Chapter 1 #2
I glance at the marks one more time before I reach for the knife.
"—and then he tried to sell me the cursed saddle, Mel, an actually cursed saddle, and when I pointed out that the leather was rotting and also there was definitely blood on it—"
"Why was there blood on it?"
"That's what I asked! He said it was 'character.'"
"Did you buy it?"
"What? No. Obviously not."
"Just checking."
Kestria grabs a handful of yarrow from the drying rack and starts bundling it without being asked.
"I'm offended you had to check." She ties off a bundle with more force than necessary.
“Anyway, I told him exactly where he could put his cursed saddle, and he got very upset about it. There might have been yelling."
"On whose part?"
"Mostly his. My voice doesn't really carry when I yell." She pitches her voice higher, shakes her fist at the ceiling. "'Stop selling people cursed saddles!' See? It just sounds squeaky."
"Mine's worse." I match her pitch and go higher, because I can always go higher. "'Stop selling cursed saddles!' It sounds like I'm asking nicely."
"That's tragic."
"I know. No one takes me seriously when I'm angry."
"You could try being less adorable."
"I'm not adorable. I'm threatening."
"You're five feet tall and you squeak when you're mad." She pats my head and I swat her hand away. "You're not threatening anyone."
"I could be threatening."
"Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night." Kestria snorts. "I'm honestly surprised your voice doesn't hurt the wolves ears. You squeak, Mel. Constantly."
"I.do.not.squeak."
"You absolutely do. Cheerful, high-pitched squeaking. All the time."
"That's not—" My voice climbs higher in protest, which probably doesn't help my case. "See, this is why no one takes me seriously."
"Maybe if you—"
"I'm going to throw this rabbit at you."
"You won't. You'd have to prep it all over again." She grins. "But seriously, doesn't it hurt them? All that high-pitched squeaking?"
"They're wolves, not bats. They can handle it." I grab the knife, point it at her.
"You're squeaking right now."
"I'm threatening you right now."
"With that voice?" She's laughing, hands up in surrender. "Terrifying."
Kestria picks up the knife and starts on the rabbit before I can. Steadier hands than mine—she'd never admit it but she's better at this part. I handle the root vegetables instead, cutting them into rough chunks and dropping them into the pot.
While it simmers, she wanders around the cottage, poking at things and talking about the road.
"You need more comfrey," she tells me, peering into my storage chest.
"I know."
"And you're almost out of that salve. The thick one."
"I know that too."
"Just checking." She picks up one of my sealed jars of moonbright paste, turning it over in her hands. "You make a lot of this stuff."
"I use a lot of it."
"For the wolves?"
"Mostly."
She sets the jar down carefully. "What does it do?"
"Helps them heal." I stir the pot. "Some of them come in with wounds that aren't closing right. Infected, maybe, or just stuck. The paste helps."
"Helps how?"
"I don't know. It just does." I tap the spoon against the pot's edge. "I figured it out by accident years ago. One of the wolves was dying—wound gone all gray and wrong—and I tried everything I had. The moonbright worked."
"And you never wondered why?"
"I wondered enough to keep making it. That's all I need."
Kestria laughs. "You're so practical it's almost annoying."
"Almost?"
"You're saved by being likeable."
"High praise."
"Don't let it go to your head."
She helps me bundle dried herbs for the rest of the afternoon—yarrow, chamomile, the last of the calendula—and we sort through my stores, tossing what's gone stale and noting what needs replacing.
The work goes faster with two people, and Kestria fills the time with stories from the road, jumping from one tangent to another.
"Oh, and my brother's been absolutely unbearable lately."
"Unbearable how?"
"The usual. Where are you going, when will you be back, why do you need to leave again." She rolls her eyes so hard her whole head moves. "He acts like I'm twelve. I'm twenty-one years old and he still wants to know my exact plans for every single day."
"Maybe he worries."
"He doesn't worry. He manages. There's a difference." She snaps a dried stem in half. "Last time I left, he made me tell him which roads I was taking. Roads, Mel. As if I'm going to get lost on a path I've walked fifty times."
"To be fair, you did get lost that one time."
"That was once. And it was dark. And the trail was washed out." She points the broken stem at me. "Don't take his side."
"I'm not taking sides. I'm stating facts."
"Same thing." She tosses the stem into the discard pile.
"He's just—he thinks if he controls everything, nothing bad will happen.
And I get it, I do, our parents died when we were young and he basically raised me, so he's got this whole protective thing that won't turn off.
