Yes, desperately, always. Orfeus fanned out her arms in a shrug. “Would’ve been nice, but you said the only one who could help was Luga, and you saw him in there,” she said. “He’s not giving me anything.” Not yet. She’d find some way to pry past the Leader’s guard; she’d just have to be less damn terrified of him first.

Faol shook his head, not letting go, persistent stupid mutt. “There’s better places to go looking for survival,” he said. “You could be out in the green world right now, playing your songs.”

“I don’t deserve to be.”

The words hung there like the smoke in the air in Tinctora, something she couldn’t take back. Orfeus ran her tongue over her lips, and crossed her arms, too, tightly. She pressed down the frantic babble that wanted to rush out and soothe the silence.

Faol nodded, once. She wanted to bristle at that, but she just felt tired. He was perfectly entitled to think her contemptible, even if his reasons weren’t the right ones. He took a step back and then another and another, until he was just a shadow at the end of the corridor. Everyone said you didn’t need to be afraid of shadows.

From there he said, “There are counsellors available to our folk.”

Unbelievable. “Thanks,” Orfeus said and flipped the hilt of her cauterknife in the air, catching it deftly. She shot a wintry smile in his direction. “Of the things you’ve offered me tonight? Between knives and advice? I’ll take knives.”

The Wolf said nothing else, and must have left. She wasn’t sure he’d gone, even though there was no shadow at the end of the corridor, so she stood waiting at the door just in case, with a prickle in her back, an irrational need not to go inside and leave herself unguarded. She stood in half a trance even after that, before she shook herself and went inside.

At least it was lockable from the inside, a simple bar mechanism, though the bar wasn’t included. Orfeus put her guitar under the bed, then stretched out her cloak and lay on it. Restlessness still swigged and stirred in her bones, so she got up again and went through stretches, slowly and methodically and painfully.

Then she lay down again and waited for the morning. Time passed like claws scraping the wall. Like fangs around her neck.

Chapter Seven

She vanished without a trace, gone in smoke. After I had aided with the healing and made sure all was well, I went in search of her, but she was nowhere to be found. I purchased a candle of beeswax and lavender to burn for her at the appropriate time, but I did not truly think she was dead. The main thing on my mind was how to extend my assignment; there was so much of the world still to see.