Wynn's stomach clenched. She was stuck. They were just going to ignore her.
'Take it up!' someone shouted.
The gatehouse tunnel filled with the racket of chains and gears as the portcullis began to rise. Wynn tried to remain still and not duck under and bolt out. She stepped onward only when the way was fully open.
'What is that?' one guard barked.
She was only three steps down the outer path to the bailey gate when she had to stop and look back. Both guards had their long halberds lowered, the wide head blades aimed at Shade.
'A wolf?' one guard uttered.
The only thing Wynn could think of was another insult.
'Oh, good, you've got eyes… very useful, since you're standing watch.'
'Watch your little tongue!' the second guard warned. 'What's a wolf doing inside the guild?'
'Domin Parisean said it was supposed to walk with me,' Wynn countered, 'since I missed my escort.'
'A wolf? What do you take me for?'
'What do you expect?' Wynn snarled back. 'All the nonsense in there, you wouldn't believe it… I don't! But you think I'm gonna argue?'
With that she turned away, walking steadily down the path as Shade trotted out ahead. But Wynn didn't feel steady.
She was shaking, waiting to be grabbed from behind. She was still shaking when she reached the gate and stepped out onto the Old Bailey Road.
And no one followed.
Wynn ran a hand over Shade's silky ears as they set out for the Graylands Empire. How she would get both of them back inside the guild was something she didn't care to think about just yet.
Cringing in bed, Chane cursed his weakness, and another wave of anxiety choked him.
Pain had beaten him down, and he could not banish it. He had finally succumbed and sent a message to Wynn.
Slipping it along with two silver pennies under the innkeeper's door, he had then rushed back to his room before he was seen. Not long after, the reality of what he had done caught up to him. And fear became companion to the pain.
How could he have drawn Wynn out alone into the night? Or would she just send a reply? No, she would come.
'You coward!' he hissed at himself.
If he sent another message telling her not to come, it might not reach her in time. And he needed to know if she had recovered from whatever had made her collapse. There were also questions about the Suman who had appeared from nowhere to carry her off.
Chane sat up, groaned, and struck the sulfur stick on the stool to light his one candle.
He had fed on a blacksmith working late the night before, but that one fresh life had not been enough to fully heal him. The burns on his hands were still severe, though he had carefully peeled away flecks of charred skin. The ones on his face felt worse. If not for the cloak's hood shielding his hair, he would have lost some of that as well.
His shirtsleeves and one side of his cloak had caught fire from his own flesh. Tearing charred cloth from his forearms had been excruciating. He had an extra shirt, though he was not wearing it. The touch of the cloth on his wounds was too much. But he possessed no other cloak. Without one he could not hunt effectively, as the sight of him would shock his prey into flight and cries before he could close for a kill.
Chane had never been in such a state, never needed help like this—and he had no one to trust except Wynn.
A soft knock sounded at his door.
Chane could not separate shame, relief, and fear.
'Wynn?' he whispered.
'Yes. The innkeeper sent me up.'
Shame and fear grew—one for calling her here and the other at the thought of her looking upon him. But he was no longer alone in his suffering.
He lunged for the door and whimpered as he gripped the handle with his burned hand. When he cracked the door, he saw the charcoal-colored majay-hì.
Wynn pushed in past him, and the dog followed. Chane quickly shut the door, retreating to the wall beyond it and lowering his head. The one candle barely lit the room from the other end near the bed. It was enough for Chane to see, with his sight opened wide, but he cowered back as far as he could from its light.
Wynn whipped off one cloak and tossed it on the bed, along with a staff, its upper end covered in a leather sheath. She glanced at him, about to untie a second cloak beneath the first, but her fingers stopped with the strings pulled out straight.
A shudder ran through her when she peered at him.
'Oh,' she whispered. 'I… ah, no!'
He must look worse than he realized.
'It will pass,' he rasped, and then cringed. He had become accustomed to the sound of his maimed voice, but hearing it when he spoke to her made him hate it more.
'I should not have asked you to come,' he whispered.
The majay-hì began sniffing sharply, watching him. Its jowls curled.
'Stop it,' Wynn said, sweeping a hand before the dog's nose.
When she looked back to Chane, her mouth opened. A frown passed briefly over her face, and her lips closed, possibly in some abandoned question she decided not to ask.
She pointed to the bed. 'Sit down.'
Chane stepped closer, and the dog did growl. Wynn flinched at a clearer sight of him, and a flicker of fright rose as her gaze shifted rapidly between him and the dog. He settled on the bed's edge, loathing himself for the relief her presence brought him.
Wynn gasped softly. 'Your back! Did that happen last night?'
It took an instant before he understood. She had never seen him without a shirt, and his back was covered in white scars.
'No, those are old,' he said. 'From… before.'
This was not the time or place to tell her of his life before death, or about his father. Changing the subject, he gestured at the staff lying behind him on the bed.
'Is that what you carried last night?'
Wynn remained silent too long. When Chane finally glanced up, she averted her eyes. She began digging in the pocket of her yellow tunic.
'Without Magiere or Chap,' she said, 'I needed my own defense.'
So it was the same staff—and under the leather sheath was the searing crystal.
'Where did you get it?'
'Our guild alchemists make certain things, such as the cold lamp crystals,' she answered, her tone careful and matter-of-fact. It was obvious she did not want to say much about it. 'I'm still learning to use it properly,' she added.
Chane considered himself intelligent, though only moderately skilled in conjury, but to create or even conceive of a crystal that carried light that burned like the sun…
There were moments when Wynn still astonished him. What the making of the crystal had taken was beyond what he could imagine—much like most of Welstiel's items.
She drew a small ceramic jar from inside her pocket. 'A healing salve,' she explained.
'That will not help… me.'
'You're suffering,' she said bluntly, and knelt down. 'It may still numb the pain.'
Chane kept quiet, fearing she might vanish. It was hard to believe she was here, tending to his comfort. Only the pain seemed truly real. The rest felt as though one of his fantasies harbored over the last year had suddenly swelled into a full delusion.
Her light brown hair hung in loose wisps, sticking to one olive cheek at the corner of her small mouth.
