Текст книги "Trammel "

Автор книги: Anah Crow

Соавторы: Dianne Fox
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Telling Noah and Kristan what was going on would distract them from finding Ylli and Zoey, and with no benefit. There wasn’t anything either of them could do to stop the hunters, not until the hunters found them. Lindsay wouldn’t let it get to that point when they were so badly outnumbered.

Lindsay’s fear had always made it easier for Dane to find him through his illusions. If these hunters were anything like Dane or Jonas, adding to Noah’s and Kristan’s anxiety would make it harder for Lindsay to keep them hidden. His last training session with Dane had made it clear he still had a long way to go in learning to keep himself hidden while he was being hunted, much less two other nervous people.

It was up to Lindsay. He’d kept them hidden this long.

There was a chance that the hunters didn’t know they were here, that the touches were simply because the minds were scanning the area. It made sense that if Noah had found his way here, another mage with the same training might have done the same. Lindsay wove more power into the illusion, opened his door, and prepared to pretend everything was well. He’d had plenty of training in those mundane illusions long before he had his magic.

Noah was standing at the back of the car, arranging things on the trunk in the light of a jittery candle flame that bounced around inside a red votive glass. Lindsay looked closer to find that there was no candle, only the flame, feeding on Noah’s magic. Kristan had wandered off with a flashlight and the white circle of light bounced around at the edge of the parking lot.

“She’s checking to see if Ylli left any clues,” Noah said, without looking up. “In case they came down this way. She says she’ll know it if she sees it.”

A black cloth was spread over the trunk. On it, Noah had set out an old silver sugar bowl without a lid, a compass, a mirror, a handful of candles, a little pocketknife with a bone handle, and an unopened bottle of spring water. He leaned against the trunk, looking down at them as though they could already tell him something.

It all seemed random, discarded bits and pieces of people’s lives. Lindsay didn’t dare touch any of it for fear of disturbing whatever Noah intended to do. Speaking didn’t feel like a wrong thing, though. “How is it supposed to work?”

“Silver holds magic.” Noah put the bowl in the middle. “So does water. There’s enough things here for more than one try. I’m not assuming anything. First thing I’m going to do is find them like you’d go north. But I’m changing the value of north.” He turned the compass over in the light, pulled a screwdriver out of the things still piled up to the side and tried to get the compass apart. “Of course, I’m looking for north in a big puddle of magnets, but I’m hoping I can get the specifics right.”

“How do you tell it what to look for? That you want Ylli and Zoey, and not whatever artifacts are tucked away in that museum or hidden in the ground?” So much of how magic worked still eluded Lindsay, but he wanted to understand it. Needed to.

“Magic and will are close in nature. I’m hoping the fact that I really want to find them helps. We’re all from the same house, you and Kristan and Ylli and I. That gives us a bond I’m banking on as well—my magic should be in harmony with Ylli’s. If this doesn’t work, we’ll go with old divination tricks. Nature knows what’s coming. If you can get her to touch your magic, your magic will show you what she sees.

That’s why Cyrus—because he was so close to the element of air—had that gift of precognition.”

The compass finally came apart in his hands and he rescued the needle from the rest. The liquid smelled flammable.

“If I were a hundred years old,” he muttered, “this would be a doddle.”

“I don’t see a damn thing.” Kristan came trudging back. “Unless Feathers forgot that the rest of us have to fucking walk and left me a message twenty feet up.”

“I may be able to sense them when we’re close enough to catch them in my illusion.” That wouldn’t tell Lindsay which way to go to find Ylli—or if Ylli, specifically, was out there, because he’d never been in Ylli’s mind enough to know the taste of it—but he would feel if someone was there.

“If it won’t hurt you to do it.” Noah paused before pouring water in the sugar bowl.

“I’ll let you know.”

“Come here.” Noah beckoned to Kristan.

“What?” She came close, looking wary.

“I need one of your hairs to add to this to help find Ylli.”

You are wise. Most surrender such precious things too easily. Lindsay remembered being told that when he’d refused to let a mage take his blood to determine his lineage. A hair seemed equally precious, though in this situation, Lindsay’s objections were the least of their problems.

“I know what you’re thinking, and just because he has a dick... I’m not a slut.” Kristan took three steps back. She could still put his teeth on edge, no matter what.

“I am,” Noah said unapologetically. “Or I was. Probably will be again.” He grinned at Lindsay, that wicked grin that—like the first time—startled a laugh out of Lindsay. “You’re Vivian’s. So is he. But you don’t have to give me one. It’s cool.”

