Lakima didn’t take the jab. “I agree, but we still have to account for the risk of them reporting to the queen.”
A rush of ire sloshed about Fie’s skull before she tamped it down. She couldn’t help but notice Drudge’s Crows remained in the trees.
She didn’t know why she so badly craved the faith of a band of stranger Crows. Or why that faith from her kin felt more like a stone about her neck.
She did know, at least, that Lakima had no business taking the brunt of her vexation. “Sorry,” Fie mumbled, pocketing the two Phoenix teeth. Not enough spark was left to go back on her string, but there was enough to store for lighting stubborn campfires and the like. “You’re right.”
“Will wonders never cease,” Varlet breathed in jest. “We must be in sore terrible peril.”
Fie shook her fist at him with an exaggerated scowl. “And that’s enough out of you, or I’ll have you fed to Barf.”
The rest of the band chuckled at that, and one of the myriad knots in Fie’s gut loosened. It was a little thing she’d noted, as they’d crossed paths more and more with Oleanders and skin-ghasts in the last moon and her band had still looked to Pa to lead out of habit. Once the dangerhad passed, he’d crack a joke or fool about and snap the uneasy frost that gripped the band. So long as they could laugh, the fear stayed beyond the reach of their campfire.
“I think we’d better keep a standing watch tonight,” Lakima said. “We can continue your healing lessons tomorrow, if that suits you.”
“Aye.” Fie returned to her circle of Crows as Drudge’s band slowly began to trickle out of the trees. Most gave her the same wide berth they’d given the Hawks. Fie found that bothered her even more than their flight to the trees had, but scolding them would do naught to calm their nerves. Instead she found a patch of ground to sit, worked her chief’s string free, and drew out her tooth bag. It was time for a restock.
Drudge himself didn’t share his band’s misgivings, or if he did, he’d overcome them. He dropped into the empty dust across from Fie. “Those fire teeth… how many do you have?”
Fie glanced up from stowing the teeth she’d just half burned. “Enough,” she said cautiously.
“Enough to spare?”
Fie’s hands went still.
“The roads won’t get better,” Drudge continued. “You and I both know it, girl. Whatever you’ve started with the queen won’t dry up for moons. I need to look after my own.”
She’d known it was only a matter of time, and yet…
The teeth kept her safe. They kept her band safe. She’dwonthem from Rhusana herself. All Drudge had done was eat her band’s food and cast doubt at her at every turn, and now he asked for teeth he’d done naught to earn—
When is it enough?
She was back in the tower, a dead god smiling at her and saying that, in life after life after life, she’d failed.
Fie forced her fingers to unbutton the compartment for her Phoenixteeth. “I left a few score at Gen-Mara’s groves. This ought to hold you until you reach them.” She counted six and held them out. “Try to burn just one at a time. If you do two, they fight.”
His eyes lingered on her palm, then flicked up to her. “Reckon that’s enough?”
“Aye. The groves are less than a day’s walk north.”
Drudge looked long and hard at the Hawks, and then at Tavin’s gleaming short sword strapped at Fie’s side. Then he looked back at the six teeth in Fie’s hand.
“There’s more at the groves,” she repeated.
Drudge took the teeth. “Aye.”
Something in his voice told Fie she’d be better waiting to tie new Phoenix teeth on her string untilafterDrudge’s band departed. She buttoned up the tooth compartment, closed her bag, and feigned a hearty yawn. “I’d best get some shut-eye, especially if any of those scummers were from Karostei.”
“Aye,” Drudge said again, toneless.
Fie fetched a sleeping mat from their supply wagon and rolled it out so she could sleep facing the road. She didn’t reckon the Oleander Gentry would return after such a scare, but they hadn’t the luxury of rolling shells on those odds.
And when she tucked her tooth bag under her head, she told herself it was only to be ready for Oleanders as well.
She dreamed of Tavin, as she usually did.
A poet would say she missed poetic things about him, nonsense like how sunlight caught on his eyelashes or how his smile was bright as a constellation, but the heart of it was that she missed more thaneyelashes. She missed falling asleep feeling safer for him at her back. She missed how he’d first sorted out how to tell she was upset, then when to say naught about it, then finally when to say square what she needed to hear. She missednotmissing him.
