Eldan put his arm across her shoulders and hugged her wordlessly. She snuggled into his shoulder for a moment, content just to enjoy it, and his warm presence.

But her mind wouldn’t stop operating.

That’s the third priestess today. We see two and three search parties every day. It’s getting harder and harder to find a place to hide by dawn.

Some of that was to be expected; they were right on the Border now, and there were regular Border patrols all the time. Eldan had mentioned that, and mentioned, too, how he’d avoided them in the past. But he had not mentioned ever seeing the clergy out on these hunts before, an omission Kero found interesting.

But although he was trying to pretend that this kind of activity was entirely normal, it was fairly obvious that he was worried. Quite worried.

Which meant that a good number of these patrols were new, and probably called out to find them.

He knew the priestesses were able to pick up something about them, but he didn’t know what, and so far Kero had been able to keep Need’s abilities from him. So far he hadn’t asked any awkward questions, and so far he didn’t seem to have made the connection that only the female clergy were detecting whatever it was. It helped that he seemed utterly incurious at moments when she’d have expected a barrage of questions. That was odd, but no odder than the fact that she was literally unable to talk about anything involving real magic to him. Absolutely, physically, unable. Shed tried, and in the end, couldn’t get the words out of her mouth.

She suspected Need had a hand in both those conditions, though she had no idea what it was doing, or why. But she was getting used to that.

She didn’t like it, but she was getting used to it.

And it was doubtless the fact that Need was attuned to women’s problems that was the reason for the priestesses detecting her, and not the priests.

That maddeningly logical part of her kept right on reasoning as she tried to enjoy the moment with his arm around her. We’ve had three narrow escapes, it said, scoldingly. Each one got narrower than the one before it. There’s no doubt about it: Need is bringing in the priestesses. We’re never going to make it across the Border together.

He’d given his word to send her his ransom, and she had every reason to believe his word was good. She had no logical reason why she should stay with him. In fact, if she wanted to ensure his survival, she should leave him. With the target traveling westward, this little section of the Border should be empty long enough for him to get across.