Someone cleared their throat beside her. Briar turned. Esteban, the mage, had spurred his scrawny black mare over to join her.
“Jemma says you have an injury.”
“Oh, yes.”
Briar glanced back, and Jemma gave her a sunny smile. Jemma rode close beside her burly red-bearded husband, Lew, who looked as warm and unassuming as a country innkeeper.
“I sprained my wrist falling out of a tree.”
“Give it here.”
Briar leaned partway out of her saddle and allowed the old mage to unwrap the grimy rags. Her wrist had swollen overnight, and she bit her lip as he prodded at the puffy flesh and the cuts on her palms. Her wrist jolted in his grasp with every step their horses took.
“Could this wait until we stop?” she asked, eyes watering.
“It’s best if we’re moving. It weakens the residual link.” Esteban lifted his spindly arm, revealing the faded ink.
The trace evidence of any spell he performed would wend its way back to the authorities via the spell on his tattoos.
“You’re a voice mage, right? What—”
“Quiet.” Esteban concentrated on her wrist, his eyes going glassy. He poked her flesh, tapping a line down the most swollen parts. Then he took a deep breath and began to sing.
Voice mages didn’t always sing. Words held power enough, and many practitioners were content to bark out their instructions and expect the magic to obey. Radner, the sleek-haired fellow who had accompanied Sheriff Flynn to Briar’s door, was one such voice mage. He had separated the words from the beauty entirely.
Briar had known voice mages with a wide variety of styles in her former life, but none had had a voice as beautiful or as sad as Esteban’s.
The song had no real words, just a rolling ribbon of syllables emitting from the mage’s throat in a soothing refrain. Within seconds, the bruises and cuts on Briar’s body faded away along with her lingering fatigue. The notes rose and fell in the most beautiful melody she had ever heard. She hardly noticed the torn ligaments in her wrist knitting back together, so entrancing was Esteban’s voice.
The entire forest paused to listen, the birds falling silent and even the wind seeming to still. When his voice faded away at last, the others had tranquil smiles on their faces, and Lew’s eyes were damp. Briar wasn’t the only one who felt the beauty as well as the magic of the song.
“Well? Is that sufficient?” Esteban asked, his speaking voice hoarser than ever.
Briar rotated her wrist without a single twinge. “It’s perfect,” she said. “That was beautiful work. When did you—”
“Don’t get hurt again. We can’t leave a trace too close to the target. You’ll just have to keep any future injuries.” Esteban kicked his ornate boots into his horse’s side and left Briar behind.
“Don’t mind him,” Nat said, taking the space Esteban had vacated beside her. “He gets extra grumpy after he does that. Takes it out of him, he says.” The boy took a robust breath of forest air, his patchwork coat straining at his round shoulders, and grinned at her with crooked teeth. “I feel pretty grand, though. Magic, eh?”
The others looked more spirited, too, as if the song had contained too much healing power to waste on just one injury. The bags had disappeared from their eyes, and a scratch she’d noticed yesterday on Archer’s cheek was gone too.
Briar couldn’t help feeling jealous of the voice mage. No matter how grouchy he was, Esteban had a form of magic so good, it was almost tangible. Why couldn’t she have been born with the ability to heal like that or even to write obscure but accurate prophecies, as fortune scribes did? Why could she only destroy?
Nat trotted off to pester Lew, giving Esteban a wide berth. The old mage hunched over in his saddle, an irritated vulture in expensive boots.
“He’s good, right?” Archer asked, drawing up beside Briar. His fine indigo coat hung open over a threadbare white shirt, and he rode the same horse as yesterday, a bay stallion with long legs and a star peeking out beneath its forelock.
“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Briar said. “Where did he come from?”
“Picked him up at a tavern in Chalk Port. He’d been wandering for a long time, and I reckon he needed someone to tell him what to do.”
“How does he help with the thieving, though?”
Archer winked. “Let’s just say he knows more than one song. We have to use his powers carefully on account of his license.”
“There’s no way to get rid of it?”
“None that I know of.” Archer looked over at her, his unruly blond hair stirring in the breeze. “I don’t suppose you could curse those tattoos off him?”
Briar frowned. She and her parents had never even considered becoming licensed, and she didn’t know that much about the tattoos. Curse painters rarely worked directly on human skin—their victims wouldn’t sit still long enough. “I’ll think on it. I don’t believe it has ever been done before.”
“Doesn’t sound like that’ll stop you.” Archer grinned. “You like a challenge, don’t you?”
“Depends on the prize.”
Archer’s grin widened. “Now you’re talking. We might get along yet.”
The party of six—seven including Sheriff, the dog—proceeded through Mere Woods along a route the outlaws seemed to know well, following hidden pathways and deer runs to avoid notice on the main road. Their destination, Mud Market, was located at the edge of the forest, a three-day journey from Sparrow Village and the Brittlewyn River.
The woods echoed with the chatter of birds and the murmurs of hidden creatures. The muggy heat marking the end of summer
