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home,” he said without moving.
    “Others must come, then. The wilderness is well tended. There is all one needs to thrive here.”
    “Few bother the marsh. A herder from Bullbarr left the goats, and returns to cull the flock. Mostly it sits unknown. But those who find it can find peace.” He turned his head to look at me. “You will not find peace.”
    I frowned. He’d been speaking lucidly. Now he was back to coy innuendos, and I was too easy a target.
    “Why do you know my name? Why do you say I will not find peace?”
    “Because you run from one reason and not the other.”
    “Harker!” I stamped my foot.
    “You must pay me for your fortune, Healer.”
    “Please, I have no—”
    “I give away no news for free.” It was a loud, a bitter declaration. The old man choked a little upon saying it, and added, harsher, “I
cannot
be tempted. Never again.”
    I turned away, frustrated, but then spun back. “Seer that you are, you must know I have no coins. So you must content yourself with something else.”
    He waited. I said, “You have blisters on your hands. I can heal them.”
    Maybe he’d known I’d reach this stage of barter, but not this particular offer—there was an eager spark in his eyes. He dismissed it quickly, though, with a sharp little bark: “Do you think so?”
    “Hold them out,” I insisted.
    He did. I kneeled down at his feet and took up his hands. They were worn and spotted and gnarled, made horrible by red-rimmed blisters, and he shivered under the inspection. I had expected to smear some of the heliotrope, or mix a poultice from the goat’s milk and borage. I could shape an arch of the blackberry bushes and have the seer crawl beneath three times—such were medicines for skin boils. But what Harker suffered was nothing I could repair. This was pain that goaded and punished.
    I said to him, “These wounds are magic-made. You gave or held something that you should not.” Then I ducked a little so I could catch his eye and speak straight. “You were burned because of a mistake you made.”
    His returning stare was bleak. “How long have you suffered these?” I asked.
    “I am old. These are not.”
    I looked again at the blisters, wondering what ill he’d done to carry such a reminder. “Well, I’m sorry. I cannot heal such wounds.”
    He jerked his hands away with a sly little smile. “Are you sorry for me or for yourself?” And then he was chuckling at my frown. “You still want to know what I can tell you.”
    “Yes.” I tugged my satchel closer and dug in, pulling out the vial of heliotrope buds and offering it. “Here. You may have these. Roll one around in your mouth ’til it is fully dissolved before you swallow. One at a time
only.
’Twill bring you a full night’s sleep at least. Make them last.”
    Harker took the vial. One of his blisters brushed my skin; it burned cold. He put the little jar into the folds of his robe—some pocket hidden within—and said, “You give the heliotrope; you give me your own escape. Why not the jar of minion? You are shrewd, Healer.”
    I pressed the satchel against my cloak. “The minion is too precious to trade.” I said it firmly, disconcerted that he knew I carried minion and that I wanted the heliotrope for my own end. He was the shrewd one.
    “True,” he was answering. “But that is not why. Still, a penny’s worth of sleep for a penny’s worth of fortune.” Harker pushed himself up from the stone; I saw how it hurt to use his hands. A constant suffering. “Stand away from me, Evie Carew. Step into the stream.”
    I knew what he meant. Running water held no intent, no spells good or bad. It was a fair place to wait, fair of him to ask. I stepped back into the cool shallows and felt the pebbled bed loosen around my toes and disperse. I held my breath, held in my eagerness for his words.
    Harker too stepped back. He lifted his face to catch the dying sun full on it, his scrawny little frame stiffening. And he