Awakenings

                J.T., Thom, and I took the graveyard watch that night.  Thom and I were supposed to watch the world outside the tent while Jay kept the death-watch on Phelan.
                There’d been little change since they pulled him out of the river, just his breathing getting slightly stronger.  He lay shivering under blankets next to the fire, face pale as death itself and his eyes still sunken into shadowed hollows.  Jacqueline and J.T. had tended and bound his wounds, but the work had taken them hours—mostly in the cleaning, Jacqueline had confided at dinner.  In addition to the old but healing rent in his side and the wound in his shoulder from the knife Vammatar threw, there was a shallow gash across his belly where she’d tried to get the better of him along with a dozen other shallow scrapes and cuts.  There were twin wounds on his hand, deeper than the rest; one was a slash across his palm and second across the inside of his fingers.  The wound went down to the bone, looking like he’d grabbed a blade bare-handed and held it as tightly as he could.  Maybe he had.  We couldn’t know, and wouldn’t until he woke up and could tell us.
                The clouds had cleared, leaving us with a frigid, starlit night.  My breath steamed in the night air as I stood at the edge of the big tent, watching for signs of movement in the darkness.
                There’d been nothing so far.  The moon was high and cold in the sky; it was after midnight.  It was almost disconcertingly quiet.
                I turned at the sound of footsteps.  J.T. looked like a ghost in the starlight, his eyes tiny, glittering dots ringed by deep shadows.  He shivered slightly as he came to stand alongside me, zipping his leather jacket all the way up to his chin.
                “How are you out here in just that sweatshirt?” he muttered.  “It’s fucking freezing.”
                “I haven’t been camped out next to the fire for as long as you have,” I said.  “It doesn’t feel as cold to me.”
                J.T. shivered again, staring out into the night.
                “I thought you were staying with Phelan,” I said after a few moments of silence.
                “Thom’s sitting with him.  I needed some air and to stretch my legs.  Been sitting for hours.”
                I reached up and ruffled his still-damp hair.  “At least you got to clean up a little.”  He’d done it twice; once after making it back to camp and then again after he and Jacqueline had finished with Phelan—J.T. had been full of blood from their work on the gash across Phelan’s abdomen, from their attempts to make sure it wasn’t any deeper than they thought.
                “Didn’t get a vote.  Jac wasn’t going to let me help if I wasn’t clean.”  He gave me a brief smile.  “I didn’t blame her.  River still stinks to high heaven.  Felt like my skin wanted to crawl right off my bones.”
                I shuddered at the thought.  That he and Matt had both jumped into the Grand after Phelan spoke volumes about Phelan’s importance to us all.
                I forced a smile.  “And Tala wasn’t going to feed you until you got cleaned up.”
                J.T. managed to smile back, tapping a fingertip against the side of his nose.  “You got it.” His eyes drifted to the sky and he stretched, going quiet again.  I smothered a yawn and shoved my hands into the pocket of my hoodie.
                “You two don’t actually have to stay up,” J.T. said, watching me.  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the company, but I can keep an eye on everything and unconscious lovely over there.”
                We both couldn’t sleep if we tried, Jay.”  I rubbed at my eyes.  “Even if we’re both tired.  I managed to doze a little before the watch—that sucked, by the way, because I kept getting little mini replays of today every time I closed my eyes—but he was just laying there staring at the ceiling.”
                J.T. grunted.  “Must be worried like the rest of us.”
                I shrugged.  “Probably.”
                A mist was starting to roll in, the sudden dampness making my toes curl inside my shoes.  J.T. shivered again, eyes half-glazed in the moonlight.
                “They’re here,” he whispered.
                “Who?”  I asked, heart sinking as the hair on the back of my neck started to rise.  Shit.  Shit and goddamn, what now?  I started to turn away, to head back into the tent and start raising alarm.
                J.T.’s hand snapped out to stop me.
                “No,” he said hoarsely.  “Wait.  Just—just wait.  It’s okay.”
                “Jay?”
                “The ghosts,” he whispered.  “I haven’t seen them since that day the camazotzi attacked.  Not like this.  She said we were on our own.”
                She was right.
                I went rigid, suddenly out of breath, as if someone had punched me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me.  The voice.
                It was the voice I’d heard on that September afternoon five years ago, the voice I’d heard again the day the world ended.  I sucked in a ragged breath, feeling like someone was sitting on my chest.  J.T.’s fingers tightened painfully on my arm.
                Eyes glowed somewhere in the mist directly ahead of us, amber-bright in the darkness.  A crow cawed, the sound so loud in the strange silence it made me jump.
                The voice became a purr.
                Seer and Spiritweaver, Spiritweaver and Seer.  Those who can see me and hear my voice without trying bar my passage.  Fitting.  The other Seer is beyond, too, isn’t he?  Guarding our wandering son against the things that come in the night.
                My heart thundered against my ribs, mouth dry as the dust of a Michigan August.  “Who are you?”  I whispered, almost too terrified to speak.
                A tall, willowy woman stepped clear of the mists, the gray of her robes making her look almost like a ghost herself.  A narrow band of worked silver held thick, curling silver-white hair back from her face, her amber eyes burning like the streetlights had, once upon a time.  My breath caught in my throat and I took an involuntary step back from her.  She laughed silently, though her shoulders shook with the motions.
                You already know.
                I swallowed bile and pressed against J.T., who stood firm.
                “You won’t take him tonight,” he said, his words half a growl, half a command.
                No, she agreed.  Not this night.  His death was written for a day where the sun is high and the hawks call to each other above.
                “Then why come?” I found myself asking.
                To bear warning to my kith and kin who can see beyond the pale—to the three of you.
                A hand touched my shoulder.  I looked back to see Thom standing behind me, his breathing shallow and eyes wide in a face devoid of all color.
                Someday, you will pay a price, she promised.  It is not this day, nor is it the next, but there is a price that will be paid.  A smile touched her wine-red lips.  You are stronger than any I have encountered before.  That is a victory for you, however small.  You have bent, but you have not broken.
                That will not always be the case, mo milseáin.  I promise.
                The crow called again.  She turned away and walked into the mist.
                Good luck.  You shall need it.

