have been looking for someone to tell this to. I chose you because I think we are the same. We are both keeping secrets.»
«I guess that's so,' he said. He sat back against the pilot box wall. «Now it's my turn to tell you a secret. I hardly know where to begin, I have so many. You know who I am, but you don't know what I am doing here.»
«I can guess,' she said. «The Ard Rhys is your aunt. You are here because of her. But the Druids say you are in danger. They say that what happened to her might happen to you if you are not found and brought to them. Is that true?»
He shook his head. «I'm in danger, but mostly from them. Some of them are responsible for what's happened to her. If they find me, I might end up the same way. I escaped them when they came looking for me in Patch Run. So now I'm running away.»
«Are you looking for your parents?»
«I'm looking for my aunt. It's complicated.» He paused. «We promised to tell each other truths tonight, so let me tell you one. You have a kind of magic that no one else has. So do I. Like you, I was born with it. It is probably a part of the magic my father inherited, something that's been passed down through the Ohmsford bloodline for generations. Only, mine is different.»
He exhaled softly, searching for a way to explain. «I can tell what plants and animals are feeling and sometimes thinking. They don't talk to me exactly, but they communicate anyway. They tell me things with their sounds and movements. For instance, I know if they're afraid or angry and what causes them to be so.»
«Your gift is not so different from my own,' she said. «You can see things that are hidden from other people and you can see them without using your eyes. We are alike, aren't we?»
He leaned forward. «Except that I am free and you are not. Why is that, Cinnaminson? Could you leave your father if you wanted? Could you go somewhere else and have a different life?»
It was such an impulsive question that he surprised himself by asking it. Worse, he had nothing beyond encouragement to offer if she answered yes. What could he do to help her in his present circumstances? He couldn't take her with him, not where he was going. He couldn't offer to aid her while Ahren was so determined not to aggravate Gar Hatch.
She laughed softly. «Such a bold question, Penderrin. What should I do? Leave my Papa and run away with you? A blind girl and a fugitive boy?»
«I guess it sounds silly,' he admitted. «I shouldn't have asked.»
«Why not?» she pressed, surprising him. «Do you care for me?»
«You don't have to ask that.»
«Then you must care about me, too. So it seems right to want an answer. I like it that you do. Yes, I want a different life. I have looked for it. But you are the first to whom I have talked about it. You are the first to ask.»
He stared at her face, at her smooth features, at the smile that curved her lips, at her strange blank eyes. What he felt for her in that instant transcended love. He might say that he loved her, but he didn't know all that much about love, so saying it wouldn't mean anything. It was only a word to him; he was still only a boy. But this other feeling, the one that was more than love, encompassed whole worlds. It whispered of connection and sharing, of confidences and truths like the ones they had told each other tonight. It promised small moments that would never be forgotten and larger ones that could change lives.
What could he give her that would tell her this? He struggled to find an answer, lost in a sea of confusing emotions. Her hands were holding his again, her fingers making small circles against his skin. She wasn't saying anything. She was waiting for him to speak first.
«If you were to decide you wanted to leave your father, I would help you,' he said finally. «If you wanted to come away with me, I would let you. I don't know how that could happen. I only know that I would find a way.»
She lowered her head just enough that the shadows grazed her face and hid her expression. «Would you come for me wherever I was, Pen? It is a bold thing to ask, but I am asking it anyway. Would you come for me?»
«Wherever you are, whenever you have need,' he whispered.
She smiled, her face lifting back into the light. «That is all I need to know.» She sat back and turned her face to the starlit sky. «Enough of making promises and telling truths. Let's just sit together for a little while and listen to the night.»
They did so, side by side, not saying anything, their hands in their laps, their shoulders and hips touching. The sounds of the waterfront rolled over them in small bursts and slow meanderings, brief intrusions from a place that seemed far away. The night turned colder, and Pen wrapped them both in his cloak, putting his arm around her to lend his warmth, feeling her small form melt against him.
After a time, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. «You must leave now. It grows late. They will return. Go back to your room and sleep.» She kissed him again. «Come again tomorrow, if you can. I will be waiting.»
He rose and walked with her to the ladder, scanning the dock for signs of approaching Rovers. The docks were empty now. She lowered the ladder for him, and he climbed down. He stood looking up at her as she pulled it away again, then he turned and went down the waterfront.
Cinnaminson.
Nothing in his life, he knew, would ever be the same again.
TWENTY
Grianne Ohmsford woke to a morning so dismal and gray that it might have drifted out of the marshy depths of the Malg Swamp, an apparition come in search of the unfortunate Jarka Ruus. It felt alive and hungry. It had a shape and feel. The air it breathed smelled of fetid water and brushed at the skin with greasy, insistent fingers. The clouds that formed its hair were so low in the sky as to be indistinguishable from the misty beard that curled about its ragged face. Everything about it whispered of hidden danger and lost souls. In its presence, heartbeats quickened with the uneasy and certain knowledge that death, when it appeared, would be quick and unexpected.
The Ard Rhys was cramped from sleeping in the cradle of tree limbs, her body aching and stiff. She had slept, though she did not pretend to understand how, and she had kept her perch and not fallen as she had feared she would. Climbing down through brume that would have discouraged even the most intrepid seabird, she caught sight of the tracks that crisscrossed the earth directly below, and decided she had been lucky to have survived the night with no more than her sore muscles. Weka Dart had been right to warn her against trying to make her bed on the ground.
She glanced around, scanning the mist and gloom for some sign of the devious little Ulk Bog, thinking he might have come back during the night, even as mad at her as he had been when he left. After all, he had gone to a lot of trouble to persuade her to allow him to accompany her, and she found it hard to believe that he would toss it all away because of a perceived slight. He didn't seem the type who would allow insults to get in the way of ambitions. She still wasn't sure what he was after, only that he was after something. But there was no sign of him, so she accepted that he had gone his own way after all.
Just as well, she told herself.
Except that she didn't know the country, and that put her at a disadvantage. She knew in general how she should go, given that the Forbidding mirrored the Four Lands. She could estimate the location of the Hadeshorn from what she knew of its location in her own world. But the mist was confusing, and her sense of direction skewed by the different land formations. Worse, she would have to risk encountering the monsters that inhabited the Forbidding, without knowing who and what they were. At least Weka Dart had knowledge of the things she needed to avoid.
But there was no help for it. Nor help for her lack of food and water. She would have to forage for both as she traveled, hoping that she would recognize the former when she saw it. Water should be less of a problem,
