Thom squeezed me tighter and I exhaled a shaky breath as I buried my face against his neck, reveling in the warmth of his embrace.
“We’ll find a way,” he said quietly, as if he could hear what I was thinking. “We’ll be ready, come what may.”
Phelan took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. I twisted to look at him, watching a troubled expression creep across his features.
“My sister is still out there,” he said after a few long moments of silence.
“You don’t think she’s…” my voice trailed away. Phelan smiled faintly.
“West? No. East, I think, still. Time will tell. She’ll come looking. That’s the way she is.”
“Neve and Cameron found us,” J.T. said. “I’m sure she will, too.”
“Maybe,” Phelan agreed softly. “I have to hope.”
“She’ll find us,” I said with a conviction I didn’t really feel. He needed to hear those words, though. Somehow, I knew that he needed them.
Phelan just nodded, then shrugged. “Come what may. So what are we going to do about whatever’s going to come from the west?”
“Shouldn’t you be answering that question?” J.T. turned away from the barrow and started to climb the slope back toward the shattered garden and rubble of what used to be lecture halls and the library. “You’re the expert here, Phelan.”
The once-druid snorted humorlessly. “We’d all like to think that, wouldn’t we?”
I stared at him and he shrugged.
“I only know what I know, leánnan, and I sure as hell don’t know everything. We’ll find a way to keep everyone here safe as best we can, but we can’t do much more than that.”
The best we can, huh? I gently disengaged from Thom’s embrace.
“I guess we’d better get back to work,” I said.
I turned and followed J.T. up the hill.