                “Matt?”
                He was bent over his anvil, hammering away at an iron rod laid across it.  Each blow sent shivers up his limbs.  The muscles of his arms and neck stood out, his jaw set as he jerked his head up at the sound of my voice.
                Light glinted off the rivulets of moisture running down his face.  Tears.  He was crying.
                Oh Matt.
                “What do you want, Marin?” he asked, voice rough and hoarse.  He mopped his eyes with his sleeve and set down his hammer.  His fingers stayed half curled, as if they were stiff from wielding that hammer and holding the iron in place.
                I shook my head.  “Why are you trying to cold-hammer that?  You’re going to hurt yourself.”
                “I don’t care,” he said.  “At least I’d still be feeling.”
                My stomach flopped.  “What’s wrong?”
                “Maybe nothing and maybe everything.  Is he going to live?”
                Christ.  “I don’t know, Matt.  I don’t know if any of us know.”
                He shook his head as he sank down on a stack of bricks near his anvil, his voice as bleak as his vacant, hopeless gaze.  “I didn’t even think when we spotted him in the river.  I just dove right in to pull him out again.  We almost couldn’t find a pulse and he was barely breathing and I—Mar, all I could think about was what that crazy bitch said when the fight started and now we would never fucking know what she was talking about if he died.
                “He was standing his ground to protect us, but I’ll be damned if I understand why.  I mean, him protecting you I understand, but the rest of us I just don’t get.  He looked at you, he looked at J.T., and he looked at me.  Why are we so damn important to him?”
                I squeezed onto the pile of bricks with him and slid my arm around his shoulders.  He shivered, swallowing hard.  I rested my chin against his temple and sighed.  “Because we are, Matty.  He told me once that I reminded him of someone he knew once upon a time.  He didn’t tell me much more than that, though.”  I wonder if it has something to do with that weird vision I had during the battle, after I touched J.T.
                Matt sighed.  “I really don’t think he’d go toe-to-toe with that bitch out of simple sentiment.”
                “Maybe, maybe not.  He’s pretty serious about loyalty.”
                He grunted.  We were both quiet for a few long moments before he said, “When do you think we’ll know?”
                “About what?”
                He winced.  “Whether or not he’s going to make it.”
                “Oh.”  I frowned, sighing and shaking my head after a few long moments.  “I don’t know.  Thom said he’d come up here if something’s changed.”
                “Did he send you up here?”
                I looked at Matt, mildly surprised by the question.
                “Thom,” he clarified.
                “How did you know?”
                He shrugged, eyes focusing on something in the distance.  “I knew that you were with him, and he’s got this gift for getting you to focus on more than whatever the hell you’re fixated on.  Most of the time, anyway.”
                “And you thought I’d be fixated on something?”
                “I knew you would be.  The same thing I am.”  Matt leaned against me, shaking his head slightly.  “The same thing most of us are fixated on right now.  Do you think that could’ve been her plan?  Distract us by hurting—”
                “No,” I said firmly, even though my stomach did a full backflip at the thought.  Could that have been her plan?  If it was, she’s failed because she’s dead.  She has to be dead.  The birdshot was chewing her up even before Phelan got his hands on her.  He’ll tell us when he wakes up. He’ll tell us everything.  “I won’t say that I don’t think that she was that smart—I have no way of actually knowing that—but I will say that she’s too dead to make good on any threat like that.  She has to be.”
                Matt nodded after a moment.  “If you say it, I have to believe it.”
                I laughed bitterly.  “You’re the one who didn’t find a body.  It doesn’t matter.  If she wasn’t gone, she’d have shown up again by now.”
                “Why did you have to say that, Mar?”  Matt said, groaning.  “Now she’s going to show up.”
                We both held our breath, but no laughter came.  The only shadow that passed over us was a hawk that cried and made us both jump.  I started laughing helplessly, the tension suddenly broken.  Matt clung to me, breathing raggedly as tears started to roll down his face again.
                “We could’ve been killed today, couldn’t we?” he asked.  “All of us.  We could’ve been wiped off the map.”
                I sucked in a few ragged breaths, forcing down my hysterical laughter and looking at him.  I reached up and cupped his face between my palms.  “But we weren’t, Matty.  We weren’t.  We’re still here—all of us are still here.”
                “Someday we won’t be,” he said quietly.  “Not unless we can figure out more ways to defend ourselves.  Not unless I can figure out more ways for us to defend ourselves.”
                I stared at him.  “No one made it your job, Matt.”
                “You’re wrong, Mar,” he murmured.  “I did, and I’m going to do it.  I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to do it.”
                “Let me help,” I said.
                “I’ll let everyone help.”  He rested his forehead against mine.   “Go back down to Thom,” he said.  “Tell him what I said and thank him for me.”
                My heart sank.  He’s going to want to talk to you about this, Matt.  “Matt—”
                “I’ll come down later, but I’m not going to talk about this tonight.  Just let me think for a little while, okay?”
                I kissed his forehead.  “Okay.”
                My brother gave me one last squeeze before he sent me on my way.

                “There was nothing you could have done,” Thom said for at least the tenth time, his arm locked around my shoulders.
                “There must have been,” I muttered.  My stomach folded in on itself once and then over again.  “I should have gone after him when I had the chance—I shouldn’t have let Jay stop me.”
                “Hey.”  Thom took my chin in his hand and turned my head so I couldn’t keep avoiding his gaze.  “I’m glad he stopped you.  I’m terrified by what could have happened if he hadn’t.”
                I put my hand on his cheek. His eyes were bright with unshed tears that didn’t hide the pain and fear that lurked within the blue.  He wasn’t kidding or exaggerating, I realized.  I swallowed hard and rested my head against his.
                “I don’t want to lose you,” he murmured.  “I don’t think I could stand it, Mar.”
                “Well, you didn’t this time,” I said quietly.  “And you’re not going to any other time.”
                “Promise?”
                “Promise.”
                He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
                Rory cleared his throat to our left.  My face flamed for a brief second as Thom and I turned toward him in the same breath, the same motion.
                “What is it?”  I asked, the warmth disappearing from my cheeks.
                He held out a small scrap of folded paper.  “Found this.  Almost missed it since it’s so damn dark in there.  We should’ve snagged a lantern before we went in.”
                I took the scrap and began to unfold it with shaky fingers.
                “How is he?”  Rory asked.  I froze in mid-motion.
                “I—we don’t know,” I said.  “Jac and J.T. are working on him right now—at least they were when they kicked me out of the tent.  Jac didn’t want me underfoot again.”
                Thom squeezed my arm tightly.  I took a deep breath and finally finished unfolding the note.
                The handwriting was unfamiliar, but it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who’d written it.  The writing was slightly rushed, but the words were clear.

                 I’m sorry.  I never wanted to hurt anyone and I don’t want to hurt anyone on accident, which I’m afraid I might if I stay.
                So I’m not going to stay.
                The voices aren’t shouting right now.  I think I’ll make it far enough that I won’t be able to hear them anymore.
                Maybe you’ll see me again.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.
               My herbiary is under my pillow.  Give it to Jac.  She’ll know what to do.

— L.

                 “She walked away,” I murmured.  “She walked away so she wouldn’t hurt any of us.”  I handed the note to Thom, my gaze drifting toward Rory.  “Does it look like she took anything?”
                “A backpack, a few boxes of pop tarts, some apples, and a canteen, looked like.”  He shook his head slightly.  “Enough food—barely—for her to make it a week or so on the road, maybe.”
                That’s a lot of toaster pastries.  I rubbed my temple, brows knitting.  Thom squeezed my arm again.
                “She made a choice, Mar.  Whatever happens to her from here on out is on her head, not yours.”
                I nodded mutely.  That only helps a little, but thanks, sweetheart.
                Thom passed the note to Rory, who skimmed it before tucking it into his pocket.  “Thom’s right,” he said.
                “I know,” I muttered, starting to walk away from the supply tent.  “But that doesn’t make it much easier.”  Was there something we could have done to help her?
                I was never going to know the answer to that question.
                Camp was eerily quiet as the three of us headed back to the main tent, as if everyone was holding their breath.  The only sounds were the animals—the sheep milling around in their makeshift pen, the birds calling to each other from the trees—and the sound of my brother banging on something up on the hillock where his forge would be someday.  Thom was staring in that direction, a strange look on his face.
                “Maybe you should go up there,” he said quietly as Rory kept walking toward the main tent.  “Matt might need to talk.”
                “Will you come with me?” I asked.
                Thom grunted, shaking his head.  “I’m going to go get cleaned up and lay down.”  He kissed my temple.  “You should do the same after you’ve checked on Matt.”
                “Maybe,” I said quietly, glancing toward the hillock.  Thom wrapped his arms around me, holding on tight for a few long, precious moments.  “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, Thom,” I murmured into his shoulder.  “I keep waiting for the next disaster.”
                He stared down at me and shook his head with a faint, wry smile.  “Haven’t we had enough for one day?”
                I had to laugh.  “I don’t know,” I said.  “Maybe.  I’m really not sure.”  I closed my eyes and leaned against him again.  I could smell woodsmoke and the forest, a scent that was half real, half imagined.

