Bran stood, closed the cabinet doors, then slung the backpack over both shoulders. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“Do you even know where we’re going?” Cillian asked.
“Into the forest.”
“The Quabbin Reservoir wilderness isn’t like Yellowstone or Yosemite. It’s not like we’re trekking into backcountry. Where are we going?”
Bran headed for the cabin’s door. “I said you didn’t have to come.”
A strong, callused hand wrapped around his arm, jerking him to a stop. It was, Bran realized in a heart-stopping moment, the first time Cillian had touched him since the kiss that had cleaved them apart when they were younger.
Cillian’s grip was firm, the strength behind it impossible to ignore as he carefully pulled Bran around to face him. They stood so close that Bran could smell the sweat on the other man, the tang of it hitting his nose. A half-hysterical thought bubbled up through his mind—he didn’t want Cillian to stop touching him.
Cillian stared down at him with those blue-gray eyes of his, the color like a winter storm, a shade Bran had never seen in anyone else’s eyes. He’d always looked for it over the years and came away wanting. “What do you think you’re going to find out here in theforest?”
Bran steeled himself to pull away, and Cillian let him. “Keep your iron with you.”
He turned on his feet and hurried out of the cabin, the spot on his arm where Cillian had touched him burning through his awareness. Cillian followed after a moment, his footsteps heavy on the hardwood floor. Bran closed the door to the cabin, and they started down the forest path again. He was acutely aware of Cillian walking beside him, skin still prickling from his touch. Bran resisted the urge to fold his fingers over where Cillian had grabbed him.
They followed the path deeper into the woods, the branches overhead keeping the sunlight at bay but doing nothing for the heat. Bran’s shirt was sticking to his skin well before noon, and the hiking pants he wore were damp at the waistband when they finally stopped for a quick lunch of energy bars.
Seated on a fallen tree, Bran looked up at what he could see of the sky through the trees, listening to the sounds of the forest. The rustle of leaves and cries of birds were vastly different from the sounds of Boston. But nothing in Boston wanted to kill him, and he knew what dwelled in the forest.
“You still haven’t said where we’re heading,” Cillian said, the first words he’d spoken in hours.
Jupitercawednearby, impatience in the sound. She wanted them to keep moving. “I’ll know when I find it.”
The Quabbin Reservoir wilderness was hilly terrain, and Bran’s calves already ached from the hours they’d trekked. He was, admittedly, out of practice, but aching muscles weren’t going to stop him.
Bran picked up the last crumb from the energy bar, ate it, then crumpled up the wrapper and shoved it into his backpack. He’d never in his life littered in the woods, the “carry out what you carry in” ethos drilled into him by his mother since he was a kid.
“Mac says it’s always bears when we get attacks like this,” Cillian said quietly. “It’s not, is it?”
“No,” Bran agreed after a moment. “It’s not.”
He didn’t say what it was, didn’t name them. Nothing good ever came of naming them.
“So the stories are true? About the lights in the woods?”
“What do you think?”
“I think whatever attacked wanted you dead, and I don’t know why you aren’t, but I’m glad they didn’t kill you.” Bran startled at the feel of Cillian’s hand resting on his shoulder, head jerking around. Cillian stared back at him, looking as sweaty as Bran felt and still so handsome. “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother and Ray and Aisling, but for once, I was happy you were gone. It meant you were alive.”
Bran didn’t know what to say to that. Cillian patted Bran’s shoulder before picking up his rifle and getting to his feet, offering his hand. Bran thought about ignoring it, but he gave in. Cillian’s hand was cool, unlike his own warm, slightly sweaty one, but his grip was strong in a way Bran wouldn’t have minded if they were in a bedroom and not a forest, if they didn’t have seven years of silence stretched between them. Resentment still simmered, low and deep with anger at how Cillian had pushed him away as a teenager, but the pain of losing his best friend still cut deeper.
He’d thought about Cillian almost every day since, even when he didn’t want to. It was maddening, sometimes, the absence of the other man while Bran learned to live without him, hating it all the while. It always felt like he was missing his other half. Now, he had Cillian back in his life, and Bran didn’t want to let him go again.
“Come on. Lead the way,” Cillian said.
Bran picked up his backpack and pulled the straps over both shoulders. He bounced it a couple of times to settle the weight, ignoring the faint tightness of the muscles in his back. It’d been a while since he had to hike with gear. Jupitercawedfrom up ahead. Bran watched as she launched herself off a branch, flying low beneath the tree canopy.
The path they followed wasn’t one most hikers would ever get to enjoy. Most of the wilderness was off-limits, but people still found their way into land they shouldn’t trek through. The paths connecting the cabins weren’t found on any map handed out to the public. Bran remembered them only because of the years he’d walked every last one with his mother.
The path they were on twisted through the woods from cabin to cabin in the area they were in, the way designated by subtle witchmarks, until the hilly terrain dipped toward the Quabbin Reservoir itself. Theyarrived on a muddy, rocky shore, the sun more than halfway to the western horizon behind them.
Bran stared across the calm blue water, at the trees on the other side and the distant rising slope of Prescott Hill. The land out here was pristine, restricted in order to keep the water clean. That hadn’t stopped his coven from carving out paths to do their duty.
“I didn’t know this was here,” Cillian said.
