His hand shot out so swiftly I barely saw it. He gripped my arm painfully, jerking me to my knees beside him. I bit back a yelp of frustration and fear.

“I don’t think so.” He didn’t even raise his voice. The others slept on. His hold did not slacken; he knew how to use the least force to cause the most hurt, that was certain. I was drawn up close to him, too close for comfort, for I smelled his sweat and his anger and I felt his breath on my face and saw the chill in his eyes. His strength and quickness alarmed me—how could I ever have thought I could get away? The fever must indeed have made me stupid. But I was angry too. What game was he playing? Why keep me here now, when they needed to move on swiftly and unencumbered?

He had hardly moved from where he sat, save to imprison my arm and hold me by him. His fingers dug into my flesh. He had very big hands. I could not quite stifle a gasp of pain, and his grip loosened, but not much.

“Damn you,” he said, still in that quiet, level voice. “Three moons and more I’ve been in this godforsaken country, searching for answers. Traveled to the strangest places on earth; followed every lead, turned every wretched stone. Put my friends at risk of their lives. And for what? Hunger and cold and a knife in the dark. There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different.”

I gaped at him. Whatever I had expected him to say, it was not this.

“I could swear you understand me,” he said, looking direct into my eyes. “And yet, how could you?”

What was it Conor had said once, about me and Finbar? The two of them are like open books…their thoughts blaze like a beacon from their eyes…I hoped this Briton could not read me so well. It was starting to get light; I heard his companions stirring.

“You want to go,” he stated. “Where, I can’t imagine; but I suppose you have some bolt-hole near here. Perhaps to hide in until your countrymen arrive; maybe you think to watch them hack us to pieces. I did not think you one of our enemy; not when I stopped you from drowning yourself. Perhaps you really are an innocent, as my friends believe; too simple to be dangerous.”

I tried to wrench my arm from his grip. “No,” he said without emphasis. “Three moons with no answers, and now, on the last day, the very last, I find the first piece of the puzzle. And who do I get to explain it? A girl who can’t talk, or won’t. See this?” He was reaching into his pocket, and for the first time there was a note in his voice beyond the quietly conversational. “Tell me where you got this.”