Fate

Eleven

After a full day and a half, Micah was still unconscious. Dr. Thomas had been constantly checking on him, but every time Tonius asked for an update, the answer was the same.

"He's still out."

He really getting tired of hearing that. "How much longer will this take?"

"You do not seem to understand. Your friend, he is very sick. He could very well die here." Tonius paced the foot of the bed that Micah had been moved to. Beast growled inside of him, begging for release. He had been growing more persistent as of late. "If there is somewhere that you need to be, it would be best for you to go and return later. Should anything happen, I'll send a runner to find you. Just tell me where you are headed."

"A small village called Warren. His people wait for him in the woods there. They have to know what happened to him." Micah had told him once that the circus was waiting for him to return, having followed his instructions to travel East, but go no farther than the small farming village, and he would meet them there. While they might put on performances without their master, they would never leave him. Tonius admired that. "Then onward to Cromwell. There is someone there I need to find."

Dr. Thomas busied himself checking Micah's bandages, not looking at Tonius as he spoke. "Speak to Mrs. Lumen about provisions for your journey. I would offer you a horse, but I have none. I will keep a close eye on your friend. Worry not." The good doctor had thoroughly improved himself from his first impression as a drunken has been. Tonius would even go as far as to say that he enjoyed Dr. Thomas' company. Elyssa would have been proud of him. He was making friends.

"No drink. Not while he is in your care," he ordered.

Matthew smiled thinly. "My late wife said that to me once. When we met for the first time."

That certainly piqued his interest. In the time that he'd been here, Matthew had not once spoken of a family, nor why the house smelled faintly of fire. "What happened to her?"

"That is a story for another time, I think. Go. Find your friend. Micah is in good hands. I will not have a drop of drink, on my honor."

"Thank you...Matthew."

"You can thank me when your friend wakes."

Tonius went downstairs to find Mrs. Lumen in the kitchen. He told her exactly what he had told the doctor and she wasted no time in filling his small satchel with food and taking his waterflask to the well to fill it. At the front door, she surprised him by pulling him in for a hug, holding him tightly. He surprised himself by hugging her back just as much. It was such a strange sensation, but not entirely unpleasant. The only person who had ever been brave enough to hold him was Elyssa.

"Hurry back to us," she said. "And stay safe."

The words shook him straight to the core and filled him with a sense of intense longing that he hadn't felt in some time. "Always do," he choked out. Beast scoffed at him, calling him an emotional whelp. He wasn't sure he liked the creature having a voice.

And then he was on his way, hurrying through the streets. Just as he was about to leave town, he saw a cart that was heading to Rainsworth, which was just past Warren. He managed to bribe the driver with a pretty silver coin that he had gotten from Micah's coin purse to drop him off just outside Warren. Sitting comfortably between a sack of oats and several bales of hay, he settled in for the ride.

He arrived much sooner than he would have had he traveled on foot. Thanking the cart driver and paying him what he owed, he brushed oat dust and hay from his clothes and ventured into the woods. Finding Micah's caravan wasn't hard by any means. It was, after all, a giant collection of colorful tents set up in the middle of the woods. Kind of hard to miss, even in the dark, which is what it was by the time he arrived. People recognized him instantly and swarmed him, before remembering exactly who he was and taking a few large steps back. He saw Quincy on the edge of the crowd and gave him a small wave. Zuri shouldered her way to the front with her children in tow, wrapping her thin arms around him tightly. He was truly in shock now. This was the second time in two days that someone had hugged him so freely.