Free Wayfarer by R.J. Anderson Page B

said, springing up from the booth. She peered out the window into the street, then said, “I think it’s clear.”
    â€œOf course it is,” said Timothy, shoving the door open and dragging his guitar case through. “She must have given up ages ago. I’m not that special.” But then a new thought occurred to him, and he turned back to Linden with a frown. “But if she was looking for a musician…why didn’t she take Rob instead?”
    â€œRob?” said Linden, and Timothy remembered: She’d never met Rob, she’d only heard him play at a distance.
    â€œThere was another guitar player at the hostel,” he said. “Older than me, but still pretty young—and he was good. Excellent, even. Why me, and not him?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Linden. “I don’t even know why she felt she had to—ow!” She hopped to one side and turned her foot over to look at it, wincing. Timothy was about to ask what was wrong when he saw that the slippers she’d been wearing in the restaurant had vanished, and that a chip of glass was sticking out of her heel.
    â€œWhat happened to your shoes?” he asked.
    Linden picked the shard out gingerly and rubbed her thumb across the wound. “They were just glamour,” she said as a dark bead of blood welled out. “I don’t have the right kind of magic to make real shoes, and keeping up the illusion was giving me a headache. Besides, I usually go barefoot at home—and how was I to know I’d be walking all over London tonight?”
    Timothy swung his backpack down onto the pavement and rummaged through it until he’d found the old T-shirt he usually slept in. “Here,” he said, tearing a strip off the bottom and wrapping it around her foot. “This should help—but watch where you’re walking from now on.”
    â€œThat’s kind of you,” said Linden, limping a few steps experimentally, “but I have a better idea.” She gave herself a little shake and suddenly she was tiny again, wings unfolding from the deep V at the back of her jacket. “Ah yes,” she sighed as she hummed into the air, “that’s much better.”
    Timothy watched, amazed, as she hovered around him. So small, and she darted so quickly—no wonder he’d mistaken her for a little brown bird….
    The night breeze nipped at him, forcing him back to attention. He pulled an extra sweatshirt out of his backpack and tugged it on. It wasn’t as warm as the jacket he’d left behind at Sanctuary, but the extra layer definitely helped. “Right,” he said, picking up his guitar again. “Let’s go.”
    Linden flitted to land on his shoulder and sat down, her faery form fitting easily into the space between his collarbone and his jaw. She was so small he hardly noticed the weight, but he could feel her solid warmth against his skin, undeniably real. Timothy let out a short laugh.
    â€œWhat is it?” Her voice was a breath in his ear.
    â€œIt’s just…my cousin’s wife is a faery. I’m talking to a faery right now. And here I thought I was having a hard time just believing in God.”
    â€œGod?” Linden sounded curious. “You mean the Great Gardener?”
    The Lord God planted a garden eastward, in Eden…. “Yeah.”
    â€œBut you believe in me, don’t you?”
    Timothy snorted out another laugh, this one more genuine. “It’s not like I have a choice! How can I not believe when I can see you right there?”
    â€œOh,” said Linden, and was silent. Then she said, “So you have to be able to see something to know it exists?”
    Her puzzlement seemed genuine, but Timothy didn’t feel like getting into a lecture on the scientific method just now. “No,” he said, “of course there’s more to it thanthat. It’s just that I thought I knew what was