Home.
Home in her bed.
She rolled her head to focus on her mother’s worried face. It was not the relief she was expecting to see.
‘I’m all right,’ Blake croaked, looking past her to where Lyndal stood doing her best impersonation of a smile. There was something strange about it, like if you were to cover the lower half of her face, the top half would tell a completely different story.
She looked around for Eda as the memories from the game returned. Her sister had ignored her warning and gone for the ball. Blake remembered going after her and then… Had she fallen?
‘Where’s Eda?’
The least her youngest sister could do was sit at her bedside and pretend to be worried.
Blake looked between them, waiting, but her mother looked down and her sister turned away. ‘Where is she?’ When she tried to sit up, Candace’s hand landed on her shoulder.
‘You hit your head very hard. The physician said you’re to remain in bed.’
She could not remember that part. ‘Where’s Eda?’
Lyndal brushed invisible lint off her dress. ‘She… ah, hasn’t returned home yet.’
Blake narrowed her eyes on her sister. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean in the panic of tending to you, we sort of lost track of her.’
‘Lost track of her?’ Blake propped herself up onto her elbows, shooing away her mother’s hands this time. ‘She’s more than capable of making her way home.’
Lyndal pressed her lips together before replying. ‘They’ve closed the gate, and we think she might still be inside the farming borough.’
Blake shot up at that, regretting it when her head pounded, causing her eyes to close.
‘Harlan’s looking for her,’ Lyndal added.
Blake glanced to the door, trying to gauge the time. ‘It’s still light out, so that’s something.’
Lyndal and Candace exchanged a look.
‘What?’ Blake asked, not trusting her eyes suddenly.
‘It isn’t still light,’ her mother said. ‘It just got light.’
It was the next day.
‘It’s morning?’ Blake asked, panic rising. She looked down at the large graze on her elbow. ‘What happened to me?’
‘You collided with a farmer the size of a bull,’ Lyndal said. ‘You’re honestly lucky to be alive. You’ve woken a few times since, but you were never really with us.’
Her mother wrung her hands in her lap. ‘Commander Wright carried you here, then stood out in that room until dark.’
‘Oh.’
‘He just about wore through the floor with his pacing,’ Lyndal said.
Blake closed her eyes. ‘He was probably waiting around to say, “I told you so.”’
‘He was the first one to reach you,’ Candace said. ‘Then the things he did to that poor man.’
‘What man?’
