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"Wanting to and doing it are different things."

"Sure. Very different. Completely unrelated concepts."

She bumped her shoulder against my arm, light and quick, gone before I could decide whether to make something of it. "You're insufferable."

"I have depths."

"You have one joke, worn thin from overuse."

"It's a good joke."

"It was, the first time."

I laughed loud enough that a bird broke from the scrub ahead of us, and Jade's mouth did the small private thing it did when she'd landed a hit and wasn't going to admit how pleased she was about it. Whatever this trip was doing to the rest of the squad, it hadn't left me untouched either. I just wasn't in any hurry to look directly at it. Some things went quiet the second you turned to face them head on, and I liked her laughing at my jokes too much to risk that yet.

The island's forest started differently than Gledhi had, thicker undergrowth and older trees, the kind that had grown over something instead of just growing on its own. We picked up a trail heading inland, and the hills rose gradually around us for the rest of the day, steep enough in places that we walked the horses more than we rode them.

The quiet out here had a different texture than Gledhi's had, less welcoming, more watchful, the kind of forest that hadn't decided yet whether it wanted us passing through it. Even Ashter seemed to notice, staying solid and alert next to Jade.

Camp that second night went up in a shallow hollow off the trail, sheltered from the wind, and Halver came back from the tree line with two hares slung over one shoulder before the rest of us had finished unpacking.

"Show off," I said.

"You said that to Jade this morning."

"I meant it both times."

He set to work at the fire with the same unhurried focus he gave everything, and Jade crouched beside him almost before he'd started, sleeves pushed up, watching his hands the way she watched anything she intended to learn properly.

"You're doing the thing," I told her.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you look like you're about to take notes."

"I don't have anything to write with."

"That's not actually a denial."

She ignored me, which was its own kind of answer, and turned back to Halver as he showed her how to dress the hare properly, guiding her hand with two fingers at the wrist until the blade found the right line on the first try instead of the third.

"Like that," he said. "Follow the joint, not the muscle."

"That's harder than it looks."

"Everything is, the first time."

She got it on the second try, and her shoulders dropped half an inch, the particular ease she only let herself have around a fire, a blade, and someone who wasn't going to make it into a lesson about anything bigger than the hare in front of her.

I let her have it. This trip was quietly rearranging all of us.

Nykos's headaches found him around midday on the third day, the same way they always did without warning.

"You're squinting."

"I'm thinking."

"You're squinting while thinking. Sit down."