Page 33 of The Second Death of Locke
“No town?” Eron asked. Grey glanced around at the ferns creeping into the clearing, the shady canopy of birch and ash that hung above. It wasn’t muddy, which made it immediately better than Mecketer.
“Not tonight,” Kier said. “I want to stay in the wild a bit longer.”
They unpacked their bedrolls and Eron set to food preparation, using Brit and Ola to heat the pot of thick reconstituted gruel without lighting a fire. He whistled as he stirred, rifling through the supply kit and adding a mysterious combination of things to the pot. Grey watched with resignation as the gruel turned a frightening shade of gray, speckled with unknown herbs.
“Are you sure this was a good idea?” she muttered to Kier. “Leaving Eron in charge of feeding us?”
“I refuse to be the one to break his heart,” Kier whispered back. But he did go to his own pack and slipped her a bit of dried fruit when no one was looking.
“We’ll take the first watch,” he said, louder, so the others could hear. Grey turned away, pretending to search through her pack for another knife as she chewed on the leathery strips of apple and apricot. “Ola, can you and Brit handle the cuffs for a while?”
“Of course, Captain,” Ola said.
“Kier,” he corrected. They all paused, glancing at him uneasily. Kiershifted his weight. “We’re not in a position for titles. So, Kier. Just Kier, or Seward, if you have to.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Once she had swallowed the last of her haul, Grey checked that the others were thoroughly occupied as she retrieved her healing kit. “Sela?”
The girl looked up from watching Eron stir. Grey felt Kier’s gaze on her, and the question within it.
“Leonie said you have some injuries in need of care,” she said, clipped as ever. She was investigating, and she would do her job to the letter—it didn’t mean she had to be nice about it. “Ola, could you restrain the girl?”
“Is that necessary?” Ola asked.
Grey stood, kit in one hand, eyes hard as flint. “Need I remind you,” she said, leaning into the authority she so rarely used, “that she nearly killed Kier?” Was she theonly onewho remembered this?
“Flynn,” Kier sighed.
But Grey held firm. Leonie didn’t know who this girl was—and until Grey did, she would not let her guard down. There was no reason for someone to justpretendto be Locke with no reason for it.
“She has the cuffs,” Eron said.
“Doesn’t stop her from attacking me,” Grey pointed out.
“I won’t hurt you,” Sela said quietly. Grey didn’t bother with a response—she’d like to see the girl try.
But Ola only held Grey’s gaze for a moment longer, then went in her bag for a length of rope.
“In front of her, please,” Grey said. Her shoulder was probably still sore, and that was a mercy she could grant her. When Sela was bound, Grey went to her and hauled her up by her good arm. “I’ll take her for some privacy. Kier, a light?”
She felt the thin trickle of power and then the light flared cool and blue in Kier’s hands. “Need backup?” he asked.
She could tell from his look that he was displeased about her tying Sela up, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it in front of the others. She didn’t want to hear it alone, either.
“No.”
She led the prisoner a little ways away to the edge of the clearing, still within open view of the camp. She nodded to a fallen tree trunk thick with moss. “There,” she said, “please.”
The girl lowered herself to the trunk. Kier’s magelight was, as always, a neat piece of work: Grey could see, and the girl probably could too, but no one more than a few feet outside of its warm glow would be able to catch it. She felt the threads of magic within it, his work tidy as ever. She set the magelight next to Sela and crouched in front of her.
Leonie had left detailed accounts of her examination. “I should put you in a sling,” Grey murmured, looking through the notes, then up at the girl. Sela was small in stature, fine-boned—she looked too breakable to be a soldier. Grey suspected that she hadn’t been conscripted at all before she was taken captive. “Let me check for swelling.”
She eased the coat off the girl’s shoulders—awkward when Sela’s hands were bound, but she wasn’t compromising on that point just yet—and probed with her fingertips, pausing only for a moment when she heard Sela’s quick indrawn breath.
“It’ll still be tender,” Grey said.
“Can you give me anything for the pain?” Sela asked, surprising Grey with her trust. Grey could just as easily slip her poison. “Polla weed? Something like that?”
