Anya was in her workshop behind the house when she heard wheels clattering up the drive. Apparently she had more company. Two visitors in one day. Must be her lucky day.

Not too lucky, though. Whoever owned the conveyance on the drive, it was not in good repair. But a poor customer was still better than no customers. Sometimes she accepted barters instead of money. The twins still needed to eat, after all.

Anya wiped her hands on her apron, and went out to meet the newcomer.

It was an older man she did not recognize, driving a wagon hitched with a horse. She felt nervous, wondering what he might want with her. She told herself there was no reason to be afraid, but she still felt a cold foreboding fear slide through her.

She was being ridiculous. Still, she was glad that the twins were safely out in the woods.

The man on the cart grew closer. "Do you know of Gage?"

"Gage?" she asked cautiously, her voice in her throat at the mention of her brother's name. She wondered if she should acknowledge that she knew him.

"Come here and see if you know him," the man instructed and gestured to the back of his cart.

Was Gage inside? If he was, he would surely make himself known to her. Was it a trick to lure her to his vehicle?

"I was paid to bring him here. The description was most clear. Do you know him?"

Was Gage dead? Anya's stomach knotted with fear. She clutched the vial in her apron pocket and she ran forward to the cart.

At first, all Anya could do was stare at the man lying in the cart unconscious. He looked like her brother, but her brother did not have horrible scar across his face that ended under a patch covering his eye. Her brother was full of energy and life, not still and quiet.

But it was Gage and he lay there, still as death. For a moment she really did think that he was dead, but then she realized that the rough grating sound she heard was his quick, ragged breathing. He was horribly ill. The wounds on his face looked too old to be what was making him so terribly sick.

"What happened to him?" she cried.

"I don't know. I was just paid to bring him. I suggested a healer, but he insisted he wanted to come here. Seemed to think that more could be done."

"Where did you pick him up?" she gasped.

"Just outside the capital. Don't rightly know how he got there. He was staggering, feverish."

The capital was about a day's walk from the village, or so she had heard. Gage must have suffered terribly.

She wished he had gone to a healer. What could she possibly do? She only knew the simplest healing charms. Whatever was wrong with him was almost certainly out of her range of expertise.

"What shall I do with him?" the man asked, bringing Anya back to the matter at hand.

She shook her head helplessly. "Could you help me get him inside?" she asked.

"Sure can."

Anya and the man moved to either side of Gage. Anya was shocked when she touched Gage's skin. He was burning with a fever. She would have to try to bring the fever down.

They managed to half carry, half drag her poor brother into the cottage. A few times Anya thought he seemed to be helping them, but was afraid it was only wishful thinking.

They lay him on his side on Anya's bed. Anya did not know what to do. She feared the cause of his fever. His heart was pounding frantically. She noticed that there was blood on his back. Being careful not to jostle him, she leaned over to look for the source.

Two cruel arrowheads were imbedded between his shoulder blades. She gasped. The flesh around the wounds was angry and swollen and she could see red streaks stretching away from the imbedded pieces of metal. She hurt for the pain he must have felt.

The man gave a low whistle. "It's a wonder he made it this far," he said.

"Can you stay and help me with him?" Anya asked. She did not know how she would manage the bulk of her brother alone. "I'll pay you."

"For a time," he said, and the stranger looked suddenly kind. "My name is Sam."

"I'm Anya. Can you just watch him while I run out to my shed?"

She did not wait for his answer as she ran out to see if there was anything she could do to save him. She had to do something, but in her heart she feared there was no hope for him.

* * * * *

Anya busied herself grabbing supplies and clean slips of cloth and threw them in a basket. She mixed up a simple salve for wounds that she doubted would help. She also grabbed a bucket. Perhaps Sam would fetch her water. She would boil it, although it hardly mattered at this point.

She rushed out the door and nearly ran over Kallie.

"Anya! We have everything!" Kallie announced, happily unaware of what was happening. Damani lifted the basket proudly.

Anya dropped to her knees between the two children. "You have done very well. Now, I am going to tell you something, and you must do exactly as I say. Gage has returned—"

"Gage!" cried Damani, but Anya stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"It is not good. He has had a terrible accident. I need you two to go back out into the woods. I want you to gather supplies for any sort of healing potion you can remember."

Damani protested immediately. "I want to help here!"

"Me too!"

"There is nothing you can do here," Anya lied. Actually, the twins could be a great help to her. However, she was almost certain she could not save Gage, and she wanted them to remember him the way he had been. Whole and healthy, rather than a broken man burning up with fever.

"I can draw water!" Damani exclaimed, eyeing the bucket.

"I have a friend here, a man named Sam, and he will help me. I do not know if I will be able to save Gage, but I will do my best. Now, go," she told the twins firmly.

They both looked rebellious, but ran towards the woods. Anya did not bother to watch them go, but instead hurried to resume her almost certainly futile attempt to save her brother's life.

* * * * *

Sam proved to be a great help and Anya was incredibly grateful he had agreed to stay. Anya did what she could with her limited knowledge of healing and he took care of the heavy tasks like carrying water. Gage burned with his fever, and his heart pumped alarmingly fast.

