Chapter 13
Kit
By the time I got Penny and the Symbiarch a safe distance from the burning mission, Anders was well on his way down the road away from Wendwood. The Symbiarch tracked my line of sight, and her soot-smudged forehead crinkled.
There were too many things to worry about at once, foremost of which should have been Penny.
He was limp with his back against me while I supported him with my arms clenched around his chest, and his gasping breaths were interrupted by intermittent coughs.
But the fear that the militia might be close enough to chase Anders down made the top of my list of concerns just long enough for me to realize he’d turn the two of us in, too, if he were caught.
“Is there anyone to go after him?” I asked as I tried unsuccessfully to get Penny on his feet.
I was almost ashamed of my relief when the Symbiarch shook her head. Catching Anders would mean recovering the supplies we’d taken, but as much as I wished we could give it all back, I would rather live long enough to make it up to Wendwood when everything was over.
“We’re at the edge of the ward,” she explained. “The nearest militia outpost is at least half an hour’s ride the other direction.”
With that potential disaster out of mind, my attention shifted back to Penny.
He was panting hard, and when it became clear his legs were too weak to hold him, I turned us so that the fire was no longer in his line of sight and eased him down to his knees in the snow.
When I settled in front of him, his wide eyes cast about wildly.
I wasn’t sure if his shivering was because of the cold and his lack of cloak, or from fear.
“You’re okay, sweetheart.” I slid my hands up his arms, but he didn’t seem to notice. “You’re safe—”
“Where’s Sayla?!” He twisted toward the fire, and only my grip stopped him from making a break for it. “I need to get her out!”
I was certain the mission had been empty but for the two of them, and we were at least two days’ journey from Eastcliff. There was no reason for Sayla to be in Wendwood. I was about to ask what he was talking about when it registered in my own worried mind and I understood what was happening.
“Sayla’s not here, Pen.” I tried to catch his eyes, but he refused to look away from the fire. “She’s in Eastcliff. Do you remember where we are? We’re in Wendwood. This is a mission, not your barn.”
It hurt to see him so blindly panicked, taken back to the horrific accident that had left him and his sister maimed. I hated that he was reliving the most painful, frightening moments of his life, and there was little I could do to make it better.
Penny strained against my hold, and I tugged on his arms to try to turn him toward me. “I promise you, she isn’t in there. No one is, because you got the Symbiarch out safe, too. You did good.”
His gaze moved to the old woman standing apart from us, and some of the fight left him. “Sayla’s safe?” he croaked.
“Everyone is safe,” I told him. “No one got hurt. We got out in time.”
He turned back and his eyes raked over me. When he was assured that I was unharmed, he slumped, still trembling, but at least he was facing me. If I could catch his full attention, I could pull him out of this.
“We’re okay.” I slid my hands down to his and squeezed, hoping the pain from his wounds would break him the rest of the way out of the nightmare he was mired in.
He whimpered, and guilt ate at me as I relaxed my grip. His eyes, swimming with tears and rimmed in red, finally met mine. But there was renewed fear there, not the return to the present I’d been hoping for.
“It happened again,” he sobbed. “My hands…” His gaze dipped down only to jerk back up before it even got past my chin. “How did it happen again…?”
I realized too late that the pain in his hands was making this worse, not better. He was breathing even faster now, short, shallow pants that left him looking faint. Lost in the memory of fresh burns and months of agony.
“There are no burns, Pen. Cuts from the glass, but no burns.” I released his right hand to pry open his left and hold it up where he could see.
He shrunk away, his face wet with tears and eyes squeezed shut. “I'll be no good. They won't want me anymore. Everything's ruined, and it's my fault…” The words petered out into a whine.
I could have cursed Merrick, then, for instilling such a fear in his much younger brother.
And Anders on top of that, for forcing Penny to experience this trauma again.
It had taken months in Ashpoint to get Penny comfortable even with the contained flames of the forge, to trust that he was safe there with me. This would undo all of that.
Catching Penny’s cheek, I turned him back.
“I will always want you. No matter what,” I assured him. “You haven’t ruined anything, and none of this is your fault.” His lower lip quivered, and I wanted so badly to kiss him, but I needed him calm first.
“Please look, sweetheart,” I insisted. “No burns. Just cuts.”
It took him another few moments to work up the nerve to glance at his lacerated palm. His shoulders sagged in relief, and his breathing finally started to slow.
“That’s better.” I brushed the sweat-damp hair back from his cheeks, and pressed a kiss to his forehead before winding my arms around him and crushing him against me.
His arms came around me too, bloodied hands fisting in the back of my shirt as he buried his face in my shoulder.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you.” I leaned my head against his and finally let myself breathe, too.
We stayed that way for several long moments before Penny spoke again.
“Where’s Anders?” His words were muffled in the folds of my shirt, but I could hear the worry on the edge of them.
I glanced back to be sure the Symbiarch wasn’t paying attention to us, then dropped my voice anyway. “Gone,” I said softly. “He set the fires and left when I went in to get you out. There’s no chance we’ll catch up with him, so we’ll have to find our own way back.”
