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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TUESDAY, JULY 11

LOW TIDE, 5:42
A.M.
EDT

SUNRISE 5:11
A.M.

I called Gran before we left Neptune’s, explained that there was a Situation, and asked if she could keep Cael with her. She agreed, then handed the phone to him, so I could give him his orders, which I did as gently as possible.

“This liege thing’s getting old,” I told Borgan, snapping the phone shut and slipping it away.

I stood up and held my hand out to him. He took it, and rose. Which would’ve been more comforting if I hadn’t received the definite impression that he was grateful for the assist.

At Tupelo House, he was made known to the cat by her call name. That essential courtesy performed, we all went upstairs, where Borgan immediately fell into a profound sleep.

Breccia and I disposed ourselves for our own comfort—me, with my head tucked on his shoulder, the cat curled into a pleased, purring circle on his chest—and the three of us slept straight through until seven o’clock.

I woke to soft nibblings along my earlobe, and a warm hand on my breast. We made slow, leisurely love, drowsed, and finally rose, in no hurry about it, to shower together, and mosey out to the kitchen to see what might be for supper.

The fridge yielded leftover fried chicken, the potato salad I’d made yesterday, and a bottle of wine, which we carried out to the summer parlor and ate as we overlooked the sand and the surf. Twilight slowly obscured the sky, and the stars peered shyly down. The cat came out to join us, draped herself across both of our laps, and purred herself to sleep.

When the wine was gone, Borgan put Breccia on his shoulder, where she snuggled under his ear without quite waking up, and we carried the remains of our picnic inside. Dishes deposited in the sink, and cat on the blanket, we went upstairs again to bed.

* * *

“Go back to sleep,” he murmured, but he didn’t add the little nudge of sea-magic like he usually did, to reinforce the suggestion.

It shouldn’t have mattered; I was comfortable enough to drift back into dreamland for a few hours all on my own.

But the lack of that nudge—that
did
matter. Borgan, my waking brain reminded me, had taken a wound. Yesterday’s day of mostly rest should have, in my fond hopes, put him on the road to mending.

But if he was husbanding small bits of magic . . .

. . . then he was hurt worse than he’d let me nag him into admitting . . . And it also meant that I was an idiot, keeping him on land when he should have been healing, in the sea.

I opened my eyes, stretched and rolled out of bed.

“How long do you think I—
even
I—can sleep? I’m wide awake. I’ll walk you down to the water, then go collect Cael.”

Borgan was pulling on his T-shirt. I snagged my jeans and skinned into them, and looked up into his face.

I couldn’t say he looked worse than he had yesterday.

But he surely looked no better.

I opened a bureau drawer, pulled out a bra and a T-shirt at random, and finished dressing inside of an absolute silence.

“Kate,” Borgan said.

I pulled my shirt down, and turned to face him.

“How bad?” I blurted. “How bad are you hurt, and how long until you’re healed? And, while I’m at it—special bonus question, since you didn’t want the land healing you—shouldn’t you be letting the sea do just that?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, and held out his hands.

“Kate,” he said, and, when I just looked at him, “I’d like a hug, if you got one.”

I sighed.

“I don’t think I’m out, yet.”

I sat across his knees, facing him. He put his arms loosely around my hips; I wrapped my fingers around his braid, and looked at it. Shells, shaped glass, beads. There was a new one, I thought—blue and green swirls, like water. I sighed again, reluctantly let the braid go and put my hands on his shoulders, looking straight into his eyes.

He nodded.

“Those are good questions you’re asking. I don’t want you thinking that you did me harm by keeping me on land. First thing is, you didn’t keep me, except that I wanted to be here, with you. Second thing is, you did me good, not harm. Heart’s ease, if not land-healing, and that’s not to be discounted.

“Why I can’t let the waters heal me . . .” He sighed, his arms tightening around me. “Kate, it was
the sea
took harm from the
ronstibles
’ death. That’s where the wound is.” Another sigh, and he bent his head until it rested against mine. “It’s me that has to heal her.”

I took a breath, tasting salt and ozone.

“Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”

He snorted a soft laugh.

“Let me study on it.” Deep breath. “And, now, I got to get moving. Hum’s boat won’t fish itself.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said, “to the sea’s edge.”

“Sure. Be glad of the company.”

* * *

Mr. Ignat’ was asleep with his back against Gran’s tree, which I supposed she had reentered for the night. Cael was curled in soft grasses nearby, Arbalyr on a branch above his head.

Neither the bird nor Mr. Ignat’ woke when I stepped into the clearing, but Cael raised his head, nose leading, as if he was in fact a wolf, testing the morning air.

He rolled smoothly to his feet, began to bow, and stopped himself.

“My—Kate. Good morn to you.”

“Good morn to you,” I answered, considering him.

Gran had done her job well; Cael wore the latest in Archers Beach chic: multipocket khaki shorts and a red T-shirt with an abstract gold design splashed on the front. His feet were, as before, bare.

“Do the clothes please you?”

He glanced down at himself.

“If it pleases my lady that I
blend in
, then the clothes can do naught else but please me,” he said.

Bless the lad, he was full of politic answers.

“Would you care to come home with me?”

“Yes,” he said simply, and reached behind the tree Arbalyr was sleeping in to pull out a tote bag with
DYNAMITE!
exploding in orange and yellow across the front.

“I have several changes of clothing, as your lady grandmother advised. She also advised shoes, but, those are not possible.”

“You might change your mind, come winter, but for now, bare feet totally blend in.”

I waved him forward and turned to follow the path the Wood opened before me.

* * *

“I do not think that I like bagels so much as scrambled eggs,” he said some while later, “though I think I could become very fond of cream cheese.”

