Chapter 12
They rode hard,so when they finally stopped for the night, Melodie wasn’t surprised that they mostly brushed down and fed their horses in silence.
“You ride well enough,” Jacinta said to her as Melodie put her saddle down with the rest of the group’s. “Didn’t think you would.”
“I spent a lot of time riding when I was younger,” she said. “But I’m feeling how long it’s been already.”
She tried to not let the stiffness show too much, but Jacinta flashed her a sympathetic grin as they found seats around the fire that Ivan had started.
The provisions Draper had given them required no cooking—dried fruit and meat, cheese and fresh bread.
They all pulled what they wanted from their bags and silence descended as they ate and waited for the water in the pot Ivan had hung over the fire to boil.
Melodie found a cup in her bag, the same as everyone else, and held it out as Ivan poured the tea.
“What did you tell the lieutenant you’d show him tonight?” Caro asked.
Melodie hadn’t realized they’d heard the details of her and Theo’s conversation, but she’d assumed she would show him in front of the others, anyway.
There were uses for this she might not think of, and it was a weapon in their combined arsenal. It would be good to have everyone aware of it.
“The trader stole something from the spell caster—whose name is most likely Marchant.”
“How come he didn’t see the children?” Caro asked.
Melodie looked over to Theo, who was watching her silently, sipping from his mug. “He did,” she said. “He says he thought they were sleeping.”
Caro looked skeptical, but she gave a nod of acceptance.
“What did he steal?”
“This.” Melodie took it out of her bag. “A box of watercolor paints.”
Everyone leaned closer.
“And what’s special about them?” Gallain asked.
“If you draw something, it becomes real,” she said. “When my former boss locked me in my room on the top floor of the house, I drew rope and climbed out of the window.”
There was complete silence now.
“Show us.” Theo rose up and came to sit right next to her.
She took out a piece of paper, flipped it over to the blank side, and got out her brush and her bowl. She poured some water into it.
“What do you think would be useful to draw?” she asked.
“A knife.” Ivan was sitting on her other side, and he leaned closer, too.
“That’s a good one.” She nodded.
She drew a knife the full length of the page, angling the paper to see better in the dancing firelight. The others crowded around behind her, looking over her shoulder.
When she was done, she put it on the ground near the fire. “It needs to dry.”
“And then?” Theo asked. He hadn’t lifted his gaze from her work since she’d started painting.
“Then it vanishes off the page and becomes real.” As she said it, the fire dried the last of the water, and the paper was suddenly weighed down by the leather-handled knife she had drawn.
“Fuck me.” Ivan picked it up, tested the blade, and sucked in a quick, surprised breath at the sharpness.
Everyone took their seat, and Ivan passed it around, so everyone could feel and see it.
While they did it, Melodie counted under her breath.
Theo was the last to get it, and he turned it from every angle.
“Does it disappear?” he asked.
She nodded, suddenly counting out loud, and as she hit six hundred, it vanished in his hands.
Theo glanced at her. “How did you know?”
“The rope vanished while I was using it to climb down. Fortunately, I didn’t have far to fall.”
Theo studied her. “Was that the first thing you drew?”
She gave a wry smile. “I drew a key to unlock my door,” she said. “It didn’t fit. I think it would have to have been an exact replica of the actual key, and I didn’t know what it looked like.”
“So if we come to a locked door, you can’t just draw a key that will magically work,” Jacinta said.
“No. That’s why I’ve done this demonstration. To show you what it can do, but to also let you know what it can’t do. It’s useful, but it has its limitations.”
“Still, it’s a lot better than nothing,” Caro mused. “I can see uses for it.”
“And you’re sure it isn’t somehow linked to the spell caster?” Theo looked at the box as he spoke. “It can’t be turned on us, somehow?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t think so. I think it’s neutral, and something he acquired.”
The others had obviously not even thought of that possibility, and they were looking at the paints a little more warily.
“Can any of you draw?” she asked, to break the moment. “Would you like to give it a go?”
Gallain stood. “I’m not bad,” he admitted. “But I usually draw landscapes.”
“We don’t want to waste paint.” Theo took the box from her and studied it. “Some colors are half-used up.”
“We need to think of things that are useful, but that we only need for a short time,” Melodie said.
“My horse picked up a stone during the ride,” Caro said. “I tried to get it out, but it’s lodged in too tightly.”
“I know what you need.” Melodie took the paints and the paper back, and quickly painted one of the tools her father used all the time. Theo leaned a little closer to look.
“I’ve seen that before. You know your farrier’s tools.”
“My father was a blacksmith.” She held the paper out, close to the fire, and between one moment and the next, it appeared on top of the page.
“I was watching that, and it was suddenly there, faster than a blink.” Ivan took it off the paper, weighed it in his hand.
“Use it quickly, or it’ll disappear,” Theo warned them, and Ivan and Caro moved to the horses at a fast clip.
“That’s why you’re a silver and goldsmith?” Gallain asked. “Because your father was a blacksmith?”
Melodie nodded. “It was a trade I knew, and my father organized an apprenticeship with Lorn Vinest. He died a few weeks after I started there, and Vinest took me in to live with him.”
“He never tried to keep you locked in before?” Theo was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his head turned toward her.
The firelight played on his face and made his hair gleam, and for a moment she couldn’t think.
She managed to shake her head, and then forced herself to look into the fire. “I did what he wanted until yesterday, so he had no reason to. But I’ve been unhappy there for a while.”
“And you’re sure he doesn’t know?” Theo asked. “That you can see spell work?”
She shook her head again. “I never told him. My father died trying to make sure no one ever knew.” She raised her head and caught Gallain and Jacinta’s eyes. “I have to trust you will keep my secret.”
“We don’t take your trust lightly.” Gallain was the one who spoke. “You are helping us get our children back.”
Jacinta murmured her assent, and then Ivan and Caro returned.
“It worked, and just in time.” Caro rubbed her fingers together. “Felt really strange as it faded away.”
“The paints are a tool we can use, if we think strategically,” Melodie said. “And, maybe even more importantly, it is something that is no longer in the spell caster’s hands.”
Theo nodded. “That is definitely something I do like about it.” He tapped his knees, the movement fast and restless.
Melodie wondered if he wished they didn’t have to let the horses rest.
“We need to sleep. And we need to be ready for anything.” Theo stood. “I’ll take first watch. Melodie doesn’t have military training, so she doesn’t have guard duty. Caro, you’re second watch. Ivan is third. Gallain, you’re fourth. Jacinta gets a full night’s sleep, and that will rotate.
There were a few groans, but Melodie thought they were for show.
Within twenty minutes, everyone had set up their beds, and Theo left to do a walk around.
She was already half asleep when she heard a stick crack beneath a boot, and lifted her head to find herself looking straight at Theo. He was standing at the outer edges of light thrown by the fire, watching her.
She gave him a solemn nod, and he returned it, then turned away, disappearing into the darkness.
She snuggled down and breathed out, trying to quiet her mind. She was exhausted from the ride, but the combination of the strangeness of being back on the road after years of barely moving from the workshop, the strange feeling of fascination she felt for Theo, and the sickening thought of children in the hands of someone who meant them harm, rattled about in her head.
She heard a low feminine murmur, a deeper male response, then a log cracked and popped on the fire, and she was drawn back in time to the travels with her father, the groups they’d joined for safety, and the nights just like this, around the fire. And she slept.