Oswin Tunnelway's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

The raven-kin guard handed Oswin a rag to clean his hands after the last inspection, and he took it without meeting her eyes. His leg burned where the scratch pressed against his trousers, and he knew he'd been lucky — offering to help had turned him from a suspect into an ally. But Foxface was watching him from the other side of the checkpoint, her expression unreadable, and when the guards finally waved them through, she fell into step beside him instead of taking the lead. "That was smart," she said quietly. "Volunteering like that." Oswin nodded, tucking the medical kit back into his bag. "They needed help. Made sense to offer." She was silent for a moment, then spoke again. "You didn't show them your blister, though. The one you wrapped this morning." Oswin's chest tightened. She'd been watching more carefully than he'd thought. He stopped walking and turned to face her. The rest of the group moved ahead, leaving them alone on the road. "It's fine," he said. "Didn't need checking." Foxface tilted her head, studying him the way the raven-kin guard had studied the travelers. "You're hiding something," she said, not accusing, just stating a fact. "And Caius knows what it is." Oswin felt the weight of the note in his bag, the salve jar that was already half empty, the scratch that worsened every day despite his careful treatment. He could lie again, build another layer of misdirection, but Foxface wasn't asking for the truth — she was telling him she'd already seen through the performance. "If it becomes a problem," he said finally, "Caius will handle it. You don't need to worry." She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. "All right," she said. "But when it becomes a problem — not if — you tell me before someone else finds out at a checkpoint. Because next time, they might not let you play doctor." She walked ahead to catch up with the others, and Oswin stood alone on the road. He'd passed the checkpoint, but he'd lost something in the process — Foxface's assumption that he was telling the full truth. She didn't know about the scratch yet, but she knew he was keeping a dangerous secret, and she'd made it clear she wouldn't accept another performance. Caius appeared beside him, silent, and together they started walking again. The ruins were still days away, and every checkpoint between here and there would be another test. But now Oswin knew the shape of the problem: he couldn't hide the scratch and he couldn't reveal it, so he would have to keep buying passage with usefulness until his salve ran out or his luck did. He touched the front pocket of his bag where the note waited, and kept moving forward.