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Dawsyn looks Hector in the eye. She watches him find the answer himself. “Dead,” she voices finally. “He’s dead.”

Minutes stretch and no one speaks. Dawsyn is thankful for it. Tasheem seems on the cusp of saying something consoling but stops herself. Instead, they each remain suspended in a state of disbelief.

Dawsyn doesn’t want sorrow and grief. She wants anger. She wants action. She wants someone to pay.

Ryon is the only body not frozen in the upheaval. He paces in small circuits, the muscles beneath his clothes bunching with agitation. “What were those guards doing on the road? So near?”

“They were hidin’ behind the treeline,” Salem says. “On the far side. Gerrot and I woke early. Thought we’d go foragin’. We stepped out onto the road, and they…”

Ryon curses. “As though they were waiting for someone. Any one of us.”

“But how did they know where to be?” Dawsyn asks. “Baltisse said that–”

“That this part of the wood is protected from outsiders,” comes an unexpected voice. “Yes. I did say that.”

Dawsyn turns.

There stands Baltisse where before she had not. She looks haggard, her long, normally lustrous hair tangled. Her posture slumps.

No one says a word at first, and then–

“Are you well, mage?” Ryon asks. Fair words, bridling with outrage. Dawsyn sees the way his hands tremble.

Baltisse cracks her neck, groaning at the relief. “Hush, Ryon. Your mind is gratingly loud,” she says. “I’ve been better, to be honest. But I’ll live.”

“I’m much relieved.” Ryon sneers. “Now will you deign to tell us where the fuck you’ve been?”

“Watch your tone.”

“Baltisse, Ipromise you–”

“Enough!” Dawsyn hisses. Placing a hand on Ryon’s chest as he advances. “We have matters more pressing.”

“I seem to have missed quite a lot,” Baltisse says slowly, her eyes piercing Ryon’s. Whatever Ryon shows her, it makes her pale.

“Yes,” Ryon says icily. “You have.”

The pregnant silence that follows stretches until it is interrupted by Esra, who says, “Baltisse? When you have a moment, I have a very peculiar rash that I need tending–”

“Gerrot is gone?” Baltisse asks, her stare on Dawsyn, who nods.

“The Terrsaw guards,” Baltisse says, eyes distant. “They seem to be all over the valley, crawling into every hole they can find, searching. The forests included. It’s likely a coincidence that you came across two.”

Ryon scrubs his face wearily. “I doubt it.”

“Where is Ruby? Surely she may shed some light–”

“The captain is missing,” Ryon says loudly. “And I think I know where she has gone.”

Dawsyn blanches. Her fingers turn cold. “No.”

“The Queens,” Ryon states, his voice firm and sure.

“What?” Tasheem blurts.

Salem scowls. “Yeh think she’s bolted?”

“When was it that any of us last saw her?” Ryon asks, turning to Tasheem and Rivdan, to Salem, Esra, and Hector.