“I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice cracks. “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.”
I’m on my feet in a flash, and before she knows what’s hit her, I’ve tossed the rest of the water in her face. She sputters, her wide green eyes looking up at me like I’m crazy.
“Go then! Get out of here!” I say. “I hope they catch you.”
I fall back to my knees and begin digging through my supplies. Meal supplement pills. Bloodroot to make a sleeping draught. Purslane for a headache. The needle and thread I stole from the Pips—that’s helpful. I need horseradish to make an antiseptic. And I need it now.
Daphne’s risen and is pacing, and I can see the struggle darkening her perfect, freckleless face. She wants to leave, but she’s too scared to chance it on her own.
I tear out of the cave, keeping to the streambed. While filling the canteen, I scan the water’s edge for small white flowers. We’ve passed a hundred of the plants since entering the mountains, but when I need one, it’s nowhere to be found.
A crackling of twigs behind me startles me, and I jump. It’s just Daphne. She’s following me like a little kid.
“White flowers,” I tell her. “Small, about this size.” I make a tight circle with my thumb and first finger.
We comb the water’s edge together. She pulls up all sorts of plants and weeds, but none of them are right. Finally, I spot the right one. I tear three green stalks from the ground, shake off the bugs, and run back to the cave. Outside, I grab two rocks: one flat, the size of my hand, and another oval shaped, then set to work, grinding the stalk of the plant into the rock until it creates a soft milky residue. When it’s done, I pour water over Kiran’s wounds, trying to clear out the bad blood. He shivers, and I cringe—the sun is beginning to fall, and soon it will be cold.
“Look!” Daphne points down at his face from over my shoulder. “He’s trying to say something.”
His lips are moving, just a bit. I tilt my ear over his mouth, but there’s no sound.
“Fever dreams,” I say. Just like my ma had near the end.
With the horseradish ready, I take a deep breath. I need to remove the infected skin, otherwise it’s going to spread. I saw my ma do this once when Bian cut his knee, but that was ten years ago or more.
If ever I needed Mother Hawk it’s now.
Even though there’s Trackers still out looking, I light a small fire on dry leaves. The blade is sharpened, cleaned. Time is going too fast. I wish it would slow down. I wish I didn’t have to do this.
Daphne argues weakly before crawling away.
I set my teeth, and carve into Kiran’s skin, removing the graying crevice of flesh. With a blanket from his bag, I wipe away the blood. He wakes up briefly, mouth open in a silent scream, and then falls unconscious. Beads of sweat mixed with tears drip into my work, and I wipe those away too. Thankfully, the infection is not everywhere, and I am rid of it quickly.
I thread the needle with focused hands and sew the wound shut, leaving big spaces between each tiny X to ensure I have enough thread to go the entire length. Fresh blood blossoms over his pale skin. I slop the horseradish poultice over the entire area. Some honey would be a good sealant, but I don’t have any. Another quick trip to the stream, and I’ve cleaned the wrapping and wrung it out.
I hesitate before turning back to our camp. My stomach twists. My skin crawls. The blood runs cold, numbing my fingers. I stuff the extra length of my shirtsleeve into my mouth and scream, and then fall to my knees and puke. My muscles bunch and quiver, wrenching too hard around the bones. I think of the Watcher and how we killed him. Kiran and Brax and me. And if Kiran dies, no one else will ever remember what his blackened eyes looked like the moment he realized he was done for. No one will hear that gurgle as his face plunged into the water. Hideous secrets I will be forced to bear alone with my silent wolf friend.
The only way I can move past the shakes is to remember that Watchers are no longer men. And Kiran’s not dead yet.
I rinse my mouth out and return.
Then I wait.
*
KIRAN BARELY MOVES AS the sun dips below the horizon. With nothing more I can do to help him, I search the surrounding area and find Brax already on the prowl. It seems we’ve escaped the Trackers for now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be back.
I am torn in half. I will not leave Kiran to die, but I need to find my family. If something happens to them while I’m this close, I will never forgive myself. If Kiran dies, I will never forgive myself. I snatch a stick off the ground and break it over my knee. I break the halves, and then the halves, until my hands are blistered and my hair is damp with sweat and there is nothing more to break.
When I return, Daphne’s curled in a ball against the wall, sniffling again.
“You should try to get some sleep,” I tell her.
She doesn’t answer.
“Daphne, it’s going to be okay. I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this.”
It’s not true—the last scrape I got in that was this bad, I ended up at the Garden.
She rolls over and faces the opposite way.
“You hungry?”
Silence.
I stare at the back of her head. Her red hair is a nest of sticks and mud and bits of leaves, but she doesn’t even bother to clean it up.
“Want a meal pill?”
“There’s only two left.” She sounds miserable. “We’re going to starve.”
I’m relieved she’s talking at all.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I say, more to myself as I blot the sweat from Kiran’s brow. “I’ve got the glass arrow.”
It’s an echo of the past, something my ma used to tell us when we were little. I use the water to wipe the dirt off Kiran’s face. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him so clean and I feel a little bit like I’m looking at him without his clothes on. His skin is smooth, pale in the reflection off the water. He’s got light freckles on his cheekbones I never noticed until just now. His lips are parted just a little. I skim the edge of his mouth with my fingertip, gently, and then draw back quickly and make sure Daphne didn’t see.
“What’s a glass arrow?” she asks without turning around.
I sit back on my heels.
“It’s just a story my ma would tell.” It was like saying, Don’t be afraid, I’ll take care of you, but I don’t tell Daphne that.
“So let’s hear it.”
I take a slow breath, suspecting that this will end in her making fun of me. But for some reason, I tell her.
“Once, a long time ago, when the grass was grazed too thin and the game was scarce, Fox and Deer sang to Mother Hawk for food to end their families’ suffering.”
She snorts in her snooty way, but I keep going.
“She flew down from the sky with an arrow made of green glass and told them that she’d give it to the winner of a race across the country.”
“What were they supposed to do, eat it?” Daphne rolls onto her back, staring up at the woven roots overhead.
“Fox thought the race was a waste of time and went to the lowlands in search of food. So Deer ran the path Mother Hawk had chosen alone. Into the mountains, across the sky, and back down into the valley. When he was through, Mother Hawk gave him the arrow to do what he would. He gave it to Fox, who placed it in the bow, drew back, and pierced Deer through the heart.”
“Deer wasn’t too smart, was he?”
“Just listen.”
Daphne’s breathing is slowing.
“Deer’s blood seeped into the ground, and from that place grew enough grass to feed his family for generations. But Fox and his family starved.”
“Why didn’t the deer just kill the fox?”
“A deer can’t live off a fox,” I say, quoting my ma. “But a family can live off one sacrifice for a long time.”