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The beetle skitters to catch up and trips again. Before he can help it roll back over Mum appears, shirt stained a red that matches her hands.

“Fenrir, get away from that!”

He freezes where he stands, sword held out in front of him, little beetle’s legs wiggling in the air. Mum told him once about how dangerous beetles can be, but the creature is his friend and without Otis to help with the wagon they need all the friends they can get.

“Maybe he can help with the wagon?”

His mother always looks tired, but right now she looks like Otis did before he laid down and fell asleep. She doesn’t have to say anything for him to understand he’s done something wrong, so he drops his stick before she can tell him to and leaves his beetle friend behind on his back, legs still kicking.

“Otis didn’t wake up?”

Mum’s hands are shaking again and when Fenrir reaches out to take one, she moves it away, wiping her palm down her shirt and leaving a streak of red behind.

“Otis is dead,” she says without explanation.

That must be why mum wakes me up when I nap too long. Well, he’ll have to remember not to nap too much in the future so he doesn’t die like Otis did and make Mum sad.

When they return to the wagon there’s a big pile of treasure arranged in a neat stack atop the shale and a red-stained sack draped over the back of the wagon. Dad’s got a fire going and the scent of meat hits his nose and draws him to a seat beside him. It’s not often they have meat and Fenrir isn’t expecting the treat, his mouth watering when dad makes him a plate while Mum climbs into the wagon to feed Alina.

The warm meat fills his belly, and the crackling fire soothes him towards sleep. Fenrir fights nodding off, thinking of Otis, but a buzzing fills his head, and he leans against Dad’s arm while his eyelids grow heavy.

“Any luck?” Dad asks and Fenrir jerks awake before realizing Dad spoke to Mum.

“A little,” drifts over from the wagon. “Not enough. We’re too low on water.”

“We’ll make it, don’t worry,” Dad says, then pats Fenrir’s head and sighs. “Don’t have the comb within reach, do ya?”

Mum digs through the sack under the wagon’s bench and tosses a bright blue comb to dad.

Fenrir groans when it sinks into his hair.

“Gotta get the rats out of the nest,” Dad jokes while Fenrir grimaces, comb snagging on his curls until his hair becomes a frizzy mess.

One day I’ll be an adult and never have to comb my hair again, he thinks while Dad pockets the comb to put out the fire and Mum returns to her perch atop the tarp.

Fenrir climbs in after her, settles onto the bench and then goes still.

In the ditch he sees Otis—or rather, what’s left.

“Mum?” He breathes, unable to tear his eyes away. Behind him, Mum curses, then gently turns his face away.

“How about another story?” She’s pushing his book into his hands, but Fenrir can’t make the words look right when he opens the cover. Instead, he takes Alina from Dad when he climbs over to sit beside him.

“Let’s try to not stop for the night,” Mum says to Dad when he snaps the reins and Milo strains into a slow trundle. They leave the pile of treasure behind for another hunter to find, and maybe that person will be able to help Otis too. Mum says he’s dead, but he actually looks hurt, and he knows there is a difference even if right then he can’t remember what that is.

The wagon bounces over the shale and Fenrir puts his finger in Alina’s mouth when she slobbers over his shoulder, muffling her tiny baby cries, and refuses to look behind.

Chapter VIII

White Cloaks

They’d come from the east, that much was clear.

They’d come from the Rim.

Atticus didn’t waste time. The white cloaks congregated under the crumbling ruins of a barn only for as long as it took to regroup. They packed out horses emblazoned with blue livery, crates of Vera’s foodstuffs strapped tightly to a wagon that took up their rear—Orpheus’ ankles strapped together so he couldn’t even think to run, let alone try. He rode over the lap of the massive Myrkur—Duluth—no more than a hand on his back to hold him steady when they crested the hill to leave the fairgrounds behind.

He chewed his gag when he saw the smoke, the sting in his eyes making the scene swim so badly he wasn’t sure if what he witnessed was real, or some fabrication of reality. Pillars of smoke blackened the sky while embers rode the wind, and where tents once stood, the ground was churned muddy, dark with a stain that bled through the piles of what had to be…fuck, were those corpses?