23. Kit #2
“Practice a bit. See what comes to you.” I pulled out a few tools and lined them up on the tabletop.
Pointing at each in turn, I walked him through what they were called and what they did.
Awls, stamps, carving blades, and mallets were slotted alongside a pair of rusty shears that would need my attention before they would be usable.
He set his sketchbook aside, then picked up the tools I’d shown him, turning them over in his scar-striped palms .
“What if I’m no good at it?” he asked.
“Then we’ll try something else,” I said. “If all fails, I still have use for you.”
“How so?”
A soft smile tipped my lips. “I happen to enjoy your company, and that has its own merit.”
Penny's expression turned serious, almost somber. He pulled over a scrap of brown leather and tested one of the carving blades while avoiding my eyes.
When he didn’t respond, I started back toward the forge, only to pause halfway there.
“Penny?”
He swiveled toward me with his brows drawn. “Hmm?”
“I think we both have things in our pasts that are better left there. So, I don’t want to hear you repeating anything else Merrick says about you.
He’s been wrong about all of it, and you don’t need to live in the shadow of his judgment anymore.
We both know exactly what kind of man he is and how little his opinions matter. ”
Penny blinked several times before giving a shallow nod and returning to his carving.
I headed for the rack of tools that needed repairing and picked out a dull, bent, and dented hoe blade to start with. It was comforting to focus on a familiar task and forget where I was for a while, going through the motions and letting my mind empty of all the worries of the last few days.
I was so lost in the work that I didn’t see the trio of men filing in under the canopy sometime later until a voice from the doorway drew my attention.
“Heard we had some new blood in town. What’d I tell you, Reimond?”
I lowered my hammer and looked up as the first man stepped close to the hearth and held his hands up to the heat radiating from the coals.
He towered at least four inches taller than me and was just as broad.
His brows and eyes were the same mousy brown as his shaggy hair and chest-length beard.
His face and arms were a deep tan as if he’d spent the entire summer out in the sun, and he had a leather scabbard strapped to his back with some sort of long blade tucked inside.
Behind him trailed a man about Penny’s height and build, fixing his mussed auburn hair as his gray eyes scanned over the space.
His cheeks were windburned, and hay stuck to the hems of his slacks.
Bringing up the rear was a man with chestnut skin and eyes to match and close-cropped black hair who barely came up to my chin.
He fussed with the twisted left strap of his overalls while standing close beside the second man.
“Technically,” I said as the tallest of the three came closer to see what I was working on, “I’m old blood. Just been gone a while.”
He grinned and flicked his eyes over my shoulder. “And what about you?”
I glanced back to find that Penny had left his leatherworking and now stood behind me like I was a shield.
“This is my first time here,” he said.
Before the monster of a man could ask Penny anything else, I tugged off one glove and extended my hand to him.
“Kit Koesters. This is Penny.” No surname for him.
The less people that knew of his connection to Merrick, the better, but nothing stopped me from taking advantage of my own infamous family ties.
“Anders,” he replied, gripping my hand in a too tight shake. With the other, he gestured to the second and third men in turn. “That’s Reimond and Thoma. ”
They each gave a brief wave, though neither seemed interested in the introductions. I got the impression that they had other things to do but got roped into playing town greeters.
Anders released me and picked up my discarded hammer, swinging it idly through the air as he wandered the shop. “You two initiates or just here to work?”
“Initiates.” I watched as he rifled through my tool racks like the items there belonged to him. “But we’ll be working here, too. Have to earn our keep, after all.”
“Guess we can’t all work the mill,” he said, flexing his sizable bicep. “Not everyone can split a mighty oak with one swing of an axe.”
Thoma rolled his eyes behind Anders’s back, and I had to stifle a grin.
Penny peered out from behind me at the other two men. “I’m apprenticing here, though I’m mostly focusing on the leather bits. What do you do?”
The lumberman motioned to his companions before they could respond. “They’re just animal wranglers.” He sniffed derisively and resumed poking through my supplies. “Little shepherd boy and the horse tamer.”
Penny’s face lit up at the mention of livestock, and he stepped around me. “We kept sheep on the farm. I’ve always loved them.”
Anders scoffed, but Reimond returned Penny’s smile. “We have a whole flock. Just brought them in for the winter from grazing up the mountain. You’re welcome to come by the stables to see them.” He bumped Thoma’s shoulder with his own. “And he has a couple of fine new colts out there as well.”
“Well,” Anders broke in, making his way back to the rest of us, “while you ladies play with the animals, us men will be doing the real work.” He stepped up next to me and swung my pilfered hammer, clanging it off the anvil and barely missing the hoe blade that I yanked safely out of the way.
I shifted to position myself between him and Penny.
“This doesn't seem so hard,” Anders continued. “Bet I could do what you do no problem, Kit.”
“It’s a wonder the Right Hand said I was needed here, then, if you could have filled in.” I tried to keep my tone from creeping into irritation.
He laughed and dropped the hammer on the anvil with a clatter, then moved toward the bellows. “I was needed more in the mill.”
I barely managed to head him off before he could pump more air into the firepot and make the flames flare up. He remained undeterred, moving to the rack of tools awaiting repair and picking up a set of dull wool shears.
I was so focused on keeping an eye on him that I almost didn’t hear Reimond behind me asking Penny about his carving. When Penny took the other two men to the far corner to show off his work, the tension in my shoulders eased. The farther he was from careless Anders, the better.
While they talked quietly, bent over the worktable together, Anders bragged about how quickly he could strip a tree and touted his record for the most trees felled in a single shift.