“Oh, God,” Kristan groaned. “Stop being so fucking nice.” She reached up and plucked a wisp from her temple and offered it to him. The winding strand glinted in the candlelight.

“Thank you.” Noah took the hair and wrapped it around the needle. “The process will destroy it—I won’t have it to use again.”

He put the needle down carefully and picked up the tiny pocketknife. It was a folding knife with only a single blade about an inch long. Once it was open, he stared at it for a long moment, like he was weighing something. Then he drew it across his left palm.

In the dark, it was hard to see how much damage a little thing like that could do, and Noah kept his hand closed. He put the knife down and picked up the compass needle. That went into his left hand as well and he clenched his fist around it.

“Here we go.” Noah picked up the sugar bowl full of water and backed away from the car. “Someone else want to put that stuff away?”

“I’ll get it.” Lindsay tried to keep an eye on Noah while he was at it. He didn’t like the idea of Noah slicing his hand open, however shallowly it might have been, and he had no idea what Noah might do next.

The water bottle, compass pieces and mirror all went back in the bag with the black cloth. Lindsay left the bag in the trunk and, after checking that Kristan had the car keys, closed it up. “What now?”

“Now we get directions.” Noah held his hand out and light began seeping through his fingers. For a moment, the blood running down his wrist was visible, and then the fire flared white, sucking the blood into it. Lindsay could feel raw heat coming from the flames; it was like standing next to a torch. “This had better work.”

Noah opened his hand and the fire rolled into to a red-orange globe on his palm. The compass needle was a tiny shadow spinning on top. Moving carefully, Noah slipped the ball of fire into the bowl, where it sank beneath the surface until only the needle remained on top, lit from underneath by the burning globe.

The spinning slowed once the needle met the resistance of the water, and it wiggled about before selecting a direction that would take them deep into the circle of the mound.

“And why do we not know how to do this?” Kristan flicked her flashlight on.

“Excellent question.” Lindsay could think of a few reasons. “Poor timing, maybe. It isn’t as though we haven’t been busy with other things.” Like Moore.

“I need to focus on this little bastard,” Noah muttered. “Must be your influence, Kristan. Thing won’t stop nattering.” The colors of the globe oscillated like it was trying to get hotter, flaring and subsiding.

“Someone else can find the best path.” He held his wounded hand out to Lindsay.

In the light from the bowl, Lindsay could see it was clean except for a few beads of blood gathering along the edge of a clotted gash across Noah’s palm. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had Noah’s blood on him—there wasn’t anything of Noah that Lindsay hadn’t touched, nothing of Noah he couldn’t have. He was struck all over again by how much Noah was his. He slipped his hand into Noah’s and guided him around a rock.

“I feel like an idiot doing parlor tricks,” Noah murmured when they stopped to let Kristan go ahead and find the best way around a small gully. “I’m sorry if this doesn’t work. If we end up outside a liquor store, we know what happened, though.”

Lindsay snorted quietly. “We’ll figure something out.”

As they walked, Lindsay stretched his illusion out in front of them. For a long time, there was nothing. This was a magical place, though, and even the nothingness was filled with eddies of magic flowing around them. The last time he’d been in a place this full of magic, everything had been different. In Ezqel’s cave, Dane had stood beside him, had held his hands and kissed his lips and washed away his fear.

Now, Dane was lost and Lindsay was alone with his fear.

Finally, the illusion snagged on one person, and another. He kept going, feeling for more, until he started touching the crowds of the residential areas, clumps of minds, all sleeping, dreaming.

And something more. The wild, raw taste of chaos. They were human, but not, and every one of them felt somehow familiar, though not all the same. Hounds, Lindsay realized, ripping his illusion back into himself as quickly as he could. There were Hounds near here, Hounds that tasted like Jonas.

The soft sounds of Noah and Kristan breathing reminded him he wasn’t alone. He could tell them what he’d found... But there was nothing any of them could do about it now.

Slowly, he sent out a fresh wave of illusion to conceal them, and with it, he sought those first two minds he’d caught before.

“There’s someone nearby,” Lindsay said quietly. “Two people.” He’d never had Ylli or Zoey in his illusions before, and the magic around him was too intense to tell if any of it belonged to either person.

With the Hounds nearby and something already hunting them, Lindsay didn’t dare try to put himself behind the eyes of the people he’d caught. He needed to be inside himself, in case his illusion failed.

