Chapter Six: Stress Fractures
Two hours later, Molly emerged into the courtyard. He saw Fjord first, sitting against a wall with his face in his hands. On another occasion, Molly might have felt compassion. Might even have shoved a tankard in his hands and invited him to share his woes in that brisk, light way that Fjord seemed to prefer. Molly liked to believe he knew the man and his burdens well, but on this night he had no sympathy to spare for the shame Fjord wore like the tassels on his armor. "He's alive," he said as they drew close. "They also saved his hands, though they don't know yet how 'settled' that healing will be. With luck, he'll have full use of them."
A wet and wavering smile lightened Jester's face. "That is good news."
"They're letting him stay overnight. The cleric – Johann – wants him close in case he relapses."
Nott pressed against his coat. "Can I see him?"
Molly nodded without hesitation, certain she wouldn't be stopped or harassed. Left alone with those who remained, he felt suppressed anger come closer to the surface and start forming bubbles. The first of them blistered: "Well, what do you have to say?"
His voice was raspy, not unlike the curses he flung at their enemies, and he saw them flinch. All but Yasha. She said nothing, but he knew she was listening. It was Beau who answered. Agitated, she drummed her fingers, averted her eyes. "We just stepped outside for a bit. I did a perimeter check, like, five minutes before we left. It was quiet."
"And you were bored, weren't you? So you left and joined the party. Gods, he trusted you. How could you leave him by himself?"
Beau's cry was tinged with frustration. "We didn't leave him. We were right there."
"Yes, you were right there," Molly growled. "Yards away while he was…was… Don't you think he screamed for help? Don't you think he waited for you to come?"
"Then why didn't we hear him?"
"Magic," said Fjord, speaking for the first time. He sounded wretched. "They must have silenced him. That's why we couldn't hear a thing."
It was the likeliest scenario. Molly could imagine it. Caleb's face as he realized someone was in the room with him, waiting trustingly for the touch that would let him know which of them it was. How long had it taken for him to realize it was a stranger and not a friend? Not long. Gods, it could not have taken long.
He slammed Fjord. "I've been letting you take the lead because I thought you were sensible. I thought you cared enough about doing the right thing to keep this bunch of misfits from going too far outside the law and still make a little cash on the side. And you know what? I was even starting to think we could be more than that. I was starting to think this – this thing we're doing could be like the circus. A half-baked, weird kind of family who at least looked out for one another when no one else did. Was I wrong about that, Fjord?"
"No, you weren't. I haven't had a lot of people in my life I really cared about, but –"
"But you do care, right, Fjord?" Jester pipped up in a small voice. "We are a family, right?"
His eyes softened when he looked at her. It was difficult not to when she sounded like that; not silly or sweet, but like the affection-starved young woman she was under the ruffles and pranks. Had Molly not had blood under his fingernails, he might have softened, too. Fjord said, "Of course, Jester. At least as near to one as I've ever had. What about you, Beau?"
Beau gave a pebble a kick, and Molly heard it ricochet off an unseen surface. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, this ain't just a money thing for me. Not anymore."
"If that's the case," Yasha said. "We need to think a bit more about what our choices mean for the group."
Beau scoffed. "Like Caleb and Nott? The two of them would take the magical shoes off our feet and the buttons off our blouses if we weren't looking. I'd hardly call them team players."
"That's not fair," Molly said, though he felt a prick of conviction, remembering a time when he'd felt the same. After all, he was the one who'd cornered Caleb outside the sewers of Zadash about withholding loot and had then charmed Nott to pry into her secrets. Worst of all was the tense conversation they'd had in the wake of the Xhorhasian disaster, skin still singed from the heat of the High Richter's house and nerves like livewires. They'd cornered Nott then, and in his genuine anger (and fear, fear that he'd made the worst mistake of his life, tying himself to these people), Molly had said things he regretted. He'd made mistakes, is what he was saying. He'd been trying to read Caleb and Nott like they were written in Common, but neither of them were common.
To the others, he said, "They express it differently, but both of them care."
"Care about gold or paper and ink, maybe."
Molly's temper flared. "If you're going to be stupid, Beau, then you ought to keep your mouth shut."
Her feathers ruffled, but before either of them could get into it, Fjord interrupted. "Stop, stop. I think Molly's right. I've had my doubts, especially about Caleb, and I'm still not sure I trust him. But when the cards are down, he's been there. He carries his weight."
