Sydney picked up a lantern and took up the rear of the column at Rowena’s side. “Thank you for your help.” Sydney swallowed as if the words hurt her throat, and Rowena wanted to punch her. But maybe she was learning, too.

  “Welcome,” Rowena muttered, and she knew it had a snide edge to it, but she got the buggery words out.

  “Did you see them? Did they get clear?”

  Rowena didn’t mention her connection with Ember, not wanting to share that unless she had to. But she’d also caught a glimpse of her across the tunnel, her and Camille both, though she had to guess what had happened when Ember went leaping. “They dove into a tunnel after Ember threw me this.” She held up the enemy spell bag.

  Sydney shuddered as if Rowena held a bag of human heads. “I saw you bandaging as well as casting magic. Did you learn anatomy from raising dead bodies?”

  Rowena rolled her eyes. Oh yes, she would have to bring that up again. “Yes,” she said flatly, daring Sydney to say more. Camille would just have to forgive it if Sydney got a bloody nose.

  When Rowena had seen the joyful look Sydney had given Camille on their reunion, she’d felt a flash of jealousy. But Camille had never gone to stand at Sydney’s side; she’d stayed in front of Rowena, protecting her. She stared at Sydney now and lifted an eyebrow.

  Sydney sighed, her mouth drawn tight before she moved up the line. Another knight fell back a bit and walked at Rowena’s side. He hadn’t needed healing magic, but she’d wrapped his bitten left wrist, and he had the remains of a dirty bandage wrapped around his head with a large bloodstain over one ear.

  “Um, thanks for this,” he said, lifting his wrist. The words sounded easier, less like pulling teeth than the other knights, but he was the one who’d stood at Sydney’s side when it seemed as if the knights would attack her.

  Maybe they were all learning.

  He cleared his throat. “I know we’re not supposed to…”

  Supposed to speak with witches? Rowena fought the urge to snap at him to spit it out.

  “Well,” he said, “doesn’t matter. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to say. You’re not like I expected, and I realize that’s my fault and not yours, but I thought I should—”

  “I get it,” she said, wanting to stop him before he was teary eyed. Soppy words about how he’d been wrong about witches was almost worse than flinches and grudging thanks. It would just make it sadder when he eventually turned on her.

  “All that stuff that the major said about Sir Robert, is it true?”

  Rowena blinked, not expecting that. “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Might destroy your hero.”

  He seemed thoughtful before nodding. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a knight.” He gave her a quick glance. “And it wasn’t about getting rid of magic. It was the honor, the camaraderie, protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves. That’s what I wanted. So, yeah, I want the truth no matter the cost.”

  She studied his face but found no deception. She’d have to ask Camille to rate him later. “What’s your name?”

  “Juzail.”

  She pretended to think while she stuck a hand in the pocket of her dress and grabbed a bit of brimstone. No matter what he said, if the truth made him violent, she was going to be ready.

  “Well, Juzail, the major spoke the truth. I communicated with both her and the master researcher before your journey. I knew they needed my help, and I knew Sir Robert planned to ambush me during the spell. He was trying to trick me, use me, kill me. Call it whatever you like, but you can’t call it honorable.”

  He swallowed so hard she could see it. It seemed as if he might speak, but he stared straight ahead and clenched his fists. She let him pull slightly ahead and readied herself.

  “Are witches always honorable?” he muttered, his jaw tight.

  “How many witches do you know?”

  He didn’t answer, but he did glance at her.

  “Based on your hesitation, I reckon it’s just me, and you only really know of me. You’ll have to make up your own mind and believe your own eyes.” If Camille or Ember had been there to watch her back, she would have stalked ahead, but she couldn’t show her back to him here, surrounded by so many potential enemies. She couldn’t even count Sydney as a true ally.

  But instead of spitting venom, Juzail’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and his angry look was replaced by a hangdog expression. It wasn’t contrition or acceptance, but it wasn’t anger, either. That was fine. If he needed to mourn his hero, she’d give him room. She didn’t say anything else, and after a moment, he sped up and got lost in the column.

