The Short Life of Sparrows (17 page)

Lucas nods at me. “Rowe only gets mad when he thinks someone’s disrespected what’s his. Be very careful. If he comes around Lil’s at all, you tell me as soon as you can. Okay?”

My head is thudding with the sound of Xander’s screams, and my stomach knots at what Lucas has said. Forget asking Lucas to guard me or my honor. I lift my dress up so I won’t trip as I emerge from the cluster of trees. I still don’t fully understand what casting entails or what Rowe’s problem is, but nobody is going to treat me like I’m something to be claimed. I ignore Lucas yelling after me to stop. The Nightbloods look at me with delighted smiles, pointing and snickering as I traipse forward through the high grass. My sudden entrance appears to add to their tasteless entertainment. Rowe glances over, but then he continues chanting.

If I had any sense, I’d go straight home instead of walking into a pit of rabid men who are high on their magic. But my pride has been thrown into this irrational and violent spectacle, and even the red fog that nips at my ankles can’t scare me away. I’m too furious to cower.

“You’re killing him,” I shout, shoving my way past the circled men. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m not killing anybody,” Rowe seethes. “Just reminding him.”

“A reminder that you’re a full-bred lunatic?” I shout. “He’s purple, Rowe. He looks like a smashed puppet on a string. Can’t you declare yourself the winner of this madness and put him down already?”

Rowe lifts his chin, breathing heavily as he keeps his arm upward. The lines in his neck thrust against his skin, the black blood coursing through his jagged veins. “Stay out of this.”

“No,” I say, rolling up my sleeves. “I’ll chant over you if I have to. And I bet I can channel anger better than you. Believe me, I’m angrier with you than you are with him.”

“You shouldn’t even be here,” he warns, his voice getting tight. “Go home.”

“You’re the last person who is going to tell me what to do,” I yell. “Look at the trees. They’re turning ashen from you channeling them. You’re going to kill the whole blasted forest, and over what? Stop hurting him, or I’m going to throw you like a rag doll.”

The men snort, swallowing from their bottles of liquor as Rowe squares his shoulders above mine. His eyes are desolate pits and his posture incited, like a bear about to rear up on its back legs. My skin crawls with dread as I stare back at him. Whatever Lucas said about Rowe fighting over me seems absurd now. Rowe shows no emotion, no gentleness as he puts his face down in front of the tip of my nose. His sweet, rum flavored breath heats my lips and nostrils, but I refuse to blink or budge as I raise the flat of my hand up from my side. Everyone recognizes Rowe is older and more versed than I am in spells. They probably all know that Lil forbids me from doing it. That’s clear in how they jeer and clap at me. My insistence at facing a Nightblood who is twice my size only stirs them to tighten their circle around us.

I don’t actually know a chant that could throw him—but I can’t take back my empty threat. Rowe mutters something unintelligible as he looks down at me, but then he lowers his hand slowly. Xander’s tired body makes a sharp thumping sound as it hits the ground. Curling his legs to his stomach, Xander lurches as he sucks in air.

Rowe runs his forehead against the sleeve of his shirt, wiping the sweat away. “Happy?”

“Deliriously.” My cheeks are aflame as I whirl away from all of them.

“Calli,” Lucas calls.

I’m panting, before I realize I’ve been running. I just want to be alone. Fear and anxiety wash over me, and common sense returns minutes too late. What was to stop Rowe from directing his vicious chant at me when I snapped at him like that? I belittled him in front of a dozen or so very drunk Nightbloods. My skin erupts into countless goose bumps, and I cradle myself with my arms to rid myself of the chill from my wet clothes. When I hear the swift tromping of boots behind me, I walk faster down the crumbling bank.

“Are you set on drowning—or dying of a cold? You’re soaking wet already. Don’t go that way.”

I glance back as I hesitate to step into the water. Rowe waits, peering down into the dark.

“It’s not deep,” I say, stepping into the rushing water.

He curses, sliding down the soft embankment with his palm out. “It’s too cold, even in the summer. You’re the one who’s being a lunatic.”

Before I can say anything in response or reach for another river rock to steady myself, I’m off the ground. Bent over his shoulder, my face and arms meet with the back of his coat as he walks through the creek. My hair sways over my eyes.

