The next morning, Calea was ready to leave. She had gotten all she could expect to get out of Averieom. Her new prosthetics were adequate, and her strength had improved. Her course was set. Now all she had to do was get to Thyrion, where the largest well in the world would surely fill her with magic once more.

She said as much at breakfast, as the four of them sat together for the one meal a day that they consistently shared. “Bron, we must go. Today.”

He paused with a piece of bread half-lifted to his mouth. Dr. Burdock and Nyasha also halted what they were doing, watching them.

“I’m not sure we can,” Bron said. “I bought a few blankets, tarps, and other miscellany, but no one is willing to part with foodstuffs. The provisions are not ready.”

“Then you must make them ready.”

“The stores are all but empty, and the shopkeepers are not much fond of bank notes.”

“Then talk to the villagers. Surely someone will be willing to sell their food for far above its market value. When society returns to normal they will be greatly enriched.”

Bron grunted and ate his bread. Calea took that as agreement.

She turned to Nyasha. “And you will show us the road? Perhaps we can draw up a map.”

Nyasha held very still for a long moment. Calea watched her, hoping that their little tiff yesterday had not changed anything. At last the girl nodded, soft and serious, and Calea smiled, triumphant. “Then everything is set.”

“Are you sure?” Dr. Burdock asked, his smooth young face wrinkling like an old man’s. “You just got your prosthetics yesterday, and everything is so unsettled. I keep hearing tales of robbers and wild men….”

“We’ll be fine,” Calea said, nodding firmly. “We’ve loitered here long enough.”

After breakfast, Dr. Burdock went muttering to his business, Bron left for the village, and Calea turned to Nyasha. “About that map…”

But the girl had disappeared.

Much put out, Calea tromped about the clinic looking for her, leaning on her crutch and limping on her new leg. Nyasha wasn’t in Dr. Randle’s suite, nor in any of the other rooms Calea checked. She finally crossed between the buildings to the dormitory but didn’t find her there, either.

After quite some time, red-faced and puffing, Calea went back to the entryway of the clinic and plopped down on a bench, rubbing her sore thigh above her prosthetic. When that did little to relieve her, she lifted that side of her skirt above the join of metal and flesh and examined the cloth pressed against her stump. She was very relieved to find no red spots of blood, no smell of oozing pus. It did chafe abominably, though.

“Calea?” The sound of the shutting door raised Calea’s head. Bron stood there, frowning down on her. He carried a small bundle in his right hand, much smaller than she’d been hoping for.

“Is that the food?” She gestured at the bundle, pushing her skirt back down to hide her stump.

Bron nodded, glancing at the gather of cloth in his hand. “Enough cornmeal and salt pork for three days, maybe. Not enough for a journey over the mountains.”

“Then you’ll have to try again.”

“Calea…”

“Ho!” Someone kicked the door, voice muffled by the layers of wood. Bron set down his bundle and went to open it.

There stood Nyasha, her arms stretched widely to carry a burlap sack stuffed full of something lumpy and heavy that strained at the fabric. She grinned at Bron, childlike and sweet, and for the first time Calea saw something there that might be likeable. Bron stepped back to let her in, but she just stood on the threshold, smiling.

“I brought provisions,” she exulted. “Lots of them. Now we can go to the mountains.”

“The mountains?” Calea swayed to her feet and grabbed her crutch. “We?”

“Yes,” the girl stated. “I’m coming with you.”

Well, that wasn’t happening.

“You don’t have to prove yourself to him, you know.” Nyasha tugged another strap, pulling the harness tight across Calea’s back.

“To whom?” Calea answered, for a moment absurdly thinking she was referring to Dr. Burdock. She had never given two coppers about Burdock’s opinion of her.

“To Bron,” the girl said. “He knows you’re strong. He knows you as well as ever my papa knew me.”

Calea’s cheeks heated at the implication. “We are not related. And I don’t care what Bron thinks of me.”

“Yes, you do,” Nyasha said, tugging another strap hard enough that Calea winced at the pressure. Fortunately the girl was behind her, so she couldn’t see. “You care what everyone thinks of you. You just don’t care if anyone likes you.”

Calea opened her mouth, then closed it, determined not to sputter. This was utterly ridiculous. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” More hard little tugs as Nyasha adjusted the straps. “I don’t care if you like me, either. But Bron knows you, and he likes you anyway. He knows you’re strong and smart, and he knows you’re an idiot sometimes, too. You don’t have to prove anything to him.”

“Of course not. I have no need to prove anything to a simple-witted bodyguard.” There was really nothing else to say about such idiotic statements.

“Right.” Nyasha finished her adjustments and moved in front of Calea, watching the arm prosthetic with a critical eye. “Try to roll your shoulders.”

Calea did so, feeling the give and sway of the heavy new limb. She would have to adjust the prosthetic hand’s grip and function with her flesh-and-blood hand, but it would give her many more options for dealing with daily objects. Nowhere near as good as her stolen powered limb, but better than nothing. Though she saw no need to try to refute nonsense, she was intrigued by the conversation itself. “Why are you saying this to me?”

Nyasha nodded absently at the way the limb moved, then crossed the room to fetch the leg prosthetic. “Because I like Bron, and I don’t like the way you treat him. He’s smarter than you think, or let yourself think, anyway.”

“I do not… What…” Oh, and now she was sputtering after all. Calea closed her mouth with a snap. “That’s preposterous.”

“You like knowing that any given moment, you’re cleverer and wiser than at least one other person in the room. So you let Bron be that person for you. But he’s not. He pulled me out of a collapsed house. Do you have any idea what kind of skill that takes, or at least intuition?” Nyasha looked Calea in the eyes for a moment, then bent down to attach the leg.

