We made our way back to Seneira’s house, to find everyone had gone to bed except for Ferius and Rosie who’d returned and were – much to Reichis’s amusement – playing cards. I told them about Revian and his family’s house mages, and about my encounter with Mamma Whispers. I’d expected some kind of reaction, maybe even a tongue-lashing for having recklessly sought out a potential killer, but they just kept passing cards back and forth.
‘You never look like you’re having fun,’ I remarked.
Rosie shot me a raised eyebrow that reminded me way too much of Shalla. ‘Fun?’
‘You’re playing cards. Playing. Shouldn’t it be … enjoyable?’
The Argosi turned her withering stare on Ferius, who shrugged. ‘Give Rosie enough time and you’ll find she can take the fun out of just about anything.’
Somehow that set the other woman off. ‘Jokes? Is that all you have to offer the boy? You take him from his home, let him believe he can be your teysan, yet you teach him nothing. He cannot even name the seven talents, let alone—’
Ferius smirked. ‘Words? Is that what troubles you, sister?’ She gestured to me. ‘Go ahead, tell him all the important words you like, if that’s what you think it means to be an Argosi.’
‘Do not play the fool with me, sister, even if that does seem to be the path of the wild daisy. You know how few of us there are left. As a maetri you have a duty to search for those who could learn our ways.’
Ferius let out a barking laugh. ‘First you tell me I don’t know how to teach and then you say I have a duty to do so? It seems the path of thorns and roses winds in circles, sister.’
Rosie slammed a fist on the table before pointing at me. ‘He is not your teysan. I would teach him myself, but anyone can see he is too unfocused, self-centred …’ She paused then turned to me. ‘Forgive me – my words are harsh and none of this is your fault. I’m sure you will one day become a fine … mage or spellslinger or whatever it is you are.’
Well, that made me feel so much better.
‘Hey, are we going to fight?’ Reichis said, making for the stairs. ‘Because I was kind of hoping to have a bath, but if I’m going to get blood on my fur I can wait.’
I gave him a look intended to tell him to go upstairs. He gave the squirrel-cat equivalent of a shrug and settled down on a step to watch.
Ferius and Rosie stared at each other a long time, saying nothing, not making a move. After a while Ferius said, ‘Best you leave this be, sister.’
The other Argosi stood, letting her cards fall to the table. ‘I think not, sister.’
‘Is today the day then, sister?’ Ferius asked. ‘You really want to wrastle me, what with everything that’s goin’ on around here?’
‘What’s “going on”, sister, is a plague – one you and I are duty-bound to put an end to, and yet the Path of the Wild Daisy would prevent me from doing what must be done.’
Now it was Ferius’s turn to rise, her right hand sliding into the inside pocket of her waistcoat. ‘You put a hand on that girl or anyone else, sister, and your path will lead you to five different countries looking for your fingers.’
Rosie reached behind her and I could tell she too had some kind of weapon in the folds of her travelling clothes.
‘Wait,’ I said, suddenly worried they might try to kill each other right there and then. ‘What are you talking about?’
Neither of them answered. Then Ferius brought her hand back out of her waistcoat and held it up to show it was empty. The other woman did likewise. ‘A disagreement,’ Rosie said, ‘over what it means to be Argosi.’ She left the table and walked out, pausing at the door to say, ‘I’ve been tracing stories of other victims of the shadowblack, sister. I am close to finding the evidence that will require me to follow the way of thunder. Best that you leave this place before that happens.’
I waited until Ferius looked calm before I brought up my encounter with the strange girl who called herself Mamma Whispers a second time. Even then, Ferius had nothing to say until I pressed her on the issue. ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘These “threads” Mamma Whispers told me about. If they really lead back to my people then—’
‘How many times do I have to tell you not to keep getting distracted by nonsense, kid?’
That took me aback. ‘I told you about what she did to me, right? Making me hear things that had happened to me in the past? Her magic is real.’
Ferius leaned back and pulled a smoking reed from her waistcoat, then lit it using a candle from the table. ‘Never said it wasn’t real, only that it was nonsense.’
‘You keep doing that,’ I said, irritated. ‘You talk about magic like it’s a joke, but it’s not. Magic is power, Ferius.’
‘Kid, one day, if you live long enough, you’re gonna figure out that power is the biggest joke of all.’
I didn’t know how to answer that. What do you say to somebody who is both impossibly dense and yet somehow always seems to come out on top? I felt a stab of resentment towards Ferius – for how she could outwit the whole world in ways that would just get me killed. ‘Dexan offered to make me his partner,’ I said.
Reichis looked down from the upstairs banister, something small and shiny and almost certainly stolen in his mouth. ‘Wait, what’s this now?’
‘Us,’ I corrected myself, hoping to assuage the squirrel cat’s concern before it resulted in future bite marks. ‘He says he can help me fight off the shadowblack and teach us how to survive in the borderlands.’
Ferius didn’t even bother to look at me, just let out a smoke-filled breath that became a circle in the air in front of her. ‘Sounds like a good deal, kid.’
‘He says I’d have to leave with him tomorrow.’
Another smoke ring. ‘Best get packing then, I guess.’
‘Don’t you care? Doesn’t it matter to you that I’d be gone and you’d probably never see me again?’
Before she could answer, Reichis padded down the stairs and sniffed at her. ‘She cares all right. She’s going to start bawling any minute now.’
Ferius waved him away and put out her smoking reed on the plate holding the candle. ‘Kellen, I’m sorry.’
I thought she was going to say something else, but when she didn’t I asked, ‘Sorry for what?’
She sighed. ‘I know you’re scared, kid, and you’ve got good reason to be. You want to do the right thing, but your fear makes you look for ways to protect yourself. So you look for more magic, or charms, or for someone to teach you how to fight – someone to show you how to take that anger and channel it, just like you do the explosive powders when you cast those spells of yours.’
‘Is it so wrong to be afraid of the people trying to kill me? To want to be able to defend myself?’
‘Fear and anger.’ She leaned back against the chair and rubbed at her eyes as though she was exhausted. ‘Nothing wrong with fear and anger, kid. It’s just not the path of the wild daisy.’
‘Then what is?’ I asked.
She held my gaze for a long time, neither smiling nor smirking. ‘Joy.’
‘Joy?’ I had to laugh. ‘How is it “joy” when you let a man three times your size take a swing at you that could leave you crippled or worse? How is it “joy” when you take out those steel cards of yours and face off against mages who could burn you alive with a spell? How is it—’
Abruptly she rose from her chair. ‘Come on,’ she said, and headed for the door.
‘What? Where?’
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. ‘You keep asking questions, kid, and I keep answering them, but that never seems to work for you. Rosie reckons it’s because I don’t think you’re worth teaching, so let me ask you straight as can be: do you want to learn the path of the wild daisy, Kellen?’
‘I … I want to at least understand what it is.’
‘Close enough,’ she said, and opened the door and stepped out into the night. ‘Come follow the path with me.’