Page 23 of Lily of the Valley

Back at camp, Alice immediately pushed to her feet and rushed over to them, hugging Lily tightly. "Please don't hate me, I'm sorry."

"Alice…how could I ever hate you?"

"Most people do eventually."

"Well, not me. I'm sorry for storming off. I haven't been handling surprises very well lately." She hugged Alice again and kissed her cheek, holding hands as they returned to the campfire, where she sat between Alice and Penelope. Opposite them, Scout settled next to Josiah, who handed her a large mug of something he poured from a jug.

Scout sipped it and cast him an amused look. "Where did you get mead in all this mess?"

"Lifted it from the goods abandoned by some fleeing thieves."

"I see," Scout said, mouth twitching with laughter as she took another swallow of mead.

Lily waved it off when he offered her some, more than happy to stick with tea.

"So how did you come to be all the way here, Josiah? You seemed happy where you were when I left."

Josiah's mouth twisted, eyes heavy as he stared into his own mug. "The same way I always get myself in trouble: I grew too fond of someone who liked me fine when they thought I was human, but not so much when they learned the truth. You'd think I'd stop making the same stupid mistake over and over, but I never seem to really learn my lesson." He sighed and drained his mug, then set it aside and stretched out with his head pillowed on his satchel.

Scout frowned, brow furrowed in that way it always was when she was thinking over something. "Mist?"

"Yes," Josiah said softly.

"You tell him or did he learn it?"

"I told him. Showed him. He left afterward, avoided me for two whole weeks. I tried several times to speak with him…but ultimately it was pretty clear what his decision was. So I left."

"But—"

"Doesn't matter, " Josiah said sharply. "This isn't the time for my stupid story, my idiotic problems that I bring on myself. If you really want to listen to my stupid sob story, I'll tell it in full after all of this is over, though really you've heard the bulk of it."

"Somehow I doubt that," Scout said, "but yes, one problem at a time." She gathered the dishes and headed off to wash them, and Lily set to work laying out their beds.

Josiah looked at her in faint, fond amusement. "I didn't know you knew anything about camping."

"Scout has taught me a lot."

"How did you meet her? She's quite the impressive figure."

As she stripped down and braided her hair for bed, Lily gave an abbreviated version of her time with Scout, from collapsing in the forest to waking up in her cabin and through to leaving for the ruins.

The smirking smirk her friends gave her when she'd finished didn't bode well, but she was spared their teasing by Scout's return.

Hugging her friends tightly, just to try to convince herself yet again that they were real and there and alive, Lily then crawled into her bed, wrapping up in her beloved new shawl before pulling up the blankets as well. Just paces away, settled in her own bedroll, Scout smiled. "Soon, Your Majesty. Soon you'll be back where you belong."

That means never seeing you again, though. Lily bit back the words, and smiled in return. "Got a ways to go yet, I think. Sleep well, Scout."

"Sweetest of dreams, princess."

The Rose and the Fox

"Our biggest problem is the wolves," Josiah said as they sat around the campfire after breakfast. "I can sneak up on them, but I'm not enough to take on what seems to be an entire fucking pack. Even with a wolf of our own, and an assassin, that's still three against too damn many."

"Pack Rothenburg is nothing but a bunch of self-serving cowards," Scout said, finishing her tea and pouring a fresh cup. "We get rid of the one paying them, and they'll leave of their own volition…" Her eyes seemed to glow briefly, teeth for a moment far too long and sharp to be human. "Thought they won't all be leaving alive, I guarantee you that. Leave the wolves to me. You focus on getting to that nasty little rat responsible for this whole mess."

Josiah nodded, mouth quirking. "As you wish, Scout. Blood knows I learned the hard way to leave pack business to the packs."

Lily wasn't nearly so confident. "How do you expect to handle all the wolves by yourself? That's—that's reckless and stupid."

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