“Could this wait until we stop?” she asked, eyes watering.
“It’s best if we’re moving. It weakens the residual link.” Esteban lifted his spindly arm, revealing the faded ink.
The trace evidence of any spell he performed would wend its way back to the authorities via the spell on his tattoos.
“You’re a voice mage, right? What—”
“Quiet.” Esteban concentrated on her wrist, his eyes going glassy. He poked her flesh, tapping a line down the most swollen parts. Then he took a deep breath and began to sing.
Voice mages didn’t always sing. Words held power enough, and many practitioners were content to bark out their instructions and expect the magic to obey. Radner, the sleek-haired fellow who had accompanied Sheriff Flynn to Briar’s door, was one such voice mage. He had separated the words from the beauty entirely.
Briar had known voice mages with a wide variety of styles in her former life, but none had had a voice as beautiful or as sad as Esteban’s.
The song had no real words, just a rolling ribbon of syllables emitting from the mage’s throat in a soothing refrain. Within seconds, the bruises and cuts on Briar’s body faded away along with her lingering fatigue. The notes rose and fell in the most beautiful melody she had ever heard. She hardly noticed the torn ligaments in her wrist knitting back together, so entrancing was Esteban’s voice.
The entire forest paused to listen, the birds falling silent and even the wind seeming to still. When his voice faded away at last, the others had tranquil smiles on their faces, and Lew’s eyes were damp. Briar wasn’t the only one who felt the beauty as well as the magic of the song.
“Well? Is that sufficient?” Esteban asked, his speaking voice hoarser than ever.
Briar rotated her wrist without a single twinge. “It’s perfect,” she said. “That was beautiful work. When did you—”
“Don’t get hurt again. We can’t leave a trace too close to the target. You’ll just have to keep any future injuries.” Esteban kicked his ornate boots into his horse’s side and left Briar behind.
“Don’t mind him,” Nat said, taking the space Esteban had vacated beside her. “He gets extra grumpy after he does that. Takes it out of him, he says.” The boy took a robust breath of forest air, his patchwork coat straining at his round shoulders, and grinned at her with crooked teeth. “I feel pretty grand, though. Magic, eh?”
The others looked more spirited, too, as if the song had contained too much healing power to waste on just one injury. The bags had disappeared from their eyes, and a scratch she’d noticed yesterday on Archer’s cheek was gone too.
Briar couldn’t help feeling jealous of the voice mage. No matter how grouchy he was, Esteban had a form of magic so good, it was almost tangible. Why couldn’t she have been born with the ability to heal like that or even to write obscure but accurate prophecies, as fortune scribes did? Why could she only destroy?
Nat trotted off to pester Lew, giving Esteban a wide berth. The old mage hunched over in his saddle, an irritated vulture in expensive boots.
“He’s good, right?” Archer asked, drawing up beside Briar. His fine indigo coat hung open over a threadbare white shirt, and he rode the same horse as yesterday, a bay stallion with long legs and a star peeking out beneath its forelock.
“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Briar said. “Where did he come from?”
“Picked him up at a tavern in Chalk Port. He’d been wandering for a long time, and I reckon he needed someone to tell him what to do.”
“How does he help with the thieving, though?”
Archer winked. “Let’s just say he knows more than one song. We have to use his powers carefully on account of his license.”
“There’s no way to get rid of it?”
“None that I know of.” Archer looked over at her, his unruly blond hair stirring in the breeze. “I don’t suppose you could curse those tattoos off him?”
Briar frowned. She and her parents had never even considered becoming licensed, and she didn’t know that much about the tattoos. Curse painters rarely worked directly on human skin—their victims wouldn’t sit still long enough. “I’ll think on it. I don’t believe it has ever been done before.”
“Doesn’t sound like that’ll stop you.” Archer grinned. “You like a challenge, don’t you?”
“Depends on the prize.”
Archer’s grin widened. “Now you’re talking. We might get along yet.”
The party of six—seven including Sheriff, the dog—proceeded through Mere Woods along a route the outlaws seemed to know well, following hidden pathways and deer runs to avoid notice on the main road. Their destination, Mud Market, was located at the edge of the forest, a three-day journey from Sparrow Village and the Brittlewyn River.
The woods echoed with the chatter of birds and the murmurs of hidden creatures. The muggy heat marking the end of summer occasionally gave way to cooler gusts promising of autumn. Lew sometimes slipped away from the group, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his red hair, and returned with squirrels or rabbits to cook at night. He also gathered mushrooms and nuts to supplement their diet, filling a sack hanging on his saddle during the day and emptying it into the cookpot at night. They all took turns keeping watch, both for signs of pursuit and for the larger creatures that lurked in the darkness.
Archer’s crew wasn’t quite what Briar had expected when he’d first appeared at her door and threatened to report her to the sheriff if she didn’t take the job. She watched them closely throughout the three-day journey. They seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company, chatting amiably as they traveled through the forest.
Briar tried not to be drawn in by their camaraderie. She didn’t yet have a single jar of paint to her name, leaving her vulnerable among the strangers. They appeared friendly enough, but she believed they really would cut her throat if she crossed them. She slept at the edge of camp every night and stayed alert for any sign she needed to flee. She figured she had a better chance of avoiding the authorities’ notice if she stayed with the group until she acquired new paints.
Briar had been to Mud Market three times since moving to Barden County, always to purchase the same rare pigment. The town was located at a crossroads where two highways met—or what passed for highways in that remote part of the kingdom—and it was within a day’s ride of the river separating the Larke and Barden territories. The highways usually had fewer people than the quieter side streets of the city where Briar grew up, but enough traffic passed through there to support a midsize trading outpost—and for highwaymen to ply their trade, apparently.
“Remember when we hit that noblewoman’s coach near here last spring?” Nat asked Lew the morning they expected to reach Mud Market. They had camped in a secluded glade near a large, hollowed-out oak tree they’d used as a supply drop. Briar was eating breakfast with the two thick-shouldered fellows, who shared tales of their exploits as the sun rose over the oak.
Lew sighed. “I’d never seen so many fine silks.” He adjusted his scratchy brown vest, patting the pocket where he kept his notebook. “That lady screamed like a bobcat when we stole the jewels off her neck, though.”