The long walk, got easier once the little compass locked on to a direction and held steady. As far as Lindsay could tell, they were headed for the two people he felt.

That left Noah free to help them find the way, instead of trying to tame the needle, and he was more skilled at this than Lindsay had expected. He had a better sense of where the best paths lay than either Kristan or Lindsay. Now, Noah was helping Lindsay up slopes and around obstacles, and Kristan was only a few feet behind them, keeping the light pooled around their feet.

Lindsay was grimy and sweaty, his hair had been snagged by branches at almost every turn, his shins had been banged on deadfalls lurking in the dark, and he’d nearly turned his ankle when the footing on a hill turned out to be insufficient. Kristan was muttering curses and threatening Noah in turns. As they trudged along the tree line on the side of a hill, the minds inside his illusion grew larger, closer.

“We’re close,” he said, then realized Ylli and Zoey wouldn’t be able to see them. “I need to fix the illusion.”

“Okay.” Noah let go of him and sank down to sit in the long grass. Kristan sat next to him and wiped her face with the hem of her shirt. She ran her hands through her hair, pulling out twigs. Both of them looked like completely different people from the ones who had last left Cyrus’s house. Given how exhausted they seemed, Lindsay could only assume he resembled the walking dead.

Cautiously, he focused on the illusion keeping them hidden from view. Ylli and Zoey wouldn’t be able to find them if they couldn’t be seen. Without dropping the illusion entirely, he wove a hole in it to exclude the two minds he now recognized.

Once he’d sealed it into place again, he dropped down to sit near Noah and Kristan. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he said, “They’ll be able to see us now, even if no one else can.”

“Ylli will be here soon.” Kristan pushed herself to her feet. “He’s a jumpy little bugger. You said no one else could hear or see us, right?”

“Right.”

This moment of relief in the wilderness reminded Lindsay of his hike with Dane through the Black Forest. Dane. He hoped this didn’t turn out the same way, with some monster jumping out of the woodwork and leaving one of them nearly dead. Jonas was wherever Moore held Dane, but there were other beasts at Moore’s disposal, and they weren’t far from here.

Noah let the globe of fire go out and emptied the bowl before he tucked the bowl and needle away in one of his jacket pockets. They were alone in the dark now, with Kristan carrying the flashlight toward the trees.

Lindsay tensed, sitting up again, watching the darkness for movement. The Hounds were out there somewhere. A repeat of the Black Forest was more likely than he wanted to admit to himself.

Kristan whistled sharply, cutting the silence. “I think he’s coming.” She kept looking up to the tops of the trees. Moments later, there was a soft sound of wings on the air, and a large shadow detached from the

dark mass of the tree line.

“Lindsay? Kristan?” The shadow dropped into the ring of light cast by the flashlight. Ylli looked thinner than usual, but he seemed to be in one piece.

Lindsay took a slow breath, keeping a grip on his fear, and stood.

“We’re here.”

“How did you—” Ylli stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Noah. “You’re alive?” He stared a moment and shook his head. “Never mind. I need to get back and tell Zoey it’s safe.”

Lindsay glanced at Noah, remembering what he’d looked like the last time Ylli had seen him, but he pushed it away and turned to Ylli.

“Bring her. We can’t stay here.” Lindsay’s anxiety was making it hard to breathe. “We have to go.”

“Where?” Ylli paused with his wings half-spread. “We can’t go home.” Lindsay wanted to answer, but he couldn’t make the words.

“We have a place,” Noah said, getting to his feet. He brought up a flame in one hand and came to stand in front of Lindsay, pushing Lindsay’s hair back with his free hand. “Lindsay, what’s wrong?”

The firelight made the orange heat in Noah’s eyes burn brighter. He was as warm as sunshine.

Lindsay remembered the wall of fire sweeping down the boardwalk, and his fear eased enough that he could talk.

“Things are hunting us,” he managed to say. “I think I felt one of them back in Detroit, a flicker, but I didn’t know what it was. They’ve gotten more intense since we moved away from the lake, coming here.

There are Hounds here too.”

“I have to get Zoey.” Ylli was airborne before all words were out of his mouth.

“You didn’t tell us?” Kristan stepped forward to grab Lindsay, but Noah warded her off with his handful of flame.

“His reasons are his own.” Noah turned that burning stare on her. “He’s told us now.”

