Mak, for reasons known only to herself, treated Tammy with kindness. Like a servant, sure, or at best an employee, but Mak treated all her employees well. She brought her upstairs and left her with Avjilan, who spoke both Barlean and some Tekereteki, then returned to the cellar.

  “That poor woman is skin and bones!” Mak exclaimed as she came down the stairs. “I told Avi to feed her until she can’t eat anymore. Mercies, Draka, but it’s hard not to pity her!”

  Herald scoffed. I got the feeling she would have spat on the ground if we’d been outside. “That poor woman was part of making Kira’s life hell. Don’t forget that.”

  “I know. I put her in a corner so Kira won’t have to get close if she doesn’t want to. But she’s so pathetic that it’s hard to imagine her hurting anyone.”

  “Especially without her swordhand.” There wasn’t a hint of pity in Herald’s voice.

  “Yeah,” Mak said thoughtfully. “Draka, how long has it been since she deserted from her company?”

  “I’m not sure. A couple of weeks, I guess.”

  “So she survived on her own for weeks, sneaking around while being hunted as a deserter, without her dominant hand?”

  I sighed. It was pretty clear where she was going with this. “Go ahead,” I said. “Say it.”

  “Sisters, I know you don’t like her, but she could be useful. There’s no reason to keep her at the inn, but we shouldn’t forget about her.”

  “There it is,” I muttered. “She only managed that because she’s got some Advancement to help her hide in the shadows.”

  Herald and Mak both looked at me. “She has what?” Herald asked.

  “She has a—” I started, and then the implications hit me. “Oh, gods-dammit! Don’t tell me she’s bound to me like you are!”

  “Like hell she is!” Herald practically snarled.

  Mak was a little more thoughtful. “Not like us, no. At least I wouldn’t think so. But, Draka, if you try, can you feel her?”

  That was all it took. She just had to ask, and there, like a bad tooth that I’d managed to forget, was Tammy. No bloody wonder I’d managed to find her so easily. I’d barely used the medallion at all, distracted as I was by my conversation with Darim, but I’d still known exactly where to find her. And, thinking back, she’d even said that she “felt” me.

  Goddammit! I screamed into my own head. I got no sympathy from either of my treacherous head mates — Instinct was as pleased as anything, and as far as Conscience was concerned we were responsible for the awful woman.

  “Mak,” I groaned. “I did not, and do not, want to know where Tammy is at all times.”

  “But you do?”

  I nodded sourly.

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “Not your fault.”

  “So, what are we going to do?”

  “It doesn’t change anything. We’re going to get her settled with the Tesprils, and if I need her, I’ll know where she is, I suppose. Let’s talk about literally anything else. How are the Lady’s Rest people doing? All settled in?”

  Mak smiled, clearly as happy to move on as I was. “They’re as well as we can keep them. They got some of their trade done this morning, and most of them are out again with Tam and Val right now. Jekrie wanted to wait around, but I convinced him that you wouldn’t mind waiting if you got back first. Was that…?”

  “Yeah, Mak. Perfectly fine. Have you heard from the scholar, Ramban? I’d like him to return with them to Lady’s Rest if possible.”

  Mak nodded. “We expect him here tomorrow morning, to work out any details.”

  “And, just to be clear, there hasn’t been any trouble? And no developments about the lord exchequer? You’d’ve told me, yeah?”

  She pursed her lips then sighed. “Barro figured out what happened with the keys.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “Yeah. Terna — one of Memmy’s daughters, you know? — she mentioned that a set of keys went missing for a night. But she found them again in the morning and didn’t think more of it. Barro’s sure someone snatched them and handed them over to be copied, though who…” She shrugged. “I’m hoping it was an intruder of some kind and not one of the staff. Barro’s on it.”

  “So what have you done about it?”

  “I’ve made it clear that any missing keys must be reported if they can’t be found within the hour. But to Terna, nothing.” She hesitated. “Should I have fired her? She’s Reben’s granddaughter, and her sister got stabbed. She’s already broken up about it as it is.”

  “No, I’m glad you didn’t. She’ll never mess up like that again. Anything else?”

  “No. Nothing of note. A few of the guards on the square have been replaced, but that’s all.”

  “Is your boyfriend still among them?” I teased her, glad for something innocently fun to take the edge off.

