The river carried them along at a fast clip, fast enough that Ransom used the Device mainly to keep the boat near the center of the river and away from rocks. At times, the river slowed enough that Zara could appreciate the land slipping away past them. It was cooler on the river, cooler and less humid, which she thought was strange given how close they were to the water. A million shades of green spread out in every direction, turning the water muddy with their reflections, and Zara would have been tempted to dabble her fingers in the current if she hadn’t remembered the caimans. She sat at the prow and amused herself by pretending to be a figurehead, bringing luck to their voyage. A figurehead. Thank heaven those days were far behind her.
She heard quiet conversations going on behind her, Belinda talking to Cantara, Theo asking questions Ransom answered curtly but not unkindly. So he was going to take his bad mood out only on her, was he? More guilt surfaced. She never thought of him as young—never thought in terms of his age, when his experience in these surroundings made him far wiser than she was despite the sixty-year difference in their ages. He overreacted, it’s not your fault, she told herself, but she was having trouble believing it.
They floated downstream until the sun was low and the trees cast long black shadows over the river, then Arjan, taking a turn at the helm, steered the boat to the western bank, where the ground sloped shallowly to the river and provided an easy berth. Zara scrambled out and took hold of the prow to help pull it onto shore. “We can do that,” Arjan said.
“And it will be easier if we all help,” Zara said.
“There’s no point in arguing with her,” Ransom said. “Even if her efforts would be better spent unloading the food.”
Zara let go of the boat and stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m sure you know best, captain,” she said.
“I do, Miss Farrell.” Ransom took her place and began pulling. “Water, fire, food, in that order—unless you have a better idea?”
“I’m surprised you’ll let anyone do any of the work, given that you’re such an expert on doing everything.”
“I don’t think getting water takes much skill. Maybe you could do that.”
“I will.” Zara snatched the pot out of its box and stormed away upstream. Safely behind a couple of bushes, she leaned over to fill the pot, as far from the shallows as she could so she wouldn’t collect too much silt with the water. She’d forgotten he was a stubborn, selfish man who had to be prodded into doing the right thing. The sooner they were parted, the better.
“Rowena?” Belinda stood a short distance behind the bush. “Is something wrong?”
“Of course not,” Zara lied. “It’s just been a long day. I’m sorry I’m so short-tempered.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Belinda came to crouch beside her on the bank. “I’ve never heard you be so rude before.”
“I never had so much provocation.” More guilt. Provocation was no excuse. She was eighty-seven years old, and she should have better self-control than that. “Everything will be all right in the morning.”
“I hope so.” Belinda picked up a pebble and flung it across the river. It skipped six times before sinking. “I think—never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just what I thought before—that you and Ransom are too much alike to be comfortable companions. Come, let’s go back and get this water boiling.”
Ransom was gone when they returned. Arjan, building a fire, said, “He goes to hunt, but I do not know what.”
Cantara said, “I wish we do not need him. He…I think the word ‘resent’ is. Resents us.”
“He’s a man of his word. He’ll take us where we need to be even if he’s resentful,” Zara said.
“I thought he was starting to like us, though,” Theo said. “He was rude to you, Rowena.”
“Well, I was rude to him in return. Not that that makes it all right.” Zara set the pot over the fire and went to help Belinda cut vegetables. You need to apologize, the tiny voice of her conscience said. It was far too morally correct for an imaginary thing.
Ransom pushed through the bushes, and Belinda screamed. Zara shot to her feet. A gigantic pink snake draped around his neck and hung down nearly to his knees. “Ransom!” she exclaimed, then realized the snake had no head and wasn’t moving except when Ransom did. “Oh,” she said, breathing out in relief.
“Worried about my safety?” Ransom said with his familiar sardonic grin. “Or the snake’s?”
“Worried it was trying to eat you,” Zara said, rallying. “We’d be trapped here without you.”
“Ah, pragmatic to the end.” He set down the rifle and heavy blade and unlooped the snake from around himself, revealing that it was pink because its skin was gone. It had been slit down the middle and its guts removed. “I thought fresh meat might be welcome.”
“I cannot eat that,” Cantara said, her brown skin gone pale.
“Don’t worry, it’s not venomous. This kind strangles its prey. And I skinned and gutted it far from camp, so it won’t bring predators down on us.” Ransom dropped the snake in a heap in front of Zara. “If you cut it into sections, I’ll roast them.”
“Of course,” Zara said. The thing looked slimy, and had bits of dirt clinging to it from where it had landed on the ground, but she felt no distaste. And even if she had, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Knife, Belinda?”
Ransom’s grin became amused. “I should have known you wouldn’t be overcome by anything this jungle threw at you.”
“Nor anything you throw at me, apparently,” she shot back, and began cutting thick…could you call them steaks? At any rate, thick pieces out of the dead snake. Ransom laughed and walked away.