“He’s capable enough, for a guard…”

“He’s a good man,” Nyasha interjected, threading straps and pulling on them hard enough to make Calea wince. This time she didn’t try to hide it. “You should be smart enough to see that, but you hide it from yourself to spare your own feelings. And that’s why I don’t like you. You’re rude to me, and that’s all right; plenty of people have been rude to me. But Bron deserves better.”

Calea was speechless. Had a little village girl, a mere doctor’s assistant and not even a medical student, just told her that her own guard deserved someone better than she?

Nyasha stood back, looking Calea up and down. Perhaps she was just checking the fit of the prosthetics, but her gaze was simultaneously so piercing and so dismissive that if Calea had not been sitting rigidly, she might have shrunk from it. “All right. You can try to stand now, my lady.”

The honorific was sarcastic and not even correct, but Calea chose to ignore it. She seized her crutch and leveraged herself to her feet. She would still need the crutch to walk, at least at first, but already she felt more stable and in control. The socket of the leg prosthetic put new and uncomfortable pressure on her stump, which had been hanging loose and unencumbered for several days, and she would need to practice walking again. But already she was sure of success. “It feels good,” she said a bit grudgingly. She would not let her anger get in the way of finishing what she came here to do. “No spiking pressure or chafing yet.”

“Good. You should walk your route around the clinic a few times and let me know if that changes.” Nyasha gestured toward the door, and Calea moved to go.

“Oh,” Nyasha said behind her, cool and casual and just as commanding as if she were a full physician giving instructions to a fractious patient, “and the next time Bron comes to you with a smile on his face, try not to chase it away within a minute. Just as an experiment. To see if you can.”

Calea drew in a deep breath and refrained from answering, instead continuing out the door. Her face burned with anger for the entirety of her first trip about the clinic, though. Stupid girl.

What did she know, anyway? No more personal conversations. Calea would discuss only the prosthetics with her and ignore anything else she said.

For the rest of the day, she kept that resolution.

“You struck a bargain with a merchant.” Calea stared at Bron, incredulous. She had to repeat it again, just to be sure she’d understood what he said. “A merchant.”

Bron had returned to the clinic covered with sweat and an air of victory, as if he had accomplished something difficult and important by making plans without consulting her. That wasn’t how it worked. Calea should have some say in her own future, shouldn’t she? Even though in many ways she was now a nobody, at the mercy of strangers, Bron should not have treated her as such. He should have respected her at least enough to ask her permission before setting the path for both of them.

Bron, though, just nodded placidly. He didn’t understand at all, the big lump. “After several days of seeking a way to Thyrion, I am convinced that this is the best option.”

“A caravan?” she asked, letting her contempt drip out, thick and viscous. “A large group of strangers all traveling together, trying to keep from killing each other on a long and difficult journey? Whatever made you think that we would be a good fit for such a thing?”

“In fairness, most of the other travelers will know each other already,” Bron said.

Calea threw her hand up in the air, grazing the lamp above them on the wall in the patient lounge. She had been exercising and had paused here in her route around the clinic when Bron caught up with her to share his news. “Oh yes, much the better. Only we will be outsiders, then. How pleasant.” She huffed, abandoning the false cheeriness. “I repeat. What on Lomara made you think that this was a good idea?”

Bron frowned. Calea could see the gears slowly turning in his head as he struggled to come up with an argument. It was useless. He pattered on a bit about the safety of numbers, how they would be provided food, and other piddling matters. “We are going with a man who knows the way very well, so we will not get lost,” he said, and here Calea cut in.

“Yes, the way. Another reason not to tie ourselves to a caravan.” Calea’s hand clenched in a fist. “The route is around the Burnt Mountains, not through. That’s what you said, correct? We’ll be taking the main road to Thyrion and stopping at many villages along the way for other people in the caravan to connect with friends and family. Absolutely useless to us. We need to get directly to Thyrion, no delay, no diversion. We need to go through the Burnt Mountains, not around them.”

“A direct route might seem preferable, yes,” Bron said slowly. “But it will also be much more dangerous. I do not know the road. We could get lost. And while I will always do my best to protect you, if we are set upon by a large band of thieves, we might not fare well. Also, we have no way of buying a horse or anything else to help carry you. A mountain route will be very difficult for you to traverse.”

Calea’s face flushed hot at this, and Bron swayed back, aware that he had made a fatal mistake. “Do not question my ability and strength, little man. I will do what is necessary. I always do.”

“I only meant, the new prosthetics…”

Fortunately for Bron, they were interrupted by the loud clearing of a throat in the doorway to the lounge. Nyasha stood there, arms crossed, face solemn. “I can show you a path over the mountains.”

“That’s not…”

“You silly girl, you can’t…”

Both Bron and Calea started protesting in the same breath, then cut off and looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Bron was the first to recover, turning back to the girl.

“We appreciate it, Nyasha, but there’s no need for you to take on more trouble for our sake.”

“What trouble? I’d be glad to get out of this building after being shut in here for days.” Nyasha gestured toward the Burnt Mountains, visible in the expansive picture window that composed one wall of the lounge. “They’re lovely this time of year, before the heat of summer really begins and after the bitter nights of winter are behind us, and I could do with a trip.”

“Going from no guide at all to a little girl for a guide is not much of an improvement,” Calea said icily. “Bad advice is worse than none.”

Nyasha bristled visibly, puffing up like a small, angry cat. “I don’t give bad advice,” she all but hissed. “My family emigrated from Thyrion, and we’ve visited there several times. I remember the paths my papa led me on. How could I forget them? I’ll never forget anything my papa taught me.”

Calea shut her lips tight at this, no response ready. The air between her and Nyasha was still sharp-edged since the night when she had failed to offer comfort to the weeping girl but instead had cut her further. Calea did not quite regret her words–they were the truth–but she did acknowledge that she could have handled the situation better. As a young girl newly crippled by the Well, Calea had not been much receptive to harsh truths, either.

