Chapter Eight: Superficial Healing


Caleb slept for most of morning, but the cleric had done good work, and he was able to make a wobbly appearance at lunch. After the night's revels, the room was mostly empty, with only a barkeep puttering around in the kitchen and the occasional patron passing through. They had the place entirely to themselves. Keeping in mind Johann's instructions, Molly had put together a plate of bread, soft cheese, and pickles. There was also a very passable cabbage soup. Caleb looked at them like he'd never seen food before, but whenever he tried to press them a bit further away, Nott would give him a look until he picked at some part of their offering.

While they ate (and watched Caleb eat), tension kept building. Not shockingly, it was Beau who broke first. She threw down a slice of bacon and blurted, "Well? Are we going to talk about this?"

"Talk about what? " Molly asked sharply. "The mission? The warehouse? Or maybe you have something you wanted to say, Beau."

She flinched, and so, by the way, did Fjord. Jester was crumpling a muffin into a thousand bits, and Nott had begun sharpening her dagger. Caleb glanced at all of them. "I know we need to speak about what happened, and I admit it makes me...uncomfortable to think about. However, we have all been injured before, even mortally wounded. Why are you acting so strange?"

Fjord grimaced. "I don't know if 'injured' really sums it up, Caleb."

"You were tortured," Yasha said, and Molly wanted to both bless her and curse her for using the word no one else wanted to say.

Caleb set his spoon into the bowl of cabbage. "That is true," he acknowledged. "But that is also not a new experience for me." His nonchalance was cutting. Nott made an actual noise of distress, discarding her dagger so she could sink into his side. He patted her. "There now, liebling. All is well. I am fine."

From her side of the table, Jester covered her face. "Oh, Caleb," she said. "How can you say that?"

Caleb, damn him, looked concerned. "Ah. Jester. Are you okay?"

"Am I –" she began.

Fjord it seemed, had reached his threshold. "Caleb, we do need to talk. Because while I'm glad you're feeling like yourself, what happened wasn't a small thing. Plus there's the tournament to deal with and the Gentleman. We need to decide what to do."

"Oh," Caleb said. "Very well. What do you want to discuss first?"

They all stared at him. "You're taking this very well," Beau said, eyes narrowed. It was classic Beau. Only she could manage to sound suspicious of a recently dying comrade.

"I do not like cabbage," he commented, wrinkling his nose at the bowl. He glanced at Nott. "Perhaps just the broth and a bit of bread?"

"If you eat the pickle," she said.

He picked the vegetable up with his newly restored fingers. There was a bit of a tremble to them, but he managed it. "The difficult part first," he said, and Molly thought he was talking about the pickle until he faced all of them. "I cannot tell you much about what happened in the warehouse. I was deaf and blind for most of it, but I will try to fill in the gaps. What do you already know?"

"Yasha found another way inside, close to the dockyard. We assume that's how they came in. We don't know who it was, but we have our suspicions."

Caleb nodded. "I do as well. But did you not see them yourselves?"

And here it was, the place where they had to either lie or come clean. Molly waited, his patience like jagged glass. He braced himself, too, for the fallout, edging closer to Caleb until their shoulders touched. The three at the other side of the table held a silent exchange, but in the end, Beau was the one to lean forward. "Listen. Caleb, there's something we need to tell you."

Trepidation slipped into his expression. "Yes?"

"Fjord and Jester and me, we didn't see anything yesterday night. We didn't even know you'd been attacked until Molly and the others came charging back with Frumpkin."

Caleb's brows bent. "I don't understand. I assume some kind of magic was used to contain the scene, but even so..."

"We weren't there!" Jester blurted.

The strings were beginning to unravel. Fjord, seeing that clearly enough, let out a long, slow breath. Then he said, "Caleb, this doesn't make me proud, but the fact is we weren't in the warehouse that night. After we checked that everything seemed alright, we stepped outside to join the festival."

Molly was watching Caleb, trying to discern what he felt. His first reaction was to swallow. "You..."

"We weren't there, Caleb," Fjord repeated, head shaking with palpable regret. "If I could go back and change that, I would, but that's the truth of it. You were alone when those bastards got to you. I'm so sorry."

Beau looked both wrecked and pissed off. "Yeah, we're damn sorry."

Jester reached across the table to take his hands, but Caleb withdrew them, tucking them into his lap. "I was alone."

