Page 14

Chapter 14

Elliot

“ I wonder which child first came up with the idea of pumpkin boats,” Elliot mused.

“Probably the first Sovaran child to notice that pumpkins float,” Avery replied as she guided Nutmeg several steps backward, giving the children plenty of room to pass. “I’m pretty sure every child raised on the river wants a boat of their own.”

Elliot nodded. The town where he’d grown up only had a stream, and he’d still wanted his own boat.

The ferry returned, ringing a bell that sent the children scampering faster upstream. The ferry master called grumpily after them, and the smallest child turned back from the end of the line to stick her tongue out at him.

He narrowed his eyes in her direction, looking as if he meant to hop down from the ferry, but Avery spoke quickly.

“How much to take my cart across?”

Elliot gave her a knowing look. Avery of all people would be familiar with the ferry fare. It wasn’t difficult to see her true purpose in distracting the ferry master.

He’d already noticed that Avery struggled not to intervene anytime she saw someone in trouble. The children hadn’t done any harm, so of course she would step in to shield them, even though they were total strangers. At the beginning he had been a little surprised that she traveled the kingdoms alone, but he wasn’t any longer. She must have left a trail of friendly faces wherever she went. Who would dare threaten someone with that much goodwill across every kingdom?

The ferry master—his attention successfully diverted—engaged her in conversation while the passengers from the Oakden side unloaded. He even helped them walk Nutmeg on board and secure the cart in place.

Elliot had never made a ferry crossing with a cart in tow, but the process was surprisingly smooth. Within no time at all, they were stepping onto Oakden soil.

Avery was watching him surreptitiously, as if a part of her still didn’t believe he wasn’t tied to Sovar. But she would soon learn that everything he’d told her was true. He was as free to travel the kingdoms as she was—as long as he took the blasted lamp with him.

Marleston was so large that there was only a small village on the Oakdenian side. Neither Avery nor Elliot wanted to waste a whole day’s travel for the sake of staying there, so they set off upriver immediately.

Enough foot traffic frequented the river that there was a comfortable road for them to take, and they passed other travelers going in both directions. It was a more lively environment than the road through the center of Sovar, and he enjoyed calling greetings to the other travelers they passed or watching the boats—real ones or lines of pumpkins—sailing past.

To his surprise, though, he felt a little sad as well. On the previous road, it had felt like he and Avery were in their own world. With all the activity around them in Oakden, they didn’t need to chat together to fill the empty hours like they’d done on previous travel days.

But as they moved further away from the city and the ferry, the activity slowed, and by their second day, it was easy enough to ignore an occasional passing boat.

Avery still seemed reserved and closed off, though, and Elliot wracked his brains to try to work out what he might have done to upset her. Was she angry that he’d cut his turn in the bed short and put her into it instead? He’d seen straight through her plan to leave him in it all night and had been determined not to fall into her trap. But maybe she was angry about it?

She didn’t seem angry, though. She didn’t even seem annoyed with him. Just…guarded.

He even tried to gather a bouquet for her when they stopped for the midday meal on the second day, hoping it would lift her spirits. But when he pricked one of his fingers for the fifth time, he gave up on the idea. The Oakden Legacy was far too fond of thorns. He’d never be able to pull them all off, and Avery would likely end up more annoyed with him than she had been before the flowers.

They resumed their travel and were starting to think about finding a good place to camp for the night when something in the air caught his attention. He lifted his nose into the breeze.

“Do you smell smoke?” he asked Avery at the same moment she pulled Nutmeg to a halt.

“Did you hear something?” she asked, ignoring his question.

He tipped his head sideways straining to listen.

“Grandfather!” called a childish voice from behind a copse of trees. It was faint enough that he nearly didn’t catch it.

Avery sprang down. “Nutmeg, stay here!”

Elliot leaped down after her, following as she raced toward the sound. The scent of smoke was stronger now, growing clearer as they ran toward the cry of distress.

Avery didn’t hesitate, however, plunging through the small stand of trees and bursting out the other side. Elliot kept at her heels, pulling up beside her as they both paused to take in the scene before them.

A single home stood beside a small lake that was fed by a tiny offshoot of the river. It must have normally been a large, pleasant home with gables and climbing vines, but smoke was pouring from several windows, and he caught a flash of orange flame.

A woman stood waist deep in the water, a baby strapped to her chest, a small child on one hip, and a slightly older boy hanging onto her other hand, only his head and shoulders above the water. An older girl stood closer to the shore in shallow water. Her eyes were trained on the house, and she was the one screaming for her grandfather.

