And when we return, Hen and I will bring back with us a memory just like our mothers’. Maybe it’ll be the last one we have before Hen leaves at harvest. Or maybe, I think, squeezing the boots, it will be the first of many.
“You are touching me with her shoes,” Hen complains.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling back. But I can’t stop from grinning. “I did what the mission called for.”
A sigh. “You were really very good.”
“Convincing?”
“I suppose.” But even with her enemy’s contraband in my hands, she can’t stop a small smile. She gives my shoulders a shake. “We’re going to the banquets.”
I let out another squeal, and this time she joins me.
“There’s just one thing left to do,” she says, a new gleam in her eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’re going after Galena now.”
“Oh, she’ll get hers, but there are more immediate needs at hand.” Her smile quirks. “It’s time for phase two.”
I blink. “There’s a phase two?”
“Yes. One your delicate conscience won’t be able to handle.” She smirks. “Say goodbye to your father, and I’ll find you as soon as I can.”
II
I’M very quiet as I slip in through the stable door. But as anxious as I am to admit to the man who raised me that I’ve turned into a petty con artist, my fara is not inside. The animals stir in their stalls; a camel chews noisily on her cud. My father must be in the pasture.
Gods, please let him give me his blessing.
I flex my grip on the small sack I’m holding and start down the aisle.
Fara’s veterinary clinic is the biggest stable in town, not because we have the most money, but because we need the space. The Mestrah allows us free rent as long as we prioritize his soldiers’ horses on the rare occasion they come through. Half the stalls are reserved for large animals like cattle, gazelles, and camels. We’ve converted the other half into keeps for small animals like cats, dogs, falcons—sometimes monkeys, when needed. Some of the animals simply need boarding while their owners travel, while others need medical care. Most of them have quite an opinion about being left here like, well, animals. But Fara is kind and patient, and I’d like to think I am, too, and after a day most of their complaints have subsided.
Twig girl, snorts a cow in the second stall. This food. Bad.
Except for the cows. Who seem to think they’re entitled to royal treatment, and who find the stable and its caretakers infinitely lacking.
“I don’t have time for you right now,” I say. “It’s fresh. Just eat what I gave you.”
Sensitive thing, thinks her companion, eyeing me.
Human on bad food, too, remarks the first. Can’t make grain, can’t make anything.
I grit my teeth. “For the last time, you’re on a diet. Your masters specifically told me not to give you honey.”
The second snorts. Always on diet when here. Food bad as chewed cud.
“Oh, you ungrateful—”
“You know it’s no use arguing,” Fara says, squeezing in through the far doorway and making me jump. My father is dressed today in his usual working slip, a sandy fabric that nearly matches his skin in the mild winter months but is now several shades lighter than his summer tan. A herding dog wiggles in his arms, one leg wrapped in palm leaves where a salve covers a scorpion sting. The other three legs thrash when she sees me.
Human! Human human human, can I see her? Please please please! I need down. Down down!
She licks Fara’s face with the last request, and he smiles and strokes her side. “Yes, you did very well. We’ll go back outside again soon.”
No, down! Human! Play! Play—cat? Cat! Cat cat!
My heart clenches as Fara lowers the dog into a converted stall. As with most magic in our world, his abilities have faded with age and use, the same way muscles weaken over time. Fara was lucky to make it twenty-nine years with his. That’s the only advantage of the lesser magics: they take far less of a toll on our bodies, and so we can use them longer. But many would agree ten years as Orkena’s most powerful Firespinner far outshines thirty as Orkena’s best Whisperer.
Two moons ago, Fara went deaf to the animals completely, and they stopped being able to understand him as well. And while it hasn’t affected his medical expertise, he can no longer ask his patients what ails them or sense their fear, and so the weight of the stable has slowly shifted to me.
“You’ve been gone awhile,” Fara says, wiping his hands on an old rag. “Was the market very busy?”
“I—yes,” I say, hastily handing over the bag. “But I found everything we needed. I even got acacia and aloe. And that snake bite salve we liked so well.”
Fara stares. “Zahru, that salve is expensive. We can make do with the honey poultice.”
“It’s all right. Hen covered it.”
A small lie. The lotus boots covered it. Hen wanted me to get rid of them, so I did.
Fara tsks. “She shouldn’t have. She and her mother have already done far too much for us.”
This is the point where I should move on to the reason I splurged on so many fine medicines, but being the awkward and half-ashamed daughter I am, I just stand there while Fara takes the bag to the dusty cabinet. I’m still not sure how to tell him what I’ve done. Oddly it’s not even the priest-conning part of it I’m worried about. It’s that I can see how diligently he’s working despite the excited shouts outside the stable; how focused he is even as the rest of Atera leaves their work to blow horns in the streets. He isn’t even annoyed with it, just . . . accepting. To him, our place is here, and the idea of me keeping company with Dreamwalkers and Airweavers is absurd at best. I couldn’t stand to hear him say I don’t belong with them at the palace.
But more than that, I don’t want him to see how badly I want to leave.
“Zahru,” Fara says in the tone he uses when he’s been trying to get my attention for some time. He’s holding a jar of numbing cream from the sack, another small treasure I splurged on.
“Yes?”
“Are you sad about Hen’s invitation?”
My stomach clenches. I wasn’t even sure he knew she’d been invited. “No. Well, I was at first, but then . . .”
“I’m sorry about it, too,” Fara says, fidgeting with the cream. “I feel . . . it’s my fault. If you had your mother’s magic, maybe—”
“Fara!” My chest constricts, and I rush to him, shaken he believes that’s the reason I’d be sad about not going. Fara has always taken pride in our abilities, even if our work is not as celebrated as others’. And it’s not like he had any control over my fate—I inherited his Whisperer magic the same way I inherited my mother’s fair skin and amber eyes.