  Mak rolled her eyes, which shone happily as her hands went to her long braid. “We’ve barely talked,” she said through a smile that tugged at her lips. “But if you must know: yes. Sergeant Terdam is still assigned to watch us. And we still give him and the other guards a discount to take their meals here.”

  “Because you want to flirt with this sergeant,” Herald said, suddenly looming out of the shadows with a grin on her face.

  “No,” Mak said indignantly. “Because we want to maintain a good relationship with the city guard, especially those watching us! Flirting with Terdam is just a bonus.”

  “But you are flirting?” I asked.

  When Mak didn’t answer immediately, Herald laughed. “Of course she is flirting with him! The man barely speaks and is a foot taller than her and built like a wine barrel. Just how she likes them!”

  I remembered Mak telling me about how tall and strong her father had been and declined to comment. “Well, I’ll need to meet the guy if you want this to go anywhere. It’d be… problematic if he turns out not to like me.”

  “You will, won’t you,” Mak said, and some of the cheer left her. “I’ve been nervous about bringing you up to him. He knows, obviously. That you’re here, and that we have some sort of relationship, I mean. I just… like you said, if he doesn’t like you, it’s a problem.”

  As she spoke the upstairs door opened, and the girls turned to look as Kira came down the stairs. Her normally smiling face was carefully neutral — between that and how stiffly she held herself I could only assume that it was as bad as I could have possibly dreaded. I hadn’t heard a commotion from the common room above my head, but I’d worried that just seeing Tammy would be enough to drag Kira back to the dark days I’d unintentionally delivered her from.

  “Kira, are you all right?” Mak asked gently.

  Kira ignored her. She didn’t even look at her friend, but kept her eyes on me, stopping several feet in front of me, where she stopped and carefully dropped to her knees.

  I was wrong, I thought. This is far worse than I ever feared.

  Then, Kira first made my heart fall even further by bending forward and pressing her forehead to the stones before knocking me speechless. “Great Lady,” she said in carefully formal classical Tekereteki. “I beg your permission to heal your servant, Leretem.”

  Even before returning to the inn, I’d expected Kira to ask me to send Tammy away as quickly as possible. That, or to keep her in the cellar and out of sight. When she came down the stairs just now, looking like she did, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Some general airing of grievances, perhaps, or a complaint that Tammy had said or done something. Not this.

  As I recovered my wits, Mak looked at me with sympathy. I turned to Herald, and she just shrugged. And Kira waited in patient silence, her head still pressed to the floor.

  “Yes!” I blurted. “Of course. Kira, please, stand up. What is this? I mean, why? What happened? Why even ask first?”

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  Kira stood but kept her head bowed. “I spoke briefly to your servant a moment ago. I inquired about her hand, and she mentioned that she had been on her way back to Tekeretek for healing, but absconded from the ship to remain in a position to serve our great lady. I do not know if I can restore her hand, but I hope that, with the power of the Heart, I might be able to.”

  I wondered briefly if she was trying to hurt me. I could have handled spitting and cursing, but from her this stiff formality was worse than anything I’d ever imagined she might do. But it was her. It was Kira, one of the kindest people I’d ever known, and that made the situation a little clearer. Kira wasn’t angry. She was worried that I might say no.

  “Kira, please look at me,” I said, waiting until she did so. “Of course you can try to heal her. There was never any need for you to ask. I would never be displeased with you for being yourself — the fact that you would try to help someone who hurt you the way that Leretem did only makes you that much more precious to me. So, yes, please try. And if it drains your Heart, I will take you north and find you a new Heart to replenish yourself from. All I ask is that you bring Leretem down here, so I can watch when you make your attempt.”

  As I spoke Kira gradually relaxed. By the time I finished, her eyes were shining, and she had a grateful smile on her face. “Thank you,” she said, switching back to Karakani. “I bring her now?”

  “Did she finish eating?” Mak asked.

  “I… do not know,” Kira admitted. “Likely not.”

  “Well,” I said, “Mak wanted her nice and stuffed, so give her some time. But really, Kira, why?”

  “Why heal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Leretem — Tammy — suffer much. Hard to eat, even, with wrong hand. I cannot watch. Painful. Even her.”

  “Mercies, woman, you really are too good for your own sake,” I said. “Go back up. Bring her down when she’s finished eating. Whether you keep her company is up to you.”