“We can go back to Detroit,” Lindsay said quietly, reaching out to put a hand on Noah’s chest, soothing both of them. “It didn’t find us there and I know what to watch for now. Since it hasn’t found us, it may not look there again. But I think we have to get out of here.” Even the house in Detroit was better than this. Lindsay had never imagined wanting to go back.

“I’ll leave a trail for you to follow when Ylli gets back.” Noah threw fire on the ground, where it burned without touching the grass. “I’m taking Lindsay to the car.”

“Go on.” Kristan stepped back toward the trees. “Be careful.”

“I would never do less.” Noah slid his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and drew him in. He started leading Lindsay back to the car, trailing a thread of fire behind them.

Lindsay leaned into him, conserving his energy and putting all his magic behind an illusion that was so perfect, it was the next best thing to real. All that training with Dane had done him good. But he couldn’t stop the relentless whisper in his head that wouldn’t let him forget—he’d never won that race.

Chapter Thirteen

There was little relief to be found on the long drive home. For one thing, they were crammed into the car and no one could really claim to be comfortable, not even Lindsay, who was pressed up close against Noah while Kristan drove. Noah’s eyes were closed, but Lindsay could feel his tension. In the back, Ylli was worst off, with his wings folded along his sides as best he could and his back to the door. Zoey had curled up at the opposite end of the backseat and, when Lindsay glanced back, her eyes were a flicker of suspicion and confusion in the dark.

There was no chance of Lindsay relaxing, not even in Noah’s arms. Even after the searching pressure was off of them and the last hint of the Hounds was far behind, he couldn’t let it go. Moore had someone—

or something—new that hunted thoughts. The mind searching for them hadn’t been Lourdes and—for some reason—he was certain that she hadn’t betrayed them. They wouldn’t have made it out in one piece if she had. His only consolation was that his illusions seemed to hold up against the new threat.

After an hour on the road, Kristan finally spoke.

“Back to the same place?”

Noah shifted at the sound of her voice and Lindsay glanced up to find Noah looking down at him expectantly. It hadn’t occurred to Lindsay to go anywhere else. They had a few friends—or at least a few resources—and whatever had been searching for them before had been there once and left empty-handed.

“Yes.” If they were staying in Patches’s territory... There was so much he still didn’t know. “I should go speak to Patches, ask her permission.”

“No.” Lindsay got the word in stereo as both Noah and Kristan spoke at once.

“You’ll look weak if you go,” Noah explained. “We can’t do that. You should let someone else go for you. At least send Kristan, and someone else.”

Like a delegation. Lindsay could appreciate that.

“You should come,” Kristan said, glancing over at Noah.

“I’m not leaving the house unprotected.”

Lindsay felt irritation wash through Noah’s body as his muscles rippled. Suddenly, he saw Cyrus in his mind’s eye, with Vivian and Dane having a similar argument. The image made him want to laugh—the more things changed, the more they stayed the same—almost as much as it made his chest ache with grief. It was up to him to settle these things now.

“I need you to go if she says it will help.” Lindsay shifted to see Noah better, and he cupped Noah’s hot cheek in his hand. “We’ll be less safe if Patches decides we’re more trouble to have around than not.”

Noah’s jaw clenched, but he kissed Lindsay’s palm. “As you will.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t make me pull this thing over to puke,” Kristan muttered.

Noah laughed at that, softly, without taking his eyes from Lindsay. He relaxed enough to give Lindsay a soft kiss on the mouth that was as welcome as clean water. Lindsay leaned into it, seeking comfort, and was rewarded with Noah pulling him close.

Maybe he’d try to rest a little now. With Noah’s kisses stealing his tension, Lindsay finally felt the weight of all his exhaustion. He wove the illusion that hid them tighter. If it slipped in his sleep, it would still be strong enough to hold until he was awake. Only then did he rest his head on Noah’s shoulder and close his eyes.

The motion of Noah carefully moving to get him out of the car was enough to wake Lindsay, even though the bright light of day hadn’t kept him from sleeping for the last hour of the trip. The drive had been uneventful but tedious, and Lindsay’s head was throbbing with the unbearable tension of nothing happening.

“Kristan and I are going to see Patches now.” Noah helped Lindsay out of the car and slid an arm around him to make sure he was steady on his feet. “It’s best if we’re there during her normal business hours and have an audience of sorts. Word spreads and people will know we’re welcome if she agrees to let us stay.”

