I shook my head. “These are derrica berries, a light poison. Won’t kill me on the spot, but I’ll get a nasty case of gastrointestinal distress. However, it’s an easy mistake to make. The two look almost identical.”
The sack of berries tumbled from her hands. “I already ate one.”
I chewed my lips inside my mouth to try to keep from laughing. “You aren’t used to foraging much, are you.”
“I’m more of a hunter.”
“That tracks,” I said. I’d noticed yesterday that her pack had an overabundance of dried meat with the occasional vegetable, not much by way of nuts and berries. “I’ll pass on needing to hang by the latrine for days, but I appreciate the thought.”
Kali scrubbed at her face. “Next time I’ll bring you a dead freewhill to roast.”
“Is that part of your mating dance?” I teased, even though my heart fluttered. “Bringing me fresh game?”
“It clearly isn’t working,” she muttered and plunked down next to her sack. This time, she pulled out a dry package of what looked like breakfast gruel. “We’ll have to settle for this.”
A flat disc unfolded into a bowl with the simple press of a button—classic Gearwicks—and she mixed some water with the dry crumbles from the package.
I couldn’t stop grinning. Even though she hadn’t realized the poison she’d brought me, the effort was sweet.
She glanced up at wrinkled her nose. “I know, rudimentary mistake.”
“No, I thought the gesture was adorable.”
Kali fixed me with a deadpan. “I’m a mercenary who could kill you in seven different ways in mere seconds. I’m not adorable.”
“Who tried to pick me berries for breakfast. I think that’s pretty adorable,” I said, a satisfied hum buzzing through me. “Think today’s the day we’ll catch up with your mark?” Iwrinkled my nose. “If we’re chasing them but they’re constantly running, will we ever catch up to them?”
“Is this your first time hunting a mark?” she asked, a wan smile on her face.
“Oh, no, I have an illustrious history of hunting down people between berry farming seasons,” I responded. “But make it make sense.”
Kali shook her head. “The short answer is they’re sloppy. Leaving scraps behind. Deep tread marks in the mud. Just like your little pagwai. I noticed more tracks last night. There’s rumored to be more of them, maybe a colony, deeper in the woods. I think to the northeast.”
“We’re straight north, so you’re saying if we detour…we’ll find Socks?”
“With any hope,” she said, taking a bite of the gruel and grimacing. “Would’ve been better with berries.”
“Not those berries,” I said. “Trust me.” I snagged a spoon from my pack and downed some of the gruel for sustenance. Sure, it was kind of bland, but I’d eaten worse. Whenever Jae cooked at the commune, we all suffered. If we were going to be hunting Dynlan today, we needed fuel.
All too fast, we’d finished and packed up our camp. “Time to move,” she said. “Quicker pace.”
She wasn’t kidding. We crunched over twigs and dead leaves at a pace that quickened my breath. Despite the amount of time I spent doing physical labor in the fields, that was movement at a steady rate rather than the way we rushed forward now. However, anticipation prickled in my veins as she settled into a more professional headspace. Kali grew quieter, more serious, and her dark eyes flitted one way or another in regular observation.
“What should I do when we find the mark?” I asked. This should’ve been on my radar earlier, but I’d just wanted a travel companion. “I’m not really trained in weapons.”
“Try to stop them if they make a dash for it,” Kali said, leaning over a bush to examine a leaf.
“Ah, so form a wall,” I said. “I can handle that.”
A few rustles in the bushes drew my attention, but when a pagwai popped out, my chest sank. Socks had a distinctive black streak on her temple, and while this pagwai looked precious, they weren’t mine.
“We’ll find her,” Kali said, passing me a glance. “Remember, this is what I’m good at.”
“Much better than foraging,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. As much as I could be patient to find Socks, I did miss her. She’d been a steadfast companion for the past five years, and I didn’t want to lose her in my life. She’d traveled to the Everend Market with me before and hadn’t run off, so I wasn’t sure why this time had been different. “What are your guesses for the box?”
She wrinkled her nose. “While it might sound exciting to state some lofty Emberleigh secrets or a priceless gem, my guess is family documents. A secret recipe, the blueprints to a certain magic device. Oftentimes I’m sent to chase after mundane items.”
“Nothing mundane about personal history,” I said. “I hope it’s a secret recipe. I’d love to steal the jewelberry cake one from the market, but Aisling guards it with her life. Those cakes are some of the highlights of the market for me.”