"It was just going to be for a few minutes," Jester fretted. "Everything seemed okay! We didn't think about spellcasters. It was so wrong of us, and we're really, really sorry you got hurt."

No one could doubt their sincerity. It was written all over them: in their tightly pressed lips, their taut shoulders, and, in Jester's case, tears. Even without social graces, Caleb couldn't fail to recognize their earnestness. How he would respond, though, was less clear. At first, his face remained like a blank parchment. Then, very quietly, he said, "Excuse me. I think I need to step out for a moment."

He untucked himself from the bench. Molly couldn't help but notice he was limping, the bones of his leg still soft and painful. When he reached the door, Nott scurried after him.

Beau said, "Should we let him go?"

"He's with Nott."

"Should we let them go? What if they disappear?"

"Don't you think they have right to decide that, Beauregard?"

Jester looked devastated. "I don't want them to leave. As stinky as Caleb is, I've gotten really, really attached to him and Nott. I'm scared they won't forgive us."

Molly looked down. He wanted to believe the group could weather this, but the truth was he didn't know for sure. Still, he stood by what he said. "We have to trust them."

"You told me once that you didn't trust anyone," Fjord said. "You told me that we were all looking out for our best interests. That that was what made the circus work."

Molly had said those things, but that had been during early days, when their acquaintance had still been new and there was barely a manticore and a few gnolls between them and being strangers. Since then, he'd come to expect much more from these people, and he had a feeling Caleb had, too. In a way, that made the situation worse. After all, it was always more disappointing to be let down by people in whom you'd placed your faith.


Caleb was sitting between the tavern and another nondescript building. He'd known many alleyways like this one, more than he cared to count. His hands laid in his lap, palms facing upward. He recognized every crease and freckle, every scar. They were his hands, but somehow they felt foreign. Heavy. Attached by thin pink bands. And the finger. The not-finger. When he looked at it, his vision started to blur, so he turned resolutely away.

Instead, he stared at the wall across from him and waited for Nott. A small hand pressed into his, covering the missing finger, and it was so present and comforting he bit his lip to suppress a wave of emotion. "Are you okay?"

It was easier to keep staring at the view across from him. "Do you remember staying in places like this, Nott?"

She surveyed the moldering refuse, the shadow-filled recesses of back doorways, and the tiny patch of sky, barely visible overhead. "It was always warmer," she agreed, "and easier to find food. But if we got caught, people were more likely to call a guard than when we slept under bridges and things."

"In so short a time, I've grown accustomed to better. Is that strange?"

Nott considered her answer. "I don't think it's strange," she said. "Our lives have changed. I have enough gold saved that we never have to sleep outside again if we don't want to. And we're stronger, much stronger. We could be happy and safe for the rest of our lives doing jobs a lot less dangerous than the ones we do with the weirdos."

Caleb's lips twitched. "Do you still think of them that way?"

She looked away. "Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no."

"I know you're fond of Jester."

Her expression grew hard. "Not now."

And as easy as that, the gate was unlatched, beckoning him to walk through. He sighed. "You are very angry with them."

Her claws, which tapered into delicate tips at the ends, bore in just enough for him to feel them, but, of course, she was very careful. She would not hurt him, yet he felt the emotion expressed by the pinch of her nails against his skin. "They could have gotten you killed. Or – or –"

"Maimed," he said, flexing his fingers. A flash of agony went through them, twisting the sinews where his mind, memory, and muscle connected, and in that moment he could feel what he had not been able to see: the hacked flesh, the bone, the red crescendo that ended in nothing, nothing, nothing... He realized he was beginning to hyperventilate when Nott murmured worriedly in his ear, and he shoved the panic away with almost physical effort. He had grown proficient at encasing volatile thoughts in a kind of metaphoric chest at the farther reaches of his mind; not gone, but contained. This was where he put the butchering of his hands. He took a shuddering breath. "I am fine, Nott, as I've told you."

"You don't have to say that," she said. "I know what torture is like. People aren't okay afterward."

"You know my story," he told her. "You know that it wasn't the first time. Perhaps one grows used to it."

"More like it will hit you later, some time when we're all in danger, and then it will be really bad. I'd rather you cried right now where it's safe."

"In this alley with the garbage, you mean?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Are you sassing me?"