  With a sigh of relief, Rowena slipped the brimstone back in her pocket.

  * * *

  When the column of weary, wounded knights stopped for a rest, Sydney wandered down the line, asking each one how they felt and if they needed anything. Most seemed peppier than when they started, and she wondered just how long the Hawk’s magic would last.

  Probably not as long as the effect she had on the knights. Most seemed less wary of her; the few looks cast her way seemed more curious than anything. Juzail especially seemed thoughtful, and Sydney recalled that he’d spoken with the Hawk more than the others.

  After she’d checked on the entire column, she settled next to the Hawk and stretched her legs out on the floor. “What did you and Juzail talk about?”

  “Just the things you said back in the cavern about Sir Robert. I confirmed they were the truth, but I don’t know if he believed me.”

  Sydney leaned her head back and cursed Sir Robert again. “My word should have been enough for him.”

  The Hawk snorted.

  Sydney resisted the urge to lash out, but someone who reanimated the dead had no room to judge anyone for anything.

  “Thank you for saying what you did,” the Hawk said.

  Sydney shrugged, still wary. “I had to deescalate that situation as well as tell the truth.” She couldn’t resist a dig. “The corpses certainly didn’t help.”

  The Hawk sighed as if the whole world was a cradle of stupidity. “Yes, yes, let’s have that conversation again, by all means.”

  “No, I’m too tired to argue.” Sydney sighed, too. “Sorry. It’s just…creepy.”

  “So, change the subject. I noticed you and Ember seemed rather close.”

  Sydney’s wariness tipped over into a strange sort of fear, the kind normally reserved for meeting a lover’s parents. “Um.”

  “Were you stuck together from the beginning of this little adventure like Camille and I were?”

  So, she and Camille had been together a while. No wonder they’d seemed close, as close as Sydney and Ember must have seemed. “Yes, and we…bonded.” She took a sip from her canteen and hoped the lantern was dim enough to hide the color burning in her cheeks.

  “The kind of bonding where someone throws her head back in ecstasy?”

  Sydney spit the water across the tunnel. The knights looked back between her and the Hawk. She gave them a calming wave. “That’s…I…what dashed business is it of yours?”

  “You know what she is?”

  Sydney’s insides couldn’t seem to decide between embarrassment and anger. She took a deep breath to keep from sputtering again. “Yes. It…doesn’t matter to me.” Not quite a lie, but she still flinched. It didn’t matter to her, but she hadn’t been able to let the other knights find out.

  The Hawk was staring with eyes hard as jade, and Sydney wondered if she had a spell to read minds. “I’m the closest thing she has to a mother,” the Hawk said.

  “And?”

  “So, tell me your intentions.”

  Sydney barked a laugh and quickly stifled it. The Hawk hadn’t cracked a smile. “You haven’t told me about your time with Camille.”

  “You didn’t make Camille in your workshop.”

  True. “Ember is a…loyal, steadfast companion.” Where had all her charm gone? Why did this awful woman make her so nervous?

  The Hawk said nothing. She didn’t even blink.

  Sydney took another sip of water. “And she’s lovely.”

  “Thank you. I tried.” Still no smile.

  Sydney glared. “She’s kindhearted, which I wonder if you can take responsibility for. She’s…” She sighed and let her mind go back over her time with Ember, letting the feelings carry her if she couldn’t summon any confidence. “She doesn’t like killing, and she cried for a dead child. She…held me.” With a cough, she came back to herself.

  The Hawk only tilted her head, unmoved, it seemed. “She’s also naïve. It wouldn’t be difficult to break her heart.”

  Sydney’s own heart sank, and she felt like a heel. “I know.”

  “Did you hurt her?”

  Sydney met her eyes and wondered if she had a different spell ready now, one that might kill rather than invade one’s mind. “Yes, but I’m trying to make it better. I’ve already started.” She took a deep breath. “If you want to punish me, I deserve it.”

