I didn’t say anything as I saw what he had seen, and I uneasily eyed the sailors and troopers who had congregated, standing a little ways off as they watched me watching them. I could see First Lieutenant Falkin’s blond hair shimmering in the sunlight as he joined them. He took a step towards me, then stopped, as if uncertain about coming closer. Though that may have been because the unicorn had risen to her feet and was heading my way. Keeping an eye on her and them, I selected another orange and peeled it.
Jeff pushed through the crowd and called out, “Well, there! I thought so with that braid and feather. He’s really a winsome she, lads! Virtuous too!”
“Hah!” I said, grinning, shoving orange into my mouth. “You wouldn’t know winsome if it bit you on the arse, Jeff.” I spoke to the rest of the lads, my voice thick. “Saw him at the theater with someone who looked just like Groskin’s horse, Fiend. Then I realized it was Fiend.” I smirked at him over the laughter. “He was only there because Jeff promised him sugar lumps.”
Jeff strolled closer, with Falkin a step behind, both avoiding several otters’ shades gamboling by. The crew and troopers followed them, with more joining the crowd. Doyen Allwyn shifted aside so that he could watch.
“Hell, Rabbiteena, that wasn’t Fiend,” Jeff threw back. “That was your mother, following me about because of my carrots.”
I leaned forward, paying no mind as Basel stepped aside to let the unicorn lie down next to me. “If that had been my ma, Jeff, she would’ve eaten your carrots, crunched your lumps, and left you nothing but a stump.” I looked thoughtful. “Though, I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, maybe it was her—”
I broke off as I remembered Doyen Allwyn. I shot him a look but he was staring hard at the folded chessboard. A muscle quivered in his cheek and then was still.
Jeff also gave a quick glance at the doyen, a faint flush adding to the colors already on his face. He hesitated, then hunkered down, wincing a little. The others in the front of the crowd did the same, while the rest pressed in until I was surrounded by a solid wall of humanity.
“Uh, yeah,” Jeff said. “So, how are you doing, Rabbit?”
“I’m all right.” My stomach rumbled and Doyen Allwyn offered the fruit bowl. I selected another orange and, as I peeled it, I noted the black eye, the lump on Jeff’s forehead, the splints on a couple of his fingers, and the other assorted bruises I could see. I frowned. “Why aren’t you in the infirmary?”
“Both the captain and Laurel said I could return to duty, nurse,” Jeff said. He waited a moment, then gave a wry grin. “Well, tell us. What happened?”
I hesitated.
“Rabbit.” Jeff sighed and started ticking off on his fingers. “Lost in the mountains. Magicals. Feathers. Translations. Haunts. A bridge of air and then of green vines. Runes lighting up. Butterflies. Stopping arrows in mid-flight. A magic storm. And now”—he waved a hand around, having run out of digits, and in the gaps between the men I could see the shades also pressing closer to where I sat—”a whole shipful of haunts.”
“Don’t forget Slevoic,” a trooper said.
“Oh, yeah,” Jeff said, “Slev-o-icious and his one-man horror show gone.” Grins bloomed on many of the soldiers’ faces, though Ryson, standing on the outskirts, just looked green.
“Slevoic ibn Dru?” Falkin asked, his gray eyes bright. “I knew him from when he was stationed at the Royal Garrison. Both he and Lord Gherat would hang about in the dockside taverns.” His mouth twisted in distaste. “The whores would hide as soon as they saw them coming. It didn’t surprise me when I’d heard Slevoic had turned into a sorcerer.” The twist straightened into a grin. “And after last night, it didn’t surprise me to hear that you handed him his hat.”
I stared Falkin for a moment, then looked at Jeff, who shrugged back at me.
“Captain Suiden ordered me to tell everyone about Slevoic,” Jeff said. “Anyway, you did go up against him. Three times—twice at the embassy and then when we were in the alley.”
“But—”
“It’s a legend at the garrison, sir,” another trooper said to Falkin. “How for three years Rabbit evaded Slevoic.” He also grinned. “I once saw Rabbit standing right in front of him, but the Vicious didn’t see him until one of the captains called Rabbit to run an errand—and then it was too late for the Vicious to do anything about it. He just about howled.”
“My ma always said I could hide in plain sight,” I murmured, remembering some of the close calls I’d had with the lieutenant. I felt a hunger pang and shoved the orange into my mouth. I then reached for an apple.
“He sounds a rare treat,” a sailor said. “Lord’s son?”
“He’s a cousin of a friend of the king,” Jeff said. “But now he’s gone, outlawed and on the run, thanks to Rabbit.”
“I didn’t—” I began over a mouthful of apple.
“Yes, you did,” Jeff said. He shifted on his heels. “I don’t think anything you’d say at this point would get anyone worked up, Rabbit.”
“Hell, no,” Falkin said, squatting down beside Jeff. “We were dead men, Rabbit. Then suddenly, we weren’t.” He smiled again, his eyes rather round with wonder. “What did you do?”
I swallowed and sighed, feeling as though I was going to strip myself bare in front of everyone. I tried to look out at the sea, but my view was hemmed by sailors and troopers, so I looked back at Jeff, my own mouth quirking. “The storm was going to kill us so I stopped it.”
“I was kissing the deck, remember?” Jeff sat down and leaned forward, his face expectant. “How did you stop it?”
I shifted as I chewed, trying to remember the words I used yesterday when I told Suiden, Havram and Doyen Allwyn.
“He turned into the wind,” Doyen Allwyn said, his voice quiet, “and the storm just stopped, like it hit a wall. Then it went away.”
“Better than the dramas,” a trooper said, his eyes wide.
“Yes,” Jeff whispered. “What was it like, Rabbit?”
I took a deep breath. “Ever have dreams where you were flying?”
A murmur went around the group of men.
“It was like that, except I wasn’t flying. I was flight.” I pulled the blankets around me tighter. “Like the lift beneath a bird’s wing. Or the soaring of a kite.”
“Aye,” an old sailor said, looking up at the masts. “The filling of her sails until she fair dances and sings.” I nodded and, hearing the wind give a faint chuckle, shivered, understanding clearly how mages were seduced.
“When I’ve had dreams like that, I never wanted them to end,” Falkin said softly. Sailor and soldier alike nodded their heads in agreement. “And yours was real. How could you stand to come back?”
A breeze swirled around me, fluttering my feather, and then was gone. “Because, sir, I’m not the wind—”
“You are an apostate,” Chaplain Obruesk said, his deep voice rolling above the sound of the windrider cutting through the waves. “A necromancer who has made an unholy covenant with hell.”
“Mother loving—”
Everyone scrambled to their feet, staring at the chaplain who had taken advantage of our preoccupation to worm his way into the circle. I frowned up at him but suddenly found my view blocked as Doyen Allwyn stood up, Jeff and Falkin joining him. It didn’t deter Obruesk, though, bent on my denunciation. Behind him, I could see Ryson slipping off from the crowd with a couple of other troopers.
Obruesk’s cavernous eyes burned as he watched the unicorn rise and stand next to Allwyn, while Basel came around the other side. “A vile seducer of innocents! See how he has corrupted this man of God so that he sits down with wickedness, instead of coming against them in the name of the Holy Church!”
“That is enough.” Doyen Allwyn’s voice cracked like a whip. He signaled and more soldiers and sailors joined us, all facing the chaplain. “The only wickedness I see is one who uses his office to solicit murder.”