The grin snuck up on him, easing the tight muscles of his face. Few others could do such a thing, and he loved her for it. The next moment, though, reality cascaded down. "What shall we do with all this, my friend?" He felt a bolt of shame. He'd run from them. It had simply been too much. A fog had come over his mind, and they were all staring, waiting for a reaction when really all he felt was numb... Nott leaned into him. He felt the warmth bleeding through like so many nights when the wind had been his only other company. So faithful. He didn't deserve her. He tucked her hand tenderly under his arm.

"You're sad," Nott said. "Why are you sad instead of angry?"

There was a scroll in Caleb's mind, and it contained the names of the people he had…that he loved. A few were inked and sanded, irrevocably stamped. Others, newer, were traced in charcoal, light enough to be erased if needed. But as lightly as he pressed, those names did exist. It scared him because, in his experience, attachment led only to disappointment and suffering. 'And yet whose fault is that?' whispered a severe Zemnian voice, borrowed from the vaults of his memory. 'What right have you to expect loyalty? Stupid, sensitive boy. Care for them if you are foolish enough to do so, but remain under no delusions; you have always been on borrowed time.'

Caleb pressed the space between his eyes, drawing himself into the present. "Do you think I should be angry at our friends, Nott?"

She tipped her head back. "Part of me wants to hate them. Or steal their smallclothes and dip them in a public privy. Or poor acid on Fjord's crotch. Or saw through Beau's stick and cover it with bandages so it snaps when she leans on it. Or feed the pastries in Jester's bag to rats..."

"Nott."

She sobered. "I think they're stupid, but I don't think they're bad. It's up to you, though, Caleb. If you can forgive them, then I guess I can try to do that, too. But sometimes mistakes are too big for second chances."

He swallowed, guilt gnawing at his stomach.

She noticed, of course, and embraced him. "Oh, Caleb. I didn't mean it like that."

"No, you're right," he said, more hoarsely than he intended. "Some 'mistakes' are too big to forgive, but I do not know if that is true in this case."

"I would leave with you, if that's what you wanted," she murmured, and Caleb's throat contracted. Is that what he wanted? These people… He'd been so certain Jester, Beau, and Fjord were dead, and that grief had penetrated deeply, even competing with so many other hurts. To walk away now seemed profane. But had they not been the ones to do the walking?

To avoid making a decision, he picked at his tunic. It was soft, with fine stitches in the hem. "I do not recognize this."

Nott squirmed. "I found it in a closet before we left the manor. You needed a new one, so I took it. A got you the trousers, too. Yasha found your boots and your coat, though. She thought you'd want them back."

In truth, he had not thought about his coat. That morning he'd dressed himself half in a trance, barely feeling the buttons fumbled between his fingers. He thought, at some point, Nott had stepped in to fasten the last few. He felt humbled by the care she showed him. "You are always looking out for me."

There was a profundity to the way Nott gazed at him in moments like these. It held all the things he'd come to expect; the tenderness and affection. However, there was something else, something in the depths of her golden eyes that he could never quite put his finger on. "Well," she said. "You're very bad at these things. Someone has to help you."

The teasing was a balm to his nerves. He wanted to respond. He tried to make his mouth move into the right shape, but found it impossible. The weight of the situation was pressing down pitilessly, and he lowered his head, pressing it into shaking hands. His abbreviated finger brushed his eyebrow, and he flinched.

"What should I do, Nott?"

He felt her weight against his side, knew she wanted to spare him the decision, but he also knew she would not do so. She stroked his back gently, so gently. "You're very smart, Caleb. I know you'll do the right thing."

If only he had so much certainty.


Even at the best of times, there was a touch of uncertainty when Caleb stepped away from the group. The shaggy coat would frame a doorway or disappear around the trunk of a pine, and those who saw it go would wonder. Which is why Molly let out a slow, private breath of relief when the door to their room finally creaked open and Caleb slipped inside.

He stood before them and said, "I am with you."

Fjord and Jester's relief was palpable. Beau, with great subtlety for her, punched Caleb's shoulder. It probably hurt, but Molly could tell how much she was holding back, trying to make the gesture soft. A Beauregard-esque type of embrace, if there ever was one. "That's great, Caleb. It means a lot that you'd give us a chance to make things right." She looked at the others for confirmation. "We are going to kill those bastards, right?"

Fjord's expression was carved into a frown. "We didn't have much luck when we tried."

