Lanterns set on every available surface filled the workshop with warm golden light. Kacey sat straddling a workbench, callused fingers running over the smooth surface she was working on. Lathe-turned, with an almost sinuous flow, the chair leg was also deceptively sturdy - it had to be, to support the weight of the man it was meant for.

Another time that thought might have turned up her mouth into its crooked smile. Now she watched her hand move over the wood as if it were a stranger's. That was how it felt, as if her thoughts, her body, had no connect to the wood in her hand. Where her short nails grazed the satin finish, trails of crimson welled up behind, the grain of wood splitting like sliced flesh.

Pupils pinpointed and then flared wide, swallowing chocolate-brown irises despite the brightness of the room. Her fingers continued their lazy caress and the copper-salt tang of blood mingled with sawdust and linseed oil - and then overwhelmed it. Her fingers were wrapped around the handle of a wicked blade, one that moved as easily through skin and muscle as through the air.

Flesh parted, showing banded layers of bright red muscle for a bare instant before the crimson burst out in a spray, hot and slick. She couldn't hear anything. Not the sound of her breath, coming in harsh gulps, or the pained scream of the man she faced. Just a rushing in her ears that sounded like a river running around the pillars of a bridge.

Workboots rested flat on the floor, her back was straight, and callused fingers trailed over the chair leg while she stared at another time and place. The rushing, roaring, filled her ears.

Her heel came down on someone's hand - not that the strangers would ever know it with his blue eyes looking sightlessly up at the sky. Some portion of her mind framed the twisted face, noted that once those blue eyes must have been his best feature. Then she looked up, and faced a gap-toothed grin.

The rap on the door brought Kacey back to the present with a jolt. She blinked once, twice while her pupils returned to their normal dimensions, and then she looked down at her hand and the chair leg clenched in it. She could feel its heft and satin texture - and she could feel her own heart racing, hear her breathing in ragged gasps.

It took another moment for Kacey to recall the sound and connect it with meaning - someone knocking on the door. The front door, the business door. She put down the chair leg and swung her leg over the bench, stood. The red linen bandanna which held her hair back from her face got an absent smoothing before she crossed the workshop.

Opening the door, her eyes widened with surprise and then dulled with a faint and resigned acceptance. The rushing, roaring sound of nothingness filled her ears again. This wasn't a memory filled with blood, but it was a memory nonetheless. A dream, more accurately, of a friend who had vanished without word or trace months before.

"Leri?" At least this would be a dream she could enjoy. Kacey opened the door wider and stepped back, inviting her hallucination in.

Surreal, the swirl of light and color, scent and sound that breezed in with Lerida. Vivid red hair, autumn-tinted skirts, sandalwood and spice ? it all overwhelmed the sharp notes of sawdust and shades of brown that made up Kacey?s workshop. It wasn?t until Leri?s knuckles brushed from her scarf down over her cheek that Kacey realized this was no dream, no self-delusion creeping into her fragile reality. At Leri?s quiet apology a strangled sound escaped her, somewhere between laughter and tears.

To hide the reaction, Kacey turned and carefully hung up the ?Closed? sign, shut the door. Fingers marked with scrapes and scars worked blindly while she closed her eyes, listening to the musical notes of Lerida?s voice. When Leri mentioned the work she had come to pick up, the pieces she had ordered so many months before, Kacey flinched and finally turned back around. Chocolate brown eyes studied her friend for a scant moment before flicking away. She crossed to a storage rack opposite the musician, leaned against it, using the sharp bite of the corner into her right shoulder as an anchor to the here and now.

Kacey?s contralto voice came out thick with disuse ? how long since she had last spoken? ? when she answered Leri?s last words first. ?I missed you too. Worried about you.? She could have expanded on that, but to what point? Leri was back and looked ? stronger. Even with that woeful expression on her face, Leri didn?t look as brittle as she had been the last time Kacey had seen her. The flash of Kacey?s crooked smile for that thought evaporated quickly.

?I don?t have your table, the chairs. Tried to deliver them when they were finished, but you were already gone, and then the fire - ? Kacey broke off, paused, and began again with words coming more easily as she remembered their shapes. ?It sounds like they wouldn?t have fit in your new place in any case.? Her right hand tightened where it gripped her left shoulder, her left arm pulled closer around her stomach. Her gaze flicked from one corner of the room to the other, never quite settling on Lerida?s face and that sad, hopeful smile.

Suddenly Kacey smiled, a slow lopsided smile that crept out of nowhere. ?It?s not like I?m one to talk about running. At least you came back.? Subtle emphasis on the word you ? so many others hadn?t, wouldn?t, couldn?t, including herself. Finally she did look squarely at Leri, dark brown gaze to capture the pools of sea-green. ?So tell me what you need for your new place.? Her smile deepened with the offer.

It was the empathy in Leri?s voice that almost undid her, the unhesitating offer of help. Her fingers dug into her shoulder, knuckles whitening with the effort of holding back tears. She had to swallow back the lump in her throat before she could force out words; the relaxed form of the songstress shimmered for a moment before she blinked away the sheen of moisture.

?I?? About to reply that she didn?t need any help, that the shop was repaired and the work going well, abruptly she changed her mind. Lerida deserved better than the simple brush-off. Especially when it wasn?t precisely true; she had taken on too much work in an effort to drown her demons. Camera-flash her smile, bright and quick before it was gone. ?How are you with sandpaper? Or a jigsaw??

More weight to the simple questions than immediately apparent. Forgiveness, welcome, trust ? especially trust. It was a hard thing for the self-reliant former mercenary to give, harder not to pull back the words as soon as they had been spoken. But there was still that odd click with Leri, the feeling of kindred spirits meshing, a sister closer than her own sister had ever been.

So Kacey recovered her lopsided smile through the banked veil of tears, and tilted her head in the direction of a worktable littered with cut and shaped sections of wood, waiting on their smoothing. ?Took on too many jobs trying to make up the expenses. If you?re willing to give it ? I could use your help.?