“Put me down,” I holler, my demand muffled as his shoulder wedges into my stomach.

His grip doesn’t loosen. “Or what?”

“Or,” I say, squirming as the blood pools in my head. “Or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll put a spell on me? Consider me terrified.”

He unloads my weight as he steps out of the water, only releasing me as my feet touch the tacky dirt. “You have no shoes. No coat. And you don’t stop and think before you do anything. You know that?”

“And you have no goodness in you,” I say. I crouch in the dark, searching for my shoes. “Speaking of not thinking—I’m not the one throwing people into the wind.”

“These yours?” He lifts my shoes at me.

“Thanks,” I mutter, slipping my feet into them. “I can make it from here.”

“The hell you can,” he says, not moving until I start walking.

He braces my other hand as I struggle to climb up the slanted earth. “I did think about it before I did it, actually. I’ve thought about flattening Xander since yesterday. So I believe I showed a little restraint.”

“Restraint? If you’re going to stalk me to my front door,” I say, “maybe you could explain to me why you Nightbloods think it’s so fun to beat the life out of each other. What kind of
reminder
necessitates hurling someone like that?”

Quit saying your careless thoughts out loud
, I caution myself. You’re in the company of the Nightblood who was hoisting another man into the wind. We walk uneasily beside each other. “I did you a favor tonight,” he finally replies, spitting into the grass.

“Oh yeah? That was some favor. I never remember asking it of you, either.”

“Yes,” he says. He puts his hands to his hips. “Murdoch is bent over me being chosen to keep track of your dreams. It’s not like I ever asked for it. And I don’t know what exactly I did to make him want to replace me, but I couldn’t let the likes of Xander take over. He takes advantage of Seers’ visions—of their vulnerability all of the time. He’s disturbed.”

Disturbed
? Rowe referring to anybody as disturbed is richly ironic.
I feel drained, confused—and tremendously irritated by everyone talking around me
. “What do you mean? Why would you keep track of my dreams? And knowing my dreams doesn’t give you the right to invade them. Maybe Murdoch just doesn’t like you waltzing into a girl’s sleep like you’re some seductive gift to womankind.”

“No,” he whispers, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “That’s on you. And we’re really not supposed to discuss any of it with Seers.”

“If you’re going to be as cryptic as Lucas about your supposedly noble duties, then please spare me having to listen. And please stop acting as if I’ve given you any incentive to fling people on my behalf. It’s insulting.”

He stops as we enter the light of the lantern on Lil’s porch railing. “Are you going to let me apologize then? You make it nearly impossible to chase after you.”

“I don’t want to be chased by any Nightblood,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t want to be coddled or protected by one either. Not even by Lucas. Tonight is further proof of that. Please. I don’t want to anger you or be on your bad side. I just—”

I pause on the stairs, noting how he stiffens and tilts his head. “I just—I don’t want any of it—to be involved in some territorial Nightblood fight. I’m not interested in the magic. And I have no desire to be bedded or charmed in my sleep.”

He doesn’t seem deterred by my response, which frustrates me to the point of blurting out what I really think. “I know about what you did to May Cressle. Why would I even want to be friends with someone who would do something so low?”

“May?” he asks, the side of his mouth jerking downward. “I should’ve known that would come up eventually. What about it? How is it that I have to explain any of that to you?”

His self-righteousness has no limits
, I decide. “You don’t see anything wrong with having intimate relations with somebody—without so much as speaking to them afterward? Like they’re just a pair of shoes to try on, only to toss over your shoulder after you’ve walked around in them? Of course not. Not when you think little of squeezing Xander like an orange. I’ve read what May wrote about you in her diary. About how you ignored her after the night that it happened. It’s cowardly and cruel—even by Nightblood standards. You sicken me.”

Dashed lines cling to the corners of his mouth. “Oh yeah? Did May write the part about how she told half of the coven the details of our
intimate moment
? Because there was nothing kept secret about it, even if it was penned in a journal.
Or about how I ran an errand for one of the Elders a week later, to see her kissing somebody else behind Odella’s house? Who I’ve been alone with in the past is not only none of your concern, Calli, but I do not need to apologize for avoiding her after the way she behaved. I think I could at least have expected that I wouldn’t be the topic of everyone’s breakfast conversation. And I’m not one for kissing and touching a woman who’s busy doing the same with other people.”

