“You think I’d trade it,” I said slowly.
“I think you’d consider it.” His voice wasn’t mocking, but it was certain.
I crossed my arms tighter.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“I’ve had time to.” He nodded, exhaling and scanning the woods as if he were being watched.
The wind stirred the leaves again, and I studied him.
Really studied him.
The lines around his eyes.
The quiet way he held himself.
The strange familiarity that had tugged at me the moment I saw him.
Keegan’s father.
But there was something more about him. It wasn’t just Keegan’s familiarity that haunted me.
“What do you plan to do with it?” I asked.
“The stone?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Keep it out of the Priestess’s hands.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s also true.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “And what makes you think that we couldn’t do the same?”
A small breeze slipped through the clearing, and somewhere far behind us, a crow called once from the trees.
Rendel looked back toward the deeper woods again, but this time, he frowned slightly.
When his eyes returned to mine, something in them had shifted.
It wasn’t fear but urgency.
“Don’t let the Priestess find it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You’re already in deeper than you realize,” he said.
Twobble leaned forward. “I think that’s become crystal clear.”
Rendel didn’t answer him.
Instead, he just kept looking at me, and for the first time since this strange meeting began, the calm certainty in his expression faltered.
