“Why are we unhitching the pony?” Annai asked.

  As Quilla started to do exactly that, Vern answered, “Because the wagon will make us too conspicuous, but I’m not so heartless to abandon the pony still attached to the wagon.”

  “But will it be okay?”

  “It’ll be fine. It’ll wander around for a bit and eventually wander where someone will see it and take it in.”

  “But what it they—?”

  “Ponies are too useful to kill, so you don’t have to worry about that. If the person who finds it doesn’t need it, they’ll give it or, more likely, sell it to someone who does. Here.” Vern tossed a bag from the wagon at Annai, who stumbled to catch it.

  Quilla unstrapped the harness and then lifted the collar over the pony’s head. Once the pony was clear of all tack, she patted it on the shoulder. “Go on.”

  The pony stood stubbornly still until Vern came over and it bolted. Quilla had to quickly jump aside.

  “Sorry,” Vern said. “It just seemed the best way to get it to move.”

  “Why does that pony hate you so much?” Quilla asked.

  Vern shrugged. “All animals hate me.”

  “I know someone else like that,” Quilla said.

  “Really? Who?”

  “Oh, just a friend. Though with her, the animals usually get used to her eventually.” She hoped Zandrue was okay, and not dead. Gods, she was probably dead.

  “Yeah, it’s the same with me,” Vern said. “I just usually can’t be bothered to spend the time to get them used to me. Let’s get moving.”

  Quilla quickly grabbed her things from the wagon. Not that she had much. She grabbed a couple bags of food as well. Between the three of them, they were able to carry most of the food.

  “It’ll last a few days,” Vern said. “That’s all we need. Follow me and keep within the trees. There’ll be more than just Callum searching for us. Let’s not make it easy for them.”

  They headed off in a generally southeast direction, keeping relatively close to the coast.

  For the first while, Annai kept looking back, tears forming in her eyes. “What if Jakka and Tarm still make it back, and don’t find us?”

  “They won’t,” Vern said. “I would have thought that was pretty clear by now. But let’s say they do make it back. They won’t be surprised to find us gone. They’ll come find us, so quit your whining.”

  Annai scowled at Vern, but gave no reply. She kept looking back for the next while though. At one point, while Vern was a bit farther ahead, she said quietly, “Is it wrong that I liked him? I know he was a Darker, but…”

  Quilla wanted to say, yes, it was wrong, but she’d be a bit of a hypocrite. She’d kind of liked Jakka too, and despite how annoying Vern could sometimes be, she liked her too. So she just shook her head. “It’s not wrong.” She reminded herself that, for now, they needed Vern, but with luck, they’d eventually be able to get away from Vern and other Darkers and make their way to Quorge. Then things would return to normal and they could go back to hating all Darkers.

  They reached the trail back to Elbeth fairly quickly, but Vern kept them off it. Instead, they went deeper into the woods, but followed a route roughly parallel to the trail.

  Quilla found herself looking up frequently. The trees blocked most the sky, but not all of it, especially directly overhead. Every now and then, something flew past, though it was too dark to tell what. Birds maybe, but the shapes seemed too big for that. More likely her imagination—she hoped.

  After a couple hours, Vern called for a brief stop. “Just to catch our breath, and for me to do some thinking.”

  “Thank the gods,” Annai said, sliding down against a tree. She buried her head in her arms and sobbed.

  “What are you crying about now?” Vern snapped.

  “Fuck off!” Annai snapped back.

  Quilla went up beside Vern. “Just let her be. She’s been through a lot.”

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  Vern groaned. “Yeah, like the rest of us haven’t?”

  “I don’t really know,” Quilla said. “Maybe you’ve been through a ton more, but when it comes down to it, I know next to nothing about you, so just let her fucking be, okay?”

  “Whatever.”

  “You said something about needing to think. What about?”

  “About our next steps.” Vern knelt down and poked at the carpet of needles on the ground. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but several Volgs have flown overhead.”

  Quilla gulped. So much for imagination. “I noticed.”

  “They’ll sniff us out eventually unless we do something they really don’t expect.”

  “Such as?”

  Letting the needles in her hand fall to the ground, Vern stood back up. “If you were them, what would you expect us to do?”

  Quilla thought for a moment, glancing up at the sky again. No shape flew by at that moment, but one could at any time, and eventually one would get lucky and notice them. She looked in the direction they were travelling. “I’d expect us to head back the way we came and try to get back to Ulises.”

