“I gave her a remedy,” Kiela said. “You’re the island’s healer?”
He nodded, which caused his antlers to dip again, a significant movement.
Quickly, she explained about Larran and the rescued woman. As she described the rescue, the fear rushed back in a wave. “She hasn’t woken yet, and Larran is worried about internal injuries.”
“He would be. He has seen it before. I will hurry to him. But you . . . When the aftermath of the storm is resolved, I would like a conversation about your remedies.”
She flinched and then wished she hadn’t. “Of course. I live—”
He cut her off. “I know where to find you.” With his cloak flapping behind him, he trotted past her toward the stairs.
Kiela watched him go and felt shivers walk up and down her spine. Exactly what she didn’t want—questions about her remedies from someone who could have the training to recognize them for what they were.
As he reached the rosebushes, she remembered the damaged stairs. She called out, “Watch the steps! A few are missing!”
“Not a concern,” Ivor said without turning around. And then his cloak extended, and she saw it wasn’t a cloak at all. He had wings—brown and leathery wings, like a dragon. As she stared, he glided off the cliff.
After staring for a moment, she pushed her worries about her remedies and his suspicions from her mind and ran into the forest, toward home and Caz.
Chapter Nineteen
The storm had battered the trees, but as densely packed as they were, they’d held one another upright. Only a few had fallen that she could see. Leaves had been ripped from the canopy, and it looked as if the whole forest had been shaken. But she could still find the path, and in a few moments it opened onto her cottage.
Petals, leaves, and branches were everywhere—spread across the yard, tossed on the roof, leaning against the cottage. A pine tree had fallen but missed anything vital. It lay beside the cottage on the cove side.
“Caz!” she called. She skirted between the debris to the door.
The door hung open.
Why isn’t it shut? Where’s—
“Kiela!” Caz tumbled out of the front door, running as fast as he could on his tendrils, until he was close enough to launch himself upward and into her arms. He wrapped his leaves around her neck. “I thought you’d died.”
Ignoring the dampness of his soil ball, she hugged him back, her arms around his leafiness. “I’m okay. I’m glad you’re okay.”
“You could have been struck by lightning, swept out to sea, crushed by a tree—I’d half written your eulogy. I said very nice things.”
Kiela laughed. “Thank you, I think?”
“It was in iambic pentameter.”
“That’s amazing.”
“I had to create different versions, to match the different ways you died.”
Gently, she said, “I didn’t die. I was in town when the storm blew in, and I couldn’t make it back here. I took shelter at Larran’s. Until he dove into the ocean to rescue a woman from a ship that capsized.”
Caz pulled back from her, disentangling his leaves from her hair. “He has a real savior thing going on, doesn’t he? That can’t be healthy.” He climbed down from her, and she dusted the soil bits off the front of Larran’s shirt. She’d have to wash it before she returned it. “Sorry about the dirt, though it’s entirely your fault for dying six different ways.”
Kiela started to laugh again, half in relief—
“Now that you’re not dead anymore, I have to tell you we have a problem,” Caz said.
Her heart sank. Had the storm caused damage to the cottage? Had the roof leaked? Were the books okay? What about the garden?
Before she could ask, she heard a wail from the cottage—shrill, loud, inhuman. The hair on her neck stood up. What wasthat?“Caz? What kind of problem?”
“You won’t believe it until I show you.” Using his tendrils, he propelled himself back toward the cottage, and she hurried after him. She noted that the grass was flattened and smeared in a path leading to the door, as if something had been dragged through the mud.
