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Chapter Twenty-Three

Hot blood trickled down the back of my thigh, pooling at my ankle as I limped back to camp.

Signey kept the key around her neck. Of course, she kept the key around her neck.

I should have felt some sort of panic, some sort of worry, should have felt the searing impossibility of the task ahead, but all I felt was numb. Numb head, numb heart.

If I catch you near my things again, I will carve out your heart and leave your body to rot.

She knew, of course she knew. And I still had to get the key, the box, the weapon. Or maybe I could just leave, pack my things, and run.

You pushed Hans away when he was alive. Are you turning your back on him in death, too?

Are you going to leave? That’s what your father did.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl into a ball and never unravel.

Who was I to go up against her? Who was I to go up against them? Anyone—literally anyone—would have been better at this than me. Stefan. Katrina.

I peeled off my wet and dirty sweater and clawed through my bags, stockings and shirts, dove-gray and fleecy creams.

My knuckles knocked a bottle of lavender oil, blue glass and a stoppered top.

I will carve out your heart.

I hurled the bottle against the ground. It popped like a flower, a spray of glass and herbs and I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, but I was already digging through my bag for another, and I was ruining my supplies, ruining my tent, but it felt good to break something and I didn’t care.

Another pop, another spray, more glass, more herbs, more breaking. A vial of drawing oil, of rosewater, pieces glittering like diamonds. I wanted to use them, to press the point into my palm until blood welled, but I was over that— over that— and maybe if I could break things, then maybe I wouldn’t break myself.

Chamomile. Comfrey.

Pop, spray .

I scraped through the bottom of the bag and my hand knocked the brown leather box embossed with the letters HH .

Hans.

Tears stung my cheeks and that thing, that thing tried to claw up my throat. I swallowed.

Two options—find the key or convince someone to tell me what was in the box. Two options, and I couldn’t steal the key off Signey’s neck.

Two options.

This wasn’t about me.

This was about Hans .

I put the letter box back and grabbed my pouch of coffee grounds, took a moment to pull my hair into a high bun, dabbed my wrists in the puddle of lavender oil, tried to make myself more, more, more .

If Erik was going to make us invisible again, he’d appreciate the coffee. Maybe we could joke about what happened when he drank the grounds this morning. I’d win his trust, use my womanly wiles to woo him. Easy . It should be easy.

The camp had fallen into the swish of sleep, a quiet lull. Grass swayed and the last embers smoldered in the fire. A few moths flittered, wings silver in the starlight. His tent sat at the end of the row. I reached to pull back the flap, but—

“You have to sleep eventually.” Kaspar, hard and angry.

I paused, my fingers skimming the waxy fabric.

“Why? I’m fine.” Erik.

“You’re running yourself ragged.”

“So?”

“You can’t keep doing it. You’ll—”

“I’m fine.” The words were harsh, meant to end the conversation.

A scrape, a huff. “What good did Sending do? They still found us.”

“I hid us last night and for three-quarters of the day. They shouldn’t have been able to follow.”

I hadn’t realized Erik had been doing that, but he’d ridden behind everyone today, skirting the edges of the group the way a sheep dog skirts the edges of its flock. He’d hardly said two words to anyone.

“Unless,” Erik continued, “I’m dropping it again. Like with the ships.”

“You can’t keep beating yourself up about that. Lothgar shouldn’t have pushed you that hard.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“We’re not meant to hold illusions for six days.” Something scraped. “If you keep this up, you’re going to be exhausted when it actually counts.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Erik, we’re launching the attack as soon as we get back.”

No, no, no. I pressed a hand to my stomach. Once the Volds attacked Larland, Larland’s attention would be pulled away, a snag on a sweater and they’d be too busy defending their own shores. They wouldn’t come to help us. There would be no victory, no cannons, no swans, no monuments built in Hans’s name. He wouldn’t matter.

You’ll have failed him.

His death will be for nothing.

Pointless.

You pushed him away.

“We should go on the defensive,” Kaspar continued. “Confront them. Kill them before they kill us.”

“We stick to the original plan,” Erik said.

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“And Isabel?” Kaspar asked. “You want an update on her?”

A sigh. “What’s she doing now?”

“Nothing bad. She came back from bathing and went straight to her tent. She seemed upset, so we didn’t bother her.”

“She hasn’t left? No…wandering?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“Hmm. Okay.” The scrape of blankets, the clink of glass. “The thing that I can’t figure out is why they picked her. If they’re still sticking with the ‘you need a guide’ story, anyone— literally anyone —would have been better. She—”

“It’s rude to eavesdrop.” Signey’s voice cut through the night. She reached around me and pulled the flap open.

Erik’s head snapped up. Our eyes locked.

“Coffee,” I said, thrusting the bag toward him the same moment Signey said, “I want her gone.”

I turned and headed back to my tent. Screw them, screw this. Screw all of this because I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I—

“Isabel,” Erik said, chasing after me. “Isa—” He grabbed my arm.

I rounded on him. “What?”

He blinked. Moonlight edged his features, his high cheekbones, his angular jaw, and there was last night on the bluffs and this morning getting coffee. It glinted in his eyes. I see you, I see you.

He scraped a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

“You didn’t think what? That I knew you didn’t want me here? Well, guess what? I don’t want to be here, either.”

The words cut like a knife, quick and scalding, and I should stop, should go back to my tent, but I was cold and wet and sick of this—sick of them, sick of being that wraith who hovered and hovered and hovered, and they were right: I was a terrible guide, and they were going to attack Larland, and I was running out of time and—

“And you’re right,” I continued. “They could have sent someone better. But do you know why they sent me?”

No response. Of course not.

“Because they didn’t need two apprentice physicians, and Stefan is better at managing the king .” I let the words linger along with everything else: I am expendable, I am small, I am no one.

Grass shivered, the silhouettes of wildflowers bending and bowing. Clouds hung like razors in the sky.

I stalked into my tent and sank onto my bedroll, my hair wet, my forehead on my knees. Broken glass glittered and shaking. I was shaking.

It didn’t matter.

That night, when the nightmares came, I gritted my teeth and lived through them, sand flies and splashing water, the press of his chest beneath my palms.

Pump, pump, wait.

I woke, sweaty and sobbing, and watched the silhouettes of rain drip down the canvas of my tent.

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