Alinath flinched.

Seraph frowned, having never seen Alinath afraid of anything before—except Seraph herself on that one memorable occasion. She’d certainly never seen anyone afraid of Bandor. Alinath’s face quickly rearranged itself to the usual embittered expression she wore around Seraph, leaving only a glint of fear in her eyes.

“Thank you, Bandor, for your custom and your advice,” Seraph said.

As soon as the door was closed behind Seraph and she’d started up the narrow, twisty road, she muttered to her absent husband. “See what happens when you are away too long, Tier? You’d better get home soon, or those Elders are in for a rude surprise.”

She wasn’t really worried about the Elders. They weren’t stupid enough to confront her, no matter what they thought should be done for Rinnie’s benefit. Once Tier was home, he could talk them out of whatever stupidity Alinath had talked them into. He was good at that sort of thing. And if she was wrong, and the Elders came to try to take Rinnie before Tier was home… well, she might have failed in her duties to her people, but she would never fail her children.

She wasn’t worried about Rinnie—but Tier was another matter entirely. A thousand things could have delayed Tier’s return, she reminded herself. He might even now be waiting at home.

Even hardened by farmwork, Seraph’s calves ached by the time she came to the door of Willon’s shop near the top edge of the village. When she opened the homey door and stepped into the building, Willon was talking to a stranger with several open packs on the floor, so she walked past him and into the store.

The only other person in the store was Ciro, the tanner’s father, who was stringing a small harp. The old man looked up when she came in and returned her nod before going back to the harp.

Willon’s store had once been a house. When he’d purchased it, he’d excavated and built until his store extended well into the mountain. He’d stocked the dark corners of the store with odds and bits from his merchant days—and some of those were odd indeed—then added whatever he felt might sell.

Seraph doubted many people knew what some of his things were worth, but she recognized silk when she saw it—though doubtless the only piece in Redern resided on the wall behind a shelf of carved ducks in Willon’s shop.

She seldom had the money to shop here, but she loved to explore. It reminded her of the strange places she’d been. Here was a bit of jade from an island far to the south, and there a chipped cup edged in a design that reminded her of a desert tribe who painted their cheeks with a similar pattern.

Some of Willon’s wares were new, but much of it was secondhand. In a back corner of one of a half dozen alcoves she found boxes of old boots and shoes that still had a bit of life left in them.

She took out the string she’d knotted and began measuring it against the boots. In the very bottom of the second box she searched, she found a pair made of thinner leather than usual for work boots. The sole was made for walking miles on roads or forest trails, rather than tromping through the mud of a farmer’s field. Her fingers lingered on the decorative stitches on the top edge, hesitating where the right boot was stained with blood—though someone had obviously worked to clean it away. Traveler’s boots.

She didn’t compare them to her son’s feet, just set them back in the box and piled a dozen pairs of other boots on top of them, as if covering them would let her forget about them. In a third bin, she found what she was looking for, and took a sturdy pair of boots up to the front.

There is nothing I could have done, she told herself. I am not a Traveler and have not been for years.

But even knowing it was true, she couldn’t help the tug of guilt that tried to tell her differently: to tell her that her place had never been here, safe in Tier’s little village, but out in the world protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.

“I can’t sell those here,” she heard Willon say to a stranger at the front counter—a tinker by the color of his packs. “Folk ’round here get upset with writing they can’t read—old traps of the Shadowed still linger in these mountains. They know to fear magic, and even a stupid person’s going to notice that those have Traveler’s marks on them.”

“I bought them from a man in Korhadan. He claimed to have collected them all,” said the tinker. “I paid him two silvers. I’ve had to carry them from there to here. I’ll sell them for ten coppers, the entire bag, sir, for I’m that tired of them. You’re the eighth merchant in as many towns as told me the same thing, and they take up space in my packs as I might use for something else. You surely could melt them down for something useful.”

On the counter lay an assortment of objects that appeared something like metal feathers. One end was sharp for a few inches, almost daggerlike, but the other end was decorative and lacy. Some were short, but most were as long as Seraph’s forearm, and one nearly twice that long. There must have been nearly a hundred of them—mermori.

“My son can work metal,” said Seraph, around the pulse of sorrow that beat too heavily in her throat. There were so many of them. “He could turn these into horseshoes. I can pay you six coppers.”

“Done,” cried the fellow before Willon could say a thing. He bundled them up in a worn leather bag and handed it to Seraph, taking the coins she handed him.

He gathered his packs together and carried them off as if he were afraid she’d renege if he waited.

Willon shook his head, “You shouldn’t have bought those, Seraph Tieraganswife. Poor luck follows those who buy goods gotten by banditry and murder the way those probably were.”

A merchant to the bone, Willon should have objected to her buying outright from the tinker rather than cut him in for a percentage—but things like that happened when mermori were involved.

“Travelers’ spells don’t hurt those of Traveler blood,” she said in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to others in the store.

Willon looked startled for a moment. “Ah. Yes, I had almost forgotten that.”

“So you think these were gotten by banditry?” she asked.

“My sons tell me that they don’t call it that anymore.” Willon shook his head in disapproval. “The present emperor’s father declared the Travelers beyond the protection of his laws. The old man’s been dead for years, but his son’s not going to change anything. He shuts himself up in the palace and listens to people who tell him stories without questioning the truth from falsehood, poor boy.”

He spoke as if he knew him, but Seraph let it pass without comment. Tier had told her that he thought that the caravanning business Willon had retired from had been richer than he let on. He hadn’t changed much from when he’d first come, other than the gradual lightening of his hair to white. Though he must have been nearing his seventh decade, he looked much younger than that.

“Ah well,” she said. “They’re pretty enough, but they’ll make shoes for horses and buckles for harness, sir—surely if Travelers had that much magic left they’d have used it to save themselves.” She set the boots she’d selected on the counter. “Now, I need these for Jes, but I’ve spent my coppers on the metal bits. In my pack I have some wild honey. I’ve sold a dozen jars to Bandor at the bakery below for a half-penny apiece, and I’ve a little more than twice that left.” She’d looked, and hadn’t seen any honey in the section where he kept a variety of jarred and dried goods.

“My brother-in-law told me to tell you I sold him his at a copper each,” she added with a small smile. Willon was one of the few villagers she felt comfortable talking to—probably because he was an outsider too.

“Aye, and he should have paid you that,” said Willon with a snort. “Doubtless you know it, too. Taking advantage of his own kin.”