father was still gripping Evadne’s hand, so tightly it ached.
“I believe that is payment enough for the fire,” Macarius said. “Unless you would like another song?”
Gregor declined.
“Very well, then. We shall be on our way.”
Evadne watched as Macarius rose. He extended his hand for Beryl, to assist her to her feet. Cyrus had to help himself up, and he moaned as he rose, scowling at the satchel of scrolls he had been delegated to tote.
They disappeared back into the night, laughing just as they had come. And when the quiet returned, and there was no sound but the wind and the fire crackling, Evadne wondered if she had dreamt the entire encounter.
Gregor let out a shaky sigh. He released Evadne’s hand, but he remained close to her side, stiff as a plank.
“Go back to sleep, Pupa.”
How was she to sleep after that? How could she sleep with the mage’s happy yet terribly empty song echoing in her head?
She lay down, her blankets cold. Evadne closed her eyes and pretended to sleep until dawn finally came.
Phaedra was the one who discovered it. She was sifting through their travel sacks to set out breakfast when she gasped.
“Gregor! It’s gone. All of it.”
Evadne watched in disbelief as her mother turned the food sack inside out. It had been brimming with provisions. And now it was nothing but empty linen.
“What of the others?” Gregor lunged to his feet, joining her at the wagon bed.
They went through the other sacks, all of them limp. They opened the jars of ale, the water flasks. All of them bone-dry. Gregor’s money pouch, which he kept belted at his side, was also empty. Even the oats they had packed for the donkeys were gone.
Gregor knelt, the sacks strewn about him on the ground. His fingers tore through his hair, his eyes bloodshot.
“Should we turn back?” Phaedra asked. “We are only a day from Isaura.”
“We cannot turn back,” Gregor said, his voice hollow. “We would miss the trial.”
Slowly, Evadne moved toward him to take one of the sacks in her hands. She searched it, even though she knew it was empty. She pressed her face to it, smelling the memory of figs and cheese. Her stomach growled in response, and she remembered how Macarius’s song had made her feel.
Empty.
The mage had not touched the wagon. He had not approached it at all. She had not even noticed him studying it. But he had sung his enchantment, and in a single chorus he had stolen nearly everything they owned.
“Father,” she whispered.
Gregor’s face softened. He reached out to touch her hair, to quietly reassure her. She leaned into him, shaken.
Once she had been a young girl, dreaming of magic, believing it to be something good and honorable and worthy. Now she realized how naïve she had been, how uneducated.
Magic was not at all what she had thought it to be.
And Evadne realized there was still much of the world she needed to learn.
When they finally reached Abacus, Evadne and her parents were bedraggled, their hunger and thirst a constant ache. Phaedra had found a patch of wild berries growing in a thorn patch, which had sustained them, and Gregor had speared two fish from a river, but that was all they had eaten.
Evadne was so ravenous she could hardly take in the splendor of Abacus, the city of warriors, where Halcyon had spent a portion of her life.
It was a bright, sprawling place, the terra-cotta roofs smoldering in the sunlight. The buildings were made of white walls, stacked high upon themselves so that the paved streets felt like winding ravines. The doors were all painted red, their lintels carved with the symbols of Nikomides. Snakes and swords and spears. Herbs grew from the window baskets and urns, and there was a constant scent of smoke on the breeze. Evadne could hear shouts from the market mingling with the hammering of forges. Everyone moved quickly, honed with purpose.
They had no coins to purchase a room, so Gregor ended up bargaining for one in addition to two meals a day, on the promise of five jars of first-pressed olive oil.
Evadne ate with her parents, and then they retired to their room to wash the grime from their hands and faces. They combed the tangles from their hair and dressed in fresh clothes—the only possessions that Macarius had not wanted.
They set out on foot toward the agora, to speak to the archon—the judge—of Abacus. Since Halcyon’s crime had been committed within Abacus’s boundaries, her