CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

"You know, you caused me a lot of worry." I scolded her.

"So much worry you didn't check up me on for days. Sure, whatever Dad." Mallow huffed. We walked on in silence. Eventually we came to the top of an overlook. An uneven stairway ran down the face of a small hill, leading down to a tiny residential district full of cottages with sooty thatched roofs and cramped yards full of vegetables, chickens, and flowers. I rested on the ledge there while Mallow stretched beside me, letting her white fingertips reach up to the sky.

"Hey... though..." She lowered her hand onto my shoulder. "I'm sorry you got beaten up."

"Nah, it's all right ." I waved. "...your admirer fixed me up, and anyway, before you came into my life, I was like that half the time." On the winding trail below, a man pulled along three young goats by a thick rope. They trotted, wobbly kneed, behind him. "You should have seen me during my phase when I thought I could be a pickpocket. My hands spent more time broken than not." I cracked my perfectly functioning fingers. "I'd convinced the Avalons that I'd repented and would never pick a pocket again, but I needed my hands to do a trade, so they healed me."

Mallow laughed. "Stupid Avalons."

"Yeah, stupid Avalons, but stupider me. The racket we got now is much better."

She grimaced uncomfortably. Her gaze was fixed in the distance on a gnarled tree that sprung up from one of the square centers. I didn't ask what was wrong. I didn't have to. From her litany of changing expressions, I knew at any moment she would share, when she had pinpointed herself exactly what it was that was causing her pain.

About five minutes later, she said, "Hey, Dad..."

"Yes?" I said. The view from here was soothing. I understood why sorcerers always built their homes high above the rest.

"Dad, why... why did you take so long to come find me?"

"You heard what it was like when I finally did get inside the doors. Imagine what the guards were like outside. They told me I couldn't see you no less than five times!" It was all true, even if one of those times was because I was late and the other four were twenty minutes ago. She let her heavy head drop with a puff of air.

"The Boeren... Wallet... he said a lot of awful things. While we were in there."

"He's pretty awful, yeah." I agreed.

"I made the mistake of talking about you and me. And he said..." She knotted up her hair in her hands, face crinkling with anxiety. "He said... he said you were taking so long to come and get me, because..."

"Because?" I asked, when her voice faded off without resolution.

"Because I'm a pet. A pet to you." Her bellowing voice was laced with doubt. "He said, 'Your human probably thinks it's great the city is stabling his pet for him. Now he doesn't have to worry about it. He's busy forgetting you.' It's all I had to think about for three days, Dad."

"That's absurd! You're my partner in business! The operation doesn't work without you."

"Neither does a farm without cows, but that doesn't mean they matter to the farmer."

"Cows definitely matter." It wasn't the right response—tears formed in Mallow's eyes—but it was the one I had to give, because they did. If the cows went, a whole family could starve. I knew from experience. "Uh." I tried to get back to the point. She was upset. "But no, you heard Winsor in there. You're a beautiful—"

"Creature?" she finished. "Yeah, no, that doesn't really help much."

I threw up my hands.

"However weak his courting skills, he did ...I mean—" I couldn't believe I was using an example that made me so uncomfortable to remind Mallow of her own worth. "...he was really. Really...." Not in love. Not infatuated. Awestruck, maybe. "...interested in you!"'

"He called me a creature," Mallow repeated.

"He's a sorcerer! They're dumb! But rich! Really, really rich and you're all, 'I want love.' Now that someone, someone rich no less, thinks you deserve it, you think you're worthless not even ten minutes later. You're contrary on purpose."

"Dad, that's different!"

I held my hands up in front of me. She was too angry to be crying now, which was a relief. Mission accomplished. I relaxed.

"All I'm saying is if a sorceress was ever making eyes like that at me, I'd let her call me whatever she wants."

"That's because you love coin more than love."

"You've never even been in love before."

"I might be now." She pointed over the edge of the ledge. Two Avalons were walking through the center of the avenue, talking. They occasionally waved their hands to deter people walking toward them. A subtle spell, quietly cast, making people forgetful of whatever favor they were going to ask the glinting heroes. One of them was Stabby, the other was Sir Osoro.

"What?"

"Sir Osoro." She wheezed wistfully. "He's much more my type anyway. We talked, a little."

"You've never shown a preference for any man before, so you don't have a type." I'd have been relieved that Mallow had no interest in Winsor, but the fact that she was instead drooling over the man that had thrown her in the dungeon in the first place was more upsetting than Winsor's clumsy flirting had been.

"I know my type is definitely not little weirdos who say a lot of stuff I can't understand, magic or no. The Avalons are more... brave... and ... handsome... and... respected." She swooned. After the Avalons were out of sight, she drummed her hands on the stone ledge. "So... where are we staying? What did you arrange for me?"

I was quiet.

I... hadn't arranged anything.

"I didn't arrange anything," I confessed.

As volatile as a poorly mixed potion, her jaw trembled.

"You did forget about me!"

"What? No!"

"We've been in town for three days, and you didn't even find a room for me to crash in!?" she wailed. Her foot stomped the ground, and had it not been solid stone it would have shaken. "I would have been better off sleeping in the dungeon after all! I'm going to have to sleep outside again!"

"Mallow, calm down. It's all right..." I reached out my hands. She shook her head violently.