Snake meat turned out to be delicious, if somewhat gamy, and Ransom was right: fresh meat revived them all. There was more than they could eat, so Ransom put the leftovers in a sack and hoisted it high above the trees, some distance from where they slept. “It probably won’t be disturbed,” he said, “but if it is, whoever gets it is welcome to it.”
“Do you mean it might attract predators?” Theo said.
“Possibly.” Ransom shrugged. “Not likely. But I think, with Nettles not here, we should set watches tonight. I’ll go first, then Arjan, then Theo.”
“Then me,” Zara said.
“I think three is sufficient, Miss Farrell.”
“Then four will be even better. Unless you think I’m not capable of screaming an alarm?”
“I think you’re capable of waking a battalion if you choose. But it’s not necessary.”
“And I say it is.”
“Do you ever let anyone be chivalrous on your behalf?”
Zara glared at him. “What exactly do you think you’re protecting me from? A lack of sleep?”
Ransom shook his head. “Do what you like. Four watches is probably better. Now—go to sleep.”
Zara settled some distance from the fire and watched Ransom pace its circumference. He managed to steer wide of her while behaving as if she didn’t exist, which took some doing, and her conscience began prodding her again. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. The ground was hard, with very little topsoil to cushion her, and after a moment she opened her eyes and rolled onto her side. Ransom had finished his circuit and was now sitting with the rifle across his lap and his back to the fire, on the side opposite her, and despite herself she had to smile. They were both behaving like babies, and as the older and far more mature, it was her job to do something about it.
She rose quietly, hoping not to wake Belinda or Theo, who slept nearby, and went around the fire to sit beside Ransom. “It’s a quiet night,” she said, and it was. The sound of the river drowned out all the nearer sounds, the insects humming or whistling and the night birds calling to one another.
“It was until you started talking,” Ransom said.
Zara bit back an irritated retort. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Ransom was silent for a moment. “Sorry for what?” he finally said, in a tone of voice that said he knew exactly what she was talking about.
“For being rude to you, even indirectly. For making crass generalizations. I never remember how young you are. I apologize.”
More silence. “I’d think someone of your age would always be conscious of other people’s.”
“I’m usually more conscious of how people behave. Sometimes the youngest are the ones who are most mature. And you’d be surprised at how immature the elderly can be.” She laughed. “I tend to forget I’m one of the elderly.”
“And you don’t think of me as young.”
“I don’t think of your age at all. Not when you have so many irritating habits to define you instead.”
Ransom chuckled. “Like being rude to an old woman who makes snap judgments about the youth of today?”
“Like telling me I’m not fit to stand watch because I’m a woman.”
He shrugged. “I occasionally break out in a rash of chivalry. Don’t hold it against me.”
“I won’t. So long as you don’t let it override your good sense.”
“I’m flattered you think I have any.”
Zara smiled. “I don’t think you could survive out here without it. And…thank you. Again.”
“For what?”
“For guiding us. I hope you know we appreciate it.”
Ransom shrugged. “You’re not that much of a burden. I’m just cranky and set in my ways.”
“Well, so am I. But I think, between the two of us, we can get everyone to Goudge’s Folly safely, and you can be back to your old ways.”
Ransom looked off into the undergrowth. “Right,” he said. “You should get some sleep if you’re going to insist on taking a watch.”
“All right,” Zara said, mystified by his abruptness. She went back to her place, but continued to watch him as he sat by the fire, hunched over slightly and perfectly still. When the firelight started to burn her eyes, she closed them, and soon afterward dropped into sleep.
She slept peacefully until Theo shook her awake, then stretched and made the circuit of the camp. She left the rifle on the ground near the fire; she didn’t know how to shoot and this didn’t seem the time to learn. Arjan and Cantara were nestled together as usual, Arjan with his arm draped protectively around his majdran, though it was unlikely he thought of her as his stepmother no matter what word you used. She hoped again that Goudge’s Folly was far enough away from Eskandel to protect them.
Belinda lay on her back, her breath whistling in and out of her nostrils in a sound too light to be called a snore. She’d borne up well, never complaining even though Zara knew she wasn’t strong enough for a journey like this. Could she make a new life for herself, penniless as she now was? No doubt whatever job she took, she’d end up running the business in five years.
Theo was already asleep again, one hand clutching his belt. She wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed how tightly he always held on to it—wasn’t sure he realized how tightly he held it—and she was reluctant to simply come out and ask him. It was probably no mystery, just the money his father had given him for the journey, but she was curious and tempted to investigate it while he slept—no, that would be a betrayal of the trust that had grown between them, and that wasn’t worth satisfying her curiosity.
And Ransom. She paused for a moment next to him. He looked his age when he slept, young and vulnerable in a way that made her embarrassed to look at him, as if she were trespassing on private ground. Why had she told him so many truths about herself? Come to think on it, why had she wanted to share those secrets in the first place, let alone with a total stranger? But then, he’d been candid with her, too, telling her about his family in that level tone without a hint of his usual good humor.