Molly took note of Caleb's subtle shift. "You tried?"

"We were gone most of yesterday," Yasha said. "But we found no sign."

Caleb nodded as though that didn't surprise him. "The one who attacked me was adept. He used many types of magic: evocation, conjuration, abjuration. Even clerical magic." He touched his torso, which Molly knew to be ribbed with scar tissue. "Supremely confident. He mocked me, though I was no match for him in that state. He took his time, despite the possibility of discovery, and he is someone who enjoys inflicting pain."

Fjord looked miserable. "It sounds as though we've come to the same conclusion."

"Yes, I believe so. The sorcerer from the square. The one who attacked Nott."

"Talisman Salvatore of Greystone," Molly said.

"Bastard," Beau hissed.

The profile certainly fit. Molly had no problem recalling the light off Talisman's teeth when he smiled at Nott, trapped in the shadow of his crackling hand. Nor had he forgotten the man's rage at being thwarted, his racist remarks, or his promise of revenge. At the time, he'd seemed more like a blowhard than a serious threat. Certainly, Molly had never imagined him capable of such a sadistic attack. That he might, this very moment, be sipping wine in some opulent room, grinning to himself about how he left Caleb for them to find... Tieflings had a tendency to run hot, but he could still feel his skin baking. He took deep breaths through his nose, seeking calm that did not want to come.

Caleb had gone distant, not as though he were seeing through Frumpkin, but worryingly absent nonetheless. Without thinking, Molly grabbed his arm. Caleb's misty gaze slowly became more present. When he recognized Molly, he said, "You do not have to do that."

Molly winked. "Clearly wizards need a keeper."

The man shook his head, but there was humor in his eyes. "That position is spoken for, I'm afraid, but I appreciate your kindness, Mollymauk."

"So, so," Jester was speaking. "Now that we know who he is, what should we do? Should we go looking for where he is?"

"Why bother? We know where he's going to be."

Fjord seemed thoughtful. "That presents its own problems. If we wait until the tournament, we're more or less obliged to abide by the rules, and I'm not sure a round of recreational bloodshed is what I had in mind." The words were all Fjord, measured and logical, but there was an edge to his voice, something Molly wasn't used to hearing.

Caleb said, "I do not think we should break our agreement with The Gentleman. So far, he's been an ally, but he would be a terrible enemy, and his reach is extensive. Would it not be better to take care of...personal business once our obligation to the powerful crime lord is absolved?"

Yasha stated the obvious: "If we do that, it means sneaking back into the manor, and they were kind to us."

At the mention of the manor, Caleb's line of sight skittered away from their faces. It anchored only once, on Frumpkin, before darting to his suddenly shaking hands. "I...I do not think…I do not think that, at this time, that I will be a-able –"

"Oh, no, Caleb," Jester jumped in. "We won't ask you to do that."

"I can go inside by myself," Nott asserted. "If you just tell me the parts Frumpkin saw, so I have a little more of the layout in my head, I'm sure I can get what we need without any more searching."

Caleb hesitated. "I do not want you to be alone."

"She won't be," Fjord interrupted. "None of us are doing anything alone. The question is, are you up for it? Be honest, Caleb. I won't force you to face Talisman or follow through on our deal with The Gentleman or anything else. So, think hard. What do you want to do?"

Whether or not it was intentional, Fjord was extending agency. That, more than anything, convinced Molly that what had happened – while awful and wrong – was, at its core, a misjudgment and not a deep flaw of character. Fjord had already learned, and going forward, he would no doubt be a scrupulous steward of his companions' trust. It didn't erase his share of the blame, but it made Molly think kinder thoughts. He waited, along with the others, for Caleb's decision.

There was a quiet clearing of the throat. "As long as I can stand in the back."

Beau slapped her thigh and barked. Jester, too, burst into giggles, and soon they were all laughing. It broke the awful tension that had come over them, and like the cooling of a fever, it was deeply welcome. Molly went along with it, relieved in his spirit. Until he looked at Caleb. The man was making an effort; that much was apparent. His expression remained deliberately mild, smooth, and calm. However, there was a tightness around his eyes that wasn't quite concealed, and his hands were tucked rigidly under his armpits, out of sight. At his feet, Frumpkin wound around his ankles, pawed at his leg. It gave a plaintive cry.

Caleb snapped his fingers, and Frumpkin disappeared.