"We are back to talking like this is a party, not a family," Jester said sadly. "I don't think it is just a party. I don't care about weight. I just want him to be okay, and he and Nott are more okay with us than by themselves, right?"
Molly had honestly, candidly believed that to be true, but tonight had rocked his faith. Were Nott and Caleb really safer with them? Were any of them safer together?
"What about your promise to Nott? You knew from the minute they started traveling with us how badly they'd been treated. And, hell, maybe you didn't care back then. Now, though? You can't tell me you don't know what a big deal it is that Nott doesn't check her food before she eats or that Caleb lets himself get drunk enough to fumble secrets. We've been telling them for weeks they're safe with us, and they were starting to believe it. Then you left him."
"That's not fair!"
"Oh, yeah? And what exactly seems fair about any of this to you, Beau?"
Yasha spoke this time. "Arguing will not change what happened. One of our friends is hurt, and we have to think about him right now. When Caleb is well, we can mend fences."
"What if this is too much? What if this is the final straw?" Molly felt ugly even mentioning it, but his very real fear goaded him. Suppose Caleb simply wasn't able to assimilate what happened. What if he never woke up? Or what if he did, and he still had that thousand-mile stare, as though he'd never returned from the Feywild or wherever it was he'd been trapped. What if he hobbled away from them with Nott clinging to his half-functioning hands?
"He will be well," Yasha said with a certainty Molly didn't feel. "I think he finds it safer to hide his strength behind a facade of weakness, like he uses dirt to go unseen, but he's not so fragile as that."
Her words made Molly think of the steely-eyed Caleb who'd emerged in defense of Nott, the one who stood ramrod straight, like a soldier, and dispensed destruction without a hint of hesitation. He didn't know that Caleb. He'd seen glimpses only. But that part did exist. Was Yasha right? Would that inner strength surface, even under such extreme circumstances?
Jester's usually bombastic voice was small. "We didn't mean to hurt him."
"Well, intentions don't mean a damn thing when it comes down to it, do they?"
"You don't even believe that," Beau groused.
And she might have been right, but in that moment, Moly didn't care. He turned his back and walked away.
Beau and Fjord stood side by side. Both were absorbed in thoughts of their own, but as the stars sunk low, Beau spoke. "Who do you think did it?" Like mist, the question settled around their ankles. Released from their unspoken thoughts, it began taking up more and more space. She cleared her throat. "One of Baron Urim's people?"
Fjord's gazed at the ground. "We wouldn't be standing here if that was the case. He's a smuggler, and maybe an informant, but not the kind to – to do what was done to Caleb. That was someone with a grudge."
Behind them, near but separate, Yasha lifted her chin. "The sorcerer."
Fjord sighed. "I imagine so."
"But how? He had some skills," Beau said, "but that doesn't explain why he'd want to do this. I mean, we had some little tiff over a stupid tournament. So what?"
Quietly, Yasha said, "We saw his ego, and perhaps that was justification enough for him. However, my gut is telling me that if this were just about vengeance, Caleb would not be hurt. He would be dead." The truth of her words resonated, difficult as they were to accept. It meant mercy would've been finding a body. None of them wanted to believe survival was the worst case scenario, but the evidence, the strong suggestion that more terrible things than they could imagine had taken place in that alcove above the warehouse floor...
Beau's teeth ground together. "I'll kill him."
"I'm not sure if now is the best time for that."
"When would be a better time? It's not as though we're doing any good here. When he wakes up, Caleb might not even want to see us." Beau kicked another stone, and the resulting crack echoed like a shot from those strange gunpowder projectile weapons. Fjord winced, but she carried on regardless. "If we've messed everything up, we can at least make sure he never has to worry about that bastard ever again. Right?"
Yasha pushed away from the wall. She gazed at the night sky. A fringe of clouds was there, and the wind stirred her hair. "Caleb has his own way of thinking about things, so I don't know if it will matter to him. But I would find it...satisfying to find this man and see that he's served the full measure of justice for what he's done."
"Hell, yeah," Beau agreed. "Fjord?"
Fjord's features were poorly visible, and whatever he felt, it remained hidden for several heartbeats. Then he stretched his hand into the night, and his falchion appeared. Yellow eyes pierced the dark. "Let's get it done."
Molly found himself pacing the halls of the baron's manor. No one stopped him, and the few people he saw merely glanced at him fleetingly with expressions of pity rather than suspicion. Eventually, in the early hours of the morning, he became too exhausted to go any further, and his weary steps turned toward the sickroom where Caleb had been placed.
He found Jester at his bedside.
