“Seek absolution,” he said, his speech garbled.
A large crack startled both Bastian and Tressa, sending her backward into his waiting arms. The physic’s neck fell to his shoulder in at unnatural angle, broken. His chest no longer lifted with life-sustaining breath.
“Dead.” Bastian said. He rested his chin on Tressa’s head.
“Magic,” she whispered. She pushed out of his arms, the immediate shock dissipating.
“Does that surprise you, considering what we’ve seen so far?”
Tressa shook her head. “What do you think he meant about seeking absolution?”
“For his sins?” Bastian asked. “Or for Connor?”
“Or for us? You were about to kill him. I was threatening him. Maybe he thought we were in the wrong. It’s possible he didn’t know anything.”
Bastian nodded. “I think he did, though. He said no one ever came back the same. He was expecting Connor to be like them, whoever they are. This isn’t the first time.” Bastian licked his lips and cleared his throat. He’d stayed silent and stoic most of his life, protecting everyone from his temper. He couldn’t do it to Tressa, not now, not when Connor was missing.
“That’s right. He did say that.” Tressa tapped a finger against her chin, gazing at the dead man. She whirled around, her hands on her hips. “Then we have to seek absolution. Find the nearest holy place. Maybe they’ve got Connor there. Or someone there knows something.”
“Agreed.”
A knock at the door startled them. “Rangar, are you in there? I need some herbs for Mahina’s cough.”
Bastian nodded toward the back of the room and a door. He hoped it led outside. Tressa ran toward it and flung the door open. Bastian tried not to let out a sigh. He would have checked carefully first, before exposing them to whatever lay on the other side. Luckily it was a door to a back alley, just as he’d hoped, and no one jumped in to apprehend them.
Tressa waved to him. Bastian took one last look at the dead man. Regret cut through his chest as he bolted toward the door. They might’ve gotten answers out of him, if only someone, or something, else hadn’t intervened and ended the conversation forever.
He didn’t say it to Tressa as they ran down the alley, but if someone had purposely ended the physic’s life to keep him from talking, it meant someone knew Bastian and Tressa had discovered Connor was missing.
Chapter Twenty
Buildings flashed past her vision, but Tressa didn’t stop to marvel at how different some of them were from Hutton’s Bridge. Only Connor mattered. She picked up her pace.
“Tressa!” The strained whisper came from behind her.
Tressa slowed down, allowing Bastian to catch up.
“We can’t leave the alley in a run. Maybe if we slow down, we’ll fit in,” he said.
“Fit in?” Tressa held back a snort of laughter. “We’re not dressed like anyone else out there.”
She looked down at her rough, woolen dress. Her breeches were still hidden underneath. Tressa grabbed the waistband, her fingers fumbling with the ties holding her skirt tight around her waist.
“Do you need some help?”
Tressa looked at Bastian. Memories flashed in her head of the night they’d been coupled. The night he’d first undone the ties of her dress. A blush spread over her cheeks. She looked down, her hair covering her flaming cheeks like a veil.
“Of course not. I can take care of my own clothes.” Her fingers finally found the knot. She deftly released the ribbons from their balled prison. The skirt slipped easily over her hips. Tressa stepped out of the skirt, balled it up, and put it in her bag. “At least I look somewhat like the other women now. I haven’t seen one woman in a skirt. Have you?”
She looked at Bastian, who opened his mouth, then closed it without uttering a word. Tressa remembered the dancer in the tavern. She’d been wearing a skirt. At least she had when they walked in. Tressa was pretty sure she’d taken it off before they left.
“And you…” Tressa reached up, running her fingers through Bastian’s hair. He tensed under her touch, but she didn’t stop. “The men here comb their hair back from their face. Yours is too messy.”
Bastian didn’t respond again. Typical. He’d grown more and more silent with her every year past their uncoupling. That was why they’d stopped talking to each other. Tressa didn’t believe in one-way conversations. Once she’d stopped addressing him directly, he’d never taken the initiative to communicate with her. If it weren’t for Connor, the two of them might never have spoken to each other again.