Bron sighed. “I believe you, Nyasha. I’m grateful for the offer.” Calea noticed he did not say “we.” Perhaps he was learning not to speak for Calea as well as himself. “It doesn’t change the other difficulties, though. I’m wary of traveling alone when there are so many rumors of brigands about.” He paused, wise enough not to go on.

“And you’re worried about Calea climbing a mountain with brand-new prosthetics,” the child continued for him, staring straight into Calea’s eyes as she said it.

Bron did not respond, but Calea pushed herself off the couch she’d been sitting on and snatched up her crutch. “You’re both cowards,” she spat, “hiding behind my hardship to avoid a path you fear. No. I won’t allow it. We will go to the mountains.” She turned to Bron, daring him to disagree. “The two of us will travel quickly and lightly, and we’ll avoid any danger, which I’m sure has been greatly exaggerated. We will get to Thyrion quickly and directly, and neither of us will falter. Is that clear?”

He held rigid for a moment only, then nodded. Sweat still shone on his forehead, slowly drying in the stuffy inner room, but that air of victory he had carried in with him was completely faded. “I will see to gathering provisions.”

“Good.” Calea turned to the girl. “Now, you must have sought me out for a reason. Is the new design ready for testing?”

Nyasha nodded. “I was coming to fetch you for another fitting.”

“Excellent.” Calea swept a hand toward the door. “Lead the way.”

This time, following the village girl back to the prosthetics suite, Calea made sure she kept pace with her every step of the way.

Bron thanked her for the kindness and went to the center of Averieom. The bottom of the shallow hole where the town’s Well had been held some water from the previous night’s shower. Perhaps in time it really would be a pond. The villagers had made a pile nearby of debris from the building that had been destroyed in the disaster, a few automobiles, and even some smaller items of technology now worthless without magic. It had the feeling and look of a bonfire. It was something that the town wanted to reduce to ash, but because it was mostly metal, there it sat, a pile of obsolescence, obdurate and glittering.

He found the caravan man in a small gathering of people partway between the pile of magical discards and the edge of the square. Several people were talking as Bron approached, gesturing with broad sweeps of the arm, pointing both north to the Burnt Mountains and eastward along their line. The group was a hodge-podge bunch of young and old, male and female, well-off townsfolk and weather-beaten farmers from the outskirts. They let Bron into their number easily enough, and there at the center was the man he sought.

The caravaner was a tall, thin fellow who managed to straddle the line between the more polished townspeople and the leathery-skinned folks from the fields. He looked like a man who knew his business but who also could weather a storm in an open plain. He stood and spoke with assurance, and it was clear that most of the people around him already trusted him to lead them through a suddenly dangerous and unknown wilderness.

At Bron’s approach the man turned toward him, a smile ready for greeting. He cut off the ongoing conversation with a wave of the hand, speaking directly to Bron. “Hello, there. I’m Thade Orinstone. Are you interested in safe travel out from Jalseion’s sphere?”

“I am.” Bron nodded gravely. “Please, convince me that your plans are truly safest.”

Thade Orinstone laughed, a strangely joyous sound in the midst of this troubled crowd. “A forthright man! I like that. Very well. You’ve heard the old saying, ‘The flock can travel where the wolf cannot.’ Never truer than in times of uncertainty like these. You would be safer in numbers than on your own.”

“I don’t dispute it. Why is joining your group better than gathering my own?”

“You would have trouble gathering your own in such numbers, for one. I have already gained the confidence of most Averieans who have decided to journey outward. We will pool our resources, sharing food and wagons, shelter and protection. I have hired trusty fighters to defend us from thieves. And, as a merchant who has traveled the route to Thyrion scores of times, I know the way as I know my mother’s kitchen.”

Bron nodded at each point, accepting. “I confess myself quite convinced.”

Orinstone smiled broadly, eyes twinkling. But he raised a hand, forestalling. “A stipulation. Until the political situation is settled again, I cannot accept local currency or bank notes. To be of worth to the group, you must come with something we all need. A wagon and yoke of oxen, food supplies, that sort of thing.”

“Mmm.” Bron frowned, narrowing his eyes. “What about skills? You say you are hiring guards. I am an excellent guard.” His hand fell to the throwing knife at his waist.

“Well, you’ll have to convince me of that.” Orinstone’s smile dimmed slightly. “We might be able to work it out, though. A good bodyguard is worth his room and board.”

“I seek passage for both myself and a companion.”

Orinstone’s hand lowered to his side. “Ah. This is less equitable. You might be worth your passage, but I doubt you’re worth double that.”

Bron folded his arms over his chest. “I allowed you to convince me. Give me the same opportunity.”

Orinstone tilted his head. “Fair enough. How do you propose to do that?”

“Call your best bodyguard. I will prove to you that I am worth two of him.”

Another bright, cheerful laugh. “Challenge accepted! Follow me to the inn.”

The crowd went with them, murmuring and curious. Orinstone’s best guard turned out to be a man a few years younger than Bron, a thick-chested, broad-shouldered brute who, by his familiarity, must have worked with the merchant guarding his goods for many years. He stood half a head taller than Bron and frowned down at him when Orinstone informed him of the challenge as if insulted by the idea. They went out to the courtyard for their first contest.

Bron threw his opponent over his shoulder in the first passing rush, then pinned him to the packed dirt and held him there until he pounded the ground. He also bested him at target practice with throwing knives, using a broken barrel provided by Mrs. Alver for their target. The brute beat Bron at arm-wrestling, but it was a near thing. And currency was not so worthless yet that plenty of it didn’t change hands when Bron’s arm finally gave way, letting his fist thump down on the inn’s wooden table. The crowd cheered, well-pleased with the entertainment, and Orinstone’s was not the only laughter that seemed true and joyous.

Bron stood, grinning, and shook hands with the caravan man, sealing the deal for passage for two. The match had done no favors for his still sore and misused body, but he had proved his worth.

Sometimes, perhaps, even complex problems could be solved simply. Bron was very glad to find it so.