He and Avery both looked from the girl to the burning house, and both sprang into movement. But whereas Avery leaped forward, sprinting toward the house, Elliot lunged sideways. He knew Avery well enough to predict her reaction, but his reaching arms came up short. He had reacted just a second too late to catch her and hold her back.

“Avery!” he shouted, dashing after her.

He had longer legs, but she was fast, and she didn’t hesitate as she plunged through the open front door and into the burning house.

Shouting her name again, Elliot followed with only the briefest hesitation. Everyone knew not to run into a burning house, but Avery’s nobility was going to get her killed, and he couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen.

He put his arm over his mouth and nose, trying to block some of the smoke as his eyes immediately began to sting.

“Avery!” he called again, his voice already rough. “Where are you?”

The haze inside was strong enough that he could barely see where he was going.

“Grandfather!” Avery’s call was broken by a violent coughing fit that made Elliot’s insides seize. Where was she?!

“Grandfather!” Her voice came again, and he located it this time.

Lowering his head, he hurried right. Ducking through an open doorway, he reached a section of the house that was a little clearer of smoke. Keeping his arm over his mouth and nose, he looked around, catching a flash of Avery’s dress.

“Avery!” he shouted, and she paused, looking back at him in surprise.

“Elliot?” She sounded pleased. “Quick!” She gestured for him to follow her, and with a growl, he obeyed. As soon as he got close enough, he was throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her out of the fire whether she wanted to come or not.

She reached the closed door ahead of her before he did, reaching out cautiously to touch the metal of the handle with a single finger. He strode the rest of the way to her side, and seized her around the waist with both hands.

But before he could catch her up, she thrust the door open, revealing the room on the other side. It was a vast workroom, the walls lined with shelves and dried herbs hanging from the ceiling.

An old man with long gray hair stood by an open door that led outside. He wasn’t escaping, though. Instead, he was wrestling with a large, complicated object attached to the wall.

He looked up in surprise at sight of them.

“Shut the door!” he barked. “Quickly!”

Elliot’s hands had gone loose in surprise, and Avery darted forward out of his hold. Grabbing his wrist, she pulled him into the room after her and shut the door. They both drew in a deep, relieved breath. The air still reeked of smoke, and he could taste it on his tongue, but neither of them were coughing.

“Hurry!” the man said, gesturing to the item still attached to the wall. “You have to help me!”

They both reacted instinctively, running toward him. Elliot gently bumped the man out of the way and lifted the contraption down. It was heavy, but its odd shape was the bigger hindrance.

Avery came up beside him, helping him balance it and scooping up the strange, flexible hose that hung off one side.

“Bring it to the lake,” the old man said, leading the way out the open external door.

When they came into view of the watchers in the lake, both the girl in the shallows and the woman exclaimed in relief, the girl starting to cry.

Elliot dumped the contraption beside the water, looking toward the man.

“It’s a pump,” he said gruffly.

Avery’s face lit up in understanding, and she seized the end of the hose, dropping it into the lake water. She gestured to the older girl who splashed eagerly over.

“You hold that in the water,” she said. “Don’t let it come out.”

The girl nodded seriously and seized the hose with two determined hands. Avery took the other end, working with quick, deft fingers to untangle it and stretch it out.

“You work the pump,” she commanded Elliot.

He had been staring at the pump, trying to work out how it functioned, but at that, his head snapped up.

“You are not going back near that fire!” he said firmly.

“I won’t go inside,” she promised. “But you’re stronger than me. You need to pump.”

“Hurry, hurry,” the old man cried. “We can’t let the flames reach my workshop.”

Elliot wanted to snap at him, too—to tell him there were more important things than his workshop. But he swallowed his words and began pumping instead.

The old man seized the other end of the pump, and the metal creaked and groaned as it slowly drew up some of the lake water. Elliot’s arms strained as he pumped, using all his muscles. But as the flow of water established itself, the effort required lightened a little, and he was able to look up.

Avery had pulled the hose back toward the fire and was directing it at the workshop, which appeared to be an extension on one side of the house. Once she’d thoroughly soaked the roof, she ventured toward the open workshop door.

Elliot watched her with eagle eyes, ready to drop the pump and run for her if she showed any sign of going inside. But she flashed him a reassuring smile and stood outside, directing the stream of water through the open door.

Elliot expected the man on the other side of the pump to protest at the watery destruction of his workshop, but he seemed relieved.

After what felt like an agonizing length of time, Avery stepped back from the open door and dragged the hose toward the front of the house. Elliot wanted to call a warning—the fire inside was too far gone to be put out from the outside. But Avery seemed to realize the limitations of what they could do.

