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one who engages in blackmail.”
    The elemental mage muttered something that verged on obscenity. “I guess you’d prefer to stay here then. Good-bye and long may Fortune shield your most charming self.”
    He could not see in the dark but he could feel the sand to his right shift—the elemental mage was sinking down. “Wait.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    He wavered for a moment. “I will come with you.”
    A nonharming covenant was not as airtight a bond as a blood oath: nothing prevented the elemental mage from turning him over to a third party that wished him ill. But under the surface, where there were no third parties, he should be safe enough.
    â€œAre you sure? I might take it as permission to further push my company on you.”
    The elemental mage’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Reassuring, that: he vastly preferred someone who wanted nothing to do with him. “I will have to endure it for your remedies.”
    The elemental mage burrowed beneath him, the movement causing a wave of agony. He ground his teeth and concentrated on modifying the tensile dome into a normal, mobile shield, which should keep a bubble of air around them and prevent sand from falling onto his back.
    The elemental mage wrapped one arm around his neck and hooked a leg behind his knees. They began to sink, sand excavated from underneath flowing up either side of the shield to the top.
    â€œAnd how do you know my remedies aren’t poisoned?” said the elemental mage as they descended.
    â€œI assume they are.”
    â€œI look forward to applying them to you then.”
    They sank more rapidly. Something was not quite right. The elemental mage had seemed rangy of build, but with their torsos pressed tightly together, he did not feel nearly as much skeleton as he had anticipated. In fact . . . in fact . . .
    He sucked in a breath—and hissed at the pain that shot through him. But there could be no doubt about it. “You are a girl.”
    She was unmoved by his discovery. “And?”
    â€œYou are dressed as a man.”
    â€œYou are dressed as a nonmage.”
    He did not know that. When he had come to, he had been lying on his back, hot sand digging into the open wound on his back. It had been all he could do to turn onto his stomach and build the tensile dome—he had paid no attention to what he wore. And later, when he needed a sharp implement, he had simply tried a pocket, without thinking about whether mage attire would have a pocket at that particular place.
    The whole thing was becoming more incomprehensible by the minute. Waking up in the middle of a desert, injured, with no idea how he had come to the place was bad enough. Now nonmage clothes too?
    They stopped.
    â€œBedrock in three feet.” She slipped out from underneath him.
    His nails dug into the center of his palm, fighting against the fresh, searing pain brought on by her movement.
    A clear, blue mage light grew and spread. “I am going to look at your wound. You’ll be a burden to me if you can’t move on your own.”
    With the nonharming covenant in place, she could not do anything to worsen his condition. Still, unease seized him at the thought of being more or less at her mercy. But he had no choice. “Go ahead.”
    She cut away his clothes and sprinkled a cool, fragrant liquid onto his wound, a rain that doused a raging wildfire. He heard himself pant—from the blessed reduction of pain.
    â€œNow I need to clean the wound,” she warned him.
    Innumerable particles of sand had dug into his flesh. It might be a literal bloodbath to take them all out. Dread roared in his head; he clenched his teeth and said nothing.
    The pain returned, sharp and tearing. He swallowed a scream and braced himself for more. But she only sprinkled more of what must be tears of the Angels on his back.
    â€œIt’s done,” she said. “I removed all the grains