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I inhale to refuse, and her face contorts with fury. “Go!” she shouts. “Go! You remind me of him. Go!”
I jerk back.
“Tessa,” says Wes. He catches my elbow.
Idon’t want to leave. We shouldn’t leave her like this, a broken husk of a woman sobbing over the body of her son.
But Wes is right.
“We’ll tell Jared Sexton,” I say to her quietly, referring to a woodworker a few houses away. He’s big and burly—and usually the one who drags bodies to the pyre for burning. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s sobbing into her hands now.
We slip away into the shadows, our feet practiced at making no sound on the pathways. Weston must see or hear something, though, because he quickly jerks me into the pit of darkness by the corner of the next house. My back is against the building, and he’s all but pressed against me, his head ducked, partially blocking mine.
“What—” I begin, but his eyes jerk to mine, and his head shakes almost invisibly.
I peer past him. There’s little light, but now I can hear the booted footsteps of the night patrol. Wes was right—they likely heard Kendall’s screams, and now they’re here to check it out. It’s too dark for me to see her. Maybe they won’t see anything, and they’ll pass by.
But no. Kendall comes flying through her door. “You killed him!” she screams. She has a rock in each hand. One flies, and a man cries out. “You tell that pig of a king and his evil brother that they’ll burn for their—”
A crossbow fires. The arrow hits with a sickening sound. Her voice goes silent, and her body drops.
I whimper. Against me, Wes goes rigid.
One of the patrolmen kicks her body.
“Leave it,” says one of the others. “They’ll find her.”
Another one spits at the ground. Maybe at her. “They’ll never learn.”
“Tessa.” Weston’s voice is a bare hiss in my ear. “Mind your mettle, girl. They’ll kill you, too.”
His weight is against me, pressing me into the wall, his hand over my mouth. I don’t realize I’m struggling against him until I stop. My eyes meet his, and when I blink, he goes blurry.
“I know,” he whispers.
My breathing shudders. I clench my eyes closed. His hand comes off my mouth.
I press my face into his shoulder, shaking with tears like a child.
After a moment, his hand presses to my cheek below the mask, his thumb brushing away the tears that slip down my face. “I know,” he says again. “I know.”
At some point, my tears slow, and I realize that Wes is nearly holding me, and I want to stand right here in this circle of his comfort, because the idea of anything else is too terrible. The thought feels immeasurably selfish in the face of what happened to Kendall and Gillis, but I can’t help it. Wes is warmth and safety and . . . ? friendship.
He draws back at exactly that moment, his hand falling to his side. He’s looking into the distance, his eyes searching for trouble. “We should head west now. The night patrol is already keyed up. I don’t want to take a chance. If we have time, we can double back and do the rest.”
I swallow and try to force my thoughts into some kind of coherent pattern. “Yes. Sure.” I sniff back the last of my tears and swipe at my face. I’m full of sorrow now, but I know from experience that later it’s going to rearrange itself into rage. “Should we—should we do something about her body?”
“No,” he says. He reaches out to straighten my hat. “They’re right. Someone will find the body.”
“Weston!”
“Shh.” He puts a finger to his mouth, and he shakes his head. “I’m not being callous. We can’t help her anymore, Tessa.” He adjusts his pack, the vials clinking. “We do have rounds.”
“Right.” I swallow. “Rounds.”
We head into the darkness again, shifting silently through the night. Weston’s usual lighthearted banter is gone. His whistling is silent. The air is heavy, as if we carry the weight of what happened along with us.
“I hate the king,” I whisper. “I hate the prince. I hate what they’ve done. I hate what Kandala has become.”
My voice is so soft that I wonder if he can even hear me, but after a moment, Wes reaches out to take my hand. He gives it a squeeze, for just a second longer than necessary—the only sign that this affected him as profoundly as it did me.
“Me too,” he says.
Then he lets go and nods at the horizon, any hint of vulnerability gone. “Morning is coming. We’ll have to step quick.”
