her back. The thin fabric of her dress was worn gray over her shoulder blades. One shoulder in particular; she probably wore something slung over it while she worked. A tool belt or a bag of supplies. He’d seen factory workers who walked with a permanent list from years spent that way. “You won’t,” he said, talking fast. “You wouldn’t. You sent your son inside, where you’ll never see him again, to keep him out of that factory. I’ve heard what they’re like. Working through the night, grabbing a few hours’ sleep before the foreman wakes you up—no breaks, no food, no clean water. You didn’t want that life for him.”
She didn’t answer.
“Is he smart, too?” Nate said. “Because Bindy is. And you know it.”
Then, finally, she swiveled. Her face was proud. “All of my children are smart.”
“Smart enough to know where they’re safe and where they’re not?”
“Smart enough to know who decides when they’re safe,” she snapped back.
“And who will that be, when she’s back and forth across Brakeside, running messages for anyone with a coin?” he said. “When I send her out on an errand, she’s under my protection. Which may not be much, but it’s better than nothing.”
Teeth clenched, she said, “And who protects her from you?”
“She doesn’t need protection from me,” he said. “I would never harm her.”
“You say that now. Then later it’ll be, ‘Well, now, that wasn’t harm, exactly.’ But it’s my Belinda who has to live with what you don’t call harm.” She spoke flatly, but with absolute conviction, and Nate knew that as far as she was concerned, every word she spoke was the unconditional truth. But it was not his truth, and in that moment, he determined that it would not be Bindy’s, either.
“I swear to you,” he said, “I intend her no harm and no ill, by anyone’s definition. Not yours and not my own.”
Nora’s eyes narrowed. “Swear it on your blood, magus. And I warn you, I may be poor, but I am not friendless.”
He understood the threat in the words. In all of the cities and towns and villages he’d visited, those who had no recourse to official justice made their own. “On my blood,” he said, which was a direr oath for him than it was for her, because blood was everything to the Slonimi, and they did not waste it.
Nora watched him, considering. “She comes home every night,” she said finally. “Even when I’m working, there’s those who’ll watch for her, and I’ll know.”
“Of course.”
“And you don’t feed her. She eats at home. Not here.” She looked pointedly at the shelves visible through the open lab door, with their jars of herbs and powders. Nate nodded. She said, “Where’s the old one, whose manor this is?”
“Upstairs. He’s ill.”
“That one wouldn’t notice Bindy long enough to kick her out of his way. What happens when he gets better?”
He won’t. But the words that came out of his mouth were Caterina’s. “Wood’ll burn when the match strikes.”
Her chest twitched in a silent laugh. “You’re no courtier, magus or no. Why waste your time here, with them?”
“It’s not the courtiers I care about,” he said truthfully.
“So I hear.” She gave him a long, measuring look. “You keep your word to me, Gate Magus. I lost one child to those people. I won’t lose another.”
The next day Bindy was back, in a dour black dress and a pair of reassuringly solid-looking boots. She also wore a happy grin, though, and for a moment he imagined Bindy as she might have been in the caravans, where life wasn’t perfect but at least there was sunshine most of the time. “Magus, you’re magic,” she said, and grinned with delight. “Magic Magus. That’s what we’ll call you from now on, won’t we, Canty?” She bounced her brother on her hip.
“What have I done that’s so magical?” he said.
She widened her eyes at him in mock awe. “Only crossed swords with Ma and won, that’s all. Ask around about Nora Dovetail, and see how many people can say the same!”
“She was just worried about her daughter,” Nate said. “I pointed out that the daughter in question was sharp as a tack and plenty smart enough to take care of herself.” Not that the conversation had been about Bindy’s intelligence, which would not necessarily have protected her from the harm Nora feared—but close enough.
“The daughter in question.” Bindy laughed. “Well, the daughter in question would like to know if the Magic Magus likes her dress?”