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"I'm not."

"You look disappointed."

"I don't know what to do with reasonable."

His expression shifted so slightly I might have missed it, yet the change was enough to make me regret saying it. The words were true. The problem was that he understood too much of what I meant.

Corian glanced toward the wire. "One thing. Tell me what you know. Then give us time to check what's around it before you move."

"I can do that. It won't happen again."

Corian shook his head.

I frowned. "What?"

"You'll make another mistake."

"That is not reassuring."

"It isn't supposed to be. Everyone does. You don't need to promise me you'll never make one again. Promise me you'll listen when one of us catches something you missed."

The words settled somewhere uncomfortable. Trust didn't require perfection, though it did require accepting that sometimes somebody else would see the problem first.

"I will."

Corian nodded. "Good."

I looked toward the trail. "You could have said that without being insufferably calm."

The corner of his mouth moved. "I'll try not to make a habit of it."

We resumed the route less than twenty minutes later.

Halver stayed in Veylith form and ranged ahead while Alex floated the evidence case beside the research equipment. The jungle gradually reclaimed its noise around us. Birds returned to the branches, insects resumed humming beneath broad leaves and water moved somewhere to our right.

Halver appeared farther ahead, blue-black scales catching between the leaves. He waited until I crossed, then turned and continued scouting. By late afternoon the ground finally began to rise toward the center of the island. The jungle opened around a broad stone shelf overlooking a slow river channel, exactly where the old survey markers said the camp should be.

Dannian stopped beside me.

"Still excited?"

I looked over the clearing, the water, the enormous trees surrounding us and Halver emerging from the jungle in a flash of blue-black scales.

Then I looked back along the route we'd taken.

Traps.

Kelvarin pups.

One argument.

One apology.

Less than a day into my first deployment.

"Yes."

Dannian smiled. "Good."