“Okay,” I whispered back. “Follow my lead, and just take it easy. Don’t fight the briars. Go where they let you. We don’t want to leave a trail of broken branches behind us that will tell the giants exactly where we went.”

Owen nodded. I went first, worming my way deeper and deeper into the branches. The briars clutched at my tattered dress, but I went slowly, carefully moving branches out of my way. Owen followed along behind me, his breath rasping against the back of my neck.

Ten feet in, a copse of weeping willows soared up out of the briars, and I slid into a small open space between two of the trees that was free from the thorns. Fifteen feet beyond the back side of the bramble patch, the island sheared off in a straight drop down to the Aneirin River two hundred feet below.

It was as good a spot as any to hide from the giants, so I gestured at Owen to stop. He sat down on the ground and put his back against one of the weeping willows, the long tendrils brushing against his shoulders like a masseuse’s fingers. I sank down on my knees beside him.

“Let me see your arm,” I whispered.

He nodded, and I helped him shrug out of his tuxedo jacket. I used one of my knives to slice open his white shirt. Two neat holes blackened his left bicep, blood trickling out of each one of them. It was an ugly wound, one that would hurt, ache, and burn with every move, but relief pulsed through me that it wasn’t worse.

“It looks like a through-and-through,” I said in a soft voice.

“Just help me bandage it up. It stings, but it’s not that bad.” Owen grimaced. “Not nearly as bad as what Dixon did to Phillip.”

I ripped his jacket up and used it to make a tight bandage. Owen grimaced, and sweat beaded on his forehead, but he swallowed down most of the pain.

Once that was done, I crouched down a few feet away, with my back to the river and my gaze on the faint path we’d made through the thorns. I didn’t think the giants would venture this far from the museum, but I wanted to be ready in case they did.

And then we waited.