As it was, they used the horses badly, and Marguerite felt badly for it. “I will make it up to you,”
she told her mount. They alternated walking and trotting, getting off to walk alongside, over and over, as long as daylight lasted. The hills were green and rolling and beautiful and Marguerite hated them for it. “When this is over,” she said, “I am going to find a forest. Or a desert. Or the ocean. Anything but this.” A marmot whistled at her in alarm. “Sod off,” she told it.
Wren snorted. So did Davith. Judith smiled her small smile that did not rearrange any of her facial features in any way.
Somehow, after an eternity, they found themselves at the river that marked the edge of Wisdom’s territory.
“Right,” said Davith. “How are we going to approach them, anyway? Seeing as the last time, a bunch of people got turned into pincushions.”
“White flag,” said Marguerite. She dug out a handkerchief that had been white once and now might, with charity, have been called grubby cream. “I’ll need a flagpole.”
“Ah, yes,” said Davith, looking around the landscape. “I’ll just cut one from one of these many,
many trees, shall I?”
Judith, more practical or at least less sarcastic, dismounted and chopped at one of the scruffy bushes that clung to the river’s edge. The resulting flagpole was about two feet long and less than half an inch thick. Marguerite felt as if she was waving a toy flag at a parade. Nevertheless, she hoisted her flag high as they approached the keep. And here’s hoping that white flags mean peace here, and not, “We’ve come to murder everyone down to the sheep.”
No one shot them. That was, she felt, a positive sign.
They drew up in front of the large double doors and waited.
And waited.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” asked Davith.
“They know,” said Judith flatly.
They waited longer. The stone walls were too thick to hear activity. Marguerite scanned the outbuildings, looking for signs of life. They can’t have moved, can they? I mean, the demon must know that the Dreaming God’s people will be coming, so moving might be sensible, but…
She had just started to run through the ramifications of having stolen horses from the Dreaming God’s temple in order to aid and abet a demon, only to find no demon to aid and abet, when one of the doors opened and Shane strode out to meet them.
HE LOOKED SURPRISINGLY WELL. The demon apparently hadn’t been torturing him. The blue hollows under his eyes were deeper, and he’d stopped shaving and now had a few days growth of badger on his face, but he didn’t have the half-dead look that, say, the possessed bull had had.
Shane walked up to Marguerite’s horse, caught her stirrup, and she gazed into his eyes, feeling her heart melt, feeling I love you waiting on her tongue, and then he said, in horrified tones, “You can’t be here!”
Marguerite swallowed the I love you and felt it burn on the way down.
“Judith?! Did they rope you into this, too?”
Judith shrugged eloquently. “You know how it is.”
“Yes—no—oh, Dreaming God have mercy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have to go.
You can’t be here.”
“The Dreaming God’s exactly who isn’t going to have mercy,” said Marguerite tartly, sliding off her horse. He caught her reflexively and his body still remembered how to hold her, even if his mouth was saying foolish things. “They’re probably no more than a day or two behind us, and they’re coming with archers because they plan to shoot you.”
“Sensible of them,” he said. Her ear was pressed against his chest and he had his arms around her. She closed her eyes, feeling as if a weight had lifted off her, which was ridiculous because things were, if anything, worse than ever. Fighting the Red Sail was one thing. Fighting the Dreaming God
was another, and there was no way that she was on the right side and she knew it, but at the moment, it didn’t seem to matter.
“I told you I’d come back for you,” she said.
Judith also dismounted, stepped up, and leaned forward until she was staring into Shane’s eyes and was an inch from squashing Marguerite between them. “Um,” said Marguerite.
“You’re not possessed, exactly,” said Judith slowly, “but there is something…”
Shane sighed. “No. And yes. It’s like the channel with the god was. In the same place. Except that it’s Wisdom on the other side of it.” He gently released Marguerite and rubbed his face. “It’s not the same as the god, but…Judith, Wisdom stopped me from killing an innocent when the tide rose.
Exactly the same way.”
“Hmmm,” said Judith. “Interesting.” And while Marguerite hadn’t yet learned to read Judith’s expressions—the paladin was a book not just closed, but locked and barred and possibly encased in lead—she thought that there was something rather more than interest in her tone.
“But you have to leave,” said Shane, gathering himself. “You have to get away from here. They’re going to come and kill Wisdom and if you stay, you’ll get yourselves killed. And they’ll probably think you’re possessed in the bargain.”
“But they’re going to kill you!” said Marguerite indignantly.
“I know that!”
Wren cleared her throat. “If we knock you out, we can maybe just convince them to exorcise you?” she said hopefully.
Shane groaned. “You don’t understand. I have to stay. It’s the only way to make sure that—” He clamped his teeth on whatever he was about to say next, to Marguerite’s frustration.
“That what?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I know what the risks are. And you can’t stay here.”
Marguerite threw her hands in the air. “We pretty much sold out the Dreaming God to come talk to you, so you better figure something out!”
His skin, already pale, went the color of skim milk. “You what?”
“Stole horses and everything,” said Wren, with unholy cheer.
“I left a note,” said Davith.
Shane’s mouth worked but no sound came out.
“Just let us rescue you!” hissed Marguerite.
“You can’t rescue me!” He raked his hands through his hair. “Don’t you understand? Even if I went with you, the Dreaming God’s people would hunt me to the ends of the earth! We’d have to flee to—to—I don’t know, to Morstone or Toxocan or Lady Silver’s homeland!”
“Fine! Then let’s go there! I don’t have any pressing reasons to stay around here!” Which, thinking of Grace, was a lie, and the gods only knew what she’d do for money, but those were problems for a future Marguerite to deal with.
Shane’s eyes flickered, and for a minute, she thought he might actually agree. “Oh Dreaming God,” he said, as if the words were dragged out of him. “And they warned us that demons might tempt us…”
“Please,” she said. “I need you.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I feel safe when I’m with you.”
His eyes were the color of frost but the heat in them seared her to the bone. “Marguerite…”