“I’ll be with your sister.”
Everyone pauses. Rhydd says slowly, “That is a very kind offer—”
“It’s not an offer. It’s a statement of fact. Your sister is off on a lovely adventure, and I am in great need of one.”
“I don’t think…” Rhydd begins, even slower now.
“I am an expert archer and healer, and I know these woods. Besides, your mother won’t send builders during a monster infestation, and I can hardly live in my house as it is. I’ll join the expedition.” She rises. “That’s settled. Let’s get ready before we lose any more daylight.”
Dain’s dropbear is gone.
I’d been with Rhydd, saying a private goodbye while making sure he was okay going back and leaving me to my adventure.
“I like adventures just fine,” he said. “But I’m beginning to think I prefer them in smaller doses. The colocolo stampede was enough for me. Fixing this with Mom is the kind of challenge I prefer.”
Then I saw him off with the hunters. Yvain and her family had already left. Now Alianor is with Cedany, putting together a medical kit. Wilmot and Kaylein are discussing the trip. And so I’m the only one to notice Dain standing on the forest’s edge, staring into it.
I walk over, and he doesn’t even seem to hear me. Then he says, “She’s gone.”
I almost ask who. That’s when I realize he’s alone, and I haven’t seen him that way since we returned from the forest yesterday.
“Did something happen?” I say, hurrying to him. “If she’s disappeared, we need to look for her, in case—”
“She left,” he says, his voice monotone.
“Are you sure? Maybe—”
“I let her go, and she went.” He turns to head back to the clearing, his gaze averted, hands deep in his pockets. “Her shoulder will be fine, and it was time for her to go. That’s the right thing to do.”
“It is, but…”
When I try to see his expression, he keeps his face averted and squares his shoulders. “I brought her out here and told her she’d be fine. I gave her a little push, so she’d understand. When she didn’t, I put her on a branch. Then she took off.” He points into the forest. “That way.”
“I’m sorry.”
He glances over then, and his eyes are glistening, just a little. “It was the right thing to do.”
“It was, but that doesn’t make it easy.”
He shoves his hands down farther into his pockets.
“If you were Rhydd or Alianor, I’d give you a hug,” I say. “But I know you don’t want that, so I’m just going to tell you that I would. Consider it a verbal hug.”
One corner of his mouth twitches. Then he puts out his arm for an awkward back pat, and I lay my head on his shoulder, very lightly, waiting for him to pull away. Instead, he just keeps his hand against my back.
“I am sorry,” I say. “I know she liked you, though. It wasn’t about that.”
He nods. He doesn’t say he liked her, too. He did, of course. For some of us, though, admitting things like that is hard. It’d taken him a very long time to admit we were friends, and even now, he’s more likely to refer to himself as my companion.
We stand there, my head on his shoulder, his arm against my back. Then he takes a deep breath, and when he speaks, he’s as tense as if he’s about to admit some terrible secret.
“I…I kind of…kind of hoped…”
“I know,” I say, when he doesn’t finish. “You did the right thing, but you were hoping she’d give you an excuse to keep her.”
He nods and relaxes. Then he turns his head and murmurs, “Thank you.”
As I look up to smile, I catch sight of Wilmot. He’s standing about ten feet away, watching us with an odd look. When Dain notices, he jumps away so fast you’d think we’d been caught kissing.
I glare at Wilmot. Dain had actually relaxed and confessed his feelings about something, and now Wilmot is making him feel like he’s done something wrong. Yet the look isn’t really like that. It’s just…wistful? Sad?
Is Wilmot thinking of Jannah? I know I look like her, and they were friends when they were our age. I realize that’s it—seeing Dain and me together, quietly talking, reminded Wilmot of Jannah. Maybe it was something in my expression or in the forest backdrop. Whatever it was, it made him miss her, and I regret my glare. So I replace it with a smile and walk over and quietly tell him what happened.
“It’s for the best,” he says, his gruff tone exactly like Dain’s. The look in his eyes is the same, too, as if he’s telling himself that when he doesn’t really believe it.
Yes, the dropbear belongs in the forest. She’s old enough to be on her own, and if there’s no excuse for interfering, we shouldn’t. Staying with us has to be her choice. I just can’t help wishing, for Dain’s sake, that he had been her choice. But she’d chosen to return to the forest, and that isn’t his fault or hers.
After yesterday, I expect we’ll have a full day of monster encounters. I’m wrong. Very wrong. We don’t have a single one, and while that should be a relief—proof that we’ve overestimated the problem, even—it worries me. I don’t tell the others. They might think my “worry” is actually disappointment, and I’m not in the mood to be teased.
I’m not sure what kind of mood I am in. I’m sad for Dain, losing a possible monster companion. I’m concerned about what Mom will say and whether Wilmot will get into any trouble. I miss my brother—until this year, we’d never been apart for long, and now it’s one separation after another.
My mood, then, is “not good.” Not bad, but not good, either. I’m distracted now and then, when Cedany points out a