                His arms were around my shoulders as we stared into the campfire at our feet, his beard tickling my temple.  I wrapped my hand tightly around one of his and sighed softly.
                “I’m sorry I dragged you out here with me,” I whispered.  “It must feel like we’re on some insane wild goose chase.”
                “I wasn’t going to let you go alone,” he murmured.  His whiskers made me squirm as the tip of his nose brushed against the upper rim of my ear.  “Whether you asked me or not, you were going to be stuck with me.”
                “Even if I told you not to leave them?  Not to leave him?”
                Thom nodded slightly.  “Even then.  They’ll have taken good care of him, Mar, you know that—better than I ever could have by myself.”
                I closed my eyes.
                “I made you a promise,” he whispered.  “And it’s not one I’m going to break.”

                I shivered a little.  Thom’s arms tightened one more time before he let go and stepped back.
                “Go on, make sure Matt doesn’t hurt himself,” he said, brushing hair out of my face.  “I’ll come up if something changes.”
                “Promise?”
                He smiled.  “Promise.”

                I savagely seized the flap of the supply tent and flipped it open, only to hear Kellin shouting for me from the ward line.  I spun around, cursing under my breath.  I couldn’t quite hear what she was saying, what she was shouting.
                “You two check this out,” I growled at Thom and Rory.  “I’ve got to go see what Kellin needs.”
                “Be careful,” Thom said, squeezing my arm before he let me go.  I gave him a quick smile that I’m pretty sure didn’t reach my eyes.
                “I will be.”
                I jogged across the lawn toward the sound of Kellin’s voice.  It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized she wasn’t yelling because of a ward or anything like that.
                “Mar, get Jacqueline down here with her bag!  I think we’re going to need her.”
                Shit, shit, shit and goddamn.  “What’s going on?”
                “Just do it!”
                I cursed again and took off for the tent.  “Jac!  Jac, where are you?”
                She stood up from here seat near the fire, her kit arranged around her with a blanket spread by the fire, still ready to accept any wounded that might have been brought back to her—preparations that had been for naught so far, but probably not for much longer.
                “What’s wrong?”
                “Don’t know,” I said, stopping to catch my breath for a second.  Blood pounded in my ears and my head throbbed.  My adrenaline spiking up and down wasn’t doing me any favors; I’d be a mess tomorrow if I survived today.  “Kel said we needed you.  Grab your bag and let’s go.”
                “Most of my bag’s spread out all over the place here,” she said, scooping up a roll of bandages, a bag of cotton swabs, and a bottle of alcohol.  She stuffed them in her satchel and hopped over the blanket laid out next to the fire.  “Where’s J.T.?”
                I winced.  She doesn’t know.  Shit.  “Looking for Phelan in the ravine.”
                “Looking for—what?”
                I waved my hands quickly, then grabbed one of hers and started to drag her toward the ward lines and Kellin.  “Don’t ask, just come.”
                “Too bad!  I’m asking.”  She kept pace with me easily as we jogged toward where I’d last seen Kellin.
                “Best we can figure, Phelan tackled Vammatar into the ravine.  J.T. and Matt and some of the others went to try to find him down there, since there wasn’t any sign below where they went down.”
                “Idiot,” Jacqueline growled.
                My thoughts exactly.  I set my jaw.
                Kellin had crossed the wards and stood at the very edge of the ravine by the time we made it to her.  She glanced up at the sound of our voices and waved us over.  Her expression was grave, complexion washed out.
                My heart dropped to my knees.  “What’s wrong?”
                “Kel, give me your hand.  My foot’s stuck.”
                Kellin turned around and reached down over the edge of the ravine, then hauled back.  Carolyn’s head appeared, followed by the rest of her, soaking wet and spattered with mud.
                Jacqueline went pale and moved toward the edge.
                I was right behind.
                We peered over the edge and Jacqueline gave a strangled cry as she caught sight of J.T. and my brother struggling with the steep, slick ravine walls, Phelan slung between them.  Water plastered Phelan’s hair down, full of muck from the river. I couldn’t see if he was breathing, but I thought that he must be, if they were carrying him like that.  From how muddy all of them were, it was hard to tell how badly Phelan might have been hurt.
                “We found him in the river,” Carolyn said, swallowing hard and wavering on her feet.  I grasped her arm and she steadied slightly.  “There wasn’t any sign of the bitch.”
                “That could be a good thing,” I offered, heart hammering like a jackhammer.
                “Maybe,” she agreed.  She stumbled away from the ravine’s edge as I let go of her arm.
                Jacqueline and I got down on our knees at the edge of the drop and hauled Phelan up once Matt and J.T. got him close enough for us to reach.  He was floppy like a sack of flour and twice as heavy as he dragged him up onto solid ground.
                Jacqueline reached immediately to check his pulse and I couldn’t blame her for doing it.  Phelan’s lips were blue; his face looked like a thin layer of flesh stretched across his skull, more dead than alive.
                “Damn,” I muttered, feeling sick.  “He looks like he was in the river.”  I could see a darkening spot beneath his jacket.  Either his stitches had broken open, or he’d been hit again.
                “We got lucky,” Matt said as he cleared the ravine himself, speaking between panting breaths.  “He got caught on some roots before the river could sweep him further downstream.  Couldn’t figure out where he went in, though.”
                If it looked like the current swept him downstream, does that mean that Vammatar went into the river, too?  A shiver shot through me and I swallowed hard.  I hoped she was dead, and that hope terrified me.  I’d never hoped anyone or anything was dead before in my life.  Either way, until we saw evidence of her continued existence or Phelan woke up, we couldn’t be sure.
                “We need some kind of stretcher,” Jacqueline said, snapping me out of my thoughts.  Kellin grabbed my arm.
                “Come on,” she murmured.  She had to tug twice to get me to straighten up and come with her.
              Heart beating in my throat, we walked to the tent to get the stretcher.  It wasn’t until we were halfway there that I began to wonder why Jacqueline had asked for it instead of just having us carry Phelan back to the tent without it.
                “I think this is bad, Kel,” I said quietly.
                “I know,” she answered.  “Believe me, I know.”

