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Dawsyn swallows. She remains quiet as they come to a bend in the trail. Ahead is the cursive of smoke rising into the treetops. Baltisse’s cabin is near.

“I’m sorry for your brother,” Dawsyn finally says, her throat tighter than she wants it to be, her words raspy and weak. It is the only part of his tale that she can safely speak on. She feels a strange unfolding, layer by layer with each piece of Ryon she comes to learn.

“Aye, me as well. Poor lad.”

“What happened to him?” Dawsyn asks. Anything to keep the conversation from Ryon and all his good qualities.

“Warner was his name. He insulted a nobleman, I’m sorry to say. Fell in love with a pompous man’s daughter. Next thing he knew, the lass was pregnant, and she ran to her father before she bothered to tell Warner. If there’s one thin’ our mother told us more’n once, it was ‘no fraternisin’ with the proper folk,’” Salem says in a high-pitched voice. “People o’ our class don’t take those liberties, yeh know? But my brother, well, he had a mind fer women and not much else, and this girl was at our inn more nights than not. I warned ’im, too! ‘Call it off,’ I said. Next thin’ we know, the guards were at our door with that nobleman leadin’ ’em. They took Warner away and I never saw him again.”

“They hung him?” Dawsyn asks, shocked.

“Aye. Those arrogant folk up there in the court,” Salem nods, his voice becoming gruff. “They don’t much care about what happens to us, yeh know? It ain’t ever been about what’s good for all. Only what’s good fer a few.”

This, at least, they can agree on.

Dawsyn is lost in thoughts of Salem until Baltisse’s cabin appears. They all come to a stop.

Rivdan drops his weapons and Tasheem helps Gerrot inside. Hector begins collecting sticks and kindling, and Dawsyn looks at her surroundings. There are times when she feels she has lived in two different realms, and this is one of them. In this one, Glacians give everything to help strangers, and humans kill for petty matters.

Hector and Gerrot will live out their remaining days hiding their true identity, lest any good folk learn that they come from the Ledge. Rivdan, Tasheem, and Ryon will be attacked if found by humans and now likely Adrik, too, should he be inspired to descend from his perch. Salem, Esra, and Baltisse will continue on as they have, hiding on the fringe of society.

And Dawsyn, she supposes, will need to do something about it.

She is many bad things, she knows. Malevolent and spiteful and more than a little arrogant. She is not gracious like Gerrot, or self-sacrificing like Ruby. She isn’t determinedly optimistic like Esra is, or as generous as Salem. She is not like Ryon, who gives pieces of himself away to those in need of him.

But she can be willing. She can be brave. She can repay the lives she’s taken with lives that should be saved. Before she dies, she can nod toward the reinstated good and say ‘See? I saved more than I took. Are we not even? Am I not made of many shades?’

She can keep fighting. She can do this much.

Ryon, Baltisse, and Tasheem come out of the small home. Dawsyn imagines that Esra and Gerrot will occupy most of the space now. Esra needs a comfortable place to rest, and Gerrot is the weakest of their lot. The others find places on the ground to sit, talking quietly amongst one another as Hector lights a small fire.

Dawsyn clears her throat. It is awkward and forced but it gets their attention, and they turn to her.

“I think,” Dawsyn says, swallowing hard. “We must try again.”

There is a small pause while the rest look around at each other, their glances questioning. Tasheem says, “Well, of course.” And they all go about their conversations once more, ignorant to the warmth that floods Dawsyn’s chest.

CHAPTERFORTY

For days, Dawsyn camps with the rest and speaks when spoken to, but her mind is consumed by the task ahead. How does one rescue a hundred humans from the Ledge with three sets of wings and a mage?

The answer is simpler than it should be: one would need more sets of wings. Or more Mages. Moreover, where would they put a hundred people? Certainly not in Terrsaw, where the Queens will view them as a threat. And if not here, then where else?

The thought of the Queens often brings the magic right to the tips of Dawsyn’s fingers. She watches it warily each time. Anger lures it out. Fear, too. But while she can lure it into her palms, she still cannot command it, and it is quickly becoming a source of diverting frustration.

But she had commanded it at least once, had she not? The day Ryon dragged Esra from the burning rubble of Salem’s home, she had laid her hands to Baltisse’s and bid whatever power she had to rise. She begged it to help. In the moments before, she had seen a world where one such as Esra didn’t exist and found it intolerable. Dawsyn doesn’t remember deciding to add her magic to Baltisse’s; she just knows that she did. It hadn’t felt searingly cold or sharp. It hadn’t been reluctant or explosive. It was warm. It was pliant.

It worked.

And how can that be?

These are the thoughts that trouble her most as she goes for water, as she sleeps on a pallet beneath the stars, as she sits alongside Salem, or Hector, or Tasheem, and pretends to listen to what they say.

“It still feels so peculiar to rest my ass on the ground,” Hector says.

Dawsyn and he have found a quiet spot in the forest away from the others. They sit with their backs to a towering tree trunk, its bark caked in soft, damp moss. It cools them in the relentless heat.

“Hm.”