  Vern nodded. “They might have even gotten out of Tarm or Jakka that that’s where we’re supposed to go. They’ll monitor the whole route back to Arnor City. Even if we do manage to avoid them, what do you think will happen when we get back to Ulises?”

  “Presumably, he’ll try to find an alternative for us.”

  Vern crossed her arms and stared at her.

  “The Volgs and the Darkers with them will still probably try to get at us, but they won’t be able to act as openly in the city. Can you imagine the Bloods’ reaction to Volgs. I hate Bloods, but…”

  Vern continued to stare at Quilla. “Quilla, think. They were ready for us.”

  Quilla sighed. It was obvious, but she’d been trying not to admit it to herself. “Someone in Ulises’s group betrayed us.”

  “Yeah. Might even have been Ulises himself, though I doubt it. Still, we won’t be safe with him.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We turn around, go the other way. We go deep into the forest and make our way to Zunsen lands. They’ll work out eventually that we must have done that, but we’ll have a huge head start. Volgs’ sense of smell isn’t like a dog’s. They can’t track us that way very long after we’ve passed. It’ll be a lot harder for them to find us.”

  Quilla gulped again. That’s what Vern had meant about sniffing them out. Quilla had thought it was just an expression for finding them. “All right. Let’s do that. Give me a moment with Annai.”

  She started to turn away, but Vern put a hand on her arm. “Quilla, if I could just ask one more time…”

  Quilla groaned loudly. She wanted to make sure Vern was aware of her reaction.

  “Please, hear me out.”

  Quilla turned back to face her.

  Vern kept her hand on Quilla’s arm, and placed her other hand on Quilla’s other arm. She looked her straight in the eyes. “Eventually, they’ll find us. It might be days, weeks, even months, but they’ll find us. I will do my best to protect you, but I’ll fail. I can’t fight them all. They’ll kill me and they’ll kill Annai. They’ll take you and if they turn you over to the Volgs…”

  “I know,” Quilla said. “They’ll try to extract my powers and then kill me. Dyle told me.”

  Vern nodded. “And whether they’re successful or not, it will be torture. It will be terrible torture. They won’t let you die until they succeed, but you’ll want to die. If we bond, I might actually be able to stop that from happening.”

  There was a tear forming in her eye, and Quilla blinked several times to dislodge it, hoping Vern didn’t notice—which was a pointless hope, as Vern was still looking her directly in the eyes.

  “You don’t want to be a prisoner of the Volgs again.”

  No, she absolutely didn’t. She couldn’t go through that again. She’d kill herself first.

  Should she get the tattoo? Gods, it was everything she reviled, but it might be necessary. Might? Fuck, it was almost certainly necessary. Vern had previously said she didn’t need to believe it; she just needed the tattoo. And she could get it somewhere out of sight. Maybe on her back or something.

  “You’re shaking,” Vern said.

  Quilla hadn’t noticed, but she wasn’t surprised. She was terrifying herself even contemplating this.

  Vern let go of Quilla’s arms and placed a hand on each of Quilla’s cheeks. “Look, I know I can be a bit of a bitch sometimes, and you don’t know me very well, and you understandably have a hard time trusting Servants—Darkers—but I honestly want to help you. And strangely enough, Annai too.” She broke into a smile and shifted her hands to Quilla’s shoulders. “I admit, at first, my only reason to help Annai was to not make you angry. But I’ve kind of taken to her. I can imagine I’d be a lot like her if I’d had the pampered life she’s had. Please. I promise, if you say no this time, I won’t ask again. But I can save you. Please give me that chance.”

  Quilla stared into her eyes for a moment longer, still shivering. “I’ll think about it.”

  Vern smiled. “That’s fine. We can’t do it now, anyway. It’ll be a few days at least before we can stop long enough for me to tattoo you, even a small one. So take the time you need.”

  Quilla nodded. The truth was, she’d already decided. She just didn’t want to admit it yet. A few more days of pretending it might not be necessary was the only way she was going to get past the fear of it.

  “Mind if I hug you?” Vern said.

  “Oh, uh, okay.”

  Vern put her arms around Quilla, and more slowly, Quilla put hers around Vern. They hugged for a few seconds, Quilla shivering even more.

  Gods damn it! She was going to get a fucking Darker tattoo. Her world had most definitely gone to hell.

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