“Dramatic,” Finnian observes, standing and offering me his hand. “But accurate.”
I take it. Let him pull me up. Hold on a beat longer than necessary.
His eyes darken.
I let go.
“The tavern,” I say. “Before dawn.”
We just need to walk through the forest, at night.
We should have made camp.
32
Ash
“I’m just saying.”Orion’s voice carries through the dark like he’s trying to personally offend every creature within a mile radius. Or let them know we are here. “If we’re going to die out here, I’d rather die doing something interesting.”
“Define interesting,” Finnian says without looking up from the path.
“Fighting. Fucking.” Orion ticks them off on his fingers. “Anything that isn’t walking in a straight line for six goddamn hours.”
“We’ve been walking for three hours.”
“Time moves slower when you’re bored. That’s science.”
“That is absolutely not science.”
“It’s Orion science. Which is the only kind that matters.”
I keep my eyes on the path ahead because I will not laugh at him. It only encourages him more. The moss still glows faint blue-green, lighting our way through the dark, but it’s dimmer now. Tired, maybe. Or warning us.
It’s hard to tell.
“You know what I miss?” Orion continues, because silence is his mortal enemy. “Punching things.”
“You punched a tree twenty minutes ago,” Kieran says from behind us.
“Trees don’t punch back. Where’s the fun in that?”
“The tree seemed to disagree. It nearly took your hand off.”
“The tree was asking for it. Did you see how it was standing there? Menacingly?”
“It was a tree.”
“A menacing tree.”
Finnian sighs. The sound of a man who has had this exact conversation four hundred times and will have it four hundred more. “Perhaps if you channeled this energy into vigilance instead of arboreal violence?—”
“Did you just say arboreal?”
“It means relating to trees.”
“I know what it means. I’m judging you for using it.”
“Someone has to maintain standards of vocabulary.”