                “Marin?  Marin! We’ve got a problem.”
                I jerked upright, turning away from the ward that Kellin and I had just finished with.  Thom, a few feet behind me, stiffened and turned toward Rory as I got up, brushing the mud from the knees of my jeans.  Kellin sat back against her heels, her brows knitting, but she stayed quiet for the moment, face pale and drawn with the effort of resetting the shattered ward.
                “What’s wrong?”  I asked, heart starting to thud a little faster even as it felt like a leaden weight in my chest.  “What happened?”  Did some get through, get deeper than we thought?  Is someone hurt?  How could we have missed something like that?
                “It’s Leah,” Rory said, his expression strange.  “She’s gone.”
                “What?”  Thom blurted, swaying on his feet.  I put a hand out to steady him, realizing that he really shouldn’t still be up.  “How did that happen?  Wasn’t someone supposed to be guarding her?”
                Rory shook his head, looking between Thom, Kellin, and I.  “Someone was until he got pulled to fill a gap on the second ring.  Brandon said that she was still unconscious when he left to help with the defenses, and tied up the way that we left her.”
                “That’s not suspicious at all,” Kellin said quietly.  “You’d better have a look, Marin.”
                I grunted.  “Is anything missing, Rory?”
                “That’s where it gets stranger.  It doesn’t look like there’s anything gone.  Just her.”
                My heart skipped a beat and my throat tightened.  Did she run, or was she taken?  If she was taken, how did something slip through the wards to do that?  “Kel, do you think you could walk the line and make sure that we didn’t lose another ward somewhere?”
                “I think I’ve got enough gas left in the tank for that,” she said dusting off her knees as she stood up.  “What’re you going to do?”
                “What do you think?  I’m going to go give everyone else marching orders.  If Leah’s still in camp, we have to find her.”
                “And if she’s not?”  Thom asked.  “What then?”
                I hesitated, my common sense at war with itself and my morals.  “I think we have to send some people to find her,” I finally said.
                “Why?”  Thom asked.  “She tried to kill Phelan.  If you’re right and she was the one who fucked with the wards a few weeks back, she almost got us all killed when the Shadow Man brought his little army into camp and tried to wipe us off the face of the earth.  Let her run. “
                I shook my head slowly.  “She knows things about how we’ve laid out camp, about where we get our food, our water.”
                “So we get the walls up, make them strong.  We change our habits.”  Thom took my face in his hands.  “We’re better off with her gone, Mar.  If she’s run, let her run.”
                Rory cleared his throat.  We both looked at him.  He shrugged slightly.  “For what it’s worth, I think he’s right.  Maybe she ran because she’s scared.  Maybe if she gets far enough away, she’ll snap their hold on her.”
                The voices.  If I thought they were geographical, I’d run, too.  I squeezed my eyes shut.  Except she’s going to go out there into the world and quite possibly die of starvation and exposure—assuming that running was her choice in the first place—and that’ll be on our heads and no one else’s.  “All right,” I said, hoping that I’d be able to look at my own reflection someday and not see guilt etched there, “you guys win.”
                Thom’s arm slid around my shoulders and he squeezed me tightly.  I tried not to slump into the embrace, opting to yank myself upright instead.
                Kellin made eye contact with me as she started to walk away, along the ward-line, giving me a brief, almost imperceptible nod.
                Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kel, but you guys thinking I’m doing the right thing doesn’t do a goddamned thing for my conscience.
                “Let’s have a look,” I said, suppressing a sigh.  “Maybe she’s left something behind to tell us what she’s done and why.”
                Thom and Rory exchanged a look.  Rory shrugged and Thom shrugged back.  I shot them both a baleful glare and started walking toward the storage tent.  Thom tried to hand me my staff and I shook my head firmly.
                “No, you hang onto that and use it if you’re not going to go sit.  Keep as much weight off your ankle as you can.”
                “It’s almost healed,” he said.
                “Almost isn’t healed,” I countered.
                Don’t take this out on him.  He doesn’t deserve it.  I set my jaw.  This decision is on you—they made it yours.  You’re going to have to live with it.
                So why can’t I just change my mind?
                Because it wouldn’t be the right thing to do, I reminded myself.  That’s why.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  They’re right.  Even if she’s run and survives to tell anyone about us here, we can still be ready for them.  We can plan for that eventuality.
                Thom caught my hand and squeezed tightly.
                “What I wouldn’t give for a clear-cut answer,” I muttered.  He squeezed my hand again.
                “Welcome to the new world, now with shades of gray,” he whispered.
                I sighed.  Black and white and shades of gray.  Why did I ever think that things would get easier instead of harder?  Because I’m a stupid idealist who dared to dream that maybe, just maybe, we’d be able to see more clearly the lines between right and wrong, good and evil.
                But there’s no such thing—there’s only bright white, darkest black, and shades of gray.
                Many, many shades of gray.