  The Hawk snorted, and her face finally relaxed as she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “You’ll have to flagellate yourself. I don’t have the time or the energy.”

  “Fine. Good talk.” Sydney stood, ready to see if anyone needed her help again. She much preferred physical problems to emotional ones.

  “Don’t hurt her again.”

  The words had a tone of warning. Everything in Sydney wanted to respond nastily, but no good would come of it. If she wanted to be close to Ember, she had to make nice with the people Ember cared about. And the Hawk seemed to love her creation. That boded well for Camille, though Sydney didn’t envy her.

  She found the rest of the column to be as exhausted as she was. Outside, it had to be getting late. As much as Sydney wanted to continue, wanted to find a way out, find Ember and Camille, she knew they all needed rest. She told the column to bed down as best they could, noticing that the Hawk kept to herself at the rear rather than joining the clumps of sleepers or those on watch. With the cave-in, it wasn’t likely that anyone could come at them from behind, but Sydney had watchers back there anyway, just in case something large—like a dragon—tunneled through the collapsed rock to get at them.

  Those on guard duty at the rear of the column stayed well back from the Hawk, leaving her as the first line of defense should something attack from that direction. Sydney tried to take no pleasure in the thought that she’d be attacked first.

  She failed at that.

  * * *

  When the black tunnel began to take on subtle shades of gray, it took Camille a moment to notice. She blinked, thinking her imagination might be filling in the darkness, but when Ember warned her of a large stone she could already see, she nearly whooped with joy.

  “There must be light somewhere ahead.”

  “Finally,” Ember said. “Do you think it’s daylight or—”

  They turned a corner and found their answer. A shaft of sunlight shone into the tunnel far ahead like a beacon. They hobbled faster, the knight dangling between them. He moaned at the movement, but Camille took that as a good sign. It showed he was alive. And he was trying to stumble along without much success. Camille’s shoulders were beginning to ache, adding to the headache caused by Rowena’s earlier spell. Her side was still throbbing, too. Ember hadn’t whined at all, so Camille tried to keep her complaints to a minimum. She looked forward to talking with someone who could share her pain.

  Someone she wouldn’t mind asking for a massage.

  A vision of Rowena wearing an abbreviated milkmaid costume flashed into her mind, and she suppressed a giggle. That wouldn’t be a good idea; Rowena was sexy enough in her own clothes.

  When they reached the hole that led to the surface, Ember leaped the few feet upward and caught a lip of stone. Camille balked under the knight’s weight and had to lean against the wall to help support him.

  Ember’s head reappeared a moment later. “There’s no one about, but it is getting dark. Should we stay in the tunnel or sleep out here?”

  Camille bit her lip and let the knight sag to the ground. In the dim light, he seemed very young, not yet twenty; too young to be suffering like this. She wished she knew his name.

  “Camille?” Ember asked.

  “Yes. Right. Decisions.” She put a hand to her head and tried to think. Her mind was muddy, thoughts easily distracted. She needed rest. The young knight probably did, too. “I guess it’s safer in here, even though we stand the chance of missing the others.”

  Ember dropped down into the hole again and nodded. “And I’ve seen enemies both above and below.” She sat beside the wounded knight, and they huddled in the fading daylight.

  “You can sleep,” Ember said. “I’ll keep watch.”

  Camille’s eyes jerked open, and she started with guilt. As soon as she’d sat on the knight’s other side, her eyes had slipped closed. She hadn’t even noticed. “Thanks.” She had a dim thought that she’d once had trouble sleeping while surrounded by protectors and under the shelter of a cart. Now she was dropping away easily in a rocky tunnel alive with enemies with a homunculus and a knight who was barely old enough to shave.

  Oh well. She was too tired to be picky.

