“Collar’s done,” Kett’s disembodied voice said. “She’s still out, but do you want the syringe?”
Bael stared at Jarven, who wasn’t looking remotely surprised or stunned or bewildered. Well, Bael conceded, it didn’t look as if he ever would.
“No, I’ll bring one,” Jarven said.
“Right. I’m dying for a drink. See ya.” Jarven nodded and put the thing back on its peg. Then he turned back to what he’d been doing at the forge.
Bael stared at the thing, which now just looked like an inanimate geode. How had it been responsible for conveying Kett’s voice? Had she been poking her head through the window and he hadn’t noticed?
He looked around. There didn’t seem to be any windows.
Maybe Jarven was a Mage. Bael went cold despite the heat as he watched the other man poking at the fire. Maybe Jarven was with the Federacion.
“What…” His voice was all broken, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“That, er, thing. You were talking to Kett, but she’s not here.”
“No,” Jarven agreed.
“But-how-?”
Jarven sighed again, turned with the hot metal still in his hands and said, “It’s called a scryer. It’s a kelfish device, powered by kelfish magic. They act as conduits for thoughts. If you want to talk to someone else who has one of them, you hold the scryer and concentrate on that person, and it makes a connection with theirs. Then the face of the scryer turns into a sort of window so you can see each other as you talk.”
A kelfish device. Okay. The kelfs had nothing to do with the Federacion.
Bael shook his head, relieved. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Jarven turned back to the forge.
“So is that like the longest speech you’ve ever uttered?” Bael asked, and Jarven stabbed the metal into the fire with a little more force than before.
“There are chairs upstairs,” he said. “Go and sit.”
Bael grinned. Hey, he’d rattled the emotionless man! In retrospect, being that Jarven was clearly close to Kett, not a good choice. But Bael had never much cared for consequences.
“Those drinks she mentioned,” he said, figuring Kett should be back around now. “Where are they? I’ll get one for Kett. You thirsty?”
“They’re in the village,” Jarven said.
“Oh. So she’s going to fetch them?”
“No,” Jarven said in slow, patient tones. “She’s going to go to the pub, order a beer, drink it there, repeat the process several times and come back when she’s done.”
Bael opened his mouth then shut it again. “She’s avoiding me!”
Jarven muttered something that sounded like, “Can’t imagine why.”
“Where’s the pub?”
Jarven was silent a moment or two, as if deliberating whether or not to tell him, then evidently decided it was worth it to get Bael out of his hair, and gave him directions.
“Avoid me!” Bael said indignantly, pulling his gloves back on. “What did I do?”
Wisely, Jarven said nothing.
“Beer me,” Kett said before she’d even taken off her coat.
Across the bar, Bill, the grizzled old landlord, filled a tankard. “Bad day?”
“Fucking horrible.” Kett ripped off one glove, strode over and downed the beer in one go. “More.”
Bill laughed. “Dragons been giving you the runaround?”
“No, the dragons have been fluffy little kittens. It’s a different species entirely that’s pissing me off.”
“Men?” suggested Angie, Bill’s pale, skinny daughter.
“Close enough,” Kett growled, and stomped off to the back reaches of the dingy pub to see if anyone wanted a game of darts. They didn’t, because even drunk men knew it was a bad plan to get near Kett when she was angry and had a fistful of sharp objects, but a couple of them ventured to offer the snooker table as an alternative.
They’d been playing for five minutes when Kett realized there were three of them and only ten balls. Still, variety was the spice of life.
“Is it Jarven, then?” Bill asked as he watched.
Kett banged a ball into the pocket. “Nope.”
“Jarven’s incapable of annoying anyone,” Angie said. Kett suspected she harbored a crush on her silent roommate.
“Yeah, he’d have to speak for that.”
“Well, who is it?” Angie asked. “Can’t be anyone in the village or we’d have heard.”
“It’s-” Kett began, but then the door banged open and she turned her head, distracted, to see who was coming in amidst the flurry of snow. Up in the mountains of the Northern Province, winter lasted for months and Kett couldn’t remember how long it had been since they’d had a snow-free day. For the newcomer to stand there with the door open, letting in billowing gusts of freezing cold air, marked him as an outsider. Or an idiot.
Or both. She ducked behind the snooker table.
The door finally closed and conversation dimmed as all the locals watched the newcomer walk across the stained wooden floor to the bar.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said, and Kett rolled her eyes, because if she hadn’t guessed already, now she knew it was Bael.
“Who would that be then, sir?” Bill asked.
“A woman.”
Kett stifled a snort. She’d been here six months before the locals caught sight of her in a t-shirt and spied her breasts. Before that, they’d assumed the new dragon trainer was a man. Most of them still thought of her that way.
“Only woman here’s my daughter,” Bill said now, with an overlay of heavy protectiveness.
“No-I mean, a specific woman. Tall, dark curly hair, scar on her cheek, limps slightly. Very hot. And angry.”
Angie stifled a giggle.
“Her name is Kett.”
One of the snooker players snorted. “Kett’s not a woman.”
“Er,” Bael said, “I’m pretty sure she is.”
Kett felt her face get hot.
“Is she here?” Bael asked, and from behind the snooker table, Kett shook her head frantically at Angie, who gave a small shake of her head to her father.
“Sure, she’s hiding behind the snooker table,” Bill said cheerfully, and Kett shot him a filthy look as she stood up. “Drink?”
“Whatever she’s having,” Bael said, beaming at Kett, who pinched the bridge of her nose and reminded herself that if she got thrown in prison for killing Bael the week before Yule, her father would disown her.
Actually, maybe that would be a good idea.
Then Bael winked, and despite herself Kett felt something go
“Is there a reason you’re here, or are you just stalking me?” she asked, trying to dispel the feeling.
“I need to talk to you,” Bael said.
“I hate those words,” Kett muttered. Louder, she asked, “What about? You know who strung us up in that cave?”
The pub suddenly got a lot quieter.
“Er, no,” Bael said.
“Then what could you possibly have to tell me that I’d be interested in?”
