THE MOON HAS LONG DISAPPEARED, AND THE black of night is softening into an eerie blue. Trails of mist come off the river, creeping over the bank like ghost fingers. Dawn comes.

The men have dozed, taking turns patrolling the hills to the north, the forest to the south. In the blue light, they sit around their fire, drinking something out of metal cups.

My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my arms are numb. I’m so thirsty. My skin is prickling all over me in an itchy heat. I’m losing touch with what’s real, I know it. Twice these past hours I felt the forest move and breathe at my back, like the trees had come alive and wanted to reach out, carry me—us—to safety. Like that presence from my dreams—the one that was waiting for me in the grove—is there. Coming for me.

It’s plain addled.

Kane and Isi are in that cage, the boys and I are tied here, and the men have got those bleedin’ weapons at the ready. I force myself to look at Matisa, lying in that pitiful heap behind the wagon. She had reprieve from the heat for the night, but that sun’ll come up, and it’ll come up fierce. No way she’ll last too much longer like that. For hours I’ve been trying to figure what to do, but all it’s done is distracted me from worrying about Kane.

He still hasn’t moved. And Isi’s acting so strange. Hasn’t gone to him once. Doesn’t look at us.

My heart sinks. Does he blame me for this?

As the light grows, the smaller man stands and takes something from the back of the wagon. It’s a long satchel of some kind—about the size of his gun.

“Goddamn it, Emmett, not that thing again,” Julian says. He turns his head to the side and spits into the dust. He cocks his head at the trees. “You hear something?” he asks.

The little man—Emmett—shrugs.

Julian grabs his gun. “I’m going to look around.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them.” Emmett fumbles with a catch on the satchel.

“If something happens, fire a shot,” Julian says. He spits again. “Try not to hit one of them.” He laughs and stalks off into the woods, leaving Emmett at the fire.

I look around. The little boys are asleep, tangled together; a mess of limbs and chain. A low melody starts up, thin and scratchy but nice—and all out of place with this filth. My head snaps toward the sound.

Emmett has a fiddle, but he’s not playing it like the men from my settlement. Instead of resting it on the crook of his arm, he’s got it tucked under his chin. He stares into the fire as he plays. Never seen anyone play like that. Never heard a sound like that, neither. Can’t reconcile something so beautiful made by someone so . . .

My mouth throbs. I close my eyes, try to pretend for a heartbeat we’re somewhere else, somewhere good. My thoughts go to the Harvest dance. I think about dancing with Tom, with his wheat hair mussing into his eyes and his pa’s too-big shirt. My troubles seemed so big back then, but I’d give anything to be back there right now. Safe inside those walls. Staring at Kane from across the hall, hoping he’d ask me to dance—

“Em.” It’s a whisper. Charlie again.

I keep my eyes closed.

“Em.” More insistent.

I turn my head toward him, real slow.

“Why are you here?” he whispers.

I risk a glance at the fire. Emmett’s eyes are closed now, and it’s clear he’s lost in the sounds he’s making. He’s paying us no mind. Still, I keep my voice low. Emmett may not be able to hear us, but if Julian is anywhere nearby . . .

“What do you mean?” I whisper.

“Why did you come here? To this forest?”

I frown. “I dreamt it.”

His eyes narrow, like he can’t figure my words. They widen. “She knew you’d come.” His face contorts, like he’s going to cry.

“Who?”

He shakes his head. “She lied to me,” he says.

“Who?”

“Matisa.”

The fiddle stops abrupt. I glance back, heart in my throat, expecting Emmett to be striding toward us. He’s bent over the fiddle, fussing with the strings. He pulls and plucks at them before putting it back under his chin to start again.

“We’re in trouble now,” Charlie whispers. “Such trouble.”

“What are you speaking on?”

He rests his forehead on his arms. “She told me to bring her here. Said they’d be here.” He looks at the forest floor, like he’s talking to himself. “But it’s because she knew you’d come. They’re not coming.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Looked like her: black hair and eyes, weapons I’ve never seen, riding those beasts like the wind. Spoke English rough. Came through my camp not more than a week before you showed up. They told me if I found her and brought her to them I’d be safe.”

A week before. Looking for Matisa. What tale is he spinning?

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why—why did you leave us? At that homestead?”

“I did the only thing that made sense.” Charlie turns his head to look at me. “She was my guarantee of safety.”

So he did take her. Shock and anger flare in me. “We helped you!”

“Helped us?” Charlie laughs low. It’s an ugly sound. “You planned to cut us loose soon as you could. You would’ve sacrificed us to save your own hides in a heartbeat.”

“That’s not true.”

“Ain’t it? You saw how they hemmed and hawed over your friend’s trapped leg. Imagine if that had been me? And if I hadn’t offered up my bow, you’d still be there while it withered and rotted off.”

“You only offered your bow to win our trust. You did it so we’d drop our guard around you.”

“I was trying to do something useful. Something you might remember favorable if the going got rough. But I could tell you weren’t never going to accept me, even after all that.” I fight down a pang of guilt that surfaces, but it deepens as he mutters, “Was just looking out for my family.”

His family. Josiah gunned down. Rebecca, so close to having that baby, a prisoner at the Keep.

Now’s not the right time—Charlie said that to Rebecca. I straighten up. He wasn’t talking about the baby.

“You were planning to take Matisa all along,” I say.

His eyes drop away from mine. The gesture speaks his truth. My insides twist, and I realize how bad I was hoping Isi was wrong. How bad I was hoping that me doing the right thing would help Charlie do the right thing. Why did I think that? Why did I even want that?

Brother Stockham swims in my vision again, raising the gun to his mouth. You have lifted the burden, he’d said, right before he pulled the trigger.

I press on my bad foot. Why is he in my thoughts again? What does he have to do with any of this?

When we found Charlie, I told myself I was giving him the chance I never got, the chance to choose a life without the shame of our family’s actions shadowing it.

And now I see how wrong that was. Charlie doesn’t deserve it.

I rest my head against the rough bark of the tree. Can’t look at his pitiful, lying face.

At the fire, Emmett is lost in his fiddle playing. The high, strange melody fills the space around us.

“Em, you would’a done the same th—”

“Stop talking,” I hiss. “Or I’ll get them to bust your mouth so that you can’t ever again.”

I turn away from him, the drumbeat of my heart drowning out the fiddle.

No, not drowning it out. The fiddle has stopped.