She kept waiting for the Wilderwood within her to riot at the thought of leaving. For pain to spike through her, like it had the day Neve disappeared into the Shadowlands, warning her away from the border, warning her she couldn’t cross.
But there was nothing. Just the gentle sway of leaves over her spine, the creep of ivy through her hipbones.
Behind them, Fife and Lyra stood waiting. Fife was nervous to go farther than Valleyda, but he refused to show it, standing as still as he could even as his feet shifted against the dirt. Lyra stood next to him, one hand placed gently on his forearm. The two of them had apparently come to some kind of resolution, through the whispered conversations Red had seen them having in the corners of the Keep. At any rate, they didn’t seem upset with each other anymore.
The Keep was under the not-quite-watchful eyes of Lear and Loreth, who had been more enthusiastic about the prospect than Red had thought they’d be. Eammon had snorted when she said as much to him, and tilted up her chin for a kiss that left her breathless. “Newlyweds,” he murmured against her lips, “will take any privacy they can.”
There was nothing of that easy humor in him now. Eammon stared at the tree line like someone might look at a gallows.
Red jostled her shoulder against his. “The Wilderwood is being nice to me. How about you?”
He shrugged, stiff and stilted. “Can’t feel anything.”
There was a current of wariness running beneath his words, one that made her chew her lip. The Wilderwood had lived in him so much longer than it’d lived in her. Her own relationship to the forest they anchored was a mostly amiable one, wrongs forgiven. Eammon’s was more complicated, and she still didn’t quite know how to ask him about it. If he’d even have the words to answer if she did.
She squared her shoulders. Stepped forward. And though Eammon’s hand reflexively spasmed around hers, like he’d try to haul her back, he didn’t. His breath pulled in sharp, and he didn’t let it out as Red approached the trees.
One more pause. Then she stepped between the trunks.
And nothing happened.
The wind teased her ivy-threaded hair, scented with distant smoke, the acrid tang of livestock and many people living in one place. A slight hitch in the Wilderwood within her, like the deep breath of someone slipping into icy water—but no pain, no consequences.
Instead, a feeling of satisfaction, almost. A step taken in the right direction.
She held out her hand to Eammon, still in the shadows of the trees.
A heartbeat, and Eammon laid his palm in hers. He stepped out of the forest, the gold of a new-dawning day burnishing his hair. His eyes widened, then closed as he tipped his head back up to the sky.
“Welcome to the world, Wolf,” Red murmured.
Behind them, Fife and Lyra followed, Fife with a fractioned second of hesitation. The four of them stood on the edge of the world they’d known for so long and were silent.
Fife broke the quiet, crossing his arms. “It smells better in the Wilderwood, I’ll give it that. It’s a revelation every time.”
“You’d better get used to that animal smell.” Lyra gestured toward the road winding back to the village. A small carriage approached, pulled by nondescript horses, the driver with a telltale flick of long black hair. “Looks like our ride to the coast is here.”
Eammon’s back heaved, rippling beneath his dark shirt as he hung over the side of the ship. Usually, the work of his shoulders was something Red enjoyed watching, but today her nose wrinkled and her hand on his neck was tentative.
“I take it back.” He pushed up, scraping his wrist over his mouth. The green around his face wasn’t due only to the Wilderwood in him. “I hate the ocean.”
The trip to the Florish coast, while exceedingly strange, was uneventful. The carriage pulled up to the end of the road before the Wilderwood, Kayu grinning at them from the driver’s seat, wearing a tunic and trousers, with a cap pulled down over the waterfall of her hair.
Red had arched a brow. “So you drive, too?”
“I’m a woman of many talents.”
“Debatable.” Raffe’s voice, somewhat shaky from his seat next to Kayu, his head tipped back against the carriage. “Reckless doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“Hush,” Kayu said. “I might be slightly out of practice, but we got here with no injury to beast or man, so I count that a success.”
“Maybe wait to tally the injuries until we get there,” Raffe muttered.
The nerves of passing the Wilderwood’s border wore off slowly, replaced by nerves of a different kind. Red twitched at her dark cloak—her scarlet bridal one was packed into her bag, since she and Eammon had decided the more nondescript they could look, the better. “And the crew you hired? They’ll be… discreet?”