Nina woke me long after the sun rose. I wasn’t normally a heavy sleeper, but I wasn't normally half-dead. Almost eighteen years ago, the two of us had climbed out of our mother and she still felt that gave her the right to climb all over me. I was a wounded man and I felt that gave me the right to be treated better, and yet she just came onto the bed and sat down on my lap so she could stick her thumbs in my mouth and pry my jaw open.

  Anyone else would have gotten their fingers bitten off, but it was Nina.

  Father Hack must have told them what happened and now she was having a look at the oozing wound in my mouth. After a satisfied nod, she let go of me and planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I was always the better talker anyways.”

  I had fixed her with a flat stare since the moment she woke me, and had been choosing my words. “You’re no longer the fairest maiden in town.”

  Her reaction was delayed. It took her a moment to change her mental attention over to the future rather than the past, then she promptly started yanking on my shirt and throwing questions at me about the three adventurers that had saved me.

  Thankfully, Father Hack came to my rescue, carrying a steaming bowl of oats topped with two sausage links. I had to eat those carefully, though my stomach made me want to champ and gnash through them. Every time I chewed, I risked biting my wound again and despite my best efforts, everything ended up tasting like blood again by the time I was done. When I set my empty bowl aside, he smiled and said, “Now then, the two of you won’t mind pitching in, would you? We have just enough time before the service.”

  Father Hack was not the kind of man that was opposed in Three Stone Bend. He was old enough that he had helped raise most of the adults and he still had muscles fit for a blacksmith. I doubted there was a single person in town that didn’t know, either personally or as a witness, what a spanking from Hack was like. Not that he ever lifted a hand to anyone who didn’t deserve it, but that came to his second trait.

  He was a fair and caring man, who made reasonable requests. Those reasonable requests were unreasonably hard to squirm out of because every gossipmonger within a week’s ride would hear about someone trying to shirk duty or not help out or otherwise disobeying Father Hack. So, there was nothing we could say but, “We don’t mind.”

  The minutiae of preparing a temple was never-ending. Whether it was trimming wicks, replacing candles, sweeping beneath the pews, or cleaning the blessed water, Father Hack always had another task that needed to be done, and would calmly tell us about it with a smile on his face, only dictating which was too much for a patient to handle alone.

  Nina’s only rebellion was complaining to me whenever he wasn’t in the room. “Why am I the one hauling water? You’re the guy!”

  I was busy polishing a few of the icons with decidedly non-holy temple oil. The stuff was foul smelling and I had no interest in knowing what it was produced from but the archpriest always brought a jar to keep everything pretty for the spirits. It was also decidedly less taxing than watering the flowers, refilling the basins, and stashing drinking cups for Father Hack during the ceremony. “You’d better get used to it. I’ll be laying around the house for a while. Recuperating and all that.”

  She practically dropped the bucket and marched over to me, her arms crossed as she squinted at me. “No, you’re not. You’ve had something on your mind all day and you’ve been all tight-lipped about it.”

  I clicked my tongue, which hurt. “Yeah, I’ve got something on my mind, but I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m not stupid.”

  Father Hack’s voice filled the hall as he stepped in, hands clasped behind his back. “And what’s that, my boy?”

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  I glanced at my sister, and at the bucket of water she wasn’t done with, but she ignored my signal so she could wait for my answer. “Putting me on the spot,” I mumbled, not making eye contact with either of them. There was no way I was going to tell the truth, the smoldering, juvenile revenge I wanted. So I lied. “I need to properly thank those women.”

  The way Hack stared down at me I just knew he saw through me. But I had chosen that answer because I figured he would encourage it, and a moment later he was beaming down at me. “Luckily for you, you won’t have to rush about that. Lady Linia will be staying here in town for at least a few days. She and her companions rented one of the town houses from Missus Crane.”

  Nina snarled. “You mean they’re not leaving?”

  Father Hack’s smile didn’t falter as he clapped his hand on top of her head and tussled her hair. “They’re researchers, or so they introduced themselves last night. They might be gone tomorrow, or they might stay here for months, and if they do, we should be grateful to have such competent ladies among us. Now, hurry up before everyone starts arriving.”

  We barely got our various tasks completed in the time it took for him to step behind the podium where the belltower rope was tucked away, hidden by the soot-stained acanthus carvings. After checking his hourglass, he gave the rope a tug and the brass bell rang. While everyone from town meandered into the pews, Father Hack tossed both of us simple robes and gestured for us to stand beside the podium.

  “Good morning, everyone! There will be some announcements after the service, but first… please join me in the morning hymn.”

  It took me only a moment to realize singing was not in the cards for me that day. Stretching my mouth enough to hit the notes just ripped my cheek open. While Nina practically led the town through the song, I scanned the crowd. To my surprise, I spotted Linia and Claire, the elf, standing in the back. Linia had a smile on her face as she sang along with everyone, but Claire couldn’t have looked more shocked.

  I followed the direction of her gaze and saw the familiar twinkle of light. The spirit had arrived early. Boxcars was nothing more than a candle flame of nothing, but the way he bobbed through the air in tune to the hymn was as honest as a dog’s wagging tail. Why Claire was surprised was beyond me though.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Father Hack look at me and then he saw Boxcars floating over the congregation’s heads. He held up his hand as the morning hymn came to a close and addressed the spirit. “A fine morning to have your company, spirit.”

  Boxcars’ form twisted, sprawling out across the air into a glowing cursive so he could respond, “A most exciting morning, indeed. Your singing is lovely as always.”

  “Do you have any fortune for our weather this week?”

  Boxcars transmuted himself again. “Rain, it seems. Tomorrow and for two more days after. It won’t be a downpour, at least.”

  Father Hack cleared his throat and relayed the information to everyone who couldn’t read the spirit’s script. That sent half the temple grumbling and murmuring about what they should do and a moment later, Father Hack called forward a small choir. They all perked up like it was a great honor to perform for the spirit but I could see the priest was barely paying attention to them. The choir let the farmers shut up and think for a few minutes.

  While they sang through a remembrance of the White Blade War, I saw Claire run out the door. Before the song ended, the third member of the researchers had been hauled in and it was Sera’s turn to be shocked by the sight of Boxcars.

  The spirit darted to and fro in the temple, eventually stopping in front of Father Hack to apologize for the interruption. Then he went and said something to the travelers, and then of all things he stopped in front of me. “Would you step forward, Ricky?”

  “Huh?” I couldn’t have looked stupider as everyone’s attention fixed on me. They could have been looking at the researchers pushing between the pews to join us in the front but they all looked at me.

  Linia walked right up to Father Hack, asking about the spirit but I could only hear half her conversation because Sera was staring at me with pink in her cheeks. I hadn’t gotten a very good look at her the day before, or maybe I had and just couldn’t remember. Face to face, she actually put me off balance as she fidgeted and brushed some of her dark brown hair back. There wasn’t a man alive that wouldn’t have felt their heart beat quicker at the sight of her staring up, just a few inches shorter than themselves.

  Well, at least none near me at least.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks still burning. “This is just how the spell has to work. There’s nothing untoward about this, okay?”

  I thought that maybe my head was still foggy from the blood loss. “What are you talking about?”

  Then she kissed me.