Page 17

Now, let me halt and explain. If I had been Tove and standing in the darkness with a scared orphan boy I had basically just abducted, albeit out of charity, I would have entranced him, much like I entranced you that first time at the church. I did that to save you from sights you wouldn’t have been able to unsee. I did it to keep your body from rushing down that slope of fear.

At the time, I didn’t even know that entrancement existed. Tove, being a natural philosopher at heart, had a rule whereby he didn’t use entrancement unless it would allow him to feed unseen or to prevent greater harm from befalling the living. Those rules I learned of only later, after he had made me. His rules never became mine, in part because my skill for entrancement surpasses his by far. All our gifts are different, after all; you have to remember that.

But even so, entrancing a scared child would have been kind, even if Tove’s skill might only allow a light sleep, a subtle trance. I thought about it often, years on. I think he wanted to teach me a lesson on that lonely road. I believe he wanted to teach me that words win someone’s trust truer than entrancement. It’s a good lesson, and yet Owain was a child, not a lesson.

Tove was good, of course. He got Owain to wrap his scrawny, filthy arms around his neck. Tove easily held me with his other arm, and even the two of us weren’t much of a weight to him.

I remember thinking that the flight was very long for a child to not open his eyes, and cold. When we landed outside the tall front door that led to Tove’s castle, both Owain and I were shivering. Owain probably more so since he was wearing rags.

My mother met us in the solar, confused that we were back so soon, I was sure, and confused that we had brought a strange child along with us.

She took one look at Owain, then fixed Tove in a cool gaze, and said, “You made me a promise, Tove. You said there were things you would never do.”

Tove raised his hands submissively. “And my promise stands. This is Owain. He is to be Auris’s servant, nothing more. Maybe he’d even like to help you in the kitchen or with harvesting the apples off the trees.”

My mother’s eyes narrowed, first on Owain, then me. “Well, the child is filthy. Both of them are. I keep telling you to at least get Auris bathed before you bring him back, but you never do.”

I rubbed my arms to chase the cold out of them. “I can heat the water for a bath, Mother.” I knew my adventure had been cut short, and I was glad for that. A little work was a small price to pay.

“The fire is still hot, but I’ll stoke it.” My mother left us with regal strides.

Owain looked at Tove with big eyes. “Is that your wife? She wears men’s clothing.”

“That was Liv, Auris’s mother. Not my wife, but my apprentice. She wears whatever she wishes.”

If the flight hadn’t given Owain reason to think Tove was a magician, then seeing my mother, the apprentice, had. Then again, Tove was of the Old World, and there was running water in his house, and something you would recognize as a boiler. Believe me, for those who’ve never seen it and who know only the backbreaking work of carrying water and heating it in a pot over the fire, a running faucet is more magical than any wand or spellbook.

Over the next several weeks, our small household adjusted to the new addition. Owain, while apparently determined to do his job well, didn’t have the first clue about what things needed doing or how to do them. I taught him to clean boots and brush out the day’s clothes, to collect the ashes from the fireplace and which fires to light when. He was adept at kitchen work, and Mother had him fetch things, boil water, knead bread, and do any number of those chores I’d been responsible for when I was about Owain’s age.

At the same time, Tove went back to furthering my education. Those trips where I was left in a place for days or weeks still happened, but one warm summer’s night, he walked into my room on silent feet, handed me a knapsack, and informed me that we would be traveling together for a few days.

“It will be a longer flight than normal. Dress warmly and meet me outside,” he told me.

I hurried to comply while Owain was busying himself with closing the shutters in my room. Ah, Ethan, you would have liked it in Tove’s house. It was full of murals, full of corners where light caught and shadows gathered. I slept on a wool mattress under silk covers, and at night, the wave song sang me to sleep.

At any rate, Owain was lingering and staring in a way that told me he was trying not to get caught at it.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said, adding to myself, I hope. I could never be entirely certain of that.

“Are you going to go flying?” Owain’s voice was a few notes higher than normal, wonder brightening it.

“Yes.”

He gnawed on his bottom lip. “Can you fly? Like Lord Tove can?”

I was never sure when exactly he had started calling Tove “Lord.” It probably amused Tove to be called a lord. He had opinions about royalty, the establishment of the day. In current terms, you’d call him a humanist hippie, and no, my sweet, you are not to make comments about vampire hippies, and you are certainly not to joke about vampire hippie cults.

“No, I can’t fly like Tove can,” I told Owain.

I could tell the gears were turning in Owain’s head, but he didn’t ask me any more questions, and I didn’t want to keep Tove waiting.

The knapsack he had handed me struck me as somewhat light as I slung it over my winter coat. I bundled up in gloves and a cap, a warm scarf tied over my mouth and nose. Owain rushed to a cabinet and fished out my legwarmers, and after a moment of hesitation, I put them on too.

“I’ll make sure there is warm water when you return,” Owain told me before I left.

I took a moment to examine him properly. He’d grown and was wearing a mishmash of my old clothing and my mother’s hand-me-downs. His hollow cheeks had filled out, and he was clean apart from a few ash and flour stains. He was very far removed from that day I’d found him, both in body and mind.

“Thank you, Owain.”