They’ll know we’re not welcome if she says no. Lindsay bit back the bitter words, feeling the bile of rejection and fear and rootlessness bubbling to the surface.

“She won’t say no.” Kristan came around the front of the car, tossing the keys and catching them again with an irritating ching-chunk noise that went straight to Lindsay’s brain. “She likes you, and she won’t pass on Noah.”

Lindsay looked up in time to catch the wolfish grin Kristan aimed at Noah and—if he’d been Dane—

his hackles would have gone up. Noah was his, and not for anyone to be taking as payment for anything.

“Noah’s not on offer,” he snapped and headed toward the house, forcing Noah to keep up or let go.

“She’s taking the piss out of me because of my family,” Noah murmured. “That’s all. Patches isn’t going to give up the chance to give refuge to a Quinn.”

Lindsay had forgotten there had ever been a time that Noah wasn’t his, that Noah had once belonged to something more powerful. More safe.

“Not that it matters.” Noah kissed his hair as they made their way into the house. “If she likes to think it does, she can, but I’m not one of them anymore.”

“You’d be safer if you were,” Lindsay pointed out.

“I’d rather be yours.”

Noah’s tone had the edge that Lindsay knew meant—for all that Noah was his—Noah wasn’t going to be yielding on the matter. He let Noah help him to bed and tuck him in, telling himself that it was to make Noah happy and no more. That didn’t stop him from falling asleep before the car left the driveway.

Lindsay woke to breakfast—takeout from Apollo 11—brought to him by Ylli.

“Noah said to tell you that Patches agreed to everything.” Ylli put the takeout bag down on the chair.

“He and Kristan are putting up some kind of eco-shower tank together, and we have a chemical toilet.

Patches is going to let us know how to turn the utilities back on, or where to find a generator. Meantime, we have what we need and you can probably shower by noon.”

Lindsay could have kissed him, but settled for a genuine smile instead. “Thanks. How is Zoey?”

“Happy to have a bed. I should go check on her, though. You can call if you need anything. Someone will hear.”

Ylli slipped out with a rustle of wings, and Lindsay was left to enjoy his breakfast and the distant sound of Noah and Kristan bickering. He was sure it would drive him crazy tomorrow, but today, it was music to his ears.

After he finished eating, Lindsay discovered a worn but serviceable armchair in the front room. The day’s papers were on the floor by the chair and, though the windows were papered over, there was enough light to read by.

He picked up the Free Press, which had a little sidebar article about an escape from the local juvenile detention center, and curled up in the chair to read. “Mysterious Disappearance”, the paper said. Lindsay smiled. They had no idea. Even such a tiny victory felt good.

“There you are.” Noah came in with a steaming cup in his hand. “Tea?” He didn’t look any worse for wear after all the driving and lack of sleep.

“Please.” It was strange, being taken care of by Noah—and Kristan and Ylli—but Lindsay was starting to feel more comfortable in his new role. He wasn’t just Dane’s apprentice anymore.

The transition was made easier by the way Noah seemed to know what Lindsay needed before Lindsay realized it himself. Like the tea.

“Good thing I made some.” Noah brought the tea over. “Hang on, I think we have...” He trailed off as he left the way he had come, and a moment later, the back door opened and closed.

“Here.” Noah came back with a milk crate in one hand and another cup of tea and a plastic bag in the other. He dropped and nudged the crate into place for use as an end table, and sat on the floor.

“Thank you. Not just for the—” Lindsay raised his cup in salute. “For all of this. If we’re going to be here a while...” And it certainly looked like they could be. None of them had anywhere else to go, not now.

“Might as well make the best of it, right?” Noah turned the contents of the bag out carefully and started poking through them. It looked like a haul from thrift stores and pawnshops. Various bits of broken

gold jewelry went into the bag again, but he kept out several little bags of old coins. “It’s not like we haven’t done this before, the rest of us. Well, aside from Zoey. Not a skill you can put on a job application, but it’s useful.”

“Dane dug me out of a dumpster and brought me back to Cyrus,” Lindsay said, sipping his tea again, remembering what it had felt like to wake up in that big, warm bed with Dane watching over him.

Terrifying, at first, and then more wonderful than anything he could have imagined. “I never really had to make do on my own. What are you doing?”

“Arts and crafts time.” Noah started sorting coins by size. “Making a set of runes, to start. Divination games are common when you’re a kid, where I grew up. I wasn’t bad at it. Well, pretty good, really. I think that’s one of the reasons I went so long before they finally broke down and admitted I wasn’t going to be any use. All the early signs were there. But they never turned into anything else.”