Without our bag of supplies, that was going to prove difficult. My cloak was in the back of the wagon, and I assumed Penny’s had gone up with the mission. We had nothing but the clothes on our backs, our knives, the small bag of coin in my pocket, and Penny’s sketchbook.
We were stranded, and the prospect of having to walk back to Ashpoint was daunting.
With Penny’s compromised lungs, especially after inhaling all that smoke, it was a recipe for disaster.
I couldn’t leave him in Wendwood, either.
He was no kind of liar, and the longer he spent around the people here, the more likely his conscience would get the better of him and he’d tell them something he shouldn’t.
I had no desire to be away from him for any length of time, anyway.
Raised voices filtered in on the breeze, putting a stop to any further questions from Penny. We both looked up to see a mob of townsfolk rushing down the road with buckets swinging from their arms. Empty buckets meant a water source nearby, so maybe the mission wouldn’t be a complete loss.
“I’m going to help,” I told Penny as I eased him back.
His grip on my shirt tightened. “No, Kit,” he said in a rush. “Don’t leave me.”
I cupped his face in my hands and leaned our foreheads together. “I’m not going in, I promise, and not going far. I need you to stay here with the Symbiarch. At a safe distance.”
He let out a distraught cry, then thew himself against me, squeezing impossibly tight. “You need to stay here too. You need to be at a safe distance.” His fingers dug into my back, driving out a pained grunt.
“Pen,” I began while trying to pry him off, “if even part of the mission can be saved, I have to try. I have to know I did what I could. If it was anything but fire, I know you’d want to help, too.”
Snow crunched under the Symbiarch’s feet as she crossed to us and stood behind Penny. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he loosened his grip enough to look up at her.
She looked haunted. Her gray eyes were red and irritated from the smoke, her brown hair had all but escaped its bun, and soot streaked her pale face. Even still, she managed a kind smile.
“I’d like it if you’d wait with me, Penwell,” she said.
He sniffled and looked between us as I forced a smile of my own.
“Can we get you up out of the snow? Think you can stand now?”
He released me fully, and I got to my feet. Careful of his injured hands, I levered him up and steadied him against me until his legs took his own weight.
I brushed his hair aside again. “Be right back.”
His fingers caught in mine before I could pull away. “Be careful.”
“Always,” I said, leaving him with a parting kiss.
I met the crowd as the last of them turned off the road toward the little spit of woods behind the mission. The first few were already on their way back, buckets sloshing over with dark, murky water. The rearmost man saw me coming and held out one of his buckets.
“Pond’s this way,” he said.
Sure enough, not far into the trees was a meager body of water that was more puddle than pond, but a blessing just the same.
Someone had hacked through the thick sheet of ice over it, and an axe lay abandoned on the bank.
The townsfolk cycled through, filling buckets and rushing back toward the fire. I took my place among them.
By my third trip, my muscles were burning and the cold was biting at the sweat cutting streaks through the soot on my face. I thought I’d been tired to start with, but exhaustion crashed in like a landslide weighing down my limbs.
Still, the fire raged. No matter how many buckets of pond water we hurled at the inferno, the flames refused to abate.
Little by little, the townspeople gave up. They dropped their buckets and stood back with Penny and the Symbiarch until it was just me and one other man left. We worked in tandem for several minutes more before he caught my arm on my way back to the pond.
“It’s no use,” he said. “Better to lose the building than for anyone to get hurt when it comes down.”
As if in agreement, the ridge board in the roof creaked and popped and sent us both scrambling. When the other rafters groaned, I knew he was right. The whole building threatened collapse; there was no saving it.
None of this was supposed to happen. We were supposed to be in and out, and no one was to be the wiser. The loss of supplies was bad enough for a small community like this. Now they’d lost their infirmary, too.
The man took my bucket from me, and I retreated to join the rest of the throng looking on as the fire consumed everything.
Penny tucked himself against my chest the moment I got close enough.
I let him bury his face in my shoulder while I rubbed soothing circles over his back as if that could make anything better.
Everyone stood in silent stillness until the roof finally caved in.
The crowd began to disperse, then. The Symbiarch was caught up by a group of what looked to be brothers who ushered her toward town, and most of the others turned to follow. One woman approached Penny and me and offered a faint smile.
“Come on. You’re coming home with me.” She motioned back toward town. “Warm up, wash up. My wife has soup on, and there’s plenty to fill your bellies.”
Guilt burned my throat like bile at the thought of taking anything more from these people. There might be plenty of soup today, but how long would that last?
“We couldn’t impose,” I said.
She waved off my protest. “Nonsense. Can’t let you help just to wander off in your sorry state and freeze.”
I opened my mouth to argue—crushed under the knowledge that I was only helping with a disaster I had no small part in causing—just as Penny pulled back with the first of a flurry of wracking coughs.
He swayed on his feet as the fit robbed him of air, and I caught him around the waist to steady him while he whooped in heavy breaths.
There was no choice. I needed to get Penny in out of the cold, even for just a little while. Without cloaks we weren’t dressed for the weather, and I was in no position to refuse whatever help we were offered.
The woman simply gestured again and smiled warmly when we fell into step beside her.