Panterra started to go after him, but Prue wheeled around first, blocking his way, and took five quick steps so that she was standing right in front of their prisoner. “Don’t say anything more, Bonnasaint. If you speak even a single word, I will tie you to the nearest tree and leave you for the wolves to find. Pan won’t stop me, either.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, waiting. He smiled but kept silent. Satisfied, she returned to Pan’s side, and they resumed walking.
By midday, they had come in sight of the bluffs on which Arborlon was settled. They could see Elves walking the heights and smell the smoke from the cooking fires. The day had gone warm and the wind still, and there was a sultry feel to the air.
Panterra brought them to a halt. “This is probably close enough,” he advised Prue, speaking to her out of Bonnasaint’s hearing. “Can you wait here with him while I find the Orullians?”
“I can,” she replied. “But I don’t think that’s the best plan. You should be the one who stays. I’ll have a better chance of wandering about as a blind girl. Someone might recognize Sider’s staff, and I don’t think you want that just yet.”
He saw the wisdom in her suggestion and reluctantly agreed. He didn’t like letting her out of his sight, now that he had found her again. But that was selfish thinking, so he abandoned it. “Go,” he said.
Leaving her backpack behind, she set out for the city. Pan took Bonnasaint into the trees, tethered him to one with the rope, dropped his own backpack beside Prue’s, and sat down to wait. The day eased past noontime and into the early afternoon, a slow, lazy passage that made him drowsy as he sat watching his prisoner and thinking of Prue. But he knew how not to fall asleep when on watch, and soon it was the assassin who was sleeping, his head drooping and his snores audible in the silence of the woods.
Pan kept an eye out for Elves, as well, but none of them had reason to venture this far afield and none came close to where he waited.
Prue was right about things changing and never going back to the way they were. He hadn’t taken time to think about it before, but he did so now. They might not even be living in the valley when this was over. They might be somewhere else entirely. Would they even be together? Could he keep her with him when he carried the black staff and the burden of responsibility that bearing it entailed? He tried to see the future—any future—but it was hazy and out of reach. Too much blocked his vision of what might be.
Too many uncertainties made it impossible to think it through clearly.
He was staring into space, seeing nothing, when Bonnasaint spoke. “This isn’t going to end well for you,” he said, suddenly awake. “You know that, don’t you?”
Maybe he had been faking sleep all along to see if Pan would drop his guard. The boy couldn’t tell. “Let me worry about that.”
“Oh, I don’t worry about it. And I do want you to be the one who does. But I think I should say it aloud, so that you understand. You won’t be able to keep me prisoner for long. Others have tried. They’re all dead. You’re just a boy. You might be a Tracker, but you aren’t like me. You can’t do what I do. You don’t know what I know about staying alive. Sooner or later, you will make a mistake.”
Pan nodded. “I already made one. I didn’t tape your mouth shut. Should I correct that mistake now?”
Bonnasaint went silent, smiling. But he kept his eyes on Pan and didn’t take them off.
He was like a cat with a mouse. The boy could feel it. He was aware of the danger of keeping this man close. But he had to try to help Phryne, and this was the only way he could think to do it.
Anyway, by tonight the assassin would be someone else’s problem.
It was late afternoon by the time Prue returned, the light failing as the sun slipped west toward the mountains and the mists crept down out of the heights and up from the depths to gather in the woods. She appeared quite suddenly, coming from a different direction than he had anticipated, but walking toward him with purpose. He started to ask what she had found, but she took his arm and led him farther away from Bonnasaint, making it clear that she didn’t want their prisoner to hear what she had to say.
“Phryne’s escaped,” she told him, keeping her back to Bonnasaint. “Or she was rescued, whichever. No one seems to know. It happened sometime last night. The guard was found sleeping, the cell in which she’d been locked up left empty. The Queen is furious. Elven Hunters are searching everywhere, but so far there’s been no sign of her.”
“What about the Orullians? Maybe she went to them. Maybe they’re hiding her.”
Prue shook her head. “Not likely. The Orullians are part of a detachment holding down Aphalion Pass. They were already up there when the King was murdered and Phryne imprisoned. Word is, the Queen didn’t want them anywhere near their cousin and ordered them kept there. Unless they found a way to sneak out of the pass and away from the other Elves, they’re still on watch.”
“If they abandoned their post, it would be noticed.” Pan thought about it a moment.