Brightly Woven

entirely.
    “We’re going to have to stop for a few days,” he said suddenly as we cut through a stand of trees. We were on our way into a small village I had found on the map, having seen no sign of Dorwan at all. “I’m thinking we’ll need at least two hundred gold pieces for food and transportation.”
    “We haven’t got the time,” I said. “You wouldn’t even let me stop to wash my face in the river this morning!”
    “Without any money we won’t be able to continue at this rate. Perhaps you feel differently, but I do enjoy eating real food and sleeping in actual beds. And since you insist on separate rooms, my poor little money bag has gotten considerably thinner.”
    It had already been over two weeks since our run-in with the wizards in Dellark. I didn’t think we had time to waste, given that we had less than a month to cross the rest of the country.
    I looked away, gripping the strap of my bag. “I don’t think we should stop. I want to get to Provincia as soon as we possibly can. Maybe you wouldn’t understand because you have nothing at stake—”
    “Nothing at stake?” North let out a dry laugh. “If Auster takes over the country, do you honestly believe they’ll leave everything as it was? That the wizards will have any place left? Who knows what they’d do to us?”
    “So you’re doing this because you’re scared for your own life,” I said. “How inspiring. Astraea would be ashamed of you. You’re supposed to be protecting her people.”
    “Astraea can go rot,” North said harshly. I flinched as if he had slapped me. “She doesn’t give me food or find me a safe place to sleep at night. I do that myself.”
    “You’re a wizard,” I snapped. “Can’t you just use magic to make your own food?”
    “Ah, yes,” he retorted. “Because mud pies are so very delicious and the wind fills empty stomachs quite nicely.”
    I gave him a long, hard glare before storming ahead. North caught up to me and blocked my path.
    “Move,” I said. “If you want to stop, then fine, I’ll go ahead by myself. You can go wander off a cliff for all I care!”
    “I’m sorry I said that about Astraea,” he said quietly. I tried to step around him, but he moved with me. “I haven’t been able to find any customers in the past few towns we’ve passed through, because opinions toward the wizards have changed. A lot of people blame the wizards for the king’s death and the war. I’ll be lucky to find a few jobs here and there to keep us going, but don’t think, not even for a moment, that I’ve forgotten why we set out in the first place.”
    His face was so sincere that my body seemed to unwind on its own accord, loosening all the knots and frustrations.
    “Well, have you ever thought of bathing?” I asked, turning away. “No one wants to hire a wizard who smells worse than their outhouse. And who knows what creatures are living in that hair?”
    “Why do I need to brush my hair, anyway?” He liftedhis arm and gave a few experimental whiffs. “And I smell wonderful. All manly and whatnot.”
    Seeing my look of utter disgust, without another word, he wrapped an arm loosely around my shoulders, and the black cloak came up around us, and I was falling, falling, falling…
    The moment my feet hit the ground, I pushed him away from me. North tripped over his heavy cloaks, stumbling backward until he fell onto the dirt with a startled curse.
    “Don’t do that without giving me some warning!” I cried, my head still swimming dizzily.
    He grunted as he picked himself off the ground.
    “All right, all right,” he said. “Next time I’ll warn you when I’m about to twist the magical pillars of time and the world.”
    “I don’t know what that means,” I said crossly. “But you’d better!”
    “I thought you’d like twisting…,” he mumbled, picking leaves from his matted black hair.
    “Twisting,” I repeated slowly. “Is that what it is? Why can’t we just twist to Provincia if it’ll get us there faster?”
    North let out a dry laugh. “Don’t you think that if I was capable of doing it, we would already be in the capital by now? Twisting is extremely difficult for a wizard to do alone, let alone with someone else.”
    “How far can you twist us at a time, then?” I asked.
    “A mile—at the most,” he said. “And that’s quite a feat.”
    I blew a stray curl out of my eyes. “Where are we now?”
    “Our best chance for a job. Have a look.”
    Dellark