I nodded in agreement. “Good, you should feel that way.” I looked at the sky to check the time. There was some gray among the red light of dawn, so there was still time to talk, but as soon as the red came, I would need to begin my plan.

My heart ached at the same time that my blood still boiled over Soren’s choices and his inability to communicate. I loved him, but …

“Soren, I want you to know I love you. I’m terribly mad at you. I wish you could communicate better, and I wish you had more faith in me.” I took a breath. “But I do still love you. And as the stag to Erlking, I trust you. But as Janneke to Soren, I need you to give me my space to get over this. I don’t want you trying to convince me or beg for forgiveness. I’ll come around. But I need to regrow my trust in you, on a personal level.”

He nodded, eye looking down at his feet. “That makes sense.”

The sky was now streaked with red, and I needed to get a move on. “Come on, I need you to help me move everyone.” I began walking to the burrow with Soren catching up behind me.

“Wait, what’s wrong?” he asked.

I served him a glare. “We tried to fight Fjalar yesterday. I’m the only one still conscious. I don’t think anyone died, but Diaval won’t wake up, Rose got smashed into rocks, Seppo nearly killed himself with his magic, and Lydian didn’t wake up this morning either.”

Soren ran a hand across the horrified expression on his face. “That’s my fault too, then.”

“I’ll give you fifty-fifty. We chose to fight. But having you would’ve made a difference. It still wouldn’t have worked, but it would have made a difference.” I ducked into the burrow and found the four others still sleeping. One by one, I wriggled their bodies out from their curled-up positions and managed to get them to Soren, who dragged them out of the burrow completely.

“I need you to set them inside the circle I created. