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It mattered. He had to see that it mattered. But he didn’t press.

“You can’t row with that,” he said, rising to his feet. “Come sit in the middle of the canoe, and I can get us back just fine.”

Something had happened between the two of us, and I didn’t like it at all. Gods, I was more animal than I’d thought. I’d wanted to press my mouth to his and then some. I blushed just thinking about it.

How could that have been in me? That desire, and for Roan of all people?

It was everything I’d never wanted. I tried to remind myself again and again.

It would have been easier had we not beenlivingtogether.

“I’ll never sleep again,” he was saying. “I’ll see nothing but those long, yellow fangs each time I close my eyes from now on.”

We’d been back for hours, and he was still sky high, pulsing with energy like it had just happened. Which it hadn’t. It had taken us hours to get back. We’d gone with the channel until it’d brought us out to the salty sea. Roan had pulled us up along the shore and hauled the canoe onto the bank. We were meant to portage it back, carrying it together on our shoulders, but we scrapped that task on account of our injuries, leaving it behind for some other sap to fetch. The walk back was awful enough without the extra weight.

My palm throbbed, and I’d taken to holding it up to my chest to try to slow the blood. That meant that when I’d bled through Roan’s ribbon, I bled right onto my shirt. By the time I realized it, I looked like the bear had opened my chest and someone should start in on my pyre. Even Roan had startled when he’d turned back to glance at me.

He’d limped the whole way, a slow and grueling march away from the she-bear.

Most had been at the last meal when we’d finally made it back, and thank Toke for that. I did not want an audience, though Roan looked like he wouldn’t have minded one right about then.

I’d headed for Yeshi’s hut, and Roan had followed. We’d found the healer at home with her wife, and when I unwound the ribbon and showed her my hand, she shook her head and set about boiling water and gathering supplies.

I was a mess. I’d never had anything stitched in my life, and I had so badly not wanted to start.

When it came time to sew the skin back together, I put my hand on the small table like Yeshi had asked and reached for Roan with the other. He sat with me, the two of us side by side, and when I squeezed him, he squeezed right back. Yeshi’s wife stood behind me, and she rubbed a hand up and down my back.

I was a sweating, shaking mess. It hurt like hell—bright, hot pain—and when Yeshi announced it was done, I responded by vomiting onto her floor.

Roan had gotten me settled back in our hut with a cup of tea. When he was satisfied with my state, he’d gone to share our experience and get us food. I’d been mauled by Esska shortly after he’d left and the moment she’d gotten the news. She fussed over me like she was a new mother and I was her mewling babe. My clothes were no good, and she had me out of them. Then she helped me wash (I didnotneed help) and saw me into a fresh change. She put another cup of hot tea in my hands, and when I assured her I was not dying, she only hushed me.

“Just wait until Indi finds out,” she said. “When she’s back from the coast with Iver and hears about this? You’ll think my reaction is mild.”

I groaned because I knew it was true.

Roan told his story far and wide and eventually came back with food from the kitchen. Being attacked by a bear had an upside, it turned out,and that upside came in the form of all the goodies the women in the kitchen sent to try to make up for it.

We ate. I was starving and so was Roan, but there was still too much, even with his monstrous appetite. We pawned food off on Esska, though she’d just eaten as well, and Roan took to telling the story again.

Now Ess was gone, and my belly was full, and I was spent to the point of exhaustion. I sat in the chair by the fire, Goose curled up beside me, and listened to Roan carry on.

My eyes were closed when I heard him say, “You should have come with me, Fen. You deserve the glory they’d bask you in, and then you could tell your side of the story, the one where I almost shat myself.”

“No thanks,” I said dryly. “I don’t talk in groups.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “Have you noticed how much you talk when it’s to a raging bear?”

I opened my eyes. It gave me pause, and I thought back. The bear had been charging, and I’d been more scared than I’d ever been in my life, and the words had just been pouring out.

We’re sorry. We’re leaving. We mean your baby no harm, I promise. I promise. Don’t you dare kill us, so help me, Toke.

It’d all been easy to say—I hadn’t even been thinking.

But it was like that sometimes. With Indi, with Esska. The wolves. Even with Roan. But that ease came and went. It couldn’t be counted on or expected.

I shrugged. It was easier than trying to explain, and I didn’t want Roan picking up Indi’s tune, that if I just tried harder, practiced more, thought about what I wanted to say more carefully—then I’d be able to speak with ease like everyone else.

That was not the case, and it never had been.