But at some point you have to let people live. "
"Have you told him that?"
"About a thousand times! He grunts and then does exactly whatever he was already going to do." She ties off another bundle, yanking the string tight. "You'd hate him. He's very quiet and very bossy and he has opinions about everything but only shares them in three words or less."
"He sounds delightful."
"He's impossible." She pauses. "I love him. But he's impossible."
"Those aren't mutually exclusive."
"No. They really aren't."
I strip the leaves off a dried calendula stem. "So is he at least good-looking? This impossible brother of yours?"
Kestria chokes on nothing. "What?"
"I'm just asking. Tall, bossy, protective, grunts a lot—some people are into that. Is he hot?"
"Mel. That's my brother."
"I'm not asking you to find him attractive. I'm asking for an objective assessment."
"There is no objective assessment. He's my brother. He's disgusting."
"So he's ugly?"
"I didn't say that. I said he's disgusting. There's a difference."
"That sounds like he's not ugly."
"I'm not having this conversation."
"You could introduce us. Next time you visit, bring him along. I'll make stew."
"You want me to bring my brother to your cottage in the middle of the woods." She stares at me. "My enormous, overprotective brother. To meet my friend. Who he doesn't know about."
"He doesn't know about me?"
"He knows I travel. He doesn't know the details."
"So I'm a secret."
"You're not a secret. You're just—unmentioned."
"That's the same thing."
"It absolutely is not." She's tying herbs so aggressively the stems are snapping. "And no, I'm not introducing you. He'd be weird about it, I'd have to listen to opinions I didn't ask for, and then I'd never hear the end of it. Drop it."
"Fine. But for the record, the fact that you won't answer the question is an answer."
"I hate you."
"You love me."
"Unfortunately."
Late afternoon sun through the window, the smell of stew and dried herbs.
"—and then he tried to tell me my boots were worn through. My boots. Which are fine."
"Are they fine?"
She looks down at her boots. The left sole is visibly separating from the leather.
"They have character."
"They have holes."
"Character holes."
I throw a dried chamomile bundle at her head and she catches it, laughing.
We're still arguing about it when the scratching starts at the door.
Not knocking.
Scratching.
I know that sound.
"Hold on," I tell Kestria, and cross to the door.
The wolf on my doorstep is gray, medium-sized, with a torn-up front leg that it's holding carefully off the ground. Not fresh—the blood's dried, crusted around the wound—but not old either. A day, maybe two.
I step back from the doorway. "Come in, then."
The wolf limps inside without hesitation—and behind me, Kestria makes a sound.
Low. From her chest. Not a word, not a cough.
A growl.
I turn around. She's on her feet, one hand gripping the back of the chair, her whole body rigid. Eyes locked on the wolf.
"Did you just growl?"
"Uh—I cleared my throat."
"That was not a throat-clearing noise."
"I have a cold."
"You don't have a cold. You growled. At a wolf. In my cottage." I look at her. "Are you all right?"
"Fine." She doesn't look fine. She looks like she wants to put herself between me and the wolf. "It doesn't—it smells wrong."
"It smells wrong."
"Different. Not like the ones that usually come here." Her jaw's tight. "I don't like it."
"You can smell individual wolves?"
"I have a good nose."
"You have a suspicious nose." I turn back to the wolf, which has made its way to the cleared space by the hearth where I do treatments. "Right there. Good. Sit."
It sits. I gather my supplies—clean water, clean cloth, the moonbright paste, bandages. Running low on the paste after this, which means I'll need to make more tomorrow.
"Can you hand me that bowl?"
She brings it over but doesn't crouch down. Drops it beside me and steps back, putting the table between herself and the wolf. Her arms are crossed. Her shoulders are up near her ears.
"You can relax. It's just a wolf."
"I am relaxed."
"You look like you're about to fight it."
"I'm being cautious."
"Okay," I tell the wolf, "let's see what happened to you. Ignore the suspicious woman by the table. She growls at guests, apparently."
"I didn't growl."
"You absolutely growled."
Pale green eyes watch me as I work the dried blood out of the fur. Mud and iron, thick in my nose. The fur's matted worse than I thought—going to take a while to get this done. Did I bank the fire under the stew? Yeah. Okay, focus.
"Got you good, didn't they?" I tell it, keeping my voice steady. "Teeth, from the look of it. Another wolf, probably. You need to stop making enemies."
The wolf makes a low sound that's neither whine nor growl.