Bron remembered a time when his job had seemed simple. Keep Calea Lisan safe. Keep her safe. That was all. Of course, that idea had exploded as soon as he’d met her. It sounded simple, but it required much more than the description advertised.

Now it had expanded even more. “Keeping Calea safe” had become very complicated, involving travel to hostile territory, a temporary job guarding a clinic, the procurement of transportation, and who knew how many dozens of things Bron couldn’t begin to imagine yet.

He also wanted to keep guarding her spirit. That had been the first lesson, after all. Calea was far more fragile than she appeared, and the first time they’d met he had inadvertently wounded her dignity while trying to guard her from embarrassment. It was a fine line that he was still learning how to walk. And now, in a larger world that was vastly beyond his control, the line had become even thinner and more difficult to see.

But he watched. He could do that. He saw the way Calea interacted with the girl, Nyasha. Calea tried to hide it, but she was jealous, and Bron understood why. Nyasha was sharp as a rapier, young, quick-tongued, and good with her hands. Both of them.

In another life, Calea might have been that girl. Peasant-poor and socially powerless, but strong and smart and certain. Magic had been as much curse to Calea as gift, leading her to the Well where she’d lost…a great deal. And so Calea looked on Nyasha with anger and envy, as well as admiration that she hid even from herself.

Fortunately, Nyasha was smart enough not to pity Calea. That would have ruined any chance of Calea ever accepting her help. Instead, when her first design failed, Nyasha brought her mechanical problems to Calea. Bron stood in the hall and listened to them, and he heard the prickliness between them, but also that spark he had always observed when two like-minded Select started working together. The longer they talked and worked and planned and dreamed, the less they cared about the distance that separated them. They began to create something.

When not working together, though, Nyasha and Calea were very frosty toward each other. It got suddenly worse on the third day, the two trading barbs so spitefully that Dr. Burdock, red-faced, stood up from the table where they were eating and retreated to eat his food somewhere more peaceful. Bron said nothing, knowing his intervention would be unwelcome, but he didn’t leave. He had brought this on his own head, and he would endure the consequences.

He wasn’t sad to leave the Sanctuary for a while, though. This was another new task–trying to figure out how to get to Thyrion. In the middle of the day when Dr. Burdock felt safe enough, Nyasha was buried in her work, and Calea was too exhausted from her morning exercises to stump around for a few hours, Bron went into the village.

Averieom was still small, but it was no longer very quiet or peaceful. The clusters of anxious, tense people Bron had noticed on Capital Street during his first walk through the town had multiplied and spread until it was hard to find a street that wasn’t bustling with activity. Families were packing carts with belongings, shop-owners were setting out signs saying they had none of this supply or that, and even the children looked serious and afraid.

Reliable news was hard to come by, but rumors flew about in flocks. Stay away from the main road to Thyrion, some said, for the Thyrian army was patrolling it and looked unkindly on travellers. Beware of the byways and hidden paths, others said, because brigands and thieves were emerging from the wilderness like cockroaches in a dim room. Bron heard from one villager that the Guides and Overseer of Jalseion had all disappeared in the Cataclysm, so they should not expect any help from that quarter, and the next person he spoke to said that the Jalseian rulers were already starting to rebuild the Towers, and all would be repaired in less than a month.

The first few times he went out, everyone he spoke to recognized that he was not from Averieom, and all wanted to know where he was from and if he had news of this kin or that, if he knew what was happening in Thyrion or Falcon Point, if the roads were good or bad. The telephony and swift mail service afforded by magic was gone, vanished beyond the recalling, and everyone was desperate for news of friends and family. By now, though, the villagers Bron met knew he had no information for them but were happy to share their own.

“Hello, Bron,” the grocer, Mrs. Alver, greeted when he stepped inside her shop. The windows in the front of her store, empty of glass, had been sealed with brown paper. “I’m sorry, I have nothing to sell for gold nor love.”

“I see.” Bron gazed sadly over her empty shelves and bushel baskets. Two days ago he had bought four hothouse pears for a silver note each. The fruit had been a welcome treat with their meat and bread that evening. Calea’s money wallet still weighed heavily in his pocket, full of Jalseian bank notes that were quickly losing their worth. Few people had anything to sell, and those who did were asking dearer and dearer prices. Of course the few vehicles in Averieom were now defunct, and Bron had not been able to buy a beast of burden “for gold nor love,” as she put it.

“Are you still looking for a way to the north city?” Mrs. Alver was one of those who could not bear the name of Thyrion on her tongue. Her family was from Falcon Point, and she had lost folks in the recent war. At Bron’s nod, she went on. “Well, I won’t judge you for your foolishness. I heard there was a caravan man trying to organize a group to head that way. The wells have been gone less than a week, and already we resort again to practices from the distant past. Ah well. You’d be safer with friends, if you must go north.”

“I fear that I must.”

“Then travel in a pack. I heard he was holding court near the empty Well.”

The next days were much the same. Nyasha shut herself up in a back room, absorbed in her work. She was not interested in discussing her progress when she emerged to eat and sleep, which was rarely, and the skin around her eyes gradually darkened as she worked late into the night. Calea was content enough with that. She was the same when she became deeply engrossed in an invention. In a few days, in Thyrion, she would be able to bury herself in magical projects once more.

Dr. Burdock maintained the front of the clinic, seeing patients and keeping up the business of the Sanctuary. He made some deals for food to come in, usually in exchange for his services, and they had bread and salted meat and even a fresh chicken at one point. Occasionally he fussed over Nyasha, who rebuffed him. Then he attempted to discuss an exercise regimen with Calea, and she accepted his counsel a bit more readily, mostly because he offered it as advice instead of a prescription.