                She’s right.  I won’t make it three miles if I try to leave.  Cameron stared bleakly at the trail away from the cabin as he leaned against one of the porch’s supports.  Probably can’t even mount a horse.  Not enough range of motion in my shoulder for that right now.
                He touched the edge of the bandage around his arm.  It still felt like someone was jamming a hot poker into it sometimes, even when he hadn’t touched it.  He’d never had anything hurt like that before, not even getting shot.
                But he didn’t feel like he could—or should—stay here.  Kira seemed nice enough, and he liked Neve more than he was willing to admit, but he was more than half certain that her brother was nuts.
                Who’s crazier, though?  Him for what he believes, or me for even considering it might be true?  Cameron sighed, staring at the gray sky.  Maybe it’s both.  Maybe we’re all crazy.  The world’s gone insane anyway, why shouldn’t we go right on along with it?
                “Cameron?”
                He swallowed, almost flinched.  Neve’s hand closed on his forearm.
                “You’re supposed to be resting,” she said quietly.  “You said you were going to go do that after I found you in the barn.”
                “I know,” he murmured.  “I lied.”
                “Why am I not surprised?”  She squeezed his arm gently and then let go, leaning against the porch railing.  “You still shouldn’t push your luck.  You should be dead.”
                “I’ve heard that before.  Maybe they should’ve called me Cat instead of Dragon.  Of course, I think I’m running out of lives.”  He reached around the post for her hand and found it.  Her fingers were warm and strong in his.
                “Maybe,” she agreed.  “Of course, that just means that maybe you should be a little more careful, right?”
                Cameron nodded slightly.  “Could be.”
                They stood together in silence for a moment before her hand tightened around his.  “I hope you will be,” she said.  “Not because of anything like destiny or my brother saying you’re important to the future or anything like that.  I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
                Cameron’s mouth dried out and words momentarily failed him.  He’d never quite gotten out of her why she’d changed her mind and followed him.  Is that why?  Because she was worried about me?  “Neve?”
                “When you leave—and I’m not stupid, I know you’re going to because you probably still think Teague’s batshit—at least tell me before you go so I don’t waste too much time before I follow you.”
                “What about going south?” he asked, feeling like an idiot as soon as he’d said it.  There’s a beautiful woman telling you that she’s going to follow you when you bail on her brother and you’re worried about the plans she used to have before she saved your worthless life?  Goddamn, that fever must have fried my brains after all.
                Neve straightened and looked him square in the eye.  “Cameron,” she said quietly, “I’ve been doing what my brothers told me to do my whole damned life.  I’m not going to take marching orders from anyone but myself anymore, fate be damned.”
                She kissed him.
                Her mouth tasted like chocolate and mint as she pressed it tight over his.  For a second, Cameron felt like every synapse in his body fired at once, sending a jolt through him that left tingling in its wake.  His arms were around her before he quite realized what was happening, her hands trapped between them but her fingers still struggled for the buttons of his borrowed shirt.
                Alarm bells went off in his head.  Her brother was inside.
                With his wife, possibly doing what we’re doing right now.
                Cameron came up for air first, reaching with one hand to still the work of hers.  His chest heaved, each breath burning in his chest, his throat.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked hoarsely.
                Neve laughed nervously, shaking her head and looking down.  “Are you kidding me?  It’s a terrible idea for more reasons than I think you’re actually aware of but I really don’t care.  You—I—Cameron—”
                He squeezed her hand and let go, stepping back and trying to fight down feelings of shameful regret coupled with wanting.  “Then no offense, why are we doing it? Not that I wouldn’t—”
                “No, you’re right.”  Neve sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face.  She grabbed his hand and tugged him off the porch.  “Come on.  We shouldn’t talk here anyway, not when he could walk out and interrupt us at the worst possible moment.
                Because talking was what we were maybe about to end up doing.  Cameron flushed and tried to think of England.
                She didn’t drag him to the barn like he expected.  They went into the woods toward the lake, up a hill a few dozen meters into the tangle of dark trunks and verdant pines.  Cameron’s shoulder and arm were burning by the time they made it to the top, but the end result was worth the discomfort.
                Trees made a half-moon shape facing the lake, sheltering the grassy hilltop.  They were high enough above some of the trees that they could see the lake sparkling in the few rays of sunshine that broke through the overcast, setting water sparking like diamonds and the forest beyond ablaze with autumn colors and slashes of stately silver-green pines and spruces.
                It was a few minutes before he found his voice.  “When did you manage to stumble across this?” he asked as they slowly sank down into the grass.
                “While you were sick,” Neve said quietly, wrapping her arms around her knees.  “I just got to this point where I couldn’t watch you suffer anymore and not be able to do anything about it.  Ran out of the cabin and wandered until I found the hill.”  She looked at him sidelong, her dark hair partially obscuring the lines of her face.  “Please don’t take what I said back there the wrong way.”
                He shook his head slightly.  “Whatever happens between us happens, Neve.  If something does.  I wouldn’t be upset if something did.”
                She smiled weakly.  “Me neither, but we might regret it.”
                “Regrets are better left to tomorrows that might not come,” he murmured, putting his hand on her knee.  She laughed.
                “I bet you say that to all the girls.”  She started to press him down into the grass, onto his back.  He let her.
                “Maybe one or two,” he admitted sheepishly.  Oh Christ, did I really just tell her that?
                Instead of slapping him, she laughed again, crawling on top of him.  She was a surprisingly small weight on his chest.
                “Did it work?” she asked, sounding curious.
                “We’ll see if it does this time,” he said as her lips found his again.  He put his arms around her, realizing that for some reason, it didn’t hurt to do that.
                A few moments later, she tensed against him, gasped against his lips.  He went rigid, mentally checking himself.  No, not that.
                “What’s wrong?” he whispered, surprised to see fear in her eyes and tears on her face.  Shit.  Shit, what did I do?  Did I do something?  “Neve?”
                “Phelan,” she whispered, her fingers tangling in the soft flannel of his shirt.  “Something’s happening to Phelan.”
                “Your cousin?”  How does she know?  But then, how do they know any of what they seem to know?  “Is he all right?”  He felt a little absurd for asking the question—but at the same time, he knew in his gut it made sense to ask.
                “I don’t know.”  She put her head down on his chest and shivered.  “Hold me, Cameron,” she said, voice weak.  “Hold me until it stops.”
                “Until what stops?”  His arms tightened around her.
                “The pain, Cameron.
                “Hold me until the pain stops.”

                Gray looked sidelong at Eva, not for the first time that afternoon.  She was resting as comfortably as Elton could manage to make her, but they all knew that she was still troubled by nightmares she wouldn’t speak of—except for to Kes, who’d gotten a few words about them out of her the week before.
                Why so secretive about them?  Gray wondered, tearing his gaze from her and returning his attention to the book in his lap.  It was one of Kes’s books, a translation of something Old or Middle English into discernible prose.  The margins were littered with the younger woman’s notes, most of them mentioning Arthurian legend.  That made up several thousand lines of the epic, as near as he could tell.
                He looked at Eva again.  Had she lived through events that got turned into the lines of this epic?  She didn’t look a day over seventeen, though appearances were certainly deceiving, especially in a case like hers.
                How many people like you are there out there, Eva?  A dozen?  A hundred?  How many walk in our world now?
                Her brows knit as he watched her and she tossed and turned, tangling in her covers.  He winced and set the book down, getting up.  Gray put his hands on her shoulders, trying to gently hold her down.  “Eva,” he whispered.  “Eva, wake up.  You’re having a nightmare and if you keep twisting around like this you’re going to rip open your side again.  C’mon wake up.”
                Eva’s eyes snapped open.  “Phelan!”
                What?  Gray blinked, drawing back for a moment.  “Huh?”
                “Phelan,” Eva repeated, throwing back the covers.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and shot to her feet.  She crossed the floor quickly and shoved her feet into her boots, then stumbled out the door of the small room.
                “Eva, wait!”  Gray shook off his initial shock and darted after her.
                She was already running out the lodge’s main doors as he emerged from the room.
                “What the hell is going on?”  Wat asked, his pants soaked from the bucket he’d evidentally dropped—or had knocked out of his hands by Eva as she ran past, Gray couldn’t be sure which.
                “I don’t know.  Where’s everyone else?”
                “Where do you think?  They’re hauling supplies up here from that gas station we found the other day.
                “Fuck,” Gray muttered, shoving his feet into his boots.  “Tell them I went to find her!”
                “Wait a second, where is she going?”
                “I don’t know!”  Gray yelled over his shoulder, already halfway down to the access road from the lodge.  “But she can’t go that far!”
                At least I hope she can’t go that far.  He hit the access road and looked up and down.  There was no sign of her.
                What the hell?  Where did you go, Eva?  His gaze lit on a game trail that headed into a thicker tangle of woods—but was a straight shot west.
                West?  Why west?  He frowned.  Phelan.  That’s her brother.  Is he west of here?  A shudder ran through him.  What if Eva’s brother was stumbling toward them right now?  Was that why she’d thrown herself out of bed and run off?
                It was what he would do, if he was her.
                Gray cut down the game trail.  Faint impressions from her boots lay in the hardened mud, just barely visible.  There was no other sign of her, though—she’d come this way, but she’d made it beyond a bend in the trail.
                How the hell can she move that fast with a hole in her side?  Gray hit that bend in the trail and had to slow down as the grade became steeper.  He still couldn’t see her.
                If something terrible happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.
                His foot came down on a wet leaf.  It slid across the muddy trail.  His foot shot out from under him and he fell backwards, all the wind knocked out of him as he tumbled to the bottom of the grade.
                He lay at the bottom of his twenty-foot slide, trying to remember how to breathe, blood roaring in his ears and stars dancing in front of his eyes.
                Breathe.  Breathe.  What’s that sound?  He went very still, straining his ears.
                There it was again.  A faint cry, somewhere to his left.
                Eva?  Gray pushed himself to his feet, sucking in a few more raspy breaths before he flung himself into the brush to his left, toward the sound.
                He felt hot and cold all once as branches and brambles tore at his jeans and sweatshirt.  The feeling was the telltale sign that something strange was going on, something supernatural was afoot.  What’s out here?  What did she run into?
                His foot caught on something and he fell face-first into a tangle of wild raspberries.  Cursing as he hauled himself upright, he twisted to see what he’d tripped over.
                Eva’s boot.
                Fuck me.
                He snatched the boot and plunged onward.
                He broke through some brush and stumbled down a five-foot incline, barely managing to not snap his ankle on the way down.  Stumbling back against the tangle of earth and branches, he took a quick look around, trying to get his bearings.
                Eva.  She was sprawled about ten feet away, collapsed on her stomach, arms and legs flung akimbo.
                Something was standing over her.  It turned slowly, amber eyes bright in the afternoon sun.
                Gray swallowed once, twice, staring back at it, struck by the intelligence in those eyes.
                The creature bared its teeth at him, leapt over Eva’s prone form, and disappeared into the woods.
                Gray found himself able to breathe again as he stumbled toward Eva and gathered her into his arms gently.  She groaned, head lolling to one side and her eyes flickering open.
                “Eva?”
                “Ungh.  Where am I?”
                “In the woods,” Gray said slowly, looking away from her, toward where the creature had disappeared.  It had been mostly bipedal, covered in a brindled pelt.  “What was that thing?”
                “What thing?” she murmured, putting her head on his shoulder as he slowly straightened up, cradling her.
                It can’t be that. They’re not real, are they?
                “There was something standing over you,” he murmured.  “And if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn it was a werewolf.”

