Page 8 of Cage of Starlight
He forces strength into his limbs. While the onlookers catch their breath, he ducks between the blacksmith’s and the butcher’s and sprints past colorful vendors’ tents toward home. There’s no time. He has to run again, find another place to hide. He’ll settle in and smile and make nice, like his mother told him before he escaped the labor camps at the cost of her life.
Her wisdom lasted him ten years. Funny that something so ridiculous, so unforeseeable, should ruin it all.
Tory runs, breath sawing from tired lungs, and wishes he could turn back time.
CHAPTER THREE
Three days,Tory said. He’s so stupid. He should have left years ago.
Stormclouds sap color from the world as he hurries toward Thatcher’s shop. He owes him a few words—enough to keep him safe when Vantaras’ soldiers come with their questions. The shrapnel bells clang his arrival, jolting Thatcher from his vigil by the door.
Tory falls to his knees. The first words from his lips are, “I’m sorry.”
“Tory!” Thatcher grabs his forearm to help him stand. “Oh, dear, did you take on another healing? Here. Stand up, we’ll get you someplace comfortable.”
Tory can count on one hand the times he’s cried since he left the camp. His eyes burn now, because when he looks up, there’s Thatcher, face lined with worry and gray-brown hair unbrushed. Two steaming cups of tea sit together on the table?one for each of them, because Thatcher’s grumpy old mom always touted the restorative effects of her special herbal blend.
Tory forces himself up. “I have to go.”
If Vantaras’ soldiers catch him, they’ll lay the red tattoo over the blue cuff already etched into his skin. Red for a criminal, blue for children born to them in the camps, and the bruise-purple of the two for Tory, who couldn’t run far enough away.
“Not another job! You know I try not to interfere in your work, but—”
“No, I have togo. I won’t see you again.” Tory shoves out a hand when Thatcher opens his mouth to interrupt. “If they ask, you took me in out of pity. You don’t know about the healing, okay? You don’t know anything.”
“Tory—”
“No!” Damn it, he really did let himself grow roots here. Thatcher has always been patient and foolishly kind, the sort of man who takes in angry boys and asks for nothing but offers a home. He’s the type death snatches young, the stupid and selfless type who meets the world with wisdom and wonderment and infinite patience.
And tea. That ridiculous herbal tea, sweet with mountainside medicinal flowers and treeberries. Tory won’t drink it again.
Tory bites the inside of his lip to keep his voice from shaking. “I need to get my things. There were witnesses. There’s no way the soldiers haven’t called for backup.”
“Soldiers? Tory, please—” Thatcher’s warm hands wrap around his upper arms. He casts Tory in his shadow, a head and change taller and twice as wide. In the shop, he’ll carry brick-mix bags two to each arm like sacks of feathers. His face with its wide eyes etched with smile lines and the thick hands that hold his mother’s floral teapot so delicately sayfather. His body saysfighter. “Tell me. I can help. You don’t have to go.”
Maybe he doesn’t.
But one man’s strength means nothing. If Tory stays, Thatcher will become an accessory to the crime of unlicensed healing and whatever happened with the carriage. If he stays, Tory will make a million more excuses, and one of them will land him in his grave.
The stairs up to Tory’s room go on for days. He clutches the rail.
“Tory!”
Thatcher’s heavy cloak hangs over the window. Tory slept until almost midday because of it, slept through Thatcher chopping firewood and cleaning the shop—Tory’s chores.
He pulls the cloak away, and light floods in. In the back-slung canvas sack Thatcher made for him, he shoves some money, matches, and a small knife. Thatcher’s standing in the doorway when he turns to go. He tries to edge past, but a hand lands on his shoulder.
“I knew pretty quick what I was getting into when I took you in.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Tory trains his eyes on the well-loved wood beneath his feet. “Thanks. I really . . .”
Thatcher tries a nod, like he understands, but this must feel like betrayal. Another son running off and leaving him behind.
“The cloak.” Thatcher snatches it from the bed and presses it into Tory’s hands. It’s warm and smooth, heavy like an embrace. Thick thread along the bottom draws a rudimentary outline of the flowering vines that spill over Hulven’s walls, of buds like bells, painstakingly sewn. “The hide’s been treated so it’s waterproof. You might need it in this weather. It’ll cover you and three more people besides. Find some folks to share it with, won’t you?”
Thatcher’s hand on his shoulder burns like a brand.
Tory leaves him at the top of the staircase without an answer, bell tinkling against the door when he leaves. He shouldn’t look back, but he can’t help it.