Calea was determined to prove Nyasha wrong. By the time the prosthetics were ready, she would be strong and hardy enough for the trip to Thyrion. In that pursuit, the crutch became both her dearest friend and her most hated enemy. It let her move on her own. But after only a few hours of stumping around the clinic, her shoulder and arm burned with unabated pain.

She did not remember it hurting like this when she was a child, newly plunged into the world of the deformed, the crippled, the amputees. But she had been smaller and lighter then, and her remaining limbs had been flush with the vigor of childhood. She had also been in a great deal of shock and confusion, which might have numbed the physical pain somewhat.

Still, Calea persisted in her quest. She would be strong and capable when the time came. Really, the prosthetics were taking much too long. What was that stupid girl doing, anyway? Calea itched to be on the road to Thyrion.

And Bron… Well. Bron was there. Always. He made his rounds of the clinic and sometimes stood near Dr. Burdock, guarding as he promised, especially when suspicious or rowdy characters showed up at the Sanctuary. So far his mere presence had been enough to quiet or send away anyone who made the young doctor start chewing his fingernails. But if Calea stumbled, somehow he was always there, catching her elbow and keeping her from hitting the floor. When she ached, he stood there with tea and a hot water bottle. When she told him to leave, he went into the hall and waited. Just like always.

She remembered that this used to irritate her, back in Jalseion, when she was a Guide. When she was important and feted and admired and envied. Now the world had changed, transformed in a rupture of magic and earth into something crumpled, empty, and terrifyingly new. Calea was changed, too, from one of only half a dozen truly powerful people in the world into a crippled child once again, bereft and alone, nursing her old absences. But Bron was still there, keeping her off the ground and making her tea.

It didn’t irritate her anymore. Well, not as much.

Calea exhausted herself every day, yet the pain kept her awake long into the night, staring at the ceiling of the empty dorm room and trying to ignore the burn of her shoulder and armpit, the tension of the muscles in her forearm and the ache in her thigh. Even her fingers were sore and seized in a claw from gripping the crutch with white-knuckled fervor. If she let herself go, she could almost ride the waves of pain like a dandelion clock in the wind, or a swirl of color in the currents of the Well….

She turned her face to the wall and tried to stop thinking. It was easier to fight than to let go. Easier to struggle and shout and force her way through the walls surrounding her.

A distant sound pierced the veil Calea was trying to pull around herself, and she paused, lifting her head to listen. It was small and childish and nearly wild. It might have been the wind, howling over some distant desert peak. She’d never heard anything so raw and visceral, so guttural and uncouth. It might have been the sound of weeping.

Curiosity drove her out of bed and into an ill-fitting robe, reaching for her crutch even as her shoulder shrieked at the prospect of yet more pain. Calea clenched her teeth and rode it, through the door and down a hall, following the vicious sound of naked emotion. The cry was like a hook driven into her chest, pulling her on. What was it, some sort of animal? A child in the street, alone and frightened? The question drove the pain from her mind, at least for awhile.

She really shouldn’t have been surprised at what she found. They were the only two staying in the women’s dormitory. Yet the sight of the girl pulled Calea up short, halting clumsily several feet away, forced to lean against the wall on her burning shoulder when her crutch slipped. Nyasha sat in a chair at a bay window looking out on the Sanctuary’s garden, bent over herself with her face in her hands, sobbing bitterly as moonlight painted silver over her plaited head and convulsing shoulders.

“What are you doing?” Calea’s voice was harsh and amazed, bursting out of her as if without her consent.

Nyasha gulped, trying to force down her tears. She did not raise her head or even glance Calea’s way, but her shoulders froze, making a wall against the intrusion. “I’m crying,” she spat out, sharp and furious. “Who’s an idiot now?”

“But whatever for?” Calea’s mind was nearly empty, unable to come up with any sort of reason for this horrendous display.

“My…my p-parents…” Nyasha’s voice hitched on a sob. “They’re…they’re dead. I saw them. I saw it! I didn’t understand it. I…” More sobbing, the raw, guttural chokes and gasps of a child’s grief. Had Calea ever made such sounds? She didn’t think so.

“I still don’t,” Nyasha finished, and she just sat there, trying to get herself under control. “I don’t understand it.”

Calea knew, distantly, that this was the part where an ordinary woman of their civilization would try to offer some sort of comfort. She would embrace this messy, mortifying girl, dry her tears, and tell her it would be all right. She would lie and hush and lie some more. She would be warm and soft and gentle, like a bowl of custard left too long in the sun.

“I never knew my parents,” Calea said. Her voice was cold and hard and blunt. She heard it in her voice and could not bring herself to care. “I was sent to the Academy as soon as my talents were discovered. I don’t see what the fuss is about.”

Nyasha drew in a breath, sharp and almost sobbing, but this time it sounded more like fury than sorrow. Calea shook her head and pushed herself off the wall, turning to leave. Behind her, the girl began to cry again, softer than before. Almost brokenly.

Calea went back to her bed. People lived, people died. It happened all the time. It wasn’t worth caring about.

Like any street magician, the little village girl had a good patter. She talked like she knew her business, but within the first half hour Calea was certain that she actually had almost no idea what she was doing. Unfortunately, the little bit of an idea she did have was more than Calea had, so Calea was stuck with her.

“This is going to be fairly complicated,” the girl said. She had been using large words all along, making herself sound older than her soft, round face advertised. Like any child who read too much and knew too little. Calea had been much the same as a teenager. “Because your limbs were amputated above the knee and elbow, I’ll need to make joints. You must have made some yourself, if you crafted your own prosthetics.”

“I modified my prosthetics, more accurately. Heavily. But I did have a foundation to build from.”

Nyasha nodded and began pulling materials from a drawer. “You’ve probably already seen these, then.”

She started laying out pieces. Formless feet made of wood and rubber. Metallic skeleton framework. Hooks and pincers made of brass and steel. “When you received your first prosthetics, how much input did you have?” She looked to Calea’s face, straightforward and without a hint of deference.