Lindsay wondered if that would be worse or better than what he’d lived with, the knowledge that he’d never been what his parents had wanted in a son. “When do people usually...come into their magic?”

“Some people are born with it, like second sight. That’s disappointing, too, for a lot of families. It means the child won’t ever have much else. The material has to be strong enough for the magic, and if the magic arises while the material is weak, either the magic is weak or the child will die. So, it starts cropping up as early as seven and as late as your teens.” Noah scooped up what seemed to be the rejected coins and shook them back into a bag. “They like to start seeing it around puberty. The brain has major shifts then, and it’s important for the magic to run in the body and develop with it. The later the manifestation, the more likely there are to be complications.”

Complications. Lindsay had been seventeen; he supposed that was on the late side according to Noah’s math. Not as late as Noah’s had been.

These were all questions he hadn’t thought to ask Dane or Cyrus. Or Taniel and Izia and Ezqel, when they’d been working to fix his broken magic. Each time he thought his questions had been answered, new ones arose in their place. His curiosity was such a contrast to how he’d once clung to ignorance and wished his magic would fade away from neglect.

“What are the runes supposed to do?”

“They give you basic guidance. Depending on how they fall, they let you know the nature of things surrounding a choice or direction.” Noah felt in his pockets and came up with a small pencil that he used to make a mark on a coin. “They’re the same runes we still use to create artifacts. The magic in us knows them, because our minds know them. Some people say that gives them extra power, that magic remembers them. That the stones do, or the metal. You could use anything that was familiar enough to you, with practice.”

Lindsay wondered if he’d be able to learn to do something like that. Make runes, and use them. He set the tea on the crate, and folded up the newspaper and tucked it into the seat beside him, so he could lean forward to watch Noah instead. “Can I see?”

“Sure.” Noah scooped up the coins and shifted to lean against Lindsay’s chair. “There’s twenty-four. I try to make sure they’re about the same. When I was a kid, I’d have to use a tool to mark them. Not anymore...”

Noah held up a coin that had pencil marks on it, a simple X. A tiny line of flame crept over the pencil marks and flared white. Where the marks had been, there were blackened grooves. He tossed it in the air and bounced it off his palm.

“Hot, hot, hot...” Noah laughed and caught it, then passed it back to Lindsay. Tentatively, Lindsay touched the inset marks, but they were barely warm now.

“You’ll do that to all of them? What would someone with another kind of magic do?” Lindsay leaned over Noah’s shoulder to return the coin. Heat radiated off Noah’s body, and Lindsay couldn’t resist, he nuzzled at Noah’s neck and cheek, feeling some of that warmth up close.

“You don’t have to bring your magic on them to make it work.” Noah sounded distracted. He cupped Lindsay’s face in his hand and leaned back to return the favor, gently rubbing his stubbled cheek against Lindsay’s. “It helps. But you’d learn to put your mind to it. Magic is around you and in you. The coins spin through it, magic and nature meet, and magic makes nature speak. I must have made a dozen sets as a kid.”

As Lindsay was about to coax Noah into a kiss, he heard footsteps—a light pat-pat-pat that wasn’t quite what Lindsay had come to associate with Kristan—that stopped out in the hall. He looked up to see Zoey standing in the doorway, dark eyes wide and one hand over her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, um. To interrupt.”

“That’s okay. You’re interrupting Lindsay interrupting.” Noah laughed at that and nosed Lindsay’s cheek before letting him go. He put the finished rune down and went back to writing on the remaining coins.

Lindsay snorted and rubbed his hand over Noah’s bristly scalp. He knew Noah hadn’t minded the distraction. “It’s fine,” he assured Zoey. “Come on in. I’d offer you a place to sit, but...” There hadn’t been time to bring anything else in yet. His chair must have been here when they arrived. “Pull up a piece of floor, I suppose?”

Zoey hesitated another moment before nodding firmly, like she was convincing herself it was all right.

She padded across the room and dropped to the floor to sit across from Noah. She was silent, picking at her nails and glancing up at Lindsay. Lindsay waited, but whatever it was she needed to say never came.

“You’ve had a rough few days,” he offered as a starting point.

She seemed relieved by that, taking it as the invitation it had been. “Yes. Oh man. Ylli said... Well, he kind of explained stuff, but I still don’t know what’s going on. I get that I, um, I kind of made a big mess