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“How long?”

“I don’t know. Not long.” He hiccupped. “Not long, I promise, I counted a bit and then I stopped counting.”

“Good lad. Good, brave lad.”

“He has men with him,” Brannok blurted.

I turned my head.

“Two.” Brannok’s chin came up, though the rest of him was trembling. “Two big humans. With swords.”

I felt my mouth pull into something that was not a smile, my tusks gleaming in the winter air.

“Aye,” I said. “Well, I have a sword too.”

I set Ewan on his feet and pushed him at Rowena, who gripped the lad to her.

“Edan is safe inside,” she murmured, knowing how to set that worry at ease, at least.

“Ye three did well,” I told the lads as I hefted the sword again and turned westward.

“Brannok—go and find Vrogul. Tell him west, toward the boats, and tell him to send every male he can put his hands on.”

I didn’t wait for the lads’ agreement.

I ran.

It had been a long time since I prayed that hard. I prayed that I’d reach Cataline in time and that John hadn’t hurt her and that we’d both be able to hold our sons again.

I came out of the trees at a dead run and skidded to a stop when I saw them.

Cataline stood at the water’s edge with her back against John’s chest and his knife under her jaw. There was flour on her hands. That was the thing my eyes caught first, gods help me, the pale dust still on her knuckles from Jean’s kitchen, and her cloak half off one shoulder where the bastard had dragged her by it.

How had he managed to sneak close enough to grab her? To almost grab Ewan?

My Kteer howled in my chest, but I forced myself to inhale and hold it as I settled into a ready position, blade up. I couldn’t focus on the fear in her eyes, not if I wanted to be useful against the threats.

Two humans flanked them. Big for their kind. Both in boiled leather that had seen use. Both with watchful eyes and blades in their hands.

Hired, then. Men who knew what they were about.

Beyond them, the ferryman stood beside his boat with a coil of rope hanging forgotten from one fist, staring at us with his mouth open, and I wondered if he remembered me from last month.

Focus. I narrowed my eyes at John.

“Let her go, ye bastard.”

His lips curled up on one side, cruel and cold, naught like the affable tavern-keeper.

“There he is.” He tipped his chin at me the way a man greets an acquaintance in the street. “I did wonder how long it would take you to listen to that brat’s blathering.”

Cataline’s eyes found mine.

Down the Bond came a wave of terror so cold it near buckled my knees, and beneath it, worse, the small bright sting of the blade already breaking her skin. A thread of blood had started down her throat. It might be just a scratch, but I would carry that scratch to my pyre.

John was going to die today, for that scratch.

“I’ll make ye an offer,” I said to him, my voice calmer than it had a right to be.