“Hunger. Or those could have been her eggs you took,” Mal pointed out, anything to keep from thinking about whose blood was soaking his hands. “Of course, the shadow led you to those eggs in the first place, didn’t it, with the cloak pin? And for Griff to be in just the right place at the right time … I don’t know.” Mal glanced down at his tattoo, thinking back to how it had prickled during the times he had seen the shadow—it only burned when one of Her Dreadful Majesty’s servants was close, but that was practically all the time out here. “It’s probably not Rhun, with our luck.” Much as it pained him to admit being wrong, he added, “And I’d bet a lot of Maysilvers that thing is leading ustodanger when it appears, not warning us.”
Alys’s gaze met his for a moment, and he glimpsed fear mingled with hurt there as she took this in. “That would explain whyit doesn’t really feel like Papa. Maybe the shadow wants the treasure too,” she suggested, frowning into the tin of balm. “But … if it’s not Rhun, if it’s some ghostly thief who took his things, where does that leave us?”
“With too many enemies on our trail, and more to come once Her Royal Awfulness realizes we’re going to stay put for at least a day or two with these injuries while our shadow competition is free to scout ahead,” Mal concluded bitterly.
All he knew was that the strange entity, which might not be Rhun despite having Rhun’s stuff, had to be his own fault somehow. Like everything else. His to handle, whether it was part of the deal he had struck with his soon-to-be-former employers or not.
While Alys finished putting the salve on Griff, Mal slid out from under him—stacking up a few more clean shirts to provide some cushion for his head—and finally examined his own wounds. Griff had been right that the one in his side would need stitches. But for now, cleaning it was a start. Mal dribbled some water into the wound, hardly wincing, then opened his flask and hissed a long breath through his teeth as whiskey burned into his raw flesh.
“What are you doing?” Alys asked, darting a worried look at him.
“I’m not using that elf balm, or anything else of theirs, unless we absolutely have to,” Mal gritted out. He would consider forgiving the elves for those lost letters only if Griff woke up again. “If it actually worked, Griff wouldn’t have been searching for other herbs. I don’t even know if we should have helped him drink that red stuff …”
His voice trailed away as Alys curled over on herself, vomiting her breakfast in the grass beside Griff after tending the worst wound at his shoulder.
Mal ambled over to her, slow and stiff from the heat of the whiskey cleansing his side—he’d have to thank Wynnie forthat healing lesson again—and put a hand on her back, rubbing in gentle circles. “You did really well. Better than any elven healer.”
After she stopped heaving, Mal lay down beside Griff on his good side with a grunt of pain, all the better to listen for the cadence of his breathing that would tell him whether their triage efforts and the vial of rare medicine had been in vain.
Griff stirred a little at the renewed warmth, shifting closer to Mal. He didn’t open his eyes again, but he did trail his fingers across the ground until they found Mal’s hand. His was stiff with cold, but the force of his grip said he wasn’t going anywhere just yet. Letting out another deep exhale, Mal curled his hand tightly around Griff’s.
“You two should sleep,” Alys said, coming over with the balm.
Mal didn’t protest again when she started dabbing it into his wound.
“I’ll keep a watch. With all this blood on the ground, there’s no telling what might come hunting or trying to hurry us along,” Alys continued steadily. “And I’ll check back on the spot where we left the mule in a little while. Maybe he’ll miss the grain enough to come sniffing around.”
She could look all she liked, but Mal had his doubts. Prancer was no war steed and clearly had no training for battle. The beast probably felt no remorse whatsoever in trotting off at a brisk pace, silver coins they could have kept for themselves clinking in its loaded saddlebags as it carried their small fortune and their other vial of medicine away to parts unknown.
“Alys—” Mal said as she applied the balm to his side, an intense look of focus on her delicate features. He was glad she was here, grateful for her presence and her attempts to help, even if she had royally messed up with the mule. “You—”
“This stuff isn’t going to turn you into an elf, and it’ll help with the pain, you stubborn creature,” Alys chastised him beforehe could say more. Her sticky fingers, finished with their task, came to rest under his chin. “You’re not invincible, Mal. For all you like to say you’re cursed, that the gods are mad you came back from the dead, you sure don’t lift a finger to change the course of that fate. And I love you. Griff loves you. Bet he wishes you’d love yourself enough to put away the flask and put down the knives … For all that you worry he won’t be here tomorrow, you ought to consider that he feels the same about you.” Pressing her trembling lips together, she waited a moment and then said more calmly, “What did you want to tell me?”
Mal tilted his head, studying her in the leaf-filtered light of a fading afternoon gone so far south that he didn’t know where they were anymore. “Just … I was thinking how your version of handling things is nothing like Wynnie’s. Or Rhun’s. I like your way better.”
Mal took her sticky hand in one of his, the other still clinging to Griff’s.
“Mmm,” was all she said, her eyes glistening, holding his bloody hand tighter as she gazed down at the pale, slumbering Griff. “I don’t know why people are always so quick to compare him to his father either. Griff’s the better man by far. Don’t let go of him, all right?”
She stood and released his hand.
“Are you sure you’re up to the watch?” Mal asked her, curling himself a little more around Griff, who was concerningly chilled. Shouldn’t that stupid elf medicine have done something already? “I can stay awake too. I’m not dead yet, as you said, and whatever troll comes out of its cave next is my responsibility, anyway.”
“Rest,” Alys insisted, drawing her blade again. “Wynnie taught me a lot of things I never knew I’d need. Maybe being like her isn’t the terrible fate I always thought it was. Because whatever nasty things come our way, I know I can handle them.” She shifted her blade higher, letting it rest against her shoulder as she added, “Alone.”
It struck him, even through the haze of pain and panic and the worst of his exhaustion, that Alys was just as lonely as he had been before he found Griff again.
He wished he could take that loneliness from her. But he could barely even keep his head up.
Finding a comfortable place to rest his cheek in the soft texture of Griff’s hair, Mal muttered to the sleeping man in his arms, “If the shadow did this somehow, I’m going to burn it right off the face of the earth with the brightest light I can find. I’m going to figure out what it loves and steal it all from right under its nose, assuming it has one—just so it knows what it’s like to feel helpless while everything that’s ever mattered to it gets ripped away.”
Chapter Twenty-TwoThe Night Belongs to Us
Five days after the attack, Griff was alert enough to know that he had entirely lost his taste for truffles. He would have to impress Mal with some other delicacy when they got home.
He had managed to stay awake ever since Alys convinced Mal that a fire was just what they all needed tonight despite the risks of attracting certain creatures: a bit of hot stew and a chance to warm their hands over the flames as nightfall crept into their camp, which they had been forced to make not far from the place where they had last seen Prancer and the shattered remains of their only other vial of elven medicine, now absorbed into the Mire after being trampled by a panicked hoof.
They hadn’t wanted to risk moving Griff until he started showing real improvement, and it was only today that he had finally regained a little of his color. By dusk, he was sitting with his back against the sturdy brace of a tree, a sling fashioned for his shoulder and salve packed into his other gashes, the lingering taste of cherries still faintly present every time he swallowed.
