I wasn’t going to fight with him over giving me the larger number and Tucker before, but he couldn’t have the weaker groupandthe villages. “Then you should take Tucker with you to the villages. You need the larger number.”
“No.”
“I’ll go with Ryker.” Scarlet shot me a look as she offered herself up to avoid an argument that could suck up far too much time. “I’m not as battle-hardened as Tucker, but I can fight.”
“No,” Mr. Fletcher said. “You stay with Ellery; I’ll go with Ryker. I have experience with battles and survived the Ghoul War.”
“I didn’t know you were there,” Ryker said.
Mr. Fletcher tugged at his bright red hair as his brown eyes became distant. “I wasn’t there long. Before Ambrose died, he made me promise to return to the manor if something happened to him. When he perished, I fulfilled that promise. I had to help Ellery and Meredith run the farm, and I wouldn’t break my vow to my best friend.”
At the mention of my parents, grief radiated through me. I missed them both so much that I struggled to breathe through the anguish clenching my chest.
Grief was such a strange thing. One second, everything was fine, and the next, a word, a butterfly, or a smell on the wind would bring back a memory, and with it, the sorrow came careening back like a tornado switching directions.
And like that tornado, it would suck me up, spin me around, and fling me out. There I’d sit afterward, half devastated and grappling to piece myself back together while the world continued like I hadn’t just been pummeled and broken.
But it was impossible to stay down; life never allowed that. Instead, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and tried to act as if everything was okay while inwardly weeping for all I’d lost.
Sensing my melancholy, Ryker slid his hand into mine and squeezed. I blinked away the tears I hadn’t realized filled my eyes and smiled at him. I’d lost so much, but I’d also gained a lot, and I would fight to keep it.
“I didn’t know that,” I said to Scarlet’s father.
Mr. Fletcher smiled at me. Despite being an adult too, I couldn’t bring myself to call him Fletcher like everyone else; he would always be Mr. Fletcher to me.
“He worried about you,” Mr. Fletcher said.
I looked at the trees. Most of the leaves had fallen, and the woods were far calmer now that some of the animals had started to hibernate and the insects had gone to ground. A ghost drifted past Tucker’s shoulder.
I knew these woods well, yet my parents weren’t thrilled with my boundless desire to explore them. They didn’t stop me, and my father taught me how to survive in them, but I knew they were nervous.
They also feared what would happen if the truth of my abilities came to light. I wondered what they’d think now.
“I know he did,” I murmured.
Silence stretched for too long, considering what we had to do. When another ghost floated into the clearing, Ryker broke the hush.
“Okay then, Fletcher will come with me too.” Ryker hesitated before releasing my hand, clasping my face, and kissing me. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered against his lips.
“Stay safe and come back here at the first hint of danger.”
“The same goes for you.”
“Okay, now that everything is settled, we should go,” Tucker said. “We don’t have enough to leave one chest in each town, so we’ll divide the money and dump it on the street for them.”
“That will be interesting to see,” Luna remarked.
“We’re not sticking around to watch it,” Ryker told her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ryker
We decidedto go to White Pool first. It was best to get it over with before the guards started regrouping. We’d be in and out in a matter of minutes, if not less.
Because there were only five sea communities, and we weren’t returning to Seacrest, Callan and I could open portals for the four villages we’d have to visit. Callan knew these communities well enough from his time spent as a traveling minstrel, and I’d spent some time in them too over the years.
