“And do what?”
Red nearly spat it, loud enough that more than a few heads turned in their direction. Her tone was all anger, but her lip wobbled, and there was a shine in her eyes that wasn’t due to drink. Eammon’s hand left the table, snaked into her lap, and she clung to it like ivy on a wall. “There’s nothing I can do, Fife,” she said, more quietly now. “It’s all on Neve. Even if I go back into the Heart Tree, I can’t make her come with me.”
“This is about more than Neve.” Fife’s eyes glinted in the dim light, something almost distant about them, like he was listening to whispered words. “Red, this is about more than Neve, and you know it. You are the Wilderwood, both of you.” His gaze went to Eammon. “When the Shadowlands break apart, when all that magic comes back, you have to be there to contain it. To do something, regardless of what comes out.”
It was, Raffe thought, the most words he’d heard from Fife at once in the entire time he’d known the man.
Slowly, the distant look bled from Fife’s eyes. He blinked, looked to Lyra, who was watching him with a confused look on her face.
“Did the Wilderwood tell you that?” Eammon, puzzled and low.
A pause, then Fife nodded, almost reluctantly.
Red frowned. “I didn’t feel anything.”
Fife’s hand tightened over his Mark, eyes flicking away. “Maybe it knows you wouldn’t listen,” he said quietly. “I think it tells me the things that you two don’t want to hear.”
Eammon looked to Red, face unreadable. Red’s lower lip clamped between her teeth, blanched nearly white.
Raffe ardently wished for another beer.
“What do you mean, ‘regardless of what comes out’？” Red swallowed, her hand on her own Mark now, as if she could make the forest within her explain itself. “Neve is coming out.”
“I’m just telling you what it told me,” Fife said wearily.
“We aren’t hurting Neve.”
Raffe was almost surprised to hear the sound of his own voice; from the wide-eyed looks everyone else shot him, so were they. He hadn’t spoken since they arrived at the tavern.
He straightened, looked Fife in the eye. “No matter what your forest told you, we aren’t hurting Neve.”
Next to him, Kayu’s shoulders softened. Defeat or relief or a strange mixture of the two, he wasn’t sure.
“No,” Red agreed softly. “We’re not.”
Eammon said nothing, his lips pressing into a flat line beneath his hood.
Lyra broke the tension, one hand on Fife’s arm and the other still curled around her cup. “Let’s get back home,” she said, “and then we can figure out what exactly we need to do to be prepared.”
Not exactly a reassuring sentiment, but it was all they had.
Tension about Neve dispelled, replaced with one more pressing. Red gave Kayu a narrow-eyed look. “You saved me.”
“Technically, Eammon did,” Kayu said softly. “But I tried.”
“I don’t know how much that means, when you were the one to bring us into a trap in the first place,” Eammon growled.
“Not a trap.” A tendril of ivy trailed out of Red’s hood; she tucked it behind her ear. “Even if it was meant that way, we learned valuable information. We have a better idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Still.” Kayu lifted one shoulder, let it drop. Her face was wan, carved out with exhaustion. “I understand if you want to leave me here.”
“No.” Again, Raffe was surprised by his own voice, doubly surprised by how strong it sounded. He leveled his gaze at Red. “We’re not leaving her. It isn’t safe.”
The door to the tavern opened. A man stumbled in, clearly half drunk already, and took a seat at the bar. “You hear all that racket up at the Temple?” he asked the bartender. “Screamin’ and carryin’ on. You’d think someone died.”
“Of course we’re not leaving Kayu.” Red looked over her shoulder, at the window above the bar. Sunrise stained the sky. “All of us are leaving. Now.”
Beer on an empty stomach had been a bad idea.
Raffe leaned his head back against the wooden hull, grateful for the dim light. His initial assessment of the ship had been correct—the cargo hold and what Captain Neils referred to as the “passenger bunks” were one and the same, with a few cots made from pushed-together crates and lumpy mattresses, divided three to one side and three to the other with a hastily hung curtain.