Chapter 24

Falca looked at her morning meal in disgust.

“I’d eat better in a cage,” Falca said. “Bread and dried meat and fruit for breakfast two days in a row is so uncivilized.”

“Stop whining,” Tomas said. His back was killing him. He was getting too old to spend the night sleeping on the ground. He stretched out his aching muscles as Nata emerged from her tent. “There’s a sight to loosen the joints,” he said. “Any chance you can whip up some bobs like the ones at Bits & Chips, darling?”

“First of all, I don’t do magic before I’ve had my morning coffee. Second, no mage can create something from nothing.”

“There’s grass all over here. And trees and rocks. Plenty of raw material for an exceptional mage like you.”

Nata gave him such a glare of disgust that Tomas gave up and ducked back into his tent to return to the futile search for any normal food he had overlooked.

Bartz kept out of the little spats. He knew the others would benefit from learning to in