Rian found her at once, blade drawn. The tree cover was thinner out here, and Sev could make out the man’s scowl in the dappled light of the moon.
“Oh, thank the gods and their servants,” the woman said breathlessly as Heller joined them as well.
“You’ll have the whole camp up in arms with your incessant trilling, woman,” Heller barked, wheezing as he caught his breath. “What are you on about?”
Sev was utterly still. Even his lungs didn’t move—though he silently begged them to.
“I . . . that is to say, we . . . need your help.” And to Sev’s horror, she pointed at him, squatted above in the tree like an overgrown bird.
“What in blazes are you doing up there?” asked Rian, sidling next to her and bringing Sev into his sights.
“One of my pigeons has taken ill,” the woman said hastily. “Took off when I tried to tend to him and wound up in this tree. Refuses to come down, no matter how I beg and cajole. You know how the pigeons get. Their brains are a bit addled—see, there it goes.”
A warm something splatted on top of Sev’s head, and he suspected he knew what it was. Looking up, he was unsurprised—though no less chagrined—to spot a pigeon cooing meekly after emptying his bowels on top of Sev. He had dealt with entirely too much crap today.
“This lad was helping me retrieve the poor fellow, but alas, he’s not much of a climber and can’t seem to get down again.”
Sev shot daggers at the old woman, who only looked up at him with wide-eyed concern. After taking a deep breath and fighting the urge to call out her ludicrous lies, Sev did as Rian and Heller instructed and held the pigeon in his hands while Rian scaled the branches to help him.
It was mortifying, having the man half carry him down the tree like a child who’d climbed too high and gotten scared.
Standing before them at last, with a pigeon clutched to his chest and bird droppings in his hair, Sev couldn’t quell the growing suspicion that the woman was having rather a good time. She was certainly smiling widely enough.
Rian and Heller told them to head back to camp, and Sev walked alongside her, trying to decide whether he should thank her or throttle her.
She had helped him, in an extremely roundabout way. If she hadn’t stopped him, he’d likely have barreled into Rian as he tried to run away. Even if he hadn’t, the bats had made such a fuss that Rian and Heller probably would have come poking around anyway. Sev could’ve tried his drunk routine, but he knew that was a less-than-foolproof strategy.
Once they were out of earshot of the perimeter guards, Sev cast the woman a sidelong glance.
“You’re welcome,” she said graciously, and Sev scowled.
“For what? For making a fool out of me?” he snapped.
“Oh, I think you were doing a fine job of that on your own. I saw your, uh, trick, with the bats. Do you want them to know what you are, boy?” she asked. “They’ll tag and chain you faster than you can say ‘phoenix.’?”
Sev’s mouth went dry. She had caught him using his magic.
While at first glance the woman seemed frail and grandmotherly, Sev sensed she was anything but. Even as she stood there in her loosely hanging tunic, with bits of her cotton hair standing in all directions, her eyes glittered with keen intelligence.
Sev opened his mouth to speak, cleared his throat, then shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage while still holding the pigeon. He pushed it into her hands. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
Best to play dumb. Sev was very good at it.
“Oh, I think you do,” she said as she took the pigeon. “An animage living and working among the empire’s soldiers. Such a terrible secret to bear.”
She bowed her head to the pigeon in her hands, murmuring in a low voice, and then released it. The bird soared away as gracefully as an eagle on an updraft. Sev frowned. The pigeon wasn’t even sick. Had the whole thing been some kind of trap?
“Perhaps it was that burden that drove you to sneak off in the dead of night with a packed bag and purseful of stolen gold,” she said with a weary sigh, as if the entire thing were some terrible tragedy.
Sev gaped at her, unsurprised that she’d gleaned he’d been trying to escape but confused about her last comment. “Gold? What—”
She gestured for him to check his pack, a smug smile on her face. Frowning, Sev dug within its depths, drawing out a coin purse—one he most certainly had not packed—embroidered with Captain Belden’s initials in golden thread. When had she planted it on him? He’d never felt so much as a tug or brush against him.
“What did you . . . ? I never—how—” he blathered. She only smirked, snatching it from his hand in a lightning-fast move and making it disappear again.
“It would be a terrible thing to have to report you,” she said, her tone still heavy with feigned sorrow.
“No one would believe you,” he said faintly.
That had to be true. Sev was a soldier, one of the empire’s most celebrated servants—no matter how low he was on the food chain. This woman was a bondservant, a criminal.
It seemed she was following his train of thought. “Whether they believed my word or not, the facts would be stacked against you, boy. Stealing from the captain’s own personal stores, your fondness for poor sick animals stuck in trees. . . .”
Tingling, crackling fury was creeping up Sev’s neck.
“And that’s not to mention the way the other animals flock to you.”
“The animals don’t flock to me,” he said automatically, though he thought he already caught her meaning.
“Not yet they don’t.”
Sev stopped walking. He was truly and completely foxed.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“I propose a deal: You give me what I want, and I give you what you want—an escape.”
“There you are,” came a low voice from the darkness of the camp. Sev blinked in surprise when the bondservant from earlier emerged. When he spotted Sev, he scowled. “What’s he doing here? And what’s . . . ?” he trailed off, eyeing the mess in Sev’s hair.
“We were talking,” Sev said shortly, tugging a rag from his pack and wiping angrily at his hair. “Me and . . . uh . . .”
“The soldiers and servants call me Thya,” she said, filling in the silence. “But I grow weary of it. I’d like something with more oomph, you know? More pizzazz.”
There was a pause. Sev was certain she was going to keep speaking, but she didn’t.
“Like what?” he prompted.
She pursed her lips. “I’m not sure yet. There’s so much in a name. . . . What’s yours again, boy? Seb?”
“Sev,” he corrected.
“Sev. A unique name. Ferronese, isn’t it? Short for Sevro?”