He shook his head. “You didn’t listen to anything I said about waiting, did you? You were right behind me the whole time.”
She was silent a moment. “I kept thinking of all those I left behind in the Cintra, all those who died and I will never see again. Friends and family, people I cared about.” She shrugged without looking at him. “You know how important you are to me, Logan. I wasn’t going to lose you, too. I am bound to you in so many ways. Not by words or writing, but by how I feel. If I lose you, I lose myself.”
“You won’t lose me,” he said.
“At the time, I wasn’t so sure.”
He gave her a small, weary smile. “I told you that you might be able to use the Elfstones, even if it didn’t seem so when you tried before. Didn’t I? Didn’t I say you just had to give yourself a chance?”
“You did. It seemed so easy this time. Perhaps it was because I was so determined that it would work; because I wanted it so badly. I just called the magic up the way I’d seen Kirisin do it, and there it was. You were right.”
“But I could have been wrong. You could have been killed.”
“You could have been killed, too.”
“I love you,” he said impulsively.
She squeezed his arm. “I love you, too.”
“I didn’t think this would ever happen to me.” He was feeling giddy, light-headed. “Meeting someone like you. Falling in love like this.”
“But it did. Despite everything.”
“I can hardly believe it. Even now. It feels so strange. Like I don’t deserve it. Like it isn’t real.”
She laughed. “You’ll get used to it.”
He exhaled sharply, filled with wonder. “Good thing you didn’t listen to me when I told you not to come after me. If you’d listened, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
She didn’t say anything, her face suddenly serious. He touched her dirt-streaked cheek. “You saved my life.”
She shook her head slowly. “No, Logan.” She leaned into him, kissing his cheek once more. “I saved my own.”
IT WAS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, the sun sinking toward the horizon, when Panther finally caught up to her. With Cheney’s help, he had been tracking her since sunrise, the shaggy wolf dog setting a steady pace, big head swinging from side to side, muzzle lowered to the ground. At times, Panther wasn’t so sure that he had the scent. But he knew better than to doubt the dog’s ability, and besides, Cheney was all he had. Without him, he wouldn’t have stood a chance of finding her.
“There she is,” he whispered, almost to himself.
Catalya was walking just far enough ahead that until a few moments ago, she had been lost in the deepening shadows of a rapidly descending twilight. But he could see her clearly enough now to be certain of who she was, a small, cloaked figure outlined against the graying sky.
“C’mon, Cheney,” Panther urged, and picked up the pace.
He caught up to her quickly, pressing hard to close the gap, determined not to lose her to the darkness. She didn’t hear his approach until he was almost on top of her, when the sound of his footsteps or his breathing caught her attention and brought her about. She stood where she was, staring at him with Rabbit crouched guardedly at her feet. The look on her face told him right away that she was not happy he was there.
“So the going got too rough for you back there?” he snapped, deciding to be aggressive about this.
She stood her ground. “Go back, Panther. I don’t want you here.”
“You got a serious attitude problem, little Kitty Cat, you know that?”
“You’re the one with the serious problem. Your ears aren’t working. Didn’t Owl tell you not to come after me?”
“She said.” He gave her a shrug. “I decided maybe you didn’t really mean it. Maybe you was confused about who your real friends were.”
She waved him off, turned around, and started walking again. Panther fell into step beside her with Cheney following. Rabbit hopped along to one side, indifferent to all of them.
“See, Owl told me what was wrong. She told me everything. She laid it right out there, no beating around. You ain’t got to be alone in this, Cat. Some of us want to be there with you. We don’t abandon our friends just because they got a problem.”
He waited for her response, but she stayed silent, moving steadily forward, as if by doing so she might somehow leave him behind. It made him all the more determined.
“Why don’t you want to talk to me about this?” he snapped. “I come all this way to find you, you won’t even talk to me? Bird-Man, he even let me bring Cheney to help find you. That wasn’t something he had to do, but he did it anyway. Shows you something, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think you get it, Panther,” she said wearily.
“Well, why don’t you explain it to me then. I got nothing better to do than listen to you.”
She stopped and stared at him. “Well, you maybe ought to find something better to do and go somewhere else while you’re doing it. How much clearer do I have to be about this?”