                A shadow was coming toward them, silhouetted against torchlight in the corridor.  Aoife glanced up, toward the open door.
                “Were we expecting someone else?” she murmured to her three companions.
                Teague looked past her into the hall and frowned, starting to rise.  “What are you doing here, Seamus?”
                “I wasn’t aware this was a private party,” the older man said, easing the door shut behind him.  Teague sank back down as Seamus pulled up another seat around the brazier, wedging himself between Neve and Phelan.  “Where’s the mead?”
                Phelan wordlessly passed him a skin.  Teague hunched in on himself, brooding and half-glowering at his brother, jaw set and tight.  Neve’s gaze bounced between her brothers for a moment.  Finally, she just sighed.
                “What’s gone wrong now, Seamus?”
                “I’m always the bearer of bad news these days, aren’t I, little sister?”
                “Yes,” she said, her tone precise.  She drew herself straight to emphasize every ounce of regal bearing she’d inherited from her late and sainted mother.  “So out with it.”
                Seamus took a long swallow of mead and stared into the coals.  His gaze met Teague’s for a moment, then he looked away.  A jolt went through Aoife.
                Is he afraid?  Ashamed?  It wasn’t like Seamus to not be able to hold someone’s eye, peacemaker or not.  He was the steadfast one.
                Seamus had to take another deep draught from the skin before he was able to speak.  “I am to be married,” he said at last.  “Into one of the Southron broods, in order to solidify the alliance between our bloodlines.”
                A ripple of shock washed through the little gathering.  Aoife swallowed a few times to try to hide her surprise.  Uncle would send him south into one of those clans?  But for what?  What does that gain us?
                “A little piece of mind, cousin,” Seamus said softly, as if he’d read her thoughts.  He might have—sometimes he could.  It was a gift of their Otherworld blood, like Teague’s visions.  “We have enemies to our north, to our east.  An alliance with one of the smaller Southron groups would benefit us both.”
                “Who is it?”  Teague asked, voice rough and dull at the same time.  He gestured for the skin of mead.  Seamus gave it to Phelan, who handed it around to his cousin.
                Poor Teague.  Her cousin had been in poor spirits since he’d sent his lover away to safety with the Imbolg.  She would have almost given anything to see him smile again.
                Teague uncorked the skin and took a deep swallow.  “Well?” he prompted.  “Who’s the unlucky bride to your unlucky bridegroom?”
                “The one Father meant for you,” Seamus said quietly.  “Before you bound yourself to that woman.”
                Teague stiffened.  Neve bit her lip and Phelan leaned back for a moment, then cleared his throat.
                “Perhaps now really isn’t the best time to—”
                “I sent her away,” Teague said quietly, pain mixing with anger in his voice.  “What more does he want from me, Seamus?  I bloody well sent her away.  He should be happy.  Now he’s forcing you into a marriage that may not be what’s best for our people.”
                “And yours was, I suppose?”  Seamus didn’t sound angry, simply weary.  “Brother, it had to be one of us.  They know of your connection to her and they would not hear of allowing father to sever that bond.  So it has to be me.  You’re safe, at least for now—from Father’s matchmaking, anyhow.”
                “They knew?”  Phelan asked, blinking in surprise.  “They knew about Teague and her?”
                “Apparently, we would be surprised at what they did and did not know,” Seamus said dryly.  He looked sidelong at his sister.  “Step lightly.”
                “I always do,” Neve said quietly.  “One of us has to stay in Father’s graces.  Did you upset him?”
                Seamus shook his head. “I don’t think so.  I was appropriately enthusiastic about the match—I thought so, anyway.  Perhaps he thinks differently.”  He reached over the brazier and took the skin of mead from Teague.  “I suggest we all stay well out of his sight for a few days, though.  Just in case I’m wrong and he has an axe to grind with one or all of us.”
                “Why would he?”  Teague asked bitterly.  “I’m the only one he ever has reason to be angry with.”
                Seamus stared at him and sighed.  “Brother, he’s upset and worried.  Can you blame him for his anger?  His grandchild is going to be born out there in the world and will likely die before his first year is out—if he’s born at all.”
                Teague half-rose from his seat.  “What’s that supposed to mean?  I sent her away.  She should be safe with the Imbolg.  They’re not known to be our allies.”
                “Not anymore,” Seamus agreed, “but do you really think that our enemies will stop their advance just because they’ve dealt with all of our allies?  They’ll take the whole isle if they can, and more besides.”  He shook his head slowly.  “Even the Imbolg will not be safe.”
                “The chieftain is of our blood, removed and diluted through it might be,” Phelan said quietly, “and she has connections to Southron powers.  They won’t trouble her if they know what’s good for them.”
                Seamus shook his head slightly.  “I pray you’re right, cousin.  If we’re wrong, the price could be dear.”
                Somewhere beyond the door, a large bell began to clang a warning.  The three men shot to their feet.
                “What is it?”  Phelan asked, straining to hear the coded message within the bell’s ringing.
                “Ships,” Seamus said grimly.  “Come.  Father will need us.”
                “So much for staying out of his way,” Aoife muttered to Neve, who shrugged helplessly.
                “There’s nothing we can do for it now.  Come on.  We’ve got our own work to do.”
                Aoife blinked as Neve tugged her by the hand out of the room, in the wake of their brothers.  “Like what?  Wait for wounded with the other women?”
                “No,” Neve said, a dangerous glint in her eye.  “We ride for the villages, then for the Imbolg and the Fianna.  If Seamus is right, they’ll need to be warned.”
                “Your father will kill us, Neve.”
                “Not if we succeed.  Come on!  We don’t have much time.”

