Now, to ruin whatever tenuous truce they’d attained. “I think we should return to the camp.”
“No.” He remained unmoved. “No.We need to go, Sylas.”
“I can’t just leave. It’s a game, yes?” She sighed at her own words turned against her. “You were a child when you last played it, but you know it. And when this is all done, you will return to your house in the wood, with a new roof and a fence, and I will return to them.”
This may or may not be true, depending on how the hunt went, now that they were all here. Now that they were all competition. But he did not want to sever that tie unless he must.
And of course, Anya would not have the coin for a new roof and fence. Not from him. And how to sever that tie? The thought settled in his stomach like a stone.
Anya remained unconvinced. She folded her arms over her chest. “Why?”
“Because it ismyhome,” he said.
She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “Then you won’t approve if I perform some light sabotage?”
That startled a laugh from him, which she returned. “I’m quite sure I’ll be looking the other way.”
“One night,” she relented. “Only because the sun’s already setting. A crowd that size is a death trap.”
“What about safety in numbers?”
“Think of it like a herd. One alone is more vulnerable, but harder to find. A predator is more likely to attack where they know there’s a sure meal. There’s safety in numbers, but the more of us packed together, the more risk of drawing attention we don’t want. And I don’t want to be the one whose gnarled bones get picked clean by snails.”
“I am, as ever, in awe of your powers of description.”
She raised her eyebrows expectantly.
“One night,” he agreed.
When they returned to the camp, the sun had set behind the clouds, casting the clearing in a dim gray. The party had split up, drifting between campfires, carriages stuffed with more supplies than they could ever need and large, luxurious tents. The servants were clearing the abandoned table. Anya and Sy grabbed their belongings from their chairs and Anya made for the tree line, preferring to keep her distance.
Sabina stopped them on the way, now wearing her jacket. “Miss Degen, I must beg your forgiveness,” she said, and for all her faults, she did sound sincere. “It was childish, and reckless. I swear I penned it perfectly, but I must have made a mistake. I meant no harm.”
Anya regarded her, her green eyes flat as glass. “Make sure you burn or bury the remains of your feast,” she said, tossing a disparaging glance around the table, laden with unfinished food. “You’ll bring bears, or worse, on all our heads.” With that, she left, and Sy started to follow, but he hesitated. He needed to refill the water in his kit.
“I’ll catch up to you,” he said, and she gave him a long look before nodding and going on her own.
Keeping an eye on which way Anya went, he approached the nearest wagon and went through several barrels of wine before he found one full of water – what he hoped was distilled. When he finished, he drank long and deep straight from the spigot. The spell he’d penned for Anya had barely affected him enough to be notable, but he was still not completely recovered from the previous week.
As he wiped his mouth dry and adjusted his satchel, he noticed Anya had waited for him in the line of the trees. He also noticed that David was nearby, seated on a stone around a campfire with Bertrand and Claude.
Bertrand noticed him first and cleared his throat. “Hello, Sylas.”
“Hello, Bertrand.”
At his voice, David looked up, and Sy gestured under a nearby willow. After a moment’s hesitation, David rose and followed him.
“You told them I was looking for the phoenix.” Sabina had intimated as much, but Sy didn’t want to believe it. David said nothing, confirming its truth. His chest tightened. “David. You know what this prize would mean to me.”
“And what about what it would mean to me? Did you know my father’s factory is on the verge of collapse?”
Despite himself, Sy softened. “Is he ill again?”
“Better to ask when he isn’t,” David muttered, rubbing a hand over his mouth. Sy knew David’s father had a tendency toward worry, and toward treating his workers with dignity, which had the dueling effects of leading his expenses to far outweigh those of his rivals, and his speed of production to lag behind – which increased the worry. He hadn’t known this lag, or the worry, was catching up.
“He may have to sell it to make up the debt,” David went on. “He’s already spent half my inheritance on it, and the rest is sure to follow. And then there will be nothing to pay for my sister’s education. She could end up in the same place you are now. If she’s lucky.”
Sy couldn’t keep himself from wincing. “No, I didn’t know.”
