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Thea pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I can’t believe this. Yesterday we were so close —’

Kipp motioned for quiet. Not tearing his eyes away from the cliff base, he jumped down from his horse and traced his gloved fingers across the rock. ‘The tracks just end,’ he said, more to himself than to Thea and Cal. ‘It’s like… like he walked straight through it. Fascinating.’

‘Impossible, you mean,’ Cal corrected from his saddle, still frowning over the map.

‘He’s working with dark forces,’ Thea ventured, fury crackling in her veins. ‘Back in Notos I saw him vanish into shadow myself. Nothing is impossible.’

She didn’t miss the way Kipp’s gaze darted up to Cal as they shared a non-verbal exchange. They were doing that more and more lately, which only served to aggravate her further.

‘We’ll have to go around,’ Cal said. ‘If we travel close to the base of this cliff, we’ll come upon a road by the lake. It’ll take us north, which seems to be where Hawthorne’s heading —’

‘And how long will that take?’ Thea sounded sharper than she’d intended, but time was of the essence. Why did no one understand that?

‘As long as it takes,’ Cal replied with an equal edge to his voice. ‘He can’t have gone through solid rock, Thea.’

She didn’t miss the strange, fleeting expression that crossed Kipp’s face at that, but her friend schooled his features into neutrality and shrugged. ‘We’ll find him.’

Thea bit back a retort about his failures as a sentry guard, about how, if it weren’t for him, Hawthorne might already be in chains. No, assigning blame would do no good here, and she had been hard enough on Kipp earlier.

Strong of mind, strong of body, strong of heart,she chanted to herself.

‘There’s a fishing village not far from here.’ Cal pocketed the map and gave Thea a hard look. ‘We’ll stop there to rest and get dry.’

Thea opened her mouth —

Cal raised a hand. ‘No arguments. You might be the Shadow of Death, Thea, you might be a lost princess of Delmira, but Kipp and I are spent. We’re no good to you this tired. Especially if we need to subdue a fucking Warsword.’

Kipp cleared his throat and mounted his horse before meeting Thea’s gaze. ‘In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m with the Flaming Arrow on this one.’

Thea’s chest tightened. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Don’t we?’ Kipp countered. ‘We’ve been on the road with you for a year, Thea. Wedounderstand. It’s not just about Warsword treason and the enemy in the shadows. It’s personal. Trust me, we get it.’

‘He —’

‘Weknow,’ Cal said gently as he guided his horse through the trees. ‘He betrayed you. Which means he betrayed us. But us freezing and starving to death in the woods isn’t revenge, it’s stupid.’

Begrudgingly, Thea urged her mare after her friends. ‘I never claimed to be smart,’ she muttered.

‘Luckily I’m smart enough for all of us,’ Kipp replied, offering a grin.

The midday sun offered little warmth throughout the forest, but the light itself seemed to lift their spirits. Though Thea would never admit it, the thought of a hot meal and a cosy armchair by the fire had her listening to her friends with amusement for the first time in weeks.

‘Should have seen the way she was looking at me in Notos,’ Kipp was saying to Cal, his expression earnest. ‘I really think she’s starting to warm to me.’

Cal snorted. ‘Horseshit.’

Kipp put a hand to his heart. ‘I swear it. There’s something between Wren and me, you can’t deny it.’

A rough laugh bubbled from Thea’s lips, some of the tension ebbing away from her shoulders. ‘Wren? As in my sister?’

‘Is there another Wren we know of?’ Kipp asked. ‘Intelligent, beautiful? Has a knack for potions and powders? Tell me, Thea, I’m in with a chance, aren’t I? She appreciates a strong mind, no doubt.’

‘Iwas the one who saved her from the Daughter of Darkness,’ Cal said, puffing his chest out. ‘Iwas the one who took out that winged commander —’

‘One flaming arrow through a half-wraith doesn’t make you a hero,’ Kipp replied.

‘It might in Wren’s eyes.’