For all her grace and immortal poise…she carried more loneliness than any soul should have to bear.
I had to get her out of this. We had to break this spell.
Two weeks wasn’t enough, but it was all I had.
By every Saint that ever kept vigil over the broken, I wasn’t wasting a single breath of it.
14
QUINN
The clearing hardly qualified as such. Scarcely wide enough for four souls, a heap of canvas, and one exceedingly judgmental cat. The forest pressed close on every side, skeletal limbs knitting together as the last threads of day slid beneath the horizon.
The air smelled of moss and something sour that might have been rotting bark—or merely Branrir’s boots. Thistle and Branrir moved with the unthinking economy of the competent. Canvas unfurled, pegs found soft earth, a private grammar of half-phrases and gestures completing what words did not. Vesper, in customary usefulness, contributed nothing save commentary, enthroned upon a lichen-slick rock with his tail for a scepter and disdain for a crown.
I stood with a bundle of ropes in my arms and stared at them as though they might, through moral persuasion, arrange themselves. They did not.
“I think this one connects to…” I lifted a corner of the tent. It slumped forward, smacked me squarely in the face, and entombed me in a shroud that had lost interest halfway through the haunting. “Never mind,” I informed the canvas.
Elbow-deep in cookware, Branrir called cheerfully, “That one probably goes to the back left corner. Or possibly the front.”
“Is it…labeled?”
“No. But it feels like a back-left sort of rope.”
“I do not know what that means,” I said, posture deflating.
Thistle glanced up from arranging poles and offered a kind smile. “Loop it through the grommet there, then anchor it to the stake.”
I nodded. “Naturally. The…grommet.” I had not the faintest idea what a grommet was or what it looked like.
My fingers fumbled. The knot refused to negotiate. The peg declined to remain in the earth. A ridiculous heat gathered behind my ribs. I had wielded blade and spell and wit across more seasons than I cared to count, yet here I was defeated by cord and canvas. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Mav watching. He was not quite smirking. Yet the corner of his mouth had ambitions.
“What?” I snapped.
He dusted his palms and said, “I’ll get firewood.”
“I will accompany you.”
One brow lifted. “You don’t have to.”
“The tether,” I replied too quickly. “I have no choice.”
Not the whole truth. The tether tugged; my pride shoved. I could not tie a tent, but I could, at the very least, walk into the woods and collect sticks. And perhaps—if one insisted upon honesty—I did not wish to stand ornamental while others moved with purpose.
“Suit yourself,” he said, freeing an axe from his saddle strap in one smooth pull.
I pressed the ropes into Branrir’s hands. He peered down as though I’d given him a piglet wearing a monocle.
“I have great faith in you,” I told him solemnly.
I squared my shoulders, set my cloak, and followed Mav into the gathering dark. The farther we walked, the denser the trees grew, the forest folding around us like a closing hand. Starlight threaded the canopy in silvery filaments—enough to guide, but not enough to banish the press of night. Now and then, I stooped for fallen twigs, tucking them into the crook of my arm.
Mav slowed and turned to me. Uncertainty clouded his eyes as he drew a deep breath.
“About what you said…for the truth loop,” he began. “I didn’t realize it had been so…” He faltered, as though the wrong words might wound me. “I’m sorry that you?—”
“I do not wish to speak of it further,” I cut in, the words tumbling out sharper than I intended. I willed him to see the plea in my eyes, to understand my harshness was only fear wearing another face.