  * * *

  The halt gave Rowena time to dig in the enemy spell bag. The reagents were rudimentary, most used in simple, offensive spells. The bag didn’t even contain any chalk needed to draw a circle for something complex, and there wasn’t any clay for healing or ingredients for augmentation spells.

  And it was very badly organized.

  She wondered if the dragon-like beasts were really alive as Ember was or if they were a step more complex than husks, animated matter made to obey a single task. They seemed cleverer than that, though, perhaps fitting into some nebulous area that included a bit of independent thought but not free will?

  She shuddered. That would make them far creepier than any husk, though she doubted Sydney and her sanctimonious knights would see it that way.

  Rowena looked toward where Sydney was chatting with the knights. She had to admit that Sydney had come a long way from the moron Rowena had first spoken to in a crystal ball. She seemed to have accepted Ember, even though she knew Ember wasn’t really human. And she seemed genuinely sorry for hurting Ember’s feelings, though Rowena still wanted to give her a bit of fireball for hurting Ember in the first place.

  Ember probably wouldn’t appreciate that.

  Neither would Camille.

  Rowena sighed, feeling as if she was pulled in many directions now, one of the reasons she hadn’t left her mountain in years. She couldn’t afford to dwell on those thoughts, not when she had to work with Sydney, and not when she needed to distract herself from the fact that they’d soon be outside again.

  “Got everything you need for the night?” Sydney asked from a short distance away. The wariness in her stance was laughable. It was all Rowena could do not to yell, “Boo.”

  The knights would probably stab her a million times.

  “I could use a nice large bed if you’ve got one handy.”

  “Sorry.” With a ghost of a smile, Sydney stepped a little closer. “I’ve got a spare blanket.” She held it forth.

  Rowena took it and put it by her side. When Sydney turned to go, Rowena cleared her throat. She wouldn’t be dropping off to sleep any time soon, so she thought she might as well get as much information about their predicament as she could.

  She did not want Sydney to stay because she was lonely. Or frightened. That was nonsense.

  “I noticed some humans guarding the captives back at the pit before you came in,” Rowena said as Sydney turned back toward her. “Kells?”

  Sydney nodded. “We fought a few outside, too. They burned a village.” She flinched as if reliving that sight.

  Rowena didn’t even want to imagine it. “Bastards.”

  Sydney gave her an amused look. “Do you think they’re the ones providing the magic?”

  “Could be. I don’t know a lot about them.” She frowned, something about this entire situation not sitting right with her, logically speaking.

  Besides the obvious dragon angle.

  “We’ve only seen a handful of Kells so far,” Sydney said. “If that’s the entire invasion force, Arnvild is going to be fine.” She sighed, though, taking the humor and confidence out of the words.

  “That’s what’s bothering me. Where are the rest?” Rowena had a vision of an army of Kells sneaking around the knights, the supposed advance force who was supposed to stop, or at least thin them, at the border. “If they know these tunnels—”

  “They could be past us already.” Sydney wiped a hand down her face. “Oh, please, no.” Even in the dim light, she looked paler.

  “Don’t panic just yet. The ones we’ve fought could be an advance group.” She gave a quick rundown of what she’d seen in the workshop, watching Sydney go from pale to slight green. “Everything I’ve seen smacks of an experiment. Get the knights out here, split them up, attack them and me with all these different creatures—supported by the Kells—and see what works best.” Her stomach turned over, and she bet she looked a little verdant herself. “With the added bonus that your experiments kill some knights and a witch.” She shuddered. And those experiments were down in these tunnels hunting them.

  But the only place they could run was outdoors, with the wind and sky that went on and on forever.

  With her head aching and the cavern seeming to spin, she lashed out. “And kill some who are both knights and witches.”

  Sydney’s head whipped toward her. “Heartfire is not magic.”

  “Bugger that.”

  Sydney bristled, then took a deep breath. Rowena did the same, though she dearly wanted a fight. No, not here, not now. That was what Camille would say.

  “What does all this theorizing mean to us right now?” Sydney asked. “When we’re limping through these caves?”