Anya knew that she would have to take the arrows out of his back, but she was afraid to do it. She would hurt him terribly and she thought she might even kill him. But there was no choice. The metal had to come out.

"Sam, have you ever removed anything from a wound?"

"I'm afraid not."

She gritted her teeth. She had a small, sharp knife that she used for cutting herbs in her basket. "Please help me turn him over."

Sam and Anya turned the man's body onto his front. Anya washed her hands and ran her herb knife through the flame. When it was hot, she brought it over to her brother.

She forced herself to cut into his flesh, to make a space large enough for her to put the head of the arrow and the broken shaft out. His blood had clotted over the wound. She had difficulty getting the metal out and she knew she hurt him because he groaned at her work. His blood flowed out along with a greenish pus which concerned her greatly.

When it was out she washed the wound with water and with ale and applied the salve and a strip of cloth. She then set to work on the second arrow. It was not imbedded as deeply, and she removed it quickly, and repeated her ministrations. With Sam's help she wrapped his torso in clean strips of cloth.

Anya then took cool water and wiped down his burning skin. She tried without success to force him to take a drink. There was not much else she could do but worry she had only made his condition worse with her treatment. She wrung her hands together.

She gently removed the patch from his eye. Like his healthy eye, the lid was closed, but it looked oddly warped. She wiped down his burning skin again.

Sam watched her, a concerned expression on his slightly wrinkled face. "I can watch him, while you take a break if you need."

"Thank you," she agreed. She was incredibly lucky Gage had been brought home by someone who was willing to help her. Alone she did not know how she would have even gotten him into the house, even with the twins' help.

The afternoon stretched into evening and Anya continued to watch her brother. The twins had returned home and she had not been able to keep them entirely from contact with their sick brother. She was grateful that Sam had taken to entertaining them by telling them stories of the wider world. He taught Damani how to whittle and Kallie helped out by making supper. Anya sat in a chair beside Gage's bed and watched his ragged breathing.

Since the first moment she saw him, she had not had time to consider his injured face. She wondered what had happened to him.

She had not questioned what he did. She had only known that he was at Waldwick estate to the far south. When they had been children he had wanted to be a horse breeder until he had discovered his talent in archery. She wondered if he had still been as good of a shot after hurting his eye. He looked like he had aged terribly, though he was only a few years older than she.

She had always trusted him to take care of things and she had not questioned his long absences. She had not known that he was in so much peril. She felt bad that she had not worried more, or found some way to manage to keep him home with them.

Anya touched his skin, and discovered that it had cooled down drastically. Was it a good or bad sign that his fever was gone?

She glanced at his face and saw that his eyes were open. His good eye was a familiar brown similar to the color of her own, but the injured eye now had a milky yellowish appearance. The sight disturbed her as the visual symbol of what poor Gage had gone through.

"Gage?" she asked and he did not answer. It was eerie, the way he stared glassily towards her. It was her brother, but the situation was unnerving. Had the fever hurt his mind?

"Anya?" he asked suddenly, and she jumped in surprise.

"Gage!"

"I had to come back, to warn—"

"Don't talk, Gage, you need to save your strength!" Anya said firmly.

Gage tried to move. Presumably he wanted to get up, but was far too weak to even roll himself over.

"Lay still and save your strength. We can talk later," Anya commanded.

"There won't be a later." He coughed.

"Don't talk like that!" she snapped. She did not want to hear him say that.

Gage spoke quickly and he was hard to understand. "I was so furious. She wrecked my eye, Anya. I tried to kill... No, it was my job. I had to do it, they offered so much, but I was so angry. No. Some of it was."

Anya broke in, "You need to save your strength, Gage! Stop talking and sleep." His babbling was probably because of the fever. Except the fever was gone. He made no sense.

"Forgive me, Anya. Don't know who I am. I don't know... I still want to... I need to. Bespelled? I didn't succeed. I owe... I can't think."

"Gage," she pleaded as if her words might call back his sanity. He was not focused on her any longer, lost in some part of his mind.

"Should not have... She said... The debt..." He continued babbling and Anya felt sick and helpless. She did not know what to do. Were his words normal for someone in his condition? Were they true or just imaginings of his mind? She wished there was someone she could ask, but even if their small village had a doctor or healer, they probably would not come to help a warlock's child who could not afford to pay them.

Gage's eye seemed to focus on her again. He spoke more clearly. "I've become someone... You would hate me if you knew the things I've done. I can't say, but you need to be prepared. Once I'm dead—"

"You're not going to die!" she lied.

"Once I'm gone, they might come after you. You must leave with the twins and not let them find you."

"Them? Who are you talking about?"

"Father's debt has been paid. I was paid up front, but I failed. They might come after you. Take the twins and run." Both his good eye and his warped eye closed, and all she could hear was his quick, uneven breathing.

"Gage!" she demanded, never mind that it had been she who told him to rest.

He was unresponsive.