  “Thank you!” she said, still smiling wide. And while she didn’t rush up the stairs, she moved with far more energy than she had coming down.

  “Too good for this world,” Herald said, shaking her head. “And far better than Tammy deserves.”

  “Fish have to swim, birds have to fly,” I said.

  “And healers have to heal,” Mak finished for me. “Did you suspect this might happen?”

  “Never in a million years. Though I should have — I know Kira well enough by now. No, I thought Tammy might beg me to ask Kira, or to be allowed to ask her herself, once she found out about Kesra. But that Kira would ask herself… no.”

  “Too good for this world,” Herald repeated, and I couldn’t do anything but agree.

  The actual healing was entirely undramatic. Kira brought Tammy downstairs, and the latter knelt before me, bowing her head. “Thank you Great Lady,” she said. “Thank you for allowing this.”

  “It was Kira who suggested it,” I said. “I only told her that I had nothing against it.”

  “Yes, Great Lady, I—” For the first time in a long time, when she spoke to me, her voice became unsteady. “I had guessed. She was always too kind for the work our Company did.”

  Tammy raised her head and turned hesitantly to face Kira. Her eyes stayed on me until I drifted out of her peripheral vision, as though she was worried that I might take offence if she addressed anyone else in the room. “Bekiratag,” she said, still on her knees and looking up. “I know that I was… rarely kind to you. The commander wanted us to toughen you up. To harden your heart. Some of us enjoyed that more than others. I was one of them. Thank you, Bekiratag, for seeing past that, and for your kindness and your mercy.”

  As an apology it was half-assed. I couldn't help but notice that she’d never once said that she regretted anything she did. But then, I’d told her that any apology she made should be honest, so I had myself to blame for that.

  “Good enough?” I asked Kira.

  “Not in the slightest,” Kira said, shaking her head. Tammy slumped, just a little, but she didn’t say a word or look away from Kira. “But I do not need to forgive her, or even for her to apologize, to want to heal her. Leretem, give me your arm.”

  Tammy slowly, almost reverently raised her stump. It was smooth, if a little uneven — after Garal first took her hand off several inches above the wrist, we’d used a healing potion to close the wound, keeping it from festering and her from bleeding out. It had been lumpy and uneven when I returned her to the Silver Spurs, but she’d had healers look at it since, and I doubted any surgeon back on Earth could have done a finer job. But no matter what they’d done, her right hand, her dominant hand, her sword hand, was missing. And now a woman that she’d abused was offering to try and restore it.

  Tammy hadn’t taken a breath since Kira told her to raise her arm. She didn’t breathe as Kira gently placed one hand beneath the elbow and the other on the smooth skin where the arm ended. She continued to hold her breath as Kira closed her eyes, her eyelids flickering and her fingertips twitching as she focused, magic gathering around her heart. Then they each took a sudden, deep breath as that ball of magic flared, igniting as it consumed the Heart power Kira had stored within her and flowed down her arms into Tammy’s, settling into the stump. And then it was over.

  “Did it work?” Herald asked, leaning forward as though that would make even the slightest difference to a woman who, if she wished, could count someone’s eyelashes from across the room.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Kira?”

  “Something happened,” she said. She and Tammy were both staring at the stump. “The magic went.”

  “I think what she means to say is that we should expect some kind of effect, or no magic would have flowed into Tammy,” Mak explained.

  “Right. Tammy,” I said, switching to her Tekereteki, “do you feel anything?”

  “It’s… tingling,” she said, completely absorbed by the stump. “A little itchy. Like a scrape or a burn that’s scabbed over.” She tore her eyes from the stump and looked back up at Kira, grasping the healer’s hand in her own and kissing it. “Thank you, Bekiratag! Thank you!”

  “Thank me by being better,” Kira said coldly, pulling her hand away from Tammy’s grip and turning to me. “I am done here. I would like to return to my room now.”

  “Of course,” I said. “And well done. Let me know when you’re up for a trip north.”

  “I will. Tomorrow morning, perhaps.” Then, with a nod to each of my sisters, she stepped around Tammy as though the woman wasn’t even there and left the cellar.

