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For a moment, they all stand uselessly, staring back at one another.

“I don’t remember seein’ her las’ night,” Salem mentions. “Though she tends to sleep away from me. I though’ she were with yeh, Ryon.”

“I was with Dawsyn in the cabin as she recovered,” Ryon says. “She wasn’t there.”

At the mention of Dawsyn’s recovery, Baltisse pales.

“Ruby ate supper with us,” Hector says. “I think she went into the forest to wash while there was still light in the day.”

“And she didn’t return?”

“I fell asleep,” Hector shrugs. “I think we all did.”

“Plenty of time to find her way back to the Mecca. Especially if she ran into a friend,” Baltisse says, her tone black.

Tasheem curses. “You think she turned traitor? She sent those guards out here to find us?”

“No,” Dawsyn says again, though she is the only one.

“The guard on the road,” Ryon starts, his eyes on Dawsyn. “The one that killed Gerrot. He said Ruby’s name.”

Dawsyn feels suddenly and painfully empty, as though a hand reached inside her and scraped a well in her stomach, hollowing her out. She remembers holding her ax to Ruby’s throat, remembers warring with indecision. She had been sure it would be a mistake to trust her. But Dawsyn had come to know her better, come to think of her as a friend. Dawsyn had even thought her noble, brave, if a little lost… like herself.

More likely, it was only what she had led Dawsyn to believe, to quell Dawsyn’s concern that the woman might be exactly what she appeared.

“After all of it,” Dawsyn says, so quietly that Ryon comes closer to hear her. “She was a fucking traitor anyway?”

How stupidly obvious. So very insultingly plain.

“I heard nothing traitorous on her mind,” Baltisse argues, shaking her head.

“That trick has holes, Baltisse, and Ruby knew of them,” Ryon mutters.

But Dawsyn shakes her head. “No.”

“Dawsyn…” Ryon begins, his tone placating.

“No,” Dawsyn says, firmer this time. “No. If she ran back to her Queens, there would be an army here to hunt us. Not a pair of guards and their horse.”

“Where has she gone, then? If not back to the Mecca?” Esra asks.

Dawsyn approaches the mage. “You said that the entire guard was searching the valley?”

“Like cockroaches.” Baltisse nods. “They’re everywhere.”

Dawsyn chews on her tongue. She cannot swallow the idea of Ruby as a spy. She helped Dawsyn escape. Ryon, too. She could have left in a thousand different moments before now. It makes no sense. “She may have been found last night when she left camp. Detained.”

“She’s a Terrsaw fucking captain!” Tasheem spits, hurling a stone into the woods in her frustration. “We should have dropped her into the Chasm.”

“No,” Dawsyn says once more. “She hasn’t betrayed us.”

“Lass is fuckin’ smart, I’ll give her tha’,” Salem groans. “Convincin’ like. EvenIhad begun to believe her.”

“She hasn’t betrayed us,” Dawsyn repeats again.

Rivdan’s voice is even, stern. “What matters,” he says, “is whether we are still safe here, with dead guards on the road nearby, and an entire army searching.”

“How could they know we’re in the valley?” Dawsyn mutters, her gaze distant.