“To me,” he said, catching her hands before she could touch the foundrael. “Not you.”

“Only to you,” she lied, but she’d had a lot of practice lying and it came out like the truth.

He let her set her hands on the soft band around his neck. The leather was soft and new-looking, as if it had been tanned yesterday instead of centuries ago. That made it easier, because she knew which one it was.

“No,” he said, pulling her hands away again.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“No,” Jes said again. “The Guardian will kill the big man. That would be bad. He thinks that killing would be very bad for us. Killing is bad, but he would have no choice. He is very angry.”

Hennea considered him. Everyone had a tendency, she thought, to ignore the daylight Jes in their fear of the Guardian. Oh, Seraph loved him in either guise, but she treated him with the same indulgence and discipline that she treated their dog and the others followed her example.

Jes, thought Hennea, was more than just a disguise where the Guardian resided. Impulsively she put her hand, still clasped loosely by his, on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned against it, moving so the light stubble, new-grown since his shaving this morning, prickled her fingers.

He was just a boy, she thought, uncomfortable with the instant response his innocently sensual gesture had called from her.

He might be right about killing. The Order of the Eagle came only to people who were empathic, a rare gift and usually weak. If Jes were a strong enough empath, killing might very well be enough to damage him.

“The Guardian won’t calm until we take it off, Jes. He’ll just feel worse and worse,” she said, though she didn’t move her hand from his face. “The longer we wait the more difficult it will be.”

He nodded, but didn’t open his eyes. “He’s so angry,” he said. Dark lashes brushed her fingertips, and she shivered.

He looked at her then, his eyes dark and hungry. “You could make him not angry,” said Jes. “He likes you, too. Kiss me.”

His suggestion startled her. She’d never heard of anyone trying something like this. Likely because only an idiot would think of kissing an angry Guardian.

Her lips were still canted in a smile when they touched his. It was an innocent kiss at first, because he called that from her—though not without arousal. His lips were a little chafed, and the rough surface scraped hers in butterfly-wing caresses.

She could feel him tense when her hands touched his neck again, so she opened her mouth to nip lightly at his lips, distracting him from what she did.

It distracted her, too—but not so much that she fumbled the Unlocking.

As soon as she finished, fear washed through the tent like a flash flood, taking her breath with its strength. She dug her fingers into Jes’s shoulders, which had turned to iron. But he didn’t fight her as she held him to her and touched his lips with her tongue.

Fear had driven away the embarrassment she felt at seducing him, but it hadn’t erased the desire he called from her. When he took charge of the kiss, she softened for him and allowed him to vent his fury into passion.

It was the Guardian who gentled the kiss again and shifted his weight away from her. He rubbed his face against hers, like a cat marking his territory, and then pulled away despite the tension that shook his body.

“Benroln has Mother and Lehr?” he asked hoarsely.

She had to clear her throat before she could say anything. “Yes,” she said.

She averted her face, knowing her cheeks were red, so she didn’t have a chance to move away before he touched her again. He pulled her against him, and set his chin on top of her head.

“We’ll go find them,” he said. Then he must have noticed Isfain, because he stiffened.

“What have you done to that one?” he growled.

She used the excuse of looking at Isfain to step out of Jes’s arms. “Not as much as I’d have liked to,” she said. “Benroln was young when he stepped up to the leadership—if I understand the history that led to this stupidity. But you,” she tapped Isfain’s nose reprovingly, “you knew better. He was your sister’s son and you taught him poorly.”

“Release him,” said the Guardian.

She cocked her head at him warily. “Why?”

When he growled at her, she found herself smiling despite the way the skin on her back flinched. “I think we’d better just leave him as he is until we find Lehr and your mother, don’t you?”

“Soft-hearted,” he said.

“Better than soft-headed,” she replied. “Should we go after Lehr and Seraph?”

He stepped around her and held open the tent flap. “I’d rather eat someone,” he said—she thought it was for Isfain’s benefit, but she wasn’t quite sure. “But we’ll head out looking for Mother first. Is Gura here?”

“Seraph told him to guard the tent,” she said.

As she ducked through the flap he put his lips near her ear and said, “Don’t feel guilty.”

She stopped so abruptly that the top of her head collided with his jaw hard enough that she heard his teeth click.

“Why should I feel guilty for kissing a handsome young boy?” she said sarcastically, without lowering her tone at all.

To her amazement he grinned at her. Guardians didn’t grin. They smiled with pleasure while they choked the life out of some poor fool who crossed them. They bared their teeth. They didn’t grin.

“I don’t know. We both enjoyed it very much, Jes and I,” his grin widened. “And we’d like to do it again as soon as possible.”

“Here you are,” said a young man in rich clothing who awaited them in a small clearing set in the side of a hill and overlooking a twenty-acre field with a tidy cottage at the far end. “I thought you might not make it.”

Benroln smiled congenially. “I don’t break contracts, sir.”

“And besides,” said the young man, “you knew there was more gold where you got the first, eh?”

He looked too young to have been a merchant for long, thought Seraph, then she reconsidered. There was a softness in his face that made him look exceedingly young, but his eyes were sharp and old.

I’ll bet that he uses that young face of his, Seraph thought as she revised her estimate of his age upward by ten years.

“Of course, sir,” said Benroln after he laughed politely at the merchant’s comment. “This is the woman who will set the spell.”

“And this is the farm right here,” replied the merchant in a light, pleasant voice. “I want it cursed—you understand. Paid good money for a mage to curse it last year—but Asherstal still got a harvest out. I told that sorcerer I wanted nothing to grow on these fields, not even a weed. I want the other farmers to avoid Asherstal for fear whatever befell him will happen to them. I want him shamed. You’d better do the job or maybe some ill might befall you, eh? Like happened to that mage I hired last year.”

Benroln looked taken aback, and Seraph wondered if he’d believed that sweet, innocent air the merchant exuded.

“Your mage’s curse is still here,” she murmured. “Perhaps you had him killed too soon. I’ll have to take it off before I can work.”

“I don’t tell a tanner how to do his job,” said the merchant. “I just pay him for good work.” He made an odd motion with his hand that might have been accidental—but Tier had taught the boys the signs soldiers used. It had the look of one of those.

Lehr had caught it, too, she thought. He faded back silently into the night. Neither the merchant nor Benroln seemed to notice—she doubted the merchant had ever seen him to begin with.

“I’ll have to go down to the edge of the field,” Seraph said.

“Fine, fine,” he agreed. “It’s dark enough that they won’t see you. We can wait in the trees that border the field.”

He led the way down. If Benroln was worried by anything, Seraph couldn’t tell—but she thought not. If he’d been properly worried about the merchant, he wouldn’t have left Isfain and Kors to tend Jes and Hennea. More fool he, to trust a man who’d curse another man’s living.