Sedric tried to shout, strained until his throat hurt, but no sound came out.

They hurt you? Shall I kill them?

‘No!’ The sound suddenly burst from him in a shout. He jerked awake to find himself sprawled on his sweaty bedding in his small, smelly cabin. Around him, all was murkiness. No Hest, no Redding. Only himself. And a small copper dragon who pushed insistently at the walls of his thoughts. Dimly he felt her inquiry, her dull-witted concern for him. He pushed the contact away, shut his eyes tightly and buried his face in the bundle that served him as a pillow. Just a bad dream, he told himself. Only a nightmare.

But it was one that was all too possibly real.

When he was morose, he thought that perhaps Hest had wanted to be rid of him for some time. Perhaps his defending of Alise had given Hest the excuse he was looking for to send Sedric away.

He could, by an effort of will, recall how it had been when they first began. Hest’s calmness and strength had drawn him. In moments alone, in Hest’s strong embrace, he felt like he had finally found safe harbour. Knowing that shelter existed for him had made him stronger and bolder. Even his father had seen the change in him, and told him that he took pride in the man his son was becoming.

If he’d only known!

When had Hest’s strength stopped being a shelter and become a prison wall? When had it become, not the comfort of protection, but the threat of that strength turned against him? How could he have continued unaware of how things had changed, of how Hest was changing him? He hadn’t, he admitted now. He’d known. But he’d stumbled on blindly, excusing Hest’s cruelty and slights, blaming the discord on himself, pretending that somehow, things would go back to the way they had once been.

Had it ever really been that good? Or was it all a dream he had manufactured for himself?

He rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow and closing his eyes. He would not think about Hest or how things had once been between them. He would not dwell on what their relationship had become. Right now, he did not even have the heart to try to imagine something better for them. There had to be a better dream somewhere. He wished he could imagine what it was.

‘Are you awake?’

He hadn’t been but now he was. A slice of light was falling into Sedric’s room from the open door. The silhouette standing in it had to be Alise. Of course. He sighed.

As if that were an invitation, she ventured into the room. She didn’t close the door behind her. The rectangle of light fell mostly on the floor, illuminating dropped clothing. ‘It’s so dark in here,’ she said apologetically. ‘And close.’

She meant smelly. He’d scarcely stirred out of the room for three days, and when he did, he spoke to no one and returned to his bed as soon as he could. Davvie, the hunter’s boy, had been bringing him meals and then taking them away again. At first, he’d been in too much pain to be hungry. And now he was too despondent to eat.

‘Davvie said he thought you were feeling better.’

‘I’m not.’ Couldn’t she just go away? He didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t want to confide his problems to anyone. Davvie was bad enough, with his pestering, prying questions and his voluntary biography of his own unremarkable life. At thirteen years old, how could the boy imagine he had done anything that could possibly interest anyone other than himself? All of the boy’s meandering stories seemed to be leading up to some point that Sedric couldn’t grasp and the boy couldn’t seem to make. He suspected that Carson was using the boy to spy on him. He’d woken twice to find the hunter sitting quietly beside his bed. And once, he’d struggled out of a nightmare and opened his eyes to that other hunter, Jess, crouched on the floor nearby. Why all three of them were so fascinated with him, he didn’t know. Not unless they had guessed his secret.

At least he could order the boy out of his room and he obeyed. He doubted that tactic would work on Alise, but abruptly decided to try it. ‘Just go away, Alise. When I feel well enough to deal with people, I’ll come out.’

Instead, Alise came into the room and sat down on his shoe trunk. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone so much, especially when we still don’t know what made you so ill.’ Her fingers tangled in her lap like writhing serpents. He looked away from them.

‘Carson said it was something I ate. Or drank.’

‘That makes sense, except that we’ve all had the same food and drink that you’ve had, and no one else was affected.’

There was one drink she hadn’t shared. He pushed the thought aside. Don’t think about anything that could incriminate you, or bring those alien thoughts back into your mind.

He hadn’t answered her. She was looking down at her hands. She spoke as if the words were teeth she were spitting out. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you along on this, Sedric. I’m sorry I ran off to help the dragons that day and wouldn’t listen to what you had to say. You’re a friend; you’ve been my friend for a very long time. Now you’re ill and we’re so far from any real healers.’ She halted for a moment and he could tell she was trying to hold back tears. Strange, how little he cared about that. Perhaps if she knew the real danger he faced and was moved by it, he would feel more sympathy for how she struggled with her guilt.

‘I’ve talked to Leftrin and he says it’s not too late. He said that even though we’ve travelled farther up river, he thinks Carson could still take one of the smaller boats and get us safely back to Cassarick before autumn closes in. It wouldn’t be easy, and we’d be camping out along the way. But I’ve persuaded him.’ She paused, choking on emotion, and then went on in a voice so tight that her words almost squeaked.

‘If you want me to take you back, I’ll do it. We’ll leave today if you say so.’ If he said so.

It was too late now. Too late even on that morning when he’d demanded she go back with him, though he hadn’t known it then. ‘Too late.’ He hadn’t realized he’d whispered the words until he saw her reaction.

‘Sa’s mercy, Sedric. Are you that ill?’

‘No.’ He spoke quickly to stop her words. He truly had no idea how ill he was, or if ‘ill’ was a way to describe it. ‘No, nothing like that, Alise. I only mean it’s too late for us to attempt to make our way back to Cassarick in one of the small boats. Davvie has warned me, numerous times, that the autumn rains will soon be falling, and that when they start to come down, our journey upstream is going to be more difficult. Perhaps then Captain Leftrin will recognize how foolish our mission is and turn back with the barge. In any case, I don’t wish to be in a small boat on a torrential river with rain pouring down all around us. Not my idea of camping weather.’

He’d almost managed to find his normal tone and voice. Maybe if he seemed normal, she’d go away. ‘I’m very tired, if you don’t mind,’ he said abruptly.

Alise stood up, looking remarkably unattractive in trousers that only emphasized the female swell of her hips. The shirt she wore was beginning to show signs of hard use. He could tell she had washed it, but the water she had used had left it grey rather than snowy white. The sun was taking a toll on her, bleaching her red hair to a carroty orange that frayed out around her pins, and making her freckles darker. She’d never been a beauty by Bingtown standards. Much more of the sun and water, and he wondered if Hest would take her back at all. It was one thing to have a mousy wife, and another to have one who was simply a fright. He wondered if she ever thought of the possibility that when she returned, Hest might not take her back. Probably not. She had been raised to believe that life was meant to be a certain way, and even when all evidence was to the contrary, she couldn’t see it differently. She’d never suspected that he and Hest were more than excellent friends. To Alise, he was still her childhood friend, erstwhile secretary to her husband and temporarily serving as her assistant. She so firmly believed that the world was determined by her rules that she could not see what was right in front of her.