, thought Will. She’s had a tragic life. “So, it’s just you and your dad then.”
“And the Nerrow family,” she added. “I was fostered to their household when I was eight. It was much nicer than mine.”