thought she was as crazy as she sounded. “Didn’t you see the giant hawk thing? Or the wyvern?”
The woman’s smile looked as fake as a doll’s. “I just arrived from Navarro to help. I’m sorry, I don’t have anything for . . . elemental power-sucking. Just change the bandages on the burns twice a day and apply the aloe. If it begins to smell of infection, come back and see me immediately. Next, please!”
Kira sighed and stepped aside, letting the man behind her limp up to the herbalist’s table. She glanced around him. A line of people waiting for medicine stretched along the side of a pepper field, maybe sixty deep. I hope they’ll have enough.
She’d heard that something like two hundred people had died and eight hundred were injured. That was out of the four thousand six hundred who inhabited Jadenvive.
At least the fires were out—even the smoke had stopped thanks to the Katrosi elementalists. But the dark plume had alerted neighboring villages and settlements, who were already sending wagons brimming with food and clothing. Between the aid from Roanoke, Sekoiako, and Navarro, surely all of the victims would be cared for.
A child’s laughter broke through Kira’s brooding like rays of sun after a storm. She looked up to find nine bright-eyed children racing from the elevator, each carrying a box, bag, or a bundle bursting with green.
“Not a good time to race!” Tekkyn yelled after them through his own stack of crates. He was ignored.
Kira grinned as the kids flew past her. The people at the tables behind her greeted them with praise, especially the ones bearing herbs.
“Enjoying yourself?” She came alongside Tekkyn on the road.
He spared a quick glance at her, unwilling to pry his eyes from the orphans. “How about some babysitting, huh, Frizz? It’s a rewarding career—”
“Not unless you’d like to be treating Ryon instead.” Kira tapped her chin. “Speaking of Ryon, didn’t you swear on your life to him that you’d look after them?”
“I know why he leaves the kid-wrangling to his mom and sis.” Tekkyn grumbled something incomprehensible. “Did you know they can turn invisible and run off whenever they want?”
A smile toyed with Kira’s lips—an almost foreign feeling after she’d spent the night in mourning. The topic of Lee hung between them like a noose. “I’m not surprised.”
Tekkyn adjusted the crates in his arms and lowered his voice. “Any word on Sa’alu?”
“Yeah. Apparently a Malaano unit was ‘guarding’ the northeastern elevator and helping everyone escape.” Gravel popped under Kira’s foot as she shifted her weight, trying to soothe the sudden unease in her gut at Sa’alu’s name. “No one knows where they ended up. As soon as Ryon wakes, I’m sure he’ll want to tell the chieftess the truth about them, if he hasn’t already.”
A curse growled from Tekkyn’s throat. “Good. I—No, don’t eat that!” He yelled at one of the children, who’d stopped on the road to munch on a sprig of feverfew.
“What about Lee?” Kira asked. “Can I see him yet?”
Tekkyn’s expression hardened. “I arranged for him to be on a cart to Navarro with a few other victims from our area. I’ll go with him when it leaves this afternoon so you can stay with Ryon.”
Tears welled in Kira’s eyes again—from where she didn’t know, since she’d run dry last night. “I want to see him before you leave.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Tekkyn murmured as he glanced at the children. “You can mourn at the funeral. If you leave tomorrow or the next day, I’m sure you’ll make it in time.”
Kira swiped at a fallen tear. “Where is he?”
Tekkyn frowned. “It’s gruesome, Frizz. I don’t want you to remember him like that.”
“I was the first to find him.”
He winced. “Well, the whole artisan district isn’t a place you want to go right now. Trust me.”
Kira moved her bundle of aloe to hug him with her free arm and to lay her head on his shoulder. “Thanks for always trying to protect me.”
Tekkyn didn’t have a free arm to embrace her, but she felt his cheek rest on her curls. “I love you.”
A sob choked her, and she swallowed hard. She squeezed her big brother tight, then released him, leaving tear stains on his tunic.
She couldn’t meet his gaze as she left, or she’d lose her composure again. She didn’t know where the artisan district was, but she chose a direction and hurried anyway.
Jadenvive was no longer a treetop village. Most displaced citizens had set up tents