Calea might have found it refreshing if it weren’t so irritating. Jalseion was full of lickspittles and fools. This girl was childish and know-it-all, but she was brave. “Not much when I was eight,” she said. “Later I was more insistent on the features I wanted, and by the time I was your age I had taken over.”

“Well, take your pick now.” Nyasha spread her hands expansively to the long counter covered with materials. “We’ll send the bills to the Academy.”

Calea would like to see their faces when that mail arrived.

They began the process of creating a design. It was the most Calea had collaborated with someone since she’d been in her fourth or fifth year of training, forced to work on a presentation with a classmate. What had her name been? Sunith? Judil? Calea truly couldn’t remember.

Working with Nyasha was even more irritating than that experience had been. That girl in the misty past had been somewhat dim, but she had been wise enough to bow to Calea’s superior intellect, letting her choose the subject of their project, the way they would share it, and who would do which tasks in the preparation. Nyasha lacked the humility and insight to do the same. As little as she knew, she was certain of her own knowledge. The worst sort of naif.

Calea won her way, though, in most of the important parts. She got her way on using metal for the internal framework of the pylon, despite Nyasha’s arguments that a lighter material would be better. “You’ll be exhausted after an hour,” the girl said, deep mahogany spots of color appearing on her walnut-shaded cheeks. “You’re not used to non-powered prosthetics. You have no strength built up. It’s a terrible idea.”

“I need metal so I can modify it when I have access to magic again. Wood or laminate would just have to be replaced, and sooner rather than later. I’ll build up endurance quickly.”

“You’re not strong enough.”

“I am!” Calea shouted. “I’ve proved it a thousand times, and I’ll prove it a thousand more! This is the way it will be!”

Her throat ached with the rawness of that shout, and she shut her mouth, glaring at the girl. Nyasha threw her hands into the air and gave in, declaring that it was on Calea’s head, not hers. And that was fine. That was the way Calea wanted it.

Nyasha would not acquiesce on the matter of the socket, though. She insisted that they take time for “a proper fitting” instead of just using the basic socket and harness system to attach the prosthetics to Calea’s body. “It won’t take that long, I promise,” she kept saying. “Do you want to chafe your stumps bloody before you cross the first hill north of town?”

As they were beginning to take the actual measurements, Bron appeared at the door. He took the time for a diffident knock but did not wait for a response before he stuck his loutish head through. “I heard shouting,” he said, as if that were explanation enough for why he had ignored Calea’s explicit command to stay away.

“We’re fine,” Calea said. “Leave us be.”

Bron frowned. And then he looked at Nyasha, as if waiting for her say-so. Calea might have gaped if she weren’t far too self-controlled for such nonsense.

Nyasha, bent over her calipers with a studious expression, only nodded absently. Bron gave them a little bow and stepped out. Calea knew he was standing in the hall, though. Waiting. The big turnip-head.

“All right, that’s enough to be going on with,” the little girl said eventually. She was already turning to the workbench as Calea dragged herself to her feet and retrieved her crutch.

Calea jammed the crutch under her sore armpit and made her way out the door. Bron stood there, of course. He wanted to offer her his arm, she could tell. But she pushed past him, making her own path.

“She says it will take only two days, but I suspect she is optimistic,” Calea told him, thumping her way determinedly back to the entrance. “Where’s that Dr. Burdock? We need someplace to sleep.”

“I’ll find him,” Bron said, but he remained placidly at her side, dogging her footsteps all the way back to the bench where she thudded down on her backside once more.

Bron glided off to look for the doctor, but she had a feeling that he was never truly that far away. It didn’t bother her as much as she expected it to.

Nyasha nibbled the last of the flesh around the apple core as she walked back to Dr. Randle’s suite. She did not offer to help Calea, knowing already that it would be rejected, but she listened to the awkward thump and thud of the Jalseian woman crutching along behind her. When they rounded a corner, Calea cursed under her breath, crutch scraping the wall as she executed a ridiculously incompetent turn.

Nyasha, now several lengths ahead, turned around and waited for her. Even new amputees were not usually quite this spectacularly clumsy with their crutches. “Your old prosthetics must have been truly amazing.” She tilted her head, watching Calea move, red-faced and tight-lipped and struggling with every step. “How long has it been since you used a cane or other assistance?”

“I don’t see how that’s your business.” Calea’s teeth were gritted, and sweat was beginning to pop out at her hairline.

“It’s relevant. I need to know how proficient you are with medical aids so I can decide what I need to make or get for you.”

Calea reached her and leaned against the wall for a moment, taking the opportunity to wave her hand in dismissal. “Do the absolute best you can, and I’ll deal with the gaps between your abilities and my needs.”

Nyasha frowned. It would be rude to cross her arms over her chest. She did it anyway. “If I’m going to do this for you, you have to be honest with me, just as you would have to be with any medical professional who was working for you. I promise you the same confidentiality all patients are given at the Sanctuary. Would you like me to fetch the legal forms so we can both sign them?”

Calea looked down her nose at Nyasha, an almost fevered light of incredulity in her eyes. As if she couldn’t believe that this little slip of a peasant girl would dare speak to her like that. “That won’t be necessary. Just do your best, whatever that may be.”

“Of course I will.” Nyasha huffed, singularly unimpressed. “You must do your best for me, too. Including answering my questions.”

“Oh, very well!” Calea took a breath and rolled her eyes mightily, but finally answered. “It has been at least six years since I used any sort of cane, walker, or crutch. I made my own prosthetics. Magic-powered ones. And yes, they were amazing, or at least adequate to my needs. If I knew more about non-powered technology, I would make temporary ones myself. But we were hoping that coming here would be quicker. Anything you’ll be able to provide will be far inferior to my stolen prosthetics, but I will make do.”

Nyasha nodded thoughtfully, absorbing this. “How did you lose your arm and leg?”

“Oh, now, that can’t be relevant.”

