I GAPE INTO THE DARK OF THE FOREST, HEART pounding, a wildfire of confusion and fear raging through me. Charlie took Matisa. Why did he take her? Was he trying to get away from those riders, the gunshots?
Andre ripped apart, Sister Violet’s pulpy half face; it all swims in my vision. I double over and dry-heave. Going to lose everything in my stomach. The forest floor surges up, and I grasp for the tree before me, trying to stay upright. My head spins. Gunfire, screaming, Kane running toward us with his knife . . . Almighty, what happened back there—
I hear a small cry.
Daniel. He cowers in the brush, staring at me with wide eyes.
Get hold of yourself. Don’t let him see you like this.
I take a deep breath. Another one. I put my hands to my face. My chin is matted with leaves and blood. Right. I cracked my chin on Isi’s head—
Isi.
I find him facedown in the brush, unmoving. My gut churns. I want to turn and run, but I force myself toward him, knowing Daniel’s watching it all.
Keep your head.
I kneel beside Isi. The pack on his back has a large tear on its surface.
I turn his head to the side and clap my hands beside his ears. He doesn’t move. I pull at the pack, easing it off his arms, gentle as I can. My fingers come away sticky. Can’t see for anything in the dark. The gunfire starts again in my head, the screaming . . .
Just focus on what’s in front of you.
I rummage in the pack and find his lantern, grateful Matisa showed me how to use these things. The woods are quiet; no sound, no sign of anyone around, so I risk lighting it.
“Daniel,” I call, soft. Force my voice steady. “Come here? I need your help.”
He appears in the glow, his face ghost-white and eyes wide as saucers. Did he see his ma—? I push the thought away and force a reassuring smile, handing him the lantern. “Hold it high,” I say cheerful, like I’m about to fix dinner.
He extends his arm, and the light reveals Isi’s lifeless body. There’s a rip in his shirt soaked with dark blood from his shoulder blade to his waist. I put my ear to his back.
Relief floods me as I hear the soft thud of his heartbeat. The pack probably saved him.
I pull his shirt up as high as I can and find a bloody gouge the length of my hand down his back. The cut doesn’t look too deep. I strip off my ceinture fléchée, wad it up, and press it into his wound as hard as I dare. I focus on my hands, on my task. Can’t let my thoughts drift back to what happened at the homestead.
Isi’s breath stays shallow, but by and by the bleeding slows. He’ll need something to keep the wound closed when he wakes.
If he wakes.
He’ll wake.
“Em,” Daniel says. He’s a specter in the shadows. The lamp lights his face, pale and scared. “My arm is sore.”
“Course,” I say. “Just set it on the ground over there.”
He puts the lantern at his feet. The light casts shadows under his eyes. He crouches near me, silent.
Isi coughs and starts to move.
“Easy!” I say, relief washing over me. “You’ve got a bad cut.”
He tries to raise himself on his hands but drops his head again.
“Hurts,” he says.
“I know. Just sit tight a bit.”
In my dream, there is a bloody footprint staining the earth. I turn my head, look away from it, and find the wooden walls of the fortification looming tall above me, dwarfing me in shadow. The river dead sing out to me.
My heart beats fast. I can’t go back there.
I look back down. The toe of the footprint begins to bleed a small river. This time I let my eyes follow it. It trickles out, staining the earth, getting denser and faster, until it is a tiny brook. Impossibly, it flows up the grassy hills in front of me to a grove of tall trees. Bright green leaves shimmer in the sun, but clumps of white snow are gathered in the branches. The river of blood burbles past, rushing to get to the trees, disappearing into the strange grove.
And deep inside those snow-dusted trees—I can feel it—someone waits for me.
The forest is washed in pale light. I sit up quick, alarmed I drifted off. I meant to guard over Isi and Daniel all night.
I look around. Daniel is still asleep on the forest floor, wrapped in my cloak.
On the other side of me, Isi is stirring. We’re all damp with dew from the underbrush. I turn to Isi and put a hand on his arm to let him know it’s all right.
He lifts his head and groans, trying to push himself upright.
“Go slow,” I say.
“My head—” he mutters.
“You took a kick on your forehead,” I say. “And you have a bad gash on your back—don’t move too much.”
He ignores my advice and sits, wincing as he touches my ceinture through his shirt.
“I stopped the bleeding, but moving around will get it going again.”
Isi continues like he doesn’t hear me. He gets to his knees and searches around in the brush. When he finds his torn backpack, he flips it open and starts to dig through it.
“Isi,” I say.
He turns to me, a small metal box in his hand. “Can you sew it?”
First I think he means the backpack. But he touches my ceinture again. I swallow. I’m terrible at mending clothes; never had to sew a wound. I notice the reluctance on his face. He doesn’t want to ask for my help; he has no choice.
“You’ll have to take your shirt off,” I say. I look over at Daniel, relieved he hasn’t stirred. Don’t need him seeing this.
Isi strips his shirt over his head with a groan.
A shiver cuts through me.
He turns. The ceinture is stuck to his flesh with matted blood. I tug gentle, coaxing it off the wound, and hear him take a sharp breath. The gash isn’t wide, but the blood starts flowing again. I’ll have to do it fast.
I scrub my hands on my tunic best I can. I take the thickest thread in the kit and try to thread the needle. It takes me four tries.
“It’ll hurt,” I caution.
“I know,” Isi says. He leans forward and grasps the fallen tree in front of him with both hands. “Do it.”
The mend job is ugly. Couldn’t stop my hands from shaking, so I’ve puckered the skin in some places and pulled it other places. A jagged line of coarse black stitches stretches from under Isi’s shoulder blade to his waist. But the blood flow has stopped, and it’ll have to do.
I help him into a fresh shirt and watch him repack his supplies in his torn pack.
“Thank you,” I say. “For what you did for Daniel and me.”
He keeps packing.
“I—I didn’t know what to do back there. I was so scared.”
He stops.
His voice is bitter. “I should’ve stayed with Matisa.”
I swallow and look around the quiet forest. “Think it’s safe to go back?”
Isi looks at me strange. He hops up and slings his pack to his good side.
I push to my feet.
“Isi?”
“Do what you want,” he says. “I’m going after Matisa.” He turns and starts off into the brush, leaving me staring after him.