The song was like one of those shells in which you can hear the ocean turned inside out, the pearly inside of the shell as much part of the music as the soft sound of a private ocean. Everything seemed all right while she played.
And then she stopped.
“Well, I suppose I can see why the pipers might be a bit useful to have around,” Chiara whispered grudgingly. “I still can’t stand the necromancers, though.”
June and Sin exchanged grins over a pestle and mortar, and the piper began another tune.
Eventually, though, she was tired and they had done all they could do, and Jamie started to stir. They had made sure he was not in any pain, but nobody could replace that gaping emptiness at his wrist. His arm lay on top of his blanket and their eyes kept falling to the place where his hand should be.
He didn’t start screaming when he woke. He made a little, painful gasping sound. Sin had to lay her own hands flat on the table to stop them shaking.
“Hey, Sin,” he said, his voice a thread.
She tried to make hers gentle and reassuring. “Hey, Jamie.”
“Thanks for getting me out.”
“You got yourself out,” Sin told him.
Jamie’s mouth was pulled out of shape for a moment, but he managed to say, “Yeah.” There was a pause. “Is—is my sister, Mae, here? Is Nick?”
The others could not seem to even look at Jamie, so Sin had been appointed spokesperson. “They’ll be back soon.”
“Oh,” Jamie said, forlorn. “Oh, thanks. That’s good.”
He turned his face away on his pillow. He looked all of eight years old swallowed up in blue blankets, alone in a strange place with strange people, hurt and scared.
Sin marched out of the door and almost fell over Seb, sitting on the top step. She bit back a curse, closed the door, and walked down the two steps of the wagon so she could stand on the ground and face him.
“Get in there,” she ordered.
Seb stared at her, looking startled to be spoken to. He looked as if he had been a thousand miles away and having a nightmare there.
“He doesn’t want me in there,” he said. “He hates me.”
“Yeah?” Sin asked. “How do you figure that?”
“He’s told me that he hates me?” Seb answered. “Seven times.”
“Ah.” Sin thought this over for a moment. “Well, get in there anyway. I saw you two making your lunatic pact to be evil boyfriends.”
“That wasn’t real,” Seb said. He dropped his head so he was staring at his fists, clenched against his knees, and not looking at her. “He only suggested it because he didn’t trust me to be on his side without it. He doesn’t like me.”
“What does that matter?” Sin inquired, as Seb made a noise that sounded like it was going to become a protest. “You’re in love with him, right?”
Seb looked horrified and embarrassed and ashamed all at once. Sin had no time for it.
“You’re the only person here he knows. He’s surrounded by strangers and he’s badly hurt and his whole life is going to change because of it. So it’s simple. Do you want to be there for him or not?”
Seb squared his big shoulders and stood up.
Sin smiled at his back. “That’s what I thought.”
She was delayed following him up the steps by the others, seizing the chance of his entry to leave. When Sin got to the door she found him standing across the room from Jamie’s bed, arms crossed over his chest.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly.
Jamie smiled. It was a very faint effort, but it looked real. “Hey, Seb. Sorry if I got you into trouble.”
Seb looked at the ground. “I was in trouble anyway.”
“I didn’t help,” Jamie said. “I’m sorry about dragging you into my evil schemes with my masculine wiles. I didn’t realize, um, the force of my own wiliness. I don’t actually use my wiles a lot.”
Seb could not seem to help smiling, though his smile was still directed at the ground. “You just had to ask. I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have done anyway.”
“Oh,” said Jamie.
“I’ve known you since we were fourteen,” Seb informed him. “You didn’t fool me. And I knew the evil schemes were never going to be as evil as all that. But that doesn’t—Jamie, that doesn’t matter. How are you doing?”
“Great,” Jamie said.
That made Seb look up. “Great?” he echoed blankly.
Jamie smiled. It was brighter than the first smile, even though it was shaky. “Yeah,” he said. “I think this is going to be really good for my street cred. Don’t you think I’d look cool with a hook?”
Seb laughed and immediately looked horrified at himself, then stole another glance at Jamie and laughed
