Kilorn laughs. “I would consider keeping you alive a very big something.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” he retorts, finally putting a little distance between us.
With what little dignity I have left, I sit back down on the sleeper and fight the urge to grumble.
“No, Mare, we haven’t just been sitting around.” Kilorn turns to the wall, leaning against the packed earth so he can see out the window. “We’re doing quite a bit.”
“They kept hunting.” It isn’t a question, but Kilorn nods anyways. “Even Nix?”
“The little bull comes in handy,” Cal says, touching the shadow of a bruise on his jaw. He knows Nix’s strength firsthand. “And he’s quite good at the convincing part. Ada too.”
“Ada?” I say, surprised at the mention of what should be another newblood corpse. “Ada Wallace?”
Cal nods. “After Crance slipped the Seaskulls, he got her out of Harbor Bay. Lifted her right from the governor’s mansion before Maven’s men stormed the place. They were waiting at the jet when we got there.”
As happy as I am to hear of her survival, I can’t help but feel a sting of anger. “So you threw her right back to the wolves. Her and Nix both.” My fist clenches around the fuzzy warmth of my sleeper, trying to find some comfort. “Nix is a fisherman; Ada’s a housemaid. How could you put them in such terrible danger?”
Cal lowers his eyes, shamed by my scolding. But Kilorn chuckles at the window, turning his face into the waning light of sunset. It bathes him in deep red, as if he’s been coated in blood. It’s just my wounded eye playing tricks, but still the sight gives me chills. His laughter, his usual dismissal of my fears, frighten me most of all.
Even now, the fish boy takes nothing seriously. He’ll laugh his way into his grave.
“Something funny to you?”
“You remember that duckling Gisa brought home?” he replies, catching us all off guard. “She was nine maybe, and took it from its mother. Tried to feed it soup—” He cuts himself off, trying to smother another chuckle. “You remember, don’t you, Mare?” Despite his smile, his eyes are hard and pressing, trying to make me understand.
“Kilorn,” I sigh. “We don’t have time for this.”
But he continues on undaunted, pacing. “It wasn’t long until the mother came. A few hours maybe, until she was circling around the bottom of the house, her other ducklings in tow. Made a real racket, all the quacking and squawking. Bree and Tramy tried to run it off, didn’t they?” I remember just as well as Kilorn does. Watching from the porch while my brothers threw rocks at the mother bird. She stood firm, calling to her lost child. And the duckling replied, squirming in Gisa’s arms. “Finally, you made Gisa give the little thing back. ‘You are not a duck, Gisa,’ you said. ‘You two don’t belong together.’ And then you gave the duckling back to its mother, and watched them all scramble away. Ducks in a row, back to the river.”
“I’m waiting to hear a point in all this.”
“There is one,” Cal murmurs, his voice reverberating deep in his chest. He sounds almost surprised.
Kilorn’s eyes flicker to the prince, giving him the slightest nod of thanks. “Nix and Ada are not ducklings, and you are certainly not their mother. They can handle themselves.” Then he grins crookedly, falling back to his old jokes. “You, on the other hand, look a bit worse for the wear.”
“Don’t I know it.” I try to smile for him, just a little, but something about smiling pulls the skin on my face, which in turn twists my neck and the new scars there. They ache when I speak, and smart terribly under any more strain. Another thing Maven has taken away. How happy it must make him, to think I can no longer smile without searing pain. “Farley and Shade are with them, at least?”
The boys nod in unison, and I almost giggle at the sight. They are normally like opposites. Kilorn is lean where Cal is burly. Kilorn is golden-haired and green-eyed while Cal is dark with a gaze like living fire. But here, in the waning light, behind the film of blood clouding my gaze, they start to seem alike.
“Crance too,” Cal adds.
I blink, perplexed. “Crance? He’s here? He’s . . . with us?”
“Not like he had anywhere else to go,” Cal says.
“And you . . . you trust him?”
Kilorn leans against the wall, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “He saved Ada, and he’s helped bring back others in the past few days. Why shouldn’t we trust him? Because he’s a thief?”
Like me. Like I was. “Point taken.” Even so, I can’t forget the high cost of misplaced faith. “But we can’t be sure, can we?”
“You’re not sure of anyone,” Kilorn sighs, annoyed. He scuffs his shoe in the dirt, wanting to say more, knowing he shouldn’t.
“He’s out with Farley now. Not a bad scout,” Cal adds in support. Of Kilorn. I’m almost in shock.
“Are you two agreeing on something? What world am I waking up in?”
A true smile splits Cal’s face, as well as Kilorn’s.
“He’s not as bad as you make him out to be,” Kilorn says, nodding at the prince.
Cal laughs. A soft noise, tainted by all that came before. “Likewise.”
I prod at Cal’s shoulder, just to make sure he’s solid. “I guess I’m not dreaming.”
“Thank my colors, you’re not,” Cal murmurs, his smile gone again. He runs a hand along his jaw, scratching through a slim beard. He hasn’t shaved since Archeon, since the night he watched his father die. “Ada’s more useful than the outlaws, if you can believe it.”
“I can.” A swirl of abilities flashes through my mind, each one more powerful than the last. “What does she do?”
“Nothing I’ve ever seen before,” he admits. His bracelet crackles, throwing off sparks that soon turn into a twisting ball of flame. It idles in his hand a moment, never burning his sleeve, before he lazily tosses it to the small pit dug in the middle of the floor. The fire throws off heat and light, replacing the setting sun. “She’s smart, incredibly so. Remembers every word in every book in the governor’s library.”
And just like that, my vision of another warrior is snuffed out. “Helpful,” I bite out. “I’ll be sure to ask her to tell us a story later on.”
“Told you she wouldn’t get it,” Kilorn says.
But Cal presses on. “She has perfect memory, perfect intelligence. Every moment of every day, every face she’s ever seen, every word she’s ever overheard she remembers. Every medical journal or history book or map she’s ever read, she understands. The same goes for practical lessons, too.”
As much as I’d prefer a storm wielder, I can understand the value of a person like this. If only Julian was here. He’d spend day and night studying Ada, trying to understand such a strange ability. “Practical lessons? You mean like Training?”
Something like pride crosses Cal’s face. “I’m no instructor, but I’m doing what I can to teach her. She’s already a pretty decent shot. And she finished the Blackrun flight manual this morning.”