Pushing off the cot, she crossed the small hut and opened the canvas flap. “I’m ready.”
At her back, Pen heard Tru speaking quietly to Adrian. Then he followed her out into the gathering darkness. The ocean was loud, a constant crash of waves. But the sound of people was so much stronger. Chatter, hammering, the clink of utensils. Singing and a baby crying and the soft notes of a distant fiddle.
Unexpected tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to explain why, but no words came. This was so much bigger than she’d expected. So much more to defend. The weight of a duty she didn’t yet carry kept her feet from moving. No wonder Tru avoided lasting ties.
But she also felt relief. The rumors had been true; they’d found a real, thriving settlement with a fighting chance. She was giddy with the possibilities, no matter the burdens of protecting such a treasure.
“This Arturo guy can wait.” Tru stood beside her, his expression etched with concern. “You need to rest.”
“No, I’m all right. Honest.”
He maintained his dubious frown but took her hand. Held it. And they walked behind Zhara as she led them through camp.
Despite the urge to absorb every detail, Pen kept her eyes lowered and her concentration tight. Just the heat of Tru’s palm. The even, assured cadence of his strides. To try processing everything at once would only put her back in that hut. And she wanted to meet the man who’d inspired this haven.
Zhara was outfitted more simply than she had been on the beach. No cloak, no small arms on her hip. She kept her hair neatly cropped, which accentuated the grace of her neck. Reaching another hut—one exactly like all the rest—she ducked inside.
Pen exchanged a swift glance with Tru before following.
And she stood face-to-face with a figment.
“It can’t be,” she whispered. “
You
can’t be.”
He sat behind a small table; maps and manifests scattered its surface and lined the soft walls. He stood, wearing a dumbfounded expression that matched her inner turmoil.
“Hello, Penny.”
“Finn?”
A slight smile. He nodded. “Arturi, actually, but yes. You once knew me as Finn.”
She rushed forward and embraced him. Just like that. No hesitation as she hugged a piece of her imagination made real. He smelled of chalk and wood smoke. Their laughter was matched in disbelief.
“What’s going on?” Tru asked.
Pen faced him. “Do you remember back when I had an imaginary friend?”
“You were little. Kids do that.”
“This . . .” She met the man’s eyes again. “This is him. Grown up.”
Tru turned the full power of his scrutiny toward their host. She tried to imagine what he saw but knew their perspectives would be entirely different. Arturi was thirty-ish. Tons of freckles added a ruddy cast to his fair skin. A lock of ginger hair hugged his forehead. His eyelashes were so pale as to be nearly invisible, making the blue of his eyes more prominent. An awkward smile was made all the more humble by crooked front teeth.
He was nothing special. Objectively, he looked like a human gnome, all soft and sweet-faced. But to Pen, seeing him in person was like learning dragons and mermaids really existed. Even in the Changed world, evidence of such magic still took her by surprise.
“This is Tru,” Pen said, crossing back to his side. “He’s the skinwalker who helped get me here.”
“I remember you talking about a boy named Tru. Same person?”
She couldn’t look at Tru. Couldn’t do it, even though she knew it was cowardly as hell. The unexpected embarrassment was too much. “That’s right.”
“Why did she call you Finn?” Tru’s expression remained wary.
“I was born in Finland.”
Pen grinned at her nine-year-old self. “I just thought it was your name.”
“That’s right. But I never minded.” A wistful smile touched his mouth. He seemed self-conscious about his teeth, because he didn’t let them show.
“Wait, so he was real?” Tru huffed out a laugh. “That’s almost a relief.”
With a little flinch, Pen tried not to read too much into his offhand words. She’d always thought herself mad. Had Tru believed the same?
“When the Change began in Europe, my parents managed to get us to Florida.” Arturi’s posture tightened subtly, the reflex of grief. But even through that grief, his voice remained almost hypnotic in its sure smoothness. “They didn’t last long after that, so I stayed, even when the Change hit the east coast.”
“Then you’ve been at this a lot longer than I have,” she said.
He nodded. Try as she might, Pen could detect no magic within him. No ability to shift. No healing. Not even the strange aura given off by Zhara’s ability to read runes. He was simply a man. An ordinary man, but one armed with a strange charisma that drew her attention. She had been in his head since childhood. She knew his fears and his hopes better than she knew her own. Maybe he knew the same about her. How could a man without magic speak to her across such a gulf of time and space?
When Zhara walked over to him, he wrapped an arm about her waist. They made such an odd couple, with her dusky skin and slender, athletic physique—probably a good ten centimeters taller than he. But that quiet intimacy spoke volumes about their trust and affection.
Pen staunched the urge to retake Tru’s hand. They’d let go sometime between the walk and stepping into the surreal. She missed the reassurance of touch.
Arturi’s expression, however, meant an end to such impulses. She could hardly think of him by that name, so long had she seen his features in her mind and called him Finn. “I’m glad you found us,” he said, words somber. “Zhara predicted your arrival, but now I must know. Why are you here, Penny?”
“To convince you to take down General O’Malley.”
He nodded, as if that were the exact answer he’d awaited. “Then we have a great deal to do.”
Pen inhaled through her nose. Despite her self-doubt and memories of old failures, she discovered a surprising measure of calm. Daydreams of an imaginary friend hadn’t been the ravings of a lunatic little girl. Something unlocked inside her.
I’m not crazy.
For how many years had she traveled, surrounded by magic but still unconvinced of her own sanity? It had simply been a destiny no one knew how to interpret.
No fear here. Only what she’d been meant to do all along. These were the people she’d come to help.