Being a thing, a figurehead—that was something Zara understood, even though she didn’t resent having been Queen and hadn’t had it forced on her by a family who didn’t care anything about her personally. Did Telaine know about the Resurgence? Zara couldn’t begin to guess how her grandniece would feel about an organization that wanted to make it possible for her to be open about her inherent magic, though she had a suspicion Telaine might not be keen on giving up the edge of being secretly able to hear lies that were spoken to her.
She watched, listening to the river, until the sky grew light and she could see the murky outlines of trees clearly, watch the leaves quiver in the faint morning breeze. It would disappear by noon, so she took pleasure in the moment. The jungle was beautiful, even when it was trying to kill you.
Something rustled in the undergrowth, away from the river, and Zara tensed, listening for more. Silence. Then more rustling. Zara glanced back at Ransom. If this turned out to be nothing, he’d mock her, but was that really a good reason not to be sensible? He would know better than she what kind of danger this was. She knelt at his side and gently shook him awake. A moment’s confusion flickered across his face, then he focused on her. “Trouble?”
“I don’t know. Something’s moving in the bushes over there.”
Ransom rolled to his feet and moved swiftly to the far side of their camp, picking up the rifle as he went. The thing, whatever it was, disturbed more bushes, but farther away. “Stay here,” he said. “It’s probably just a wild pig or some kind of monkey.”
“If whatever it is attacks you, you’ll need help,” Zara pointed out.
“And if something comes on the camp while we’re both gone, we’re going to feel stupid.”
“It’s almost dawn. Nothing’s going to attack the camp unless it’s this thing. You need my help.”
Ransom rolled his eyes. “Is there anything I can say that will convince you?”
“No.”
“Then stay behind me, and stay quiet. We’ll probably just have to scare it off.”
Zara followed as closely as she dared. The sounds of the jungle at night were unfamiliar, as if the animals of the day were replaced by completely different ones, which might be true. Zara ducked vines and pushed aside trailing branches, praying the snakes were all still indoors and asleep. She had no desire to be bitten again. The smell of plants crushed underfoot mingled with the richer smell of rotting vegetation, a smell that was almost alive itself. Somewhere nearby, a monkey screeched and went instantly silent. Zara pictured a baby monkey being hushed by its mother as she put it to bed. Were the monkeys as bothered as she by the loud chirruping and whirring and humming of the millions, maybe billions of insects?
Ransom stopped and held out a hand behind him, waving her to silence. Zara froze mid-step. Then Ransom swiftly raised the rifle to his shoulder, and the underbrush exploded with the sounds of grunting and leaves rustling. Something rushed past Zara, making her wobble and begin to fall. A hand steadied her. “Wild pig, and a young one,” Ransom said. “Wish I’d been quicker. They’re much tastier than snakes.”
“I never thought I’d regret not catching a pig,” Zara said.
“Well, as long as we’re out here, let’s see if we can’t find some food. And we’ll take that bag of snake meat back to camp.”
“It didn’t taste so awful. It’s not sausage and eggs, but it can’t be that bad a breakfast.”
“You must have slept well. That was almost optimistic.” Ransom pushed aside some low-growing branches and held them for Zara to pass. “There, those are pineapples. They don’t usually grow around here, but I’m not going to reject heaven’s gift.” He set down the rifle, drew his notched knife, and held the dusty green spikes growing from the plant’s top steady while he slashed at the base.
“I’ve never had pineapple. Is it good?”
“Delicious. Juicy, sweet and tangy, very filling. We can drink—”
A scream rang out over the trees, cut off by the sound of a gunshot. Another shot, and then something flew into the sky and exploded with a fiery pinkish-red light. It burned itself out just as another flare exploded near it.
“That’s our camp,” Ransom said. He dropped the pineapple and grabbed the gun. “We have to get back.”
“Wait,” Zara said, grabbing his arm. “Those flares were either a warning or a summons. Either way, whoever’s at our camp isn’t friendly and has friends somewhere else. We need to be cautious.”
“That gunshot might mean someone was killed.”
“We won’t do them any good if we get ourselves killed as well.”
“Then follow me. Keep close behind. If we can sneak up on them…”
“Let’s wait to make plans until we see what’s there.”
Ransom set off, more slowly this time, and Zara followed him, watching where he stepped and following as closely as she dared. She caught a branch he pushed aside and released it gingerly behind her. That wild pig had better not be in the area anymore, because if they stumbled on it, so much for stealth.
Nothing looked familiar; she hadn’t been watching their trail closely, and now she cursed herself for having left the camp unguarded. She should have woken everyone, or at least stayed behind…and been attacked, or captured, or killed, whatever the fate of her companions was. At least Ransom hadn’t criticized her for her mistake, though he might only be waiting to do that until they discovered what had happened. She hoped it wasn’t the kind of mistake that had just gotten one of her friends killed.