Page 5 of Bound and Tide

A child stood up against a tower of crates, an old canvas draped over them and flapping in the wind beside her. Maybe thirteen, she was dressed like the young boys he’d seen fishing on the edge of the dock, but she wore her dark hair up in two knots atop her head, ruining any attempt at hiding amongst them. Nestled into her tanned skin were dark eyes that absolutely glared back. “Well, he doesn’t have a single coin to give, so fuck off.”

Xander blinked. Darkness, what a little shit.

It took no effort as he’d been itching to hurt something since landing, and in an instant there were shadows wrapped around her neck. She was pinned against a crate, hands flying to her throat and grasping feebly at the smoke there, and he closed the gap between them. It was idiotic for her to choose to accost him when there was no one about to protect her—not that by the looks of the bruise fading from under her eye anyone ever did.

“How do you know Stavros?”

She didn’t answer, which he should have expected even without her breath cut off, but in that same moment he realized she didn’t need to. He could see it in the sharp planes of her face, in the dark fury of her eyes, and in the ghost of that smarmy little smirk she had been wearing.

It was like staring into a looking glass.

The shadows vanished, and she took a gulping breath, those dark, piercing eyes going wide. Xander faltered, and then he came back into himself, grabbing her by the collar. “Where in the realm is your mother?”

Mother? By all that’s grim and unholy, where did that come from?

“The Temple of Valcord,” she spat, slapping at him with spindly, weak arms.

“She belongs to the clergy?”

“No, she belongs to the earth, buried five years ago.”

Xander’s jaw clenched. “Then who in the Abyss is taking care of—” He swallowed the rest of that thought. She was close enough to grown, she didn’t need any care taken—he certainly hadn’t at her age. She wasn’t going to tell him anything, he knew because he wouldn’t have under the same circumstances, so he would have to do this another way.

He used his free hand to pull out the weapon he’d been reduced to carrying, but at least it was a clever thing he’d commissioned from Ukara years prior. With the flick of his thumb over the wooden handle, a blade of obsidian sprang out, and the girl fell still when she eyed the metal’s sharpened edge. He brought it to the back of her hand, and either he was too quick or she was too stupid, but he nicked her before she could pull away.

“Ow! Let me go!” She was all spindly legs then, kicking at him in a furious attempt to escape.

Xander maneuvered away—a boot to the chest was one thing, but to the groin was quite another. He retracted the blade and stuffed the weapon back into his pocket. “Listen to me, you dirty—” Xander grunted when she fell still, her gaze boring into his forehead. Dark gods, he hated that. “What in the Abyss are you doing?”

River water doused Xander in an arcane splash, the taste of fishy muck flooding his senses, the stink all over him. It was so freezing, he immediately recoiled, and she slipped from his grasp. Before he could even wipe the sting from his eyes, footsteps pounding over the dock rattled in his mind as she sped away.

“You rotten little…” Xander threw his arm in her direction, the desire to tear her to shreds pumping noxscura into his fingertips, but he closed his fist around the arcana before it could be unleashed. She would do him no good dead, and who knew how well his magic would obey? Maybe the gods, but Xander doubted that very much.

She didn’t need to tell him anything anyway, the blood he’d collected would do it for her.

Chapter 4

THE COST OF DOING GOOD

“Oh, dear, it looks like someone’s giving Percival a hard time again.”

Evangeline craned her neck as she leaned over the counter to get a better look. The shop’s window was large, curtains drawn back to reveal the tinctures and salves she’d artfully arranged that morning. Regulars didn’t need fancy displays to know they required her work, their festering growths and persistent fevers were enough, but travelers were attracted to pomp. Enchantments helped too, of course, but luxury? Luxury could win almost anyone over.

Madam Orr was peering through the glass and taking up most of the window, but Evangeline could see just past her to where the innkeeper stood at the road’s end. There was another man with Percival on The Sleepy Salmon’s stoop, and even from the back of him, she could tell he was being a little shit. Or more like a big shit, if his height or the way he was waving his finger around had anything to do with it. People just had a look about them, even the backs of people, and Evangeline could spot an asshole from a mellow nettle field away.

She squinted and frowned, but the man wasn’t anyone she recognized what with that white hair and a griffin pecking at the cobbles beside him, though she had expected it to be one of Horace’s henchmen making his coercive rounds. So, this stranger was just a normal big shit then, not a hired one.

Before she could hitch up her skirt and stalk across the road to see what all the fuss was about, the white-haired man turned on his heel and left Percival looking only a little shaken and holding a palmful of coins. The griffin remained, its feathered crest ruffling, but Evangeline knew Percival was better with animals than people, and he would insist everything was fine since he’d gotten paid. If she kept helping him, she supposed he would never grow much of a spine, but he was nearing fifty, so she wasn’t sure how much growing he had left to do. She was lucky that at thirty-three her own spine had been hardened over a decade ago, especially since that made taking care of everyone else so much easier.

Madam Orr turned from the window when the ruckus ran out, shrugging rounded shoulders and tottering up to the counter where she dumped an armload of bottles and tins.

“All this?” Evangeline chuckled, picking up a draft of decongestant and another for the overproduction of saliva.

“Yes, yes, dear, what if I run out? You know, I stopped by last week, and you were closed!” There was no malice in the woman’s words, just a buzzing anxiety about calamities that certainly wouldn’t come to pass.

That unseasonably warm morning last week was the first time Evangeline had closed the shop while the sun was up in over two moons. Perhaps what Madam Orr truly needed was tonic for apprehension: a hefty dose of valerian and a bit of lavender boiled in a fruity base with just the right amount of ketiath to slow down the organs but not permanently. She could call it Dread Draft—well, no, that would make it sound like it inspired anxiety, wouldn’t it? She jotted the idea down in the recipe book of her mind and gave Madam Orr a sympathetic look. “Just rounding out my stock before the snow falls, but I should have very little reason to leave the shop this winter.” Evangeline grimaced down at a stomach tonic. “Are you sure about this one?”

“You know cheese doesn’t sit well with me.”

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