The tarp lifted from within. A face peeked out.
“Are we there? Is Elazar here?”
The air left Vex’s lungs in a rush that was half gag, half choking wheeze—and, all right, a little bit of a laugh too. “Teo?”
Vex grabbed the boy’s arms and yanked him free of the crates. Teo stumbled out, wide eyes darting from Vex to Edda to the bustling fort beyond the docks.
Heat rose off Edda, worry and anger twice as potent, to compensate for all the worry and anger Lu would’ve felt if she were here. “Teo Casales!” Edda hissed. “What are you doing?”
Teo faced her, hands curling into small fists. Vex’s brow stayed lifted and he tried with every speck of seriousness in him to stop the slow smile spreading across his face.
Sneaky little wonder of an urchin.
“I’m helping stop this war,” Teo told Edda, redness rising to his already Argridian-red cheeks. “I won’t lose anyone else. I’m going tostop it.”
Well. That sucked the smile right off Vex’s face.
He dropped to his knees. “Hey, kid—you didn’t lose Lu. She’s back, isn’t she?”
Tears sheened Teo’s eyes, but he sniffed and puckered his lips and gave Vex such a furious, bold,doggedlook that Vex rocked backward.
“I want it to stop,” Teo growled.
“I got some rope,” Mani offered from the deck. “We can tie him up in the engine room.”
Vex and Edda made identical noises of protest.
Mani held up his hands. “Fine. What do we do with him, then? We aren’t going back without going in. Neither Zey or I is staying here with him.”
“Gunnar—could you?” Ben asked.
Vex had learned Gunnar’s Grace Lorayan was weak, but he must’ve understood enough. His eyes popped open in a panic that was equal partsI won’t let you go in there without meandI don’t know anything about kidsas he stammered.
“I’ll run,” Teo threatened. “If you leave me here with anyone, I don’t care. I’llrun, and I’ll get in there—” He pointed at the fort. “And I’ll stop Elazar. You know I will.”
“All right, all right, calm down for a second.” Vex rubbed the middle of his forehead.
They were running out of time. The crowd leading up to the fort was starting to thin, the remaining stragglers slipping up the stone steps and into whatever the hell waited beyond.
But. Most of the people who’d gone in had been families.
Lu was going to kill him. Then create a plant potion to revive him. Then kill him again.
Vex bent down, eye to eye with Teo, wincing the whole while. “Teo, our purpose in coming here wasn’t to confront Elazar. We need information, all right? That’s how we win, sometimes. We gotta be patient, and feel stuff out, andthenwe make our move. So when we go in there—we’re just looking.”
“Devereux,” Edda said in warning.
“Can you promise me you won’t run off?” Vex pointed at Teo. “You gotta promise me, kid, that you won’t leave my side, you won’t try to find Elazar, you won’t do anything but get information. I swear that this is the best thing you can do to stop the war. Can you do that?”
Teo considered. His eyes went past Vex, to Edda, Ben, Gunnar, the Tuncian raiders.
He inhaled, deep and long. “Yes,” he said.
Vex pushed back up to his feet, biting back a shudder, and held out his hand. Teo took it.
Edda rolled her eyes and jumped off the boat before reaching back for Teo. When she lifted him under his arms, she held his face right above hers and glared up into his eyes.
“You’re a smart kid,” she told him. “And I know you know that hiding on this boat was a damn fool thing to do.”