Her gaze had been drifting, but at that sharp, acerbic answer Nyasha’s eyes snapped back to Calea’s face. Calea almost flinched. “At least tell me when you lost them then. So I’ll know how long you’ve been developing bad habits and how long it will take to train you out of them.”

It was the rudest she had sounded yet. Nyasha did not quite regret it. Strangely enough, Calea smiled, and for the first time it seemed almost genuine. She didn’t seem aware of it, though. Was she amused at Nyasha’s presumption?

“Very well. Yes. I was eight years old. I fell in Jalseion’s Well, and the magic consumed my arm and my leg. Is that enough information for you, Doctor Cormorin?”

Nyasha turned away, ostensibly to continue leading the way to the suite, though truly she did it to hide the dismay on her face. A number of possibilities had occurred to her on seeing the missing limbs–a carriage accident, a bad fall, infection and subsequent gangrene, or even an incident with magic–but never that one. Calea had fallen directly into a well? How was she not dead? How had she not lost even more?

She shook it off, determined to be professional. Or at least as professional as she could pretend. She paused at the door to Dr. Randle’s rooms and turned to open it for Calea. “In here. We’ll take measurements, and I’ll show you some options. Since you are mechanically minded and these devices will be for you, we will start planning them together.”

It sounded good. Almost professional. Almost like something Dr. Randle would say. Calea nodded, accepting, and thud-thumped her way into the room. Nyasha shut the door behind them and pulled in a few deep, cleansing breaths.

She would deal with it all. She always dealt with it.

Later, much later, Nyasha was embarrassed by that outburst. It had never been her practice to dwell much on things that disturbed her, though, so she chose to dismiss the incident from her mind. She had been a bit bothered by the whole thing, that was all, but now it was over and she was fine.

She had had plenty of water, a satisfying if light meal (“Not too much just at first or you’ll be sick,” Dr. Burdock had said), a brief wash, and a long nap in one of the empty dormitories. Now, as she roused herself from slumber, the sun outside the window was lowering. She felt much better. Her legs no longer wavered beneath her. And her stomach was growling.

Dr. Burdock had stored food in the common room in the clinic. Nyasha made her way there, stepping lightly between the buildings of the Sanctuary’s campus, reveling in the freedom to move as she wished. Maybe tomorrow she would run, just dash out onto the street and go as far and as quickly as her legs would take her, until her body was exhausted and stopped of its own accord. Right now, though, a meal was more appealing.

In the common room, Nyasha found bread, stale but still edible; a wrinkled apple from the last harvest; and a chunk of strong cheese. Then, still chewing, her hands full of food, she moved toward the front of the clinic. The others had to be around here somewhere. Her footsteps slowed when she heard voices. They sounded like they were coming from the entranceway.

“We must give the girl some time to recover.” That was Bron’s voice, deep and solid and sure.

“Time, time, always time.” A voice Nyasha didn’t recognize, female and strident. “The whole world is suffering. Am I the only one who understands that sometimes you must continue moving forward no matter how you ache?”

Bron grunted.

There was a small moment of silence, then the woman spoke again, slightly softer. “I know you understand that. You’ve proved that, if nothing else, since this disaster began.”

“I know how badly you want this. Need this,” Bron said. “But I also saw her house, and I saw her shaking. We must give her time. When she’s ready, I’m sure she’ll be glad to help us.”

Nyasha stepped out of the hallway, into the light from the front windows. “What can I do?”

After a brief hesitation, Bron stood to face her, but the young woman remained sitting on one of the benches they kept in the entranceway. A crutch leaned on the wall beside her, and she was missing an arm and a leg. Nyasha glanced over her quickly, then looked into Bron’s face, expectant.

“You’re looking much better, Nyasha,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“All but perfect.” She rolled the wrinkled apple in her fingers, making it dance, then took a hearty bite. “What can I do for you?” Apple juice and flavor made a pleasant mouthful. Her mama would call her rude for talking while chewing, but Nyasha felt no compulsion to be polite to these people. Bron had saved her life, bypassing all the usual social rules, and the other one… “That’s why you came to my house, wasn’t it? You wanted help. Tell me what you need.”

The young woman twisted her lips, staring at Nyasha with an expression she couldn’t quite read. Challenging, haughty. The woman raised her eyebrows, and Nyasha understood. Ah. She thought Nyasha was stupid.

“It’s about you, isn’t it?” Nyasha swallowed her bite and took another, then gestured at the woman’s missing limbs with her half-eaten apple. “You need prosthetics. You’re a Jalseian. You’re rich. You must have had very fine ones. What happened to them?”

“They were stolen,” Bron said, with an aborted move, swaying toward her, then holding still again. As if he had started to step between them, then held himself back. Trying to protect Nyasha? Or the other one?

Instead Bron turned sideways, making it into a three-cornered conversation, each of them at a point of a tilted triangle. He gestured, introducing. “Nyasha, this is Calea Lisan, a Guide from Jalseion and one of the finest scientific minds of her generation. Calea, this is Nyasha Cormorin, a young lady of great skills, as you remember Dr. Burdock telling us.”

“So formal.” Calea’s lip curled. “I am a Guide no longer. Nyasha, you spoke truly. I need new prosthetics. We were…hoping…you could help us. Dr. Burdock spoke very highly of you.”

Nyasha watched her, chewing thoughtfully. Calea’s was a voice accustomed to command. She wanted to order Nyasha to help her, but instead she was trying to ask. Not quite politely, but trying. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.

She nodded decisively and took another bite of her apple. “Of course I will. Let’s begin at once.”

Calea immediately shifted on the bench, grabbing the crutch with her one hand and using it to haul herself up. Bron, though, frowned. “Are you sure? You must still be very weary from your ordeal.”