                Once they hit the bottom of the ravine, J.T. unslung his claymore from its harness across his back.
                “We’re expecting trouble, aren’t we?”  Matt asked, nervously putting a hand on the hilt of his borrowed blade.  “Shouldn’t we have brought a shotgun with us?”
                “At close quarters, we’d hit Phelan.  They worked pretty well when we were just going up against the damn Greys, but trying to shoot Vammatar with one would probably do more harm than good.”  J.T. shook his head, starting to pick his way along the stream’s muddy bank.  “Pistols would be different, but I’m not sure how much good one would be against her.”
                “Because it’s not iron?”
                J.T. glanced over his shoulder at Matt.  “Yeah, that’s it.  How’d you know?”
                “Something Phelan said to me a week or two ago, while we were starting to get the forge set up.  Things—supernatural things—tend to be sensitive to iron and iron alloys.  Steel’s effective, but not as effective as iron, but iron’s too soft sometimes and too brittle other times to be a whole lot of good in the long run.  Something like that.  I can’t say I completely understood him, but I figured I should take his word for it since he’s got a lot more experience than I do.”  Matt glanced across the stream to the other side, brows knitting.  “How far do you think they could have gotten?”
                “No idea,” J.T. said.  His gaze flicked up toward the rim of the ravine.  No sign of Carolyn yet.  Maybe we’ll find him before she finds us.  I’m not sure that’d be a bad thing.  “I couldn’t see much past the Greys throwing themselves against the lines.  Did you?”
                Matt grimaced.  “I saw them go over, if that’s what you mean.  Phelan caught her at the hip and she threw him off, then she went over the edge and he chased her.  I half expected we’d look down and find them at the bottom where they went over the edge.  I guess the fact that we didn’t means there’s a chance Phelan’s still alive, right?”
                It also means there’s a chance that Vammatar’s still alive and that she killed Phelan.  J.T. bit down hard enough on his tongue that he tasted blood.  There were still moments when Phelan made him vaguely uncomfortable—that was thanks to the damned dreams that hadn’t stopped, he ones about a past life he could only remember in fragments—but he didn’t want anything to happen to the old bastard.
                “Right,” J.T. said, crossing the stream at a narrow point.  Matt hopped across the bank after him.
                They both froze at the sound of footsteps splashing through the creek.  The sound echoed off the ravine walls, making it hard to distinguish which direction it was coming from.  J.T. turned around and breathed a sigh of relief, lifting his hand to wave to Drew.
                “Carolyn’s coming,” he said.  “She was grabbing your kit, Jay.  Said she’d only be a minute after me.”
                 I shouldn’t have asked them to send her down.  J.T. nodded slightly.  “We’ll wait, then.”
                “Hope we won’t need that kit,” Matt said, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.”
                “We will,” J.T. said.  “Didn’t you see the knife?”
                “Knife?”  Drew and Matt asked in the same voice.
                “What knife?”  Matt continued.
                J.T. shook his head.  “Vammatar got Phelan in the shoulder with one.”  He fished around in the pocket of his heavy cargo pants and came up with the rag-wrapped blade.  “I grabbed it before anyone could step on it.”
                It was a beautiful weapon.  Oxidized silver wire wrapped a sharkskin covered grip.  The cap was a black opal the size of his thumbnail and the guard was narrow, just a shade wider than the blade itself, which looked like some kind of blackened or blued steel.  Bare traces of runes marked the blade.  Drew held out his hand.
                “May I?”
                J.T. nodded, shivering a little.  Something about the blade made him uneasy despite its beauty.  “Rory might have a use for it,” he murmured.
                “Why Rory?”  Matt asked.
                Drew and J.T. exchanged a look.  Drew took the blade and handed it to Matt.
                “What do you feel?”
                Matt weighed the weapon in his palm, checking its balance, running a fingertip along the flat of the blade.  His brows knit as he frowned slightly.  “It’s cold,” he said quietly.  “But it’s not cold.  I put my finger on it and it’s just as warm as my hand, but holding it in my hand, it just feels cold.”
                Drew glanced at J.T., who just nodded slightly.
                Same way it feels to me.  A muscle in his jaw twitched.  I don’t like it.
                “Everything okay?”  Carolyn asked, jogging up behind them, J.T.’s bag banging against her hip.  Greg was behind her, a canvas bundle under his arm.
                J.T. snatched the knife from Matt’s hand, hastily wrapping it and shoving it back into his pocket before Carolyn could see it.  Matt shot him a puzzled look and he shook his head quickly.
                Just keep your mouth shut, Matt.  She doesn’t need to know about that part yet.  He turned and smiled lopsidedly at Carolyn.  “Took you guys long enough.”
                “Yeah, well, we needed to strip the canvas off one of the camp beds,” she said.  “Greg’s idea, in case we needed a stretcher.”  Her lips thinned briefly as she unslung the bag and offered it to J.T.  “I just grabbed the whole thing.  I wasn’t sure what you’d need, so it seemed like a better idea to grab everything.”
                “Good call,” J.T. said.  I’m not sure what I’m going to need, either.  That should scare the shit out of me.  But he wasn’t scared—not as scared as he thought he should be.
                He was perfectly, eerily calm.  That was almost enough to unnerve him completely.
                They got moving, heading deeper into the ravines.
                “Are we sure they didn’t go the other direction?”  Carolyn asked as they  worked their way closer to the river.  “Shouldn’t we have found him by now?”
                “Are we sure they didn’t just fly away somehow?”  Greg muttered, looking around as if he expected something nasty to pop out of the brush along the creek.
                J.T. couldn’t blame him. He could feel a strange tension in the air, setting his hair on end and his muscles tense.  Carolyn’s hand found his and squeezed.
                “I don’t think so,” Matt said slowly.  “We would have seen it, right?”  There was an unasked question in his voice.  He didn’t know how they could have flown away—mostly because he’d never seen Vammatar do it.
                Of course, that could have just been tricks on their eyes that night by the burial mounds.
                They crossed through the marsh and down along the old jogging trail that split in two directions—one headed toward the crew’s boat launch north of campus and one headed into the thicker tangle of woods that made up a good quarter of the university’s property along the riverfront.
                “Right or left?”  Drew muttered.
                Carolyn let go of his hand and started walking, cutting left, heading north.  “This way.”
                “How do you know?”
                She looked back over her shoulder at Matt and smiled weakly.  “If you’d come down here with your sister, you’d know why.  South is a nexus.  Phelan wouldn’t try to draw someone in that direction.  He’d fight every step of the way to keep Vammatar away from it.”   She nodded toward the path she’d chosen.  “They went this way.  Trust me.”
                “I didn’t know that she’d ever brought you down here,” Drew said quietly.
                “Only a couple times,” Carolyn said.  “Mostly hiking.  It’s pretty down here.”
                It was beautiful to look at, with the ravines a blaze of autumn color.  It was also quiet and still, which made J.T. a little queasy.
                It shouldn’t be so quiet.
                They hit the place where the trail widened, a few feet from the edge of the river.  The crew launch was only a few hundred meters ahead, beyond a kink in the river.
                J.T. could see something beyond Carolyn.  He put his hand on her arm and motioned for the others to wait, taking a few extra steps forward and squinting against the glare of sunshine on the water.
                “Oh, shit.”