“The reason bagels exist is as a carrier for cream cheese,” I assured him. “Also peanut butter. And occasionally jam.” I took a bite of my own bagel—onion, garlic, and poppy seed, for the curious—and chewed for the amount of time required to chew a bagel, before cleaning my palate with coffee.

“The coffee’s good,” I said, which it was. Cael’d made it under my direction, though not my supervision. I’d been too busy sawing bagels in half to do anything more than outline the basic technique for him.

“Thank you,” he said. “I wonder . . .” He stopped.

I looked up into his face.

“Don’t be shy.”

“Yes, my lady. It is only that I wonder—what . . . has become of the
jikinap
I had held in trust from my liege? The former lord . . . had considered it prudent to see his oath-sworn capable of their own defense—and of protecting those higher in the House.”

Right.

“I need to talk to you about that. My apologies for the delay.”

“I’ve not been . . . discommoded, my lady. I had only become aware of the absence, and wondered if I had earned your displeasure.”

“You haven’t displeased me, but you might find yourself displeased with me.” I sipped coffee and looked him straight in the eyes.

“On the night I took your oath—just previous to that event—I gave my
jikinap
to the land of which I am Guardian. I did this to keep certain events from the attention of the Wise One.”

“Yes,” Cael said, as if this was perfectly reasonable. Of course, Cael wasn’t a fan of the Wise either, was he?

“Having committed this act, I thought I had done with
jikinap
. When I accepted your oath, it was as Guardian of this land, and through the power inherent in the land.” I hesitated, wondering if I ought to go into the healing aspect, or if that would just confuse the narrative.

“So I have become part of this land, through you, its Guardian,” Cael said slowly. “With me, the land accepted my power. Thus far, I understand. But what I do not understand, my lady, is what weapon I have been given in return, so that I may stand my liege’s man and protect her and her interests, which include myself.”

“We’re going to have to figure that out,” I said. “I should let you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. I’m a new Ozali, and untrained. Though I’m easier with the powers attending my Guardianship, I’m still learning those, too. I make errors—of ignorance, mostly, but that doesn’t matter if my ignorance results in harm.”

I bit my lip.

“I learned yesterday—quite a number of things. But the thing which may help us answer your question is that I found my full powers, poor as they are, available to me through my connection with the land. If you reach, as you would, for something typical to your power . . .”

His eyes blazed. He snapped to his feet and retreated to the living room, dropped into a crouch and thrust his arm up and out, as if about to receive—

A spear.

To be precise, a warrior’s short spear, used for close-in fighting, and a very tricky weapon it was.

Oh, any half-trained oaf—I include myself among that number, as my weapons instructor had done—could poke at an opponent with the thing, and even do damage, but to master it required dedication and a certain capacity for focused violence.

I was, let’s say, impressed.

Cael straightened, the spear spinning a complicated arabesque between his long, dark fingers. He dropped to one knee, head bowed, the spear held steady in his hand, haft aligned with the inside of his forearm, butt end caught between elbow and body.

I applauded.

His head jerked up, startled, then he grinned, his delight illuminating the already sun-filled room.

“I have lost nothing!” he declared springing to his feet. “It has merely been stored in a different trunk.”

Which was actually a pretty good way to look at it.

“Excellent,” I said, grinning myself. “However, if the spear has no immediate task—”

It was gone before I could finish the sentence, tucked back into whatever trunk it now lived in, and held against need.

I reached for my coffee just as the cell phone trilled. The number on the screen wasn’t familiar. I hit the answer button.

“Is that Kate?” a woman shouted into my ear before I could say
hello?
“Frenchy, here. I need some help down here at the Camp. Fella’s come in with dogs; says he’s been hired to clean out some wild cats. He ain’t listening to reason, and I can’t hold him much longer.”

“I’m there,” I told her.

“Hey!” her voice came strongly out of the speaker. “You can’t fire a gun inside o’town, you damn’ fool!”

I ended the call. It sounded like Frenchy was going to need her line real soon now, to call the cops.

“I will come, also,” Cael said.

I looked at him over my shoulder.

“I don’t—”

“I know about dogs,” he said firmly.

Well, yeah; I guess he did.

“All right, then, come on.”

I reached out, grabbed his arm, thought about the town dock at Camp Ellis . . .

* * *

“I’m here to exterminate vermin,” a man’s voice said, loud enough to be heard in Portland. “If I was you, I’d just go back inside my shed there, pour another shot o’Allens into the coffee, and let a man get to work. It’s gonna get done, with or without your screechin’.”

I headed toward the black pickup truck in the middle of the lot. Frenchy was standing between the shouting man and the Dummy Railroad shed, legs braced, and a wary distance between her and the dog.

The dog was a monster—black and tan, with a big square head and a big square jaw. He was muzzled and there was a businesslike leash attached to his harness, but somehow these things only drew attention to the fact that this dog was a hunter, and quite possibly a killer.

Another dog sat, harness-free and unmuzzled, just behind the man’s left leg; some kind of hound, I thought. It looked like it had started out white, then been spattered with black paint. It was watching the altercation between his boss and Frenchy with interest, his head tipped to one side.

“Frenchy!” I called, reaching for the power at the base of my spine—which wasn’t there.

Because I was standing on another Guardian’s land—and I’d given my land all my power.

Maybe not so smart, after all, Kate.

Well, at least I could create a diversion; help Frenchy keep the guy talking until the sheriff arrived.

“Kate, thanks for coming.”

“She ain’t the sheriff,” the guy said. “Step outta the way, girls.”

“Jim Robins, you cussid dub,” Frenchy snarled, settling herself where she stood. “You ain’t settin’ them dogs on cats inside this village. Fine thing it’ll be, that Howie o’yours takin’ a kitten in somebody’s dooryard, with the kids lookin’ on through the window!”