  Tammy looked after Kira as the healer left, then slumped, still kneeling on the floor. “She’s changed,” she said when the upstairs door had thudded closed. Her words surprised me. Not what she said, but that she spoke without being spoken to at all. “She’s stronger. Tougher. She would have never treated anyone like that when I knew her.”

  I scoffed at her, and she slumped further, head drooping. “She’s as soft as ever,” I said. “She’d never have offered to help you if she wasn’t. She just isn’t afraid of expressing herself anymore. That’s what happens when you’re not being constantly beaten down by everyone around you. She’s as kind and caring as ever — she just lets herself despise you.”

  Tammy withered under my words, and I hated that it affected me the way it did. “I’m sorry, Great Lady,” she mumbled. She couldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

  “I know. But I can’t.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I know. Tell me when you can, and I’ll ask Kira if she’ll hear it.”

  “I will, Great Lady,” she said, finally facing me again. “Thank you.”

  I sent Tammy back up, and my sisters went with her. I didn’t have time for more than a half-hour nap before Mak came back down, though, with Tammy, Zabra, and Kesra in tow.

  Mak didn’t feel they rated much of an announcement. “They’re here,” she said. “I introduced them to each other, and they can talk to each other. I barely understand Barlean even with your help, so Sorrows know what they said to each other, but Tammy won’t die because she can’t ask for a cup of water, at least.”

  “Thanks, Mak,” I said then turned on Zabra. “Has she touched you since we last met?” I asked, my eyes flicking to Kesra.

  “No!” Zabra said quickly. “Not… she hasn’t hit me, my lady.”

  “She hasn’t hurt you any other way?”

  Zabra looked helplessly at Kesra, who blanched a fraction but stood firm. “She’s had some harsh words for me, my lady. But I deserved it!”

  “I deserved it,” I thought. The words of abuse victims everywhere. I turned my gaze on Kesra, and it was enough for her to flinch and take a half-step back. “Explain,” I commanded. “Zabra, tell me if she lies or holds anything back.”

  “She killed a man,” Kesra said. Her voice was faint but grew stronger and hotter as she spoke. “In our home. He’d… I’m not sure what he’d done. Tried to take over one of Zabra’s properties, I think. It was stupid. Stupid to kill him, worse to do it in our damn home. And she did it in front of me. She’s never done that before. I can’t even honestly deny knowing about it. So when we were alone I… told her what I thought. I called her some… unkind things.”

  I looked at Zabra, who agreed readily. “I was angry, my lady. He and his gang tried to take over the Flowing Cup — that’s a tavern and brothel, one of our better earners. His men hurt some of the staff and two of the girls, so I had Hardal wipe them out. But I was angry, right? So I had Splint brought to the house and gutted him.” She winced. “I shouldn’t have done it like that. Kesra was right. It’s all taken care of, but it was still stupid of me. Do you— do you want me to tell you what she said?”

  I sighed and waved her off. “I don’t want to know. Zabra, don’t kill people at the house. It’s Kesra’s home, too. Kesra, don’t call your sister hurtful things. I’m fine with you telling her when she’s… failed to think things through. Just try to keep it constructive, would you?”

  “Yes, my lady,” they both said, appropriately chastened.

  I felt like a damn babysitter trying to keep the kids in line. “Right,” I said, switching to Barlean. “Tammy, you’ve met Zabra and Kesra. You’ll be living with them when I don’t need you. Zabra, Kesra, you will take care of Tammy. You will keep her safe, you will, and you will teach her Karakani. As long as you don’t put her in danger or mistreat her, you may have her make herself useful, you may. Talk about it, the three of you. See what you can teach her, or what she can teach you. None of you are stupid. Work it out, do it!” I looked pointedly toward the stairs, wanting the three of them gone. “Anything you want to tell me before you go?”

  “My lady,” Kesra said, and I thought I heard some regret in her voice. “We should have your money, the rest of the reparations, I mean, by the end of the week. Along with your share of our profits for the last several weeks.”

  That brightened my mood considerably. “Well! In that case I’ll actually look forward to hearing from you, I will! Fair winds, now!”

  When they were gone, Herald asked, “What was that at the end? Your mood turned up suddenly.”

  “Gold, Kitten,” Mak answered for me, mirroring my own pleasure at the news. “What else could make our dear sister rumble so?”

  And, dammit, she was right. I was purring again.

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