“Yes. Her condition has vastly improved.” He said it succinctly, unemotionally, when inside his thoughts and feelings were a mob of tornadoes, spinning and twisting. Just a few moments ago she’d been as hot as fire. Void, he’d felt the heat emanating from her through his own clothes. But now…it was like she’d never been feverish at all. A coincidence?

“She didn’t have that second streak of gold in her hair before,” Dagr noted, having moved closer, broad eyes narrowed in the dark. He pushed his thick, blue mane to the side to get a better look. His fur was marred by dark, singed patches, and Ludo remembered how he’d put his own body into the path of the demon’s flames in order to save Bryony.

“No,” Ludo agreed. “She did not.”

“It’s the forest.” The lion-man gestured with his head in the direction of Lostwood’s shadows.

“What of it?” Ludo asked, though the lion’s words echoed his own instincts.

“She was fine until we entered Lostwood. The deeper within the forest we traveled, the more ill she became. Her skin felt like it was afire. I had to carry her.”

“Why didn’t you turn back?” Ludo couldn’t keep the accusation from his tone. Deep inside, he knew he was only reflecting his own guilt for what had transpired on his watch. If only he’d never left her side… If only he’d demanded that they stay together…

“She insisted. I wasn’t being paid to make such a decision.”

“Got it. You valued your coin over her life.”

“She is stubborn,” Dagr growled. He didn’t alter the volume of his voice, only its texture, making him sound more lion than man. “And then she ran away from me. She was…hallucinating…or something. I chased her. I finally caught up at Comman Dur, but she just slammed a pouch of coins into my stomach and told me to go.”

“But you didn’t. Go, that is.”

“I…couldn’t.”

Ludo understood this. Ever since he’d been pulled into Bryony’s orbit, he’d found himself wanting to stay near her. He softened his tone as he said, “I’m glad for it. You saved her life.”

“We both did. Look, I don’t understand all the forces at play here, but I need to know whether I can trust you to keep her safe.”

Ludo knew to whom he was referring. That winged demon of the night. The girl with the golden-eyed panther. The boy with the deadly shadows. “Yes. You can.”

“What about him?” He gestured to Cainan, who still wasn’t moving. He looked half-dead.

“I—I don’t know yet.”

“Bryony wanted to kill him.”

Ludo nodded, uncertain of what point the lion-man was trying to make. He kept his expression neutral, so as to give nothing away.

“You protected him. You stayed her killing strike.”

Ludo said nothing. There was nothing he could say to explain his actions; at least not to this stranger he’d only just met.