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“On what?”

“On whether you agree to another lesson.”

Dawsyn pauses. “And what will that lesson entail?”

“We will fold,” the mage says plainly, her smirk growing.

“I do not speak witch.” Dawsyn sighs. “How does onefold?”

“Like this,” Baltisse quips, and then she disappears.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

The women – one mage, one fugitive – appear suddenly at the front door of a sagging inn. The fugitive immediately bends at the waist and heaves her breakfast onto the stoop.

The mage lifts her skirt away from the mess, wrinkling her nose. “Theyalwaysvomit,” she mutters. “Sabar? Stand straight. You embarrass yourself.”

“Fuck you.” Dawsyn, back still hunched, sucks breath at a violent pace. “I am never doing that again.”

“You will,” Baltisse says darkly. “And you’ll show more fortitude next time. These things take practice. Preparation.”

It is true, Dawsyn had not been prepared. The second the mage’s hand had clasped around her forearm, the world had collapsed. Or… not collapsed, but rather… compressed, as though the parts she was made of were mere walls. She had felt her body condense, bones shrinking, organs folding. Cell squeezed into cell, until the pressure was too great, until she wanted to roar from the unbearable strain. And then, like a latch opening, she unfolded again. Expanded. She found her feet on a familiar stoop, before littering it with the contents of her belly.

She rights herself, trying to slow the air that races to refill her lungs after every ounce of breath was squeezed from them. She turns and spits.

“You are disgusting,” Baltisse says sweetly.

“Hush, witch,” Dawsyn returns. “Next time, if there ever is one, I’ll be aiming for your shoes.”

No noise seeps through the cracks of the door. Salem’s inn is often devoid of staying patrons, save for Baltisse at her leisure, and, of course, Esra on his extended liquor runs.

Suddenly, a clamour comes from within – the sound of breaking wood and shattering glass.

Dawsyn’s stomach drops.

Without delay, the women crash through the doorway at the same time, their shoulders colliding. Dawsyn hears a loud groaning coming from the dining room, and with haste, they both fling open the twin doors, eyes wheeling for their quarry.

In the dim half-lit dining room, Esra lies upon the rubble of what was once a wooden table, his eyes scrunched either in pain, or from the exertion of shouting expletives to the heavens.

“Oh,holy fucking mother of the mountains!I cannotbreathe,Salem!”

Salem rounds his bar, throwing a rag to the floor in anger. “That’d be the bloody day, yeh bastard-born half-wit! Yeh broke me fuckin’ table!”

“Alas, the table has broken me in return, Salem. Oh,bloody fucking hell, my arse!”

Salem raises his hands in exasperation. “That’s what yeh bloody get, yeh bog-titted moron. I’ve told yeh a hundred times, don’t go dancin’ on me tables.”

“Trickery and deceit,old man! You challenged me, knowing how weak these decrepit tables are. Knowing how delicate my frame is!” Esra rolls from side to side, hands cradling his backside.

“I did no such fuckin’ thing!”

“You proclaimed me too weakened by last night’s drink to walk straight! Practically begged me to prove you wrong.”

“Aye, and bolly to yeh.” Salem huffs. “Yeh’ve proved me right. An’ now yeh owe me a week’s worth o’ liquor.”

“Oh, my arse!”

“Mother above,” Baltisse intones, walking in a straight line to the bar, disregarding the man on the floor atop the wreckage, who finally turns to notice the presence of her. “Salem, I thought we agreed to lock him under a trapdoor until at least noon each day?”