She circled the house, drenching the outside, especially the roof and the ground around the walls. Every time he saw her arms tremble and the hose lower, he saw her grit her teeth and haul it up to her shoulder again. She was clearly determined to contain the flames.

“That’s a smart girl you’ve got there,” the old man grunted. “Keep a hold of her.”

Elliot remained silent. He was torn between admiration and frustration with the merchant girl, and the clarification that Avery wasn’t his tasted like ash on his tongue.

Finally, when his arms were burning even worse than they had been after carrying Avery from the market, the old man called a halt to their efforts.

“It’ll smolder a while yet,” he said, “but it’s contained.”

Avery dropped the hose and ran back to them, her face strained, but her eyes bright.

Elliot took one look at her and whirled on the old man. “What were you thinking going back in there! Better the whole house burned than you lost your life—or someone else’s!”

The man sank slowly down on the bank, clearly exhausted, while the older girl helped the woman bring the younger children out of the water.

“Do you think I cared about the house? I was doing it for my family.” He gestured at the woman and children. “If the fire had gotten loose…” He shook his head. “A forest fire can spread terrifyingly quickly—especially in Oakden. We have our system well organized. My daughter’s job is to get the children into the lake, and mine is to get the pump and douse the workshop. But I injured my leg a few months ago, and it’s still weak. It kept buckling when I tried to lift down the pump. I should have made a new plan when I was first injured, but I got complacent. I’m an old fool.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” Avery said softly. “We succeeded. Everyone is safe.”

The man ran a hand down his beard. “Thanks to your arrival we are.”

“I don’t understand the significance of saving your workshop,” Elliot said, the residual fear for Avery making him gruff.

“I’m a herbalist,” the man said simply. “Half the plants in there are sleeping herbs.” He gestured toward the workshop as Avery gasped.

“What happens if you burn a sleeping herb?” she asked.

“That depends on how much of the smoke you breathe,” the man said in a shaken voice. “But even one breath will make you drowsy, and it doesn’t take much to put you to sleep. Burning that many refined herbs at once could put half the region to sleep.”

“And your daughter and the children in the lake…” Avery broke off, clapping her hands to her mouth.

The old man nodded. “If the fire had taken down my workshop and spread into the trees, we couldn’t have sought shelter in the lake for fear of drowning. We would have had to stay on shore, which would have left our sleeping bodies unprotected from the flames. You saved all of us—and who knows how many others besides. The wind would have driven the smoke ahead of the flames, and anyone trying to flee the fire would have dropped asleep.”

Elliot sank slowly to the ground, putting his head in his hands. He had reluctantly followed Avery’s lead with no idea how close they’d been to disaster.

He looked up. Avery had been right to help, but she shouldn’t have charged straight in, risking her own life without thought.

“Why did you run into the fire?” he asked in a rough voice. “Do you have a death wish?”

He couldn’t hold back the words, even knowing she would likely be offended. But instead of jumping to her own defense, she winced, her face suffused with guilt.

“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting about the lamp. That was unconscionable of me. I would never have forced you to run into a fire after me if I’d remembered I had it.”

Elliot’s mouth dropped open. The lamp. Who knew what would have happened if she had been caught by the flames and the lamp had been melted a second time. It might well have killed him, too.

Avery clearly thought his tie to the lamp was the reason he had followed her into the house and tried to haul her away from the fire. And yet, the thought hadn’t even entered his mind. He had completely forgotten about the lamp until she mentioned it.

He snapped his mouth shut. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He was still sorting through the strength of his reaction to her being in danger himself.

The man looked between the two of them, his brow creased. He clearly had no idea what they were talking about. But his daughter and grandchildren swamped him before he could ask, all of them crying and exclaiming with relief at the arrival of rescuers.

Elliot stood and stepped back with Avery, giving the family some space.

“Actually,” he said more lightly than he felt, “I wasn’t thinking about the lamp. I was wondering why you didn’t just go through the workshop door and avoid the flames and smoke entirely.”

Avery winced. “Yes, that would have been better. But when I see people in trouble, I have a bad habit of jumping in without weighing the risk.”

“I noticed,” he said dryly. “You must have been a delight for your parents.”

She grinned. “Every traveler’s dream child.”

A reluctant laugh escaped him. Maybe she was so headstrong and confident because she was also the most capable person he’d ever met. She didn’t even hesitate in the face of fire. It was no wonder he’d started to dread the thought of her handing the lamp over to the people who had commissioned it.

Elliot didn’t want to be bound to anyone but Avery.