~*~
Voices and pain and hunger break into my slumber. I hear Mel and Ty arguing over something, though I am still too much asleep to know what they speak of. I hear their words but I do not understand them.
It was Ty's voice that woke me. He speaks more loudly than usual: “What of your dog?”
“He is no use to me blind. Now come, quickly.”
“Perhaps you are through with him, but I am not. He must help me in the conjury.”
“What? What help can he give you?”
“I need his nature talent. He can help me focus the demon properly.”
“Blindly?”
“Ah, you are right, of course. Then I shall have to restore his sight.”
“I thought you weren't a healer?” Her voice is cold and accusing.
“No healer could help him now, little flower. The one eye is beyond repair and the other gone. There's nothing for a healer to work with. So I cannot fully restore his sight – but I can perhaps give him a different sort of sight, so that he can help me as he must.”
“And why don't you simply hire someone with a stronger nature talent? Why must it be Arri?”
He is silent for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is careful. “He's already involved. If you really would rather, I suppose I could tell another about everything – including the child's birth – but I thought you might prefer to keep this matter as private as possible.”
“Very well,” she says coldly; “then he is yours, and you must account for him.”
He touches my shoulder. I jump; his voice sounded from farther away. He can walk so silently, even in water.
“Come,” he says. “It is dark now. We must leave the well. Can you climb blindly?”
“I will try,” I promise. Even if I had my sight I'd be using my hands more than my eyes, and I recall that there was something of a ladder built into the side of the well. I feel for it, climb up.
I heard their words, but I do not think of them. I try to think of nothing at all.