Irritation flares in his eyes as he turns sideways. Looking off into the vacant darkness, he shakes off a low, weighted sigh. “Whatever you say, Calli. I’d actually break Murdoch’s rules and set you straight about all of it—about why you’re seeing me after your nightmares. But it doesn’t sound like you think enough of me to believe it. You’re obviously not ready to hear it.”

A crunching noise comes from the side of the house, and he tightens. “Quit hovering, Lucas.” Rowe sneers, like he’s tasted something moldy.

“I think she wants you to leave now.” Lucas walks out from the shadow of the woodpile, his switchblade reflecting the porch light. The knife might as well be as soft as a blade of grass, because Rowe only seems interested in gauging my reaction to it as he angles his back to Lucas. Swallowing, I fold my arms around myself. 

“Yes,” I whisper. “You should go.”

Rowe shrugs, his voice quiet and controlled. “If that’s what you want.”

Lucas thumbs his knife, but Rowe turns away, leaving me to huddle in my damp clothes. As the aching cold sets into my bones, I try to dismiss the sense that Rowe instinctively shifted in between me and the knife—and I shiver.

22

ISAIAH

I
bring the ax all of the way back, hurling it into the jagged bark again. The blade sticks at the crunch of the wood. I jiggle the handle a bit to pull it free. Flapping birds rush to the neighboring tree branches, dispersing as I make another angled notch in the trunk. The mossy dirt is still glossed in morning dew, and I’m mindful not to lose my balance and slip.  As I pause to rest my arm and dry the perspiration on my sleeve, I stop altogether. I don’t have to turn around to know someone’s there—watching me. With a brief glimpse over my shoulder, I take note of Rowe before cutting deeper grooves into the base of the tree.

He just stands there like he’s inspecting my efforts, which I find obnoxious and irritating. “If you came to see Calli,” I call out, “those old coven ladies were already here this morning. Murdoch too. Something about the way the pendulum swayed over her in a certain direction. She should break fever and be fine by tonight, I guess.”

Rowe clears the ten comfortable feet between us. He taps one hand at his leg impatiently as he glances at her windowpane. “Is Lil in there?”

“No, she’s next door—taking a break. Only because Mildred made her. … Why?”

His head cocks at me, which reminds me to focus on my task and disregard him. I don’t owe him anything, especially not when he refuses to abandon his lofty attitude.

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he mutters. “People around here never suffer through a fever.”

I prop the blunt side of the ax at my boot, realizing he’s just going to keep talking to me. “Lil doesn’t fancy anyone doing magic in her house. And she says if Calli will be on the mend soon, there’s no need for it.”

He shakes his head and bites at his cheek, visibly aggravated. “Like I said—stupid. And pointless.”

Shrugging, I pick my ax up. “I’m not in charge.”

He reels around, heading for the house. I suddenly feel protective, knowing how exhausted she’s been from tossing and turning. “Don’t go in there and wake her up,” I say, pointing the ax at him. “She’s sleeping.”

Rowe sneers at me, his eyes slits. “You shouldn’t push me. If nobody else has the judgment to do what needs to be done—”

“Rowe.”

“Yeah?”

“Calli is fragile right now. Please don’t mess with her head. Don’t go in there and help her if this is just about you hoping to get into her clothes—”

His cheeks turn up, and he just starts to laugh. “Don’t bathe your question in honey. I’m a man, you idiot. Of course I want to get into her clothes. I’m sure ever since she wore that dress to her Awakening, anybody with working gear wants to.”

What a charmer.
There’s crude, and then there’s Rowe.

My face must show that my eggs from breakfast are one more slimy remark away from hitting my throat, because he almost looks regretful. His shoulders give a bit as he squints his left eye. “She dances like a whore, but she isn’t one. And she doesn’t tailor her opinions to please anybody. And Calli is really funny when she’s pretending to be angry. Okay? And yes. Her curves look incredible in a fitted dress. You Ordinaries may pride yourselves on defending a lady’s honor, but around here, Seers handle themselves. Go back to your chores and quit worrying about my intentions already, before I put a foot in your gut.”