"You are such a jerk! I'm just a pet to you, like Wallet said! Throw the dog in the yard; it won't care!"

"Now you're on a first name basis with Tusk Face?" I asked.

"Don't change the subject! Admit it! I'm nothing but a big, stupid, tamed monster to you!"

"Hey! I've been with you your entire life. That Boeren's only been around for two days! Who are you going to trust, me or him?"

"I always thought I was the one person you didn't lie to." She wiped at her eyes furiously with her oversized hands. "But... of course. No exceptions! I'm a tool!"

"No, you're..." Why was it so easy to tell other people she was my daughter, but so hard to tell her? "You're important to me."

"Yeah, like the cows." She sniffed. "You know, in there, I realized I don't even know anything about you! I don't know where you came from, or where you want to go. I don't know why you sell potions or even your family name!"

"None of that stuff matters, Mallow. I became a different person the moment I met you," I pleaded. "I changed so completely. You changed me so completely. Who I am is who you know and nothing else! No deceit! I promise!"

The tears stopped streaming down her face.

"You... you mean that?" I stepped close and climbed onto the ledge. I jammed my boots between two of the widely spaced stones for balance and then leaned forward. I rested my forehead on hers. She had liked this when she was younger, but it'd been a few years since I'd tried it, her being so tall.

"I have never meant anything more in my life," I said. "That Boeren is a creep who is jealous because he knows that you, unlike him, have someone who loves you."

She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me. I was lifted off the wall and dangled helplessly in her intense embrace, but felt relieved at her abating sadness.

I heard footsteps, but paid them no mind as I didn't think they could be for us. I had talked Mallow down from one of her tantrums, which was all that mattered. They had been getting scarier as she got older...

The footsteps came to a stop behind us. We both took in an unassuming person in an overcoat and a small hat. At first I thought he was gawking at Mallow's Giantness, but then my heart seized. He had a small glass bottle in his hands. A bottle I had sold him. Oh, no. Oh no no no no no no! Not now, you icicle. I tried to compel the words from my thoughts into his through sheer will alone, but of course, I was ungifted and he had clearly decided now was the PERFECT time.

"I bought this yesterday?" The man began, inflection rising at the end as he studied the bottle. "And I drank the dose recommended?" Why was it a question? Didn't he know? "And I am not feeling any effects yet?" Then his gaze drifted up. He took a step back as he gaped at Mallow.

"See, as I explained." It got harder to breath as Mallow's muscles tightened around me. "You need to take it consistently for a month for the effects to kick in." I could have denied it. I could have acted like I didn't sell him anything. But I was caught. I could tell Mallow wouldn't believe that from how hard the muscles in her arms had grown.

"Oh, right! Thanks?" Certain of that, the man tucked the remainder of the potion into an inside pocket and walked off. "Have a nice day?"

Although at first I had wished he would disappear before he had spoken, now he couldn't linger long enough. I counted down with each step he took away from me and Mallow. This was going to be bad. Very, very bad.

Mallow half dropped, half threw me on the ground. I shouted from the pain and conflicted rage and guilt twisted her features.

"You smooth talking, conniving—"

"Mallow, I had to raise the money for your bail!" I pleaded.

"I told you! I asked you! You promised me!" Her shoulders hunched. "You promised me you wouldn't sell a single potion until I got my shoes!"

"Mallow, you don't understand. You weren't there. You didn't see the crowd!"

"It doesn't matter! You promised!"

"You weren't there!"

"That makes it even worse that you did it!" She kicked at the ledge, and a stone jutted halfway out, larger than my torso. "Is it so hard to be honest for a few days? When you know it means so much to me?"

"Mallow—"

"You don't care about me at all! I knew it! I knew it!"

"I came and got you!"

"Just so you won't get beaten in a couple of days when they find out what a phony fraud con man you are, like they always do! It sounded like Winton had already figured it out. I should have been tipped off by how he kept calling you a liar. He knows you better than me and you raised me," she hissed. I was surprised by her consideration, lowering her voice so it was a quiet hiss. Mallow knew, being Mallow, that people were watching from windows and from doorways, from alleys and other hidden spaces where they felt like they could see the Giant, but the Giant couldn't get to them. She hadn't blown my story early, even when boiling over with rage like this.

"You're overreacting," I said.

"And you're a liar." She shook her head. "Not a liar to everyone else, but a liar to me. And... you're all I have, so that... that..." Tears flowed freely from her large eyes, splashing onto the stone beneath our feet by the cupful. She huffed, trying to control her voice. "I'll find my own place to stay. Save you the trouble of pretending to care." She placed a hand on the ledge, positioning herself to jump to the level below.

"Mallow, wait!" I said. She leapt, landing with a booming thud. People scattered, and she stormed off down the street, hands swinging at her sides and face gray from fury. My own face felt warm.

I ran after her while not following her direct path. I had to take the stairs instead of leaping off of the ledge, and by the time I made it to the base of the stairs, she was several blocks away. I hesitated. Should I chase her? She was pretty mad, and mad Giants got pretty violent, and....

But Mallow would never hurt me.

Probably.

(( A/N: Enjoying the story? Can't wait for the next part? Consider purchasing the paperback edition at Amazon: http://a.co/7VR3t4g  or smashwords ( https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/658059 )  I'll be uploading the entire story here too, one chapter a week, so you'll get the tale if you're patient. Thank you for the support! :) ))