I slip behind a tree and kneel.
My mind is on Gideon. It won’t go anywhere else. I wonder if he thinks I’ve abandoned him? No. He knows I wouldn’t. Tears sting my eyes, wanting to spill as I imagine what he must be feeling, but I hold them back.
Samrael brings the mare out of the creek and tends to her affectionately, brushing her down with a swatch of burlap. He either doesn’t see me, or doesn’t care that I’m here. Returning to the creek, he pulls his shirt over his head and drops it on the bank, then crouches to splash water on his face. He runs his fingers through his black hair a few times and rinses the cuts the Harrow gave him on his forearm.
On his back, I see two ghastly scars. Twin scars, from shoulder blades to the middle of his ribs. Where wings might attach. Where they once did.
I know he was an angel once. But seeing proof—visible proof—sends a shiver down to my toes.
“I’m deeply gratified that Sebastian went home,” Samrael says, surprising me. He doesn’t turn to me. He speaks with his eyes downcast. Fixed on the shirt in his hands. “It’s … strange to be here without him. But I’m very glad he went. Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Of course not.”
I can’t look away from the scars on his back. “Why did you give up so much? How could you fall from grace, fall so far, and become this?”
The questions come out of me before I know it.
“Become this?” He turns to me at last, his expression equal parts curiosity and challenge. “Do you mean deplorable? Repulsive? Or is it simpler? Do you mean to ask me how I chose to become evil?”
“Pick one. They all work.”
“I made a mistake that took me astray for a very long time,” he says, almost dismissively. “And I can see I have a ways to go before you’ll see me.”
“I’m looking right at you.”
“You’re looking at what I was.”
“I don’t care what you were or who you are.”
“And yet you’re here to judge me,” he says.
“I’m here for Bas. I’m here to fulfill a promise.”
“As I recall, the promise was to give me a fair chance. Is this your notion of fairness?”
My face heats with anger. But I can’t disagree with him. I’m not being fair. I’m being judgmental.
How do you judge character without being judgmental?
What have I gotten myself into?
He sighs. Turns back to look at the shirt in his hands. “Daryn, I apologize. I apologize for my tone. I’ve caused this—all that’s happened. The price is all mine to pay. Every day, I regret the wrongs I’ve committed. I imagine the condemnation of my soul. And yet, I hope…” He pauses, and his shoulders rise as he draws a deep breath. “I hope to one day atone for what I’ve done. I hope for redemption.”
I have nothing to say in response. I can’t tell if he’s being honest, or putting on a show as he calculates how to fool me. I’ve burned all of the mental power I had left for the day.
Samrael rises and wades to the horse, gently leading it back to the bank. He removes a linen napkin with bread, apples, and cheese folded inside. He looks at me like he’s considering offering to share.
“Don’t bother.”
He sits alone and eats.
My body is so spent, physically and emotionally, that I find myself sagging against the rough bark, my chin resting on a knot. I curl my legs and arms into the nook between the big roots. Beneath me, white flowers spring up, pillowing my limbs with their velvet softness.
I pray for Gideon. Then Riot.
Then Bas, Jode, and Marcus, that they’re on the outside and safe.
I keep going down the list. Mom, Dad, Josie. Isabel. Maia. Ben. Low. Low’s son.
The far side of the creek fills with white flowers.
Samrael’s attention swings to me; he’s waiting for my reaction. He doesn’t know this is normal. A gift that the Rift gives me.
I close my eyes to better feel Mom’s presence, and only realize I’ve fallen asleep when I feel a gentle jostling of my foot.
I rocket to my feet, mind racing to catch up.
Samrael stands before me—tall and straight. Watching me with marble-green eyes. The mare is saddled again, and the light slants through the trees in soft afternoon beams.
“It’s time,” he says.
CHAPTER 32
GIDEON
“Water for you. To drink.” The Harrow’s voice sounds like rocks scraping together. “Drink it into your body.” It brings a wood bowl to my mouth with its bony hands.
I turn my head. “Wait. Where’s the girl?” I rasp, sounding worse than the Harrow. Pain flares deep into my throat. I feel like I was hit by a baseball bat on the Adam’s apple. “The two people on the gray horse? Where are they?”
Tell me they got away. Tell me they’re long gone.
“No talking. Water for you. To drink. Drink it into your body?”
I’m dehydrated and I need the water, so. I drink it into my body. My head throbs with every gulp but I finish every drop. Then I lean back against the tree I’m chained to.
I didn’t think it was possible to hate these trees any more than I did, but I do.
I hate these trees.
“What about my horse?” I try to turn to see what’s behind me. Explosions of pain detonate along my left leg and inside my foot.
The woods spin. The water comes back up.
Every drop I just drank.
The Harrow looks at the puddle beside me with the vacant holes where its eyes should be. How does it see? “Worry not, I bring more. Worry not?”
“Okay. I won’t worry.”
The thing smiles at me. Its mouth looks like the inside of a cave, teeth like stalagmites. “I return with water to drink and you worry not. You drink the water I bring.”
“Good plan.”
The smile goes bigger. Then it walks off, stooping, black cloak flowing behind it on invisible tides.
I make the weirdest friends.
I settle against the rock, moving centimeter by centimeter to keep my leg still. In addition to my pulverized bones and bruised windpipe, my shoulder sockets are screaming from having my hands tied behind my back for hours.
All day, I’ve been fading in and out.
Mostly out.
There are dozens of Harrows around me. Gathered around trunks in heaps. Pitched all over the branches, like the trees decided to wear black sweaters. They’re completely still. My Harrow buddy is the only one awake. The rest are deep asleep, many of them making a sinister purring sound. Their scent is so thick I can taste it, a taste like watered-down ashtray.
Smack in the middle of the Harrow slumber party, I see Daryn’s backpack. Sitting there, on the dirt, like it’s nothing of value. Like it doesn’t have our only hope of ever leaving here tucked inside.
I don’t see Riot anywhere. I don’t feel him nearby.
I can’t think of him without seeing him drowning or covered in chains and pinned to the ground.
I hope he’s still alive. And that I stay alive.
I have no idea what the Harrows have planned for me.
Why didn’t they just kill me?