Arturi changed his focus with the slightest shift of his gaze. “And you, Tru. I remember Penny thought very highly of you. Will you be joining us?”
FOURTEEN
Tru sidestepped the question, but what did they expect? That he’d sign up for some fairy-tale mission to dismantle O’Malley? He had as much reason as anyone to hate the general, but he also knew the difference between fights that could be won—and ones that were doomed from the outset.
Rather than press, Arturi assigned an escort to show them to their quarters. Adrian would share digs with a number of orphaned children. Tru went with him to make sure it was decent, but the kids were allotted plenty of space for individual pallets. They had free rein in the camp by day, so it wasn’t as if they spent all their time trapped inside. Just a warm, safe place to sleep.
“You fine with this?” Tru asked.
“Sure. They told me there are washtubs set up over there.” Adrian pointed to the far end of the settlement.
Tru made out a low wooden wall surrounding an outdoor bath, which was located close to a well. Water boiled on the fire. The town maintained a schedule. Because only males were allowed to use the facilities at the moment, he and Adrian walked over together to clean up. The arrangement was clever. He stood in a small tub and soaped up. Overhead hung a bucket with holes in the bottom. He pulled its connected rope to move the covering aside, which released water over his head. Others waited to use the bathing area, so he rinsed quickly and donned his travel-worn clothing. Then he waited for Adrian without being obvious about it.
On his way out, he asked, “Is there a laundry?”
“That way,” a man answered.
Adrian didn’t have any other clothes either, so Tru made his next question count. “Is there a place we can trade for supplies?”
“The quartermaster’s in that tent,” another man replied.
“Thanks.”
Inside the tent, the air was dark and warm. Stuff cluttered every spare inch. He picked a path to the front, where a young woman sat in a camp chair, chewing a pipe. There was no smoke, so she must like the feel of the stem between her teeth. At closer glance, he recognized her as Shine, the quiet one who had escorted them from the coast.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“You have clothing?”
“Sure, as long as you don’t mind homespun. What do you have for trade?”
He only had one thing anyone would want. With some regret, he dug the item out of his pack. It was an expensive survival knife with multiple attachments. Mason told him years ago that it had once cost almost a hundred dollars, but that wasn’t how Tru knew its worth. The excellent quality blade had stood up well over the years, and it would offer invaluable help to anyone who practiced regular woodcraft.
Tru placed the knife in her hands. She turned it over, pulling out all the little tools to examine them. Eventually she said, “Two sets of clothing for each of you.”
Because he suspected that she expected him to, he haggled. “Are you crazy? They don’t make tools like that anymore. Any idiot can stitch up trousers and a tunic.”
“But that doesn’t take into account growing the flax, spinning it, and weaving it into cloth. The needlework is the least of the process.”
“Six sets.”
“That’s ridiculous. We trade with the daredevils who knock off O’Malley’s shipments. I could bargain for ten of these knives for less trouble.”
“I doubt it. The markup is insane.”
“Three sets,” she said with a twisted upper lip.
“Five.”
Adrian watched the proceedings with an apparent mixture of embarrassment and hilarity. But he kept his smile to a minimum. Bargaining was serious business.
“Four,” Tru finally said.
“Sold.” Shine took the knife and opened a trunk stuffed with layers of clothing. Every article had been crafted from raw homespun, which meant garments of pale, clean simplicity.
For the next few minutes, he and Adrian dug through the trunk, looking for four trousers and tunics that would fit. The design reminded Tru of a surgeon’s scrubs, though it had been many long years since he’d seen a doctor wearing anything but a bloody apron more suited to a butcher than a man of medicine.
“Do you mind if we change in here?” he asked. “I’d like to get these clothes to the laundry. How much does that cost by the way?”
“I’ll turn around,” Shine said. “And there’s no cost per se. Everyone pitches in. So as long as you’re willing to take your turn in the laundry and the galley, we make sure the work gets done.”
“What’s a galley?” Adrian whispered.
“The kitchen, I think.”
“Yep.” Shine, it seemed, had very good ears. “You’ll both take a turn cooking sometime in the next two weeks. You need to see Vern about getting on the work roster.”
That sounded like hell. Tru would wash his own clothes and get his own food. But Adrian seemed pleased with the idea of fitting in and being needed. He beamed at the prospect of chores.
So Tru said, “Good idea.”
Once dressed, the two parted ways. Adrian headed off to look for Vern, and Tru walked toward the tent he had been assigned. Or rather, the one
Pen
had been assigned. Arturi’s people had assumed she would share with Tru. He didn’t like the assumption, as it forced him into position as half of something. Mr. Penelope Sheehan. He had offered his heart and his life to a real woman once. He wouldn’t repeat the mistake with a living goddess—a martyr in the making if ever he saw one.
Technically, he could leave now.
He’d kept his promise. That was the only thing that mattered to him. Not sex, anymore. Keeping his word meant everything. Mason had taught him that much, but Tru needed to get out while he still could.
Wearily, his steps turned toward Pen’s tent. Inside the small space covered in pale cloth, he found little by way of amenities, just a cornhusk mattress and handwoven blankets for a bed. No other furnishings, not that they were needed. Most of the camp seemed to do their living outside with other people. The place couldn’t have been established for too long. Defenses first. Then niceties. He’d proceed the same way.
Once inside, he saw Pen had bathed, too; she must have used a private tub or basin. One couldn’t make the divine Orchid stand around dirty. Her skin shone with a sun-kissed glow, courtesy of their days on the road. Short, freshly washed hair gleamed with pale streaks. As ever, her deep blue eyes haunted him. Sometimes he saw them in his sleep, and he didn’t
want
to.