Bryony didn’t know when she’d squeezed her hands into fists, but now they ached from the tension. “When did you realize this?” she asked through a cage of teeth. Except he didn’t need to tell her, because the truth struck her just then. “The night you almost abandoned me. When we camped in the copse of trees off the road to Slough. You godsdamned bastard.” She stood, her entire body pulled taut. He followed suit, standing across from her.

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard you steal away in the night. You thought I was sleeping, but I wasn’t, and my hearing is pretty damn good. You were long gone, out of earshot, heading in the direction of the road with your pack on. But then you came back, like a snake slithering through the grass.”

“Listen, Bryony, I’m trying to be honest here. I’m trying to explain.”

“Explain how you’ve been lying to me this entire time?”

“You’ve been lying too.”

“Do you think I should’ve told the man hunting my father who I really was? Why didn’t you just leave that night when you had the chance? Why did you stay anyway? Why did you hunt for herbs for me and comfort me in the night? Why are you still rutting here at all if you want my rutting father dead?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Fantastic answer. Thanks for that, so rutting helpful.”

“Godsdammit, I’m trying to be honest here.”

“So you keep saying.”

“That’s because it’s true.”

“That’s nice for a change.”

“I really don’t know why I came back. I guess I was…drawn to you. Alright?” Their eyes met, and though her instincts told her he was telling the truth, it didn’t change the fact that he’d kept secrets from her this entire time. “What do you think you’re going to do to help him? Because you can’t do anything. The darkness already has him. He’s a murderer. He killed my brother. He killed Gado. And now I have to kill him. It’s the only thing I have left.”

Bryony hated that she wanted to tell him everything, hated that she wanted to open up the most intimate part of her soul to this man who’d been deceiving her for days now while pretending to care about her. Hated that she’d let herself care. She suddenly felt panicked, like she was the one who was trapped between walls of spikes and not him and his dead brother. And the only thing that would get rid of that feeling was to be gone, to get as far away from him as she could, as soon as possible. “Look, this partnership has run its course. We helped each other get this far, but now it’s over. We don’t even really know each other.”