“I want to work,” Nyasha retorted, then shook her head and leaned back on her heels, surprised at the anger rising up in her voice and making it “peppery,” as her papa called it. Why should she be angry? It was a perfectly reasonable question. “I’m fine,” she said again, more calmly. “I like working. I’ve done many handy jobs around the clinic, as well as helped the doctors and nurses. I’m good with devices. Dr. Burdock would be perfectly useless trying to make prosthetics, and the others won’t be back for who knows how long.”

“I’m convinced,” Calea said, and she nodded toward the back of the clinic. “Lead the way.” Nyasha turned on her heel. “Stay here, Bron,” Calea said behind her, stumping forward on the crutch.

Nyasha felt herself to be floating. The man who had saved her life, Bron from Jalseion, led her through Averieom. She looked at everything they passed, but it seemed that she couldn’t truly see anything. The Well was a yawning emptiness, the generator building had been ripped apart from within, and shops on Capital Street were broken and hollow and burned. They passed people, too, but none of them spoke to her, and it was just as well. She didn’t think she would recognize their voices, their faces. Nothing seemed real.

Ahead was the Sanctuary, that small cluster of buildings that had taken all of her focus in the last year and a half. The student dormitories, the classrooms and labs. The clinic. She had pestered the doctors and nurses until they’d started giving her tasks, even though she wasn’t a student and would never be–her family could never afford tuition there, and she knew it. She hadn’t cared. It was the most interesting thing in Averieom, and therefore it was where she wanted to be.

Dr. Pemry said she worked harder than even the best and brightest student assistants, and if she wanted to work, she might as well, as long as she followed procedure. It helped that she had never asked for pay. She knew they thought of her almost as a mascot, the Sanctuary’s own little pet peasant. She hadn’t minded.

Strange that the lights outside the door weren’t lit, the two lamps on either side of the entrance, built into the brick facade. Those lights were always lit, even all through the night. Dr. Vame had called them a symbol of the Medical Sanctuary, a beacon never-failing. But they weren’t lit now, and it was strange.

Oh, yes. The Well. The Well was empty.

“What happened?” Nyasha whispered. Even her voice was strange. Bleak and blank and blistered.

Bron still had his arm around her. He hadn’t let her go since he’d pulled her out of the house. She was grateful. It was an anchoring, that touch, keeping her from floating off into nothing.

“We don’t know,” he said, and his voice was bleak and weary, too. “Come inside, child.”

Dr. Burdock met them just inside the door, clucking and fluttering and touching her face, then his, as if he had to check them both. “Oh, Nyasha, you poor thing, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry I never thought to ask after you, what on Lomara has happened to you? Come in, come in, let me see to you at once.”

Bron’s voice was a deep rumble above her head, explaining what had happened as Dr. Burdock folded Nyasha’s hand in both of his and led her to another room. She’d never been in an exam room as a patient. She had always been a healthy child, and any passing illnesses and minor injuries her mama dealt with at home.

Dr. Burdock didn’t put her on the exam table, even now. He set her in the padded chair they kept in the room for family members, then went to the tap to draw a tumbler of cold water. He was still tsking, appalled by Bron’s story. “Oh, that’s horrible. That’s horrible. I never dreamed.”

He stepped back over to Nyasha and put the tumbler in her hand, then folded her fingers around it when they didn’t seem to want to move on their own. His friendly young face bent near hers, watching gently as he lifted her hand, tumbler and all, to her mouth. “You must drink, my dear. Two days! That is entirely too long.”

The first sip tasted dusty, like plaster and heat and days trapped in the sunlight and the dark. Then the taste of water flooded her mouth, delicious, necessary, and Nyasha wrenched her hand from Dr. Burdock’s and tipped the cup upward. It overran the edges, down her chin, up her nose.

“Not so fast, not so fast!” Dr. Burdock grabbed it again and pulled it down, and Nyasha tightened her grip, panting. Desperate. “Shh, Nyasha, softly now. You mustn’t drink too fast. I’ll make sure you get plenty, don’t worry.”

She nodded, and he let her drink again, keeping his hand on the tumbler until she proved her compliance by continuing to drink in tiny sips. When she emptied it, he filled it again and gave it back, then sat on the stool facing her as she continued to drink. “Tell me, now, do you hurt anywhere? Were you injured in the collapse?”

Nyasha shook her head. “Scratches and bruises. I was lucky.”

“Yes. Yes.” Dr. Burdock paused for a moment, then said, very softly and sincerely, “I’m sorry for your loss, Nyasha.”

She blinked at him, unable to imagine why he had said that. He shook his head and smiled crookedly. “Later. We can talk about that later, if you like. No, I’d better look you over anyway. Then we’ll see about some food, all right?”

It was surreal, being on the other side of this procedure. She had observed a standard exam dozens of times and had even assisted when there had been a runaway coach several years ago and the clinic had been flooded with too many injured for the usual staff to deal with. It was much harder to answer the questions rather than ask them. He kept wanting to know what had happened, where she’d been trapped under the debris, what position she’d been lying in, if she’d been able to move at all, and many other things, and she just…

Nyasha’s breath started coming faster, and she looked around, head pounding, eyes darting uncontrollably. “Where’s Bron?” That touch was gone, that anchoring arm keeping her from floating off.

“Where…” Dr. Burdock stuttered to a halt and sat back. “I believe he stepped out so I could examine you privately.”

“Where is… No, I need…” Nyasha stood, not knowing why, and swayed and reached a hand up to touch her temple. Dusty. It was dusty, the grit scraping against her fingers, coating her skin. “I don’t… Doctor…”

Dr. Burdock stood, too, hands on her shoulders, and he was spouting more words. Then Bron stepped in toward her out of the haze, face grim. He reached out to her, a big hand on her back spanning her shoulder blades, and the world lurched into focus. Nyasha dragged in a breath and knew where she was again.

“I was just in the hall,” Bron said. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

Nyasha sat. Bron didn’t leave the room again until Dr. Burdock was done.