More glowing fluid poured from Morg’s mouth, and the golden leaf plastered on his forehead seemed to brighten, though it might’ve been a trick of the few rays of sunlight that had managed to slice through the forest’s canopy. He had already drunk so much she wondered whether the small amount would make a difference, but she had to try. She’d heard the stories of morgoth dying from drinking too much of the substance. She swallowed that thought down lest it steal the weakness from her knees.

She extended her hand, trying to hide its tremble. “Come,” she said.

Morg hissed, tail flicking dangerously close.

“Soraya,” Shim warned again, but she ignored him. It was too late to back down anyway, and that was the furthest thought from her mind, her every focus on the nightmarish creature that had just murdered another nightmarish creature.

“Come,” she said again, through a wall of teeth.

Another hiss, but this one was only half-hearted, like the protests of a child told to eat his food knowing full well he was eventually going to do as he was told.

“I won’t ask again.”

Morg dismounted from the bear’s chest with a thud, talon-like claws digging up the dirt. He drew closer, until she could feel the heat of his breath on her outstretched hand. She fought the instinct to recoil, to protect her own arm from the fate one of the bear’s limbs had suffered. Held her palm out, firm and steady, until Morg’s mutated forehead nuzzled against it.

She had him.

Four

Bryony

Marchessault, Finfalla

“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” Farrow said. “You shocked everyone, Master Senicrux included, when you left the guild.”

“The Crimson Daggers have more than enough acolytes to replace me. Anyway, you never could resist my charms, could you?” Bryony said, busying herself about Farrow’s small apartment in the brothel’s attic. Stuffing anything that might be of use into her small pack. A water skin, some dried food—enough to last her a few days at the least—a flint, two daggers that were hers anyway…

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I. You could hardly keep your bed warm without me.”

“Oh, and I forced you to come here all those nights? You slept here more than at your own place.”

“Didn’t know we were keeping score.” She snatched a hairbrush off a small dressing table, reconsidered given her already stuffed satchel, and then put it back, cringing. She’d be lucky if her unruly hair didn’t turn into a bees’ hive by the time her journey was finished. Instead, she grabbed a pair of small, dragonfly hairpins that could also be used as weapons in a pinch if shoved directly into an enemy’s eyes. Her heart ached as she remembered the first time she’d seen them, who had given them to her.