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I leave them to it, tugging on Reya’s reins when she tries to stop to eat leaves from a low-hanging tree.

“Was it difficult, being alone while also having to look out for someone younger?”

I startle at the mercenary’s voice. I hadn’t heard him step beside me.

“Of course it was.”

“I’m sorry about your parents.”

“Thank you, but you needn’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”

“No, but I hate to imagine you all alone. Raising your little sister while you yourself were a child.”

Sometimes he says just the right things to endear him to me a little more. I have never been friends with a boy before. But I think I might just be forming friendships with these two as we travel on the road.

He thinks you’re a beauty.

The thought comes unbidden, sending a flash of panic through me like a whiplash.

It shouldn’t matter. It’s not as though he knows I know. Yet the thought still seems to make me uncomfortable in his presence. I can’t control it.

Maybe it’s the fact that Secret Eater came to be because I thought him beautiful. And then the sword shared such a similar word regarding Kellyn’s thoughts about me.

Beauty.

Such a silly, superficial thing, and yet, so much danger was created because of it.

The days grow into weeks on the road. With Temra’s new fighting ability revealed to the group, she’s somehow talked Kellyn into sparring with her in the evenings before we turn in for bed. Since there was nothing I could do to prevent it, I watched from the sidelines once, but after snapping at Kellyn when he shoved Temra backward, she begged me to leave.

I watch them from afar now so Temra doesn’t know I’m spying.

She’s incredible. She has a natural grace in the way she swings, and I’m so impressed by the strength she manages to force into each thrust of her sword. Kellyn barks instructions to her, but I’m too far away to hear.

“She’s really good,” Petrik says from where he crouches down beside me, his eyes also on the sparring pair.

“She is.”

We watch as Kellyn pauses to get behind Temra and correct a stance. She snaps something to him good-humoredly, and he grins in response.

“What do you think they’re saying?” Petrik asks.

“They’re flirting.”

Petrik takes his eyes off them to look at me. “Surely not.” It doesn’t surprise me that Petrik wouldn’t pick up on this. After all, Temra has been flirting right at him for days, and the scholar has failed to notice.

“I know my sister. She’s very good at it. And, well, justlookat him.”

I feel my cheeks heat as soon as the words are out. I just admitted I find him handsome. Stupid.

But Petrik doesn’t seem to care about my slip. “It wouldn’twork. They’re too similar. And they don’t like each other like that.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“You can tell by the way they move around each other. They don’t touch except when necessary. They’re being playful with their words to dispel any awkwardness. It’s not at all like the way the mercenary is with you.”

I nearly lose my balance in my crouch. “What?”

“You don’t really look at anyone except your sister. Even now when I’m talking to you, you’re looking at the ground. It’s okay. I know it’s just how you are, but you don’t notice the mercenary as a result. The way he is with you.”