22. Old friends #3
“Did you hear that?” Leif said, his head swivelling around, looking for the source.
“No time,” Felix said, grabbing his arm.
But Leif already turned toward a crate, a pile of canvas bags stacked on top. He reached inside a bag and drew out a filthy, trembling little dog. It yelped and wriggled, trying to crawl up to Leif’s neck.
“Someone just… dumped it here,” Leif said, aghast. “All alone.”
Felix stared at him. “We are fleeing for our lives.”
“It’s a helpless little puppy!” Leif said, cradling the dog protectively.
“Leave it,” Felix said.
“I will not.”
“You're adorable,” Mia said with a grin.
“Don’t you encourage him,” Felix snapped.
“He’s tiny; he won’t slow me down. Let’s keep going,” Leif said, and continued walking as if the matter was resolved, wrapping the puppy in the folds of his cloak. Felix squeezed his eyes shut, sighed, then followed behind.
A bell started ringing in the distance when they reached the gate. Felix stopped short, eyeing the pair of guards slouched under a lantern, too tired or bored to care about much of anything.
Their horses were in the livery stable. Retrieving them was a risk he knew he shouldn’t take. He gritted his teeth and made the call. “We leave the horses,” he whispered. Ranger wasn’t his own horse, anyway. He hoped Isolde wouldn’t be upset about it.
Leif’s head jerked toward him. “What? If we’re followed, we’ll never outrun them.”
“They’ll check the stables,” Felix said. “If we take the horses, they will know we’re headed west. On foot, we can stay off the road. Harder to track.”
Mia merely shrugged. “I don’t have a horse. Riding is not one of my many skills. Riding horses, that is.” She winked at Leif, who turned scarlet.
They waited until the guards weren’t looking, slipped through the gate and vanished into the darkness beyond the city.
When Marsan’s spires were nothing but faint silhouettes in the distance and Felix’s feet felt like they were about to fall off, they found a sheltered spot surrounded by scraggly trees to camp.
Despite the chill in the air, they decided against lighting a fire.
Leif curled up in his cloak, asleep in minutes, with the puppy snuggled up in his arms.
Felix sat down against a tree, his eyes trained on the distant road leading back to the city. He startled when Mia plopped herself down next to him, close enough to touch.
“What are you doing?” he said, leaning away.
She turned her head to give him a coy look. “I’m cold. Maybe you can help me warm up.”
“No. Go to sleep.” His immediate rejection of her almost surprised him, the feeling of wrongness the idea invoked. A crawling sensation that made him want to physically put distance between them.
Mia did not scowl or sneer at him, as he’d expected, but stared at him with a mixture of surprise and awe. A wide grin crept onto her face. “Weaver, I knew it,” she whispered, her face shining with glee. “I knew it the moment you started threatening me about her. You’re in love!”
Felix rolled his eyes.
“You are! I didn’t think you had it in you. Turns out you just have expensive taste.”
He shook his head. “She’s not like… It’s not…” He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Forget it.”
Mia laughed and mimicked his sigh with dramatic exaggeration. “Would that I could, Felix, but those clever hands of yours…”
“Shut up, Mia,” he grumbled.
“Lighten up,” she said as she poked him in the shoulder. “Tell me about her. What is she like? What’s with the magic? Does she like you back? Surely not. Someone like her… Oh, but this is wonderful! Think of the ballads I can write! Grand emotions. Forbidden love. Heartbreak! It will be exquisite.”
“I could stab you and leave you here to die.”
Mia scoffed. “Do it, then.”
Felix sighed again. “Go to sleep.”
“Weaver, Felix, you used to be fun. Tell me something about her.”
“No.”
She looked at him intently, then frowned and touched his arm. “Please?”
He absentmindedly shrugged her hand off.
How could he begin to tell her about Isolde?
He stared off into the distance. “She’s smart,” he heard himself say.
“Smart and stubborn and braver than she has any right to be. Kind, too, even to those who don’t deserve it.
And gorgeous.” The memory of the strange mind-sharing experience surfaced, and he smiled.
“And yeah, I think she does like me back. Don’t ask me why.
” His head felt fuzzy. Why was he telling Mia all this?
He twisted to look at her. Her grin was diabolical.
“Did you use your… your mind magic shit on me?”
She made a face and shrugged. “You could have told me like a normal person would. What about your oblivious, dog-loving friend? In what backwater did you find him? He seems sweet, though. You think he’s a virgin?”
Felix gave her a dirty look. “Leave Leif alone.”
“Why? I could show him a thing or two. Or three…”
“Please, go to sleep.”
Mia huffed. “Ugh. I hope the other people you travel with are more fun.” She got up and shuffled around for a while, settled on a spot, rolled herself in her cloak and eventually drifted off.
Felix wondered with some wry amusement just how fun Mia would consider Garren and Luella to be.