“Orfeus?” Linden said. His voice was still just a rasp, barely a piece of itself. He’d lost most pieces of himself. “You…came for me? I didn’t…no, I knew you’d…I knew you’d come…” He frowned, then, and turned his face in her direction.

His attention was fixed on her, even if his eyes didn’t focus. Orfeus held her breath.

“Did you feed Splodge?” Linden said.

Orfeus laughed, and then laughed harder, and then pressed her forehead to his hand, leaning up against him. She hugged him, as gently as she could without making either of their hurts worse.

Dread still ticked and trickled through her heart, but whatever had to come next, at least she had this. At least she had this moment with her friend, wounded and bloodied, but safe.

After nowhere near enough time, she stood, swaying with weariness. No time to rest when predators still prowled.

Chapter Seventeen

I know you messed up and I do blame you for your part in the explosion, but Orfeus, you just left! I thought we were friends and your whole arrogance thing was just a showbiz persona, but you left. You dragged our town into danger and then ran off in the night. You could have helped make up for it. You should have been there for the replanting and the rebuilding and the healing everyone up. Healing the town. You could have sung us songs.

You hadn’t done anything you couldn’t come back from.

- The Weaver

Faolan came and stood beside her, and Orfeus took his arm. She no longer wanted to recoil away like she used to, and she’d chosen her fellow hunters as the better of two evils already. And he was warm.

She leaned on his welcome strength and shot Linden a reassuring smile. “Splodge is safe,” she said. “She’s on a base full of bounty hunters.”

Linden made a pained noise.

Faolan squeezed her arm, maybe in remonstrance, and Orfeus jerked away. Faolan released her, looking pained. Did he just not realise how strong he was? Ridiculous.

“The small hunter is fine,” Faolan said, her tone nearly reassuring. “She has destroyed most of my furniture.” Linden’s mouth twitched into a hesitant smile at that. Faol continued, “I left her with someone who swore she could be trusted.” Faol glanced at Orfeus and mouthed, Falcon.

Em wasn’t great with animals, but she wasn’t terrible either. Orfeus nodded, though she wouldn’t have been able to be angry at Faol if he’d left Splodge alone for an hour to come save her life.

“Who’s this?” Linden said, tilting his head in the direction of their voices.

Orfeus frowned. ‘Bounty hunter’ had already proven to be the wrong answer. She glanced at Faol hesitantly. “A friend?” she tried, and the Wolf’s mouth twisted in his version of a smile.