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They worked side by side while Nero chewed on a carrot that Amelie slipped him from one of the crates.

“May I know what’s wrong with your boy?” she asked Oskar as they neared the end of the task.

The man closed the tail-board of the cart and wiped his brow with his hat. “Ah, he caught a fever last night.”

“How are you treating it?”

“Cold compress. All we can do.”

“There’s no healer in the village?”

He grimaced. “We can’t keep healers, nor any folks who do magic. It doesn’t work properly for them ‘round here, not with the curse.”

“I see.” Amelie chewed her lip, thinking of the lavish apothecary right upstairs. “You’ve not asked Davron for his help?”

Oskar laughed in shock, before quickly sobering when he saw Amelie was serious. “We don’t bother him with such things. He, uh, um?—”

“He is not very approachable?” she suggested tactfully.

“That’s right. We’ve learned to leave him be. Some of us learned it the hard way,” he added in an ominous tone.

“Ah. My brothers had one such encounter with him.”

Oskar patted Nero on the rump and hauled himself into the box seat. “Aye, so I heard. But some good came of it. After all, you’re here now. There’s hope for the master’s situation, at long last.”

“Wait—” said Amelie, shielding her eyes from the sun. “What exactly do you mean? What do I have to do with?—”

She registered Oskar’s face draining of color as he gazed at something behind her.

“What’s going on out here?” came Davron’s booming voice.

He stepped through the storeroom doorway, stooping to fit under the frame and then straightening up.

“My Lord, I— I’m just leaving,” said Oskar. “Hope the delivery is to your liking. The liquor made it past the raiders, for once, a small miracle that it was.”

He took up Nero’s reins and flicked them. The great horse started moving.

“Goodbye,” called Amelie, as the cart picked up speed on the gravel driveway.

Before riding through the back gate, Oskar gave her a quick wave in return. Davron glared after him. Amelie prayed she had not caused trouble for the delivery man.

“Well, I met Oskar,” she said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension.

“So I see.”

“He’s very nice.”

“Yes,” replied Davron.

Amelie dusted at the dirt smudges on her dress. “Did he do something to make you angry?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s just—” She gestured at the road, where a cloud of dust was now visible as Oskar and Nero rode away. “The way you spoke to him.”

Davron was nonplussed. “What about it?”

She had never seen him outdoors before. The sunlight made his burgundy eyes shimmer with dimension, and the ink-black tattoos contrasted more starkly with his skin. She half wanted to stare at him endlessly, half wanted to run away, and couldn’t completely understand either impulse.