She was holding his hand, flexing and bending his fingers. By every appearance, they were as they had always been, lightly freckled on the back, dark at the fingertips, heat-calloused at the palm. And firmly attached to Caleb's wrists. On the wrists themselves there was some evidence of what had happened. Thin scars, pink and raised, like bracelets. Jester saw him looking. "The internal bleeding was more urgent, and the adept wasn't so experienced with Regenerate. That's why there's a mark. But the healer said it will fade. She sounded very sure."
Molly spotted Nott. Her bristly hair was a tuft sticking out from Caleb's armpit. She didn't stir when he tucked her bangs out of her face. The room was peaceful and quiet, the hard work of tomorrow still a part of the future. Yet he could feel Jester quivering, so he asked, "What is it, Jester?"
She set Caleb's hand down and tucked it under the covers. She began picking at a loose thread at the corner of the blanket, then seemed to recognize her restless movement and stopped. "Nott won't talk to me."
And, yeah, he could see that. "Does that surprise you?"
Jester made a little congested noise, like she was on the verge of crying again. "No. I wouldn't talk to me either." She looked at the slumbering pair like she wanted to swaddle them both in her arms, but didn't dare disturb them. "I want to say sorry, but it's not good enough."
"No," Molly said, though not with real malice. He'd worn that out hours ago on his twentieth loop of the building. All that remained was lethargy. "When Caleb wakes up, you should say it anyway." He doubted Nott would be interested in hearing anything until that happened.
"I wish he would wake up now. I don't think I can sleep until he does."
"You know that even the best magical healing isn't a panacea. He could sleep for a long time." Long enough that they might have to think of moving him. As generous as Johann had been on her employer's behalf, they couldn't risk overstaying their welcome.
Jester stuck out her chin. "I'll wait."
Molly didn't gainsay her. He could see the hang of her body from here and knew she wouldn't last long. Which, fine. He could keep watch. It wasn't like his muscles ached or his head was so thick he could barely put two and two together. He massaged his temple.
Jester tentatively raised her hand. "Do you need me to..."
"No, no. Just a headache."
After that, they just breathed. Two conscious companions and two sleeping ones. Something drew Molly's eye, and he lifted the edge of Caleb's blanket to get a closer look. They'd bathed him, Molly found, removing the grime that could have caused infection or discomfort. He'd been left undressed, exposing new, ropy scars. Molly touched one of them. He didn't remember Caleb being cut like this when they carried him here. Where had these come from?
"Somebody healed him. Before, I mean." Jester told him. "Not in a nice way, though. I've never thought about it, but I guess mean gods take followers, too."
It wasn't hard to imagine a bastard like Talisman pledging loyalty to a cruel godhead. It meant this scar tissue was just another kind of wound. Molly felt a tightness in his throat, swallowed it away. Gods, he couldn't bear it. "Did Johann say anything else about lasting effects?'
Jester lifted Caleb's left hand, tilting it so he could see. One of the fingers was missing past the knuckle. "The bones in his fingers were all splintery, probably to keep him from casting. That was the worst one. Maybe the healers could have restored it, but there was a lot – a lot."
Molly shouldn't have been upset. Caleb was alive against all odds, and he hadn't been crippled or stripped permanently of his abilities. His mind was restored. What was the partial loss of a finger compared to that? Grief pooled in Molly's stomach nonetheless. He'd risked all kinds of bodily harm in battle, some of it self-inflicted. This felt different, like something had been stolen. "Jester, what were you thinking?"
Her expression crumpled. "I promise, Molly. I was sure he was totally, totally safe or I never would have left. We didn't mean to let something bad to happen. It wasn't on purpose."
She sounded like a child. "It doesn't always matter what you meant," he said.
He knew he'd struck her when she turned away. She sniffed, looking at Caleb. "Do you think he knows?"
"Knows what?"
"That we left."
"Jester..."
She swallowed. "That's what I'm scared of most, I think. Other than him waking up and not being...you know."
The sun rose in the background, peeking through the gauzy window coverings. At some point, Jester slumped across Caleb's legs. Molly resisted for a while, but eventually his will gave out. He closed the door and drew the bolt. Then he stretched out against Caleb, making a barrier with his back, and cast his arm over to tangle in Nott's hair. It was a close fit with all four of them on the bed, but in that moment it soothed rather than smothered. Molly closed his eyes, listening to Jester's sleepy murmurs, Nott's snuffly breathing, and Caleb's steady heartbeat. Eventually, it lulled him to sleep.