                I want to be one of the ones to go down there after him, Thom realized as the others started to cluster near the gap in the wards, trickling in one by one.  His free hand tightened on Marin’s arm.
                I want to go, but she’d never let me.  They’d have to carry me back up.  Hell.  They’d have to carry me down in the first place.
                “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly.  “Are you all night?”
                He fumbled his sword back into its scabbard.  “I just realized that I wanted to go with them and I can’t,” he murmured.
                “Oh, Thom,” she said softly.
                “I know.”  He squeezed her gently and limped toward the edge of the ravine.  He couldn’t see anything as he peered over the edge and down into the sun-dappled shadows below.  “I don’t see them,” he said over his shoulder.
                “Well, they couldn’t have gone that far,” J.T. said grimly, handing the shotgun he’d been wielding over to Matt.  “They didn’t have that much time.”
                Thom glanced at him.  “Are you going down?”
                J.T. nodded.  “Matt and I.  No sense in wasting time waiting to us to draw straws.  Anyone else who wants to come can catch up.  We’re going to go down and start working our way toward the river.”  He hesitated, then added, “Send Carolyn down after us when she gets back with Kel.”
                “Should I send Kel, too?” Thom asked as Matt handed him the spare shotgun J.T. had relinquished.
                “No,” J.T. said.  “She’s got to handle the ward with Marin.  You guys stay up here and wait.”
                “If I start hearing things that I don’t like, I’m sending them after you,” Thom said.
                J.T. cracked a smile.  “Guess we’ll have to die or some shit quietly, then.  C’mon Matt.”
                “Jameson Thaddeus MacKenzie, if you get my little brother killed, I’ll murder you myself,” Marin said from behind Thom.
                “We’ll be careful,” he called back, then headed down.
                Matt glanced toward Thom as he started to follow.  Thom just nodded.
                “Good luck,” he said quietly.
                Matt nodded back and followed J.T. down the slope into the ravine.  Thom turned away slowly, sucking in a deep breath.
                I don’t like letting them go alone.  Then again, I don’t like staying behind, either.
                They need more backup.  He looked around, frowning, then pointed at Drew, offering him the shotgun.  “Drew, get Davon and head down after them.”
                Drew smiled grimly as he took the gun.  “Make sure they’ve got this line patched by the time we get back, just in case.”
                “Count on it,” Thom said, then waved him off.  Somewhere to his right, he heard Paul bark his little sister’s name.  Angie stood next to Marin, both of her small hands wrapped around the older woman’s.  Thom shook his head slightly.
                “You shouldn’t be out here, kiddo,” he said gently.  “It could be dangerous.”
                “Miss Carolyn said the fighting was over,” Angie said.  “Where’s Phelan, Mr. Thom?”
                Marin caught his eye and shook her head almost imperceptibly.  Thom cleared his throat, mouth dry and stomach churning, somehow nervous at the prospect of lying to a ten year old.

 
                “Oh for pity’s sake, Thom,” she said, her hands spread wide.  “You guys lied to me seventy-five percent of the time I was growing up because you were terrified of scaring the crap out of me.  Being honest probably wouldn’t have scarred me for life.  As it was, it was mostly the stuff Miss Kellin and Phelan told me that kept me sane.  You can tell the kids what’s going on and I think they’ll be able to handle it.”
                He grimaced.  “Angie, I’m less concerned about telling them than I am about them telling someone else, someone who doesn’t understand how things work around here.”  Or in the world beyond common sight, for that matter, or the fucking shadow war we’re still fighting after all this time.  “Besides, back then it was your brother’s hands, not ours.”
                “Yeah, well, it’s in yours now.  They’re your kids, nieces, nephews, godkids, whatever.  You guys get to choose now.”  She went quiet for a moment and just shook her head.  “You at least have to tell your son something, though.  Lin’s been sensitive since he was fucking conceived.  You need to be honest with him even if you’re not honest with anyone else.”
                “Now who’s telling who how to raise their kids?”  Thom asked, his wry tone designed to mask the sick churning of his stomach.  Telling his son more than was strictly necessary wasn’t something he wanted to consider, let alone do.
                “I’m just saying that he’s going to find out about what’s going on around here one way or another and it’d be better coming from you.  That’s all.”  Her expression softened.  “He’s a tough kid, Thom.  He can handle it.  At least give him the chance.”
 

                “We’re not sure, Angie,” Thom said.  “But I’m sure he’s fine.  Jay and Matt went to go find him, and Drew and Davon are going to go help.”
                She stared at him for a long moment, until Paul moved between them and scooped up his sister.
                “I told you to stay by the fire with Tala until I got back, kiddo.”
                “Sorry, B-bro,” Angie said.  “I only came because Miss Carolyn said it was safe.  I’ll go back.”
                Paul set her down.  “I’ll come with,” he said, then glanced over his shoulder at Thom.  “Coffee?  Tea?”
                “Put the water on,” Thom said, moving toward them to be near to Marin again and so he wouldn’t keep staring into the ravines, straining to see.  “Keep it hot until we all get back.”
                “Mr. Rory looked upset,” Angie piped up.  “Maybe he could use some hot chocolate.”
                Thom shivered as he remembered the bleakness in Rory’s eyes when he’d headed back for the tent.  What he needs is a stiff drink—or several.  “You might be right,” he said as he stepped around the brother and sister, finding Marin’s hand.
                Paul frowned at him a little.  Thom offered him a weak smile.
                “It couldn’t hurt, Paul.”
                “I guess you’re right.”  He set Angie down and took her hand.  “C’mon, kiddo, let’s get that started.”
                “Okay.”
                Marin squeezed his hand as the brother and sister walked away.  “Why did you tell her that?  About Phelan?”
                Thom swallowed hard and shook his head slightly.  “I won’t lie to her about this stuff, just like I’ll try not to lie to our son someday.”  Marin went rigid next to him, her hand squeezing even tighter.  He just stared at the ravine.  “They can handle the truth.  She can sense it, anyway.”
                “Thom,” Marin whispered, “how did you know we’d have a son?”
                He shivered as a sudden chill gripped him.
                “You saw it, didn’t you?”
                “I’ve seen a lot of things, Mar,” he murmured.  “Some I try to forget.”  Some I hope I can change, some I hope aren’t real.
                “But you saw our son.”
                Wordlessly, he gathered her into his arms.  She leaned against his chest and closed her arms.
                “I’ve seen him, too,” she said.
                He just nodded, throat too tight for words.  He rested his chin against her head.
                They stayed like that, holding each other, for a long, long time.