He was halfway through rearranging my hammers and tongs when something outside the open doorway caught his attention.
“Otis!” he called, leaning much too close to my ear to be speaking so loudly. “Come meet the other new initiates!”
A glance over found a portly young man and a willowy young woman who looked too alike not to be related passing by outside.
They shared the same slim, sharp nose, pointed chin, and thin lips, and were pale all around: milky skin, white-blond hair, ice blue eyes.
The only color to be seen was in their rosy cheeks which only got redder as they stepped under the canopy and into the range of the heat from the forge.
Anders stepped up beside me and gestured to the pair. “Otis and Isla.” Turning to face them, he motioned behind us. “That’s Penny, and this”—he slapped my back hard enough that it rocked me forward— “is Kit Koesters.”
Isla gave a curt nod while Otis studied me with narrowed eyes.
“These two think they’re too smart to slum with the rest of us,” Anders said, bending in again as if he was telling me a secret yet still speaking at full volume. “Spend all their time in the apothecary.”
“Is Harlan Volkur still the resident herbalist?” I asked, trying to ignore the intensity of Otis’s scrutiny.
Isla dipped her head. “We’re his apprentices.”
“He’s told me a lot about you,” Otis said. “Vaughn Koesters’ son. The youngest person to ever begin their Oaths.”
Anders scoffed. “And he’ll be the oldest to finish them at this rate.”
Otis didn't seem to notice the interruption as he continued, his eyes boring into me. “Brought in more bodies—living and dead—than most men who had been at it twice as long as you. Devout as the best of them until the day you disappeared.”
A quick glance at the far end of the shop assured me that Penny was too involved in showing Reimond and Thoma his sketchbook to be paying attention to our conversation.
He didn’t need to know how prolific a graverobber I’d been as a teenager, especially not with how fresh the hurt was of having his father’s body taken .
I suspected it would all come out eventually, but on my terms.
Turning back to Otis, I masked my alarm at how much he seemed to know that he shouldn’t. Considering how many of my secrets Harlan was privy to, I couldn’t help but worry what other skeletons he’d managed to dig up from my past.
“I’m surprised Harlan told you about me at all,” I said. “He never liked me.”
Otis grunted, and his lips curled in a sinister smirk. “I find that if you ask the right questions, you learn all kinds of interesting things.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the cool autumn air crept over my skin.
Isla snagged her brother's hand, and he finally broke eye contact.
“We need to be getting back. Harlan doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” she said, then added, “It was good to meet you, Kit.”
“Likewise,” I replied.
They ducked through the doorway and disappeared into the crowd milling about the streets.
I’d been uneasy when Anders arrived, but now I was practically vibrating with tension.
There was far too much I wanted to keep hidden that Harlan could bring to light, and it didn’t bode well that he’d given in to Otis’s questions already.
Though, my father’s old friend wasn’t exactly a paragon of secrecy; he was weak-willed and easily manipulated by anyone who knew which soft places to dig into.
There was too much nervous energy crackling through me to be still, so I returned to the forge and the abandoned hoe blade. Anders followed, reaching for my hammer again. I snagged it before he could and dropped it into the front pocket of my apron, out of his reach .
I hadn’t even gotten the blade back into the coals before Rosie rapped her knuckles against the doorframe, drawing everyone’s attention. Despite the full house, she didn’t have eyes for anyone but Penny as she flashed him a warm smile.
“Are you busy?” she asked, brushing her braids behind her shoulder. “I can come back later.”
Before Penny could respond, Reimond grabbed Thoma’s sleeve and gave it a tug. “We were actually just leaving,” he said. “Barn chores.” The two of them started toward the doorway, and Reimond waved at Penny then nodded in my direction. “We’ll see you around.”
Neither of them waited for a response before hurrying out of the forge and back to whatever Anders had doubtless interrupted when he’d dragged them here.
Rosie made her way to Penny as he stuffed his sketchbook into his boot. “I got some more dried lavender from the apothecary, and I was going to make another batch of shortbreads,” she said. “I can teach you how, if you still want to learn.”
Penny glanced at me, and I waved him on.
“Go ahead. I’ll meet you back home later,” I said.
His smile made my stomach lurch. Clearly, I was more out of sorts after Otis’s accusations than I’d realized. I pushed the strange sensation down and forced my attention back to my work until Penny and Rosie had gone.
Anders lingered, moving about in my peripherals and starting in on more stories about the lumbermill while I hammered out the dents in the hoe blade and honed the edge.
By the time I was done, he’d touched everything in the shop and put nothing back where he’d found it, leaving the entire place in disarray.
He seemed to have finally run out of things to say as I placed the finished piece on the rack against the wall, and he leaned against the stone edge of the hearth.
“You make that blade?” He indicated my Penny-menacing knife in its sheath on my hip.
Sighing, I tugged off my apron and pulled the knife free, holding it out for him to see. “I did.”
He let out a low whistle as he looked it over. “Fine work, but a bit small.” He reached back and drew his own blade, an oversized machete that looked well-crafted but unwieldy.
“Now this ,” he said with a grin, “is what you need. It’ll come in handy for future Oaths.”
It wasn’t worth telling him my knife would be more useful in most circumstances, but he did have a point: several Oaths would take us beyond the relative safety of Ashpoint’s walls, and we would need means of defending ourselves. Penny would do well to have a blade of his own.
Perhaps I couldn’t protect him from the Oaths like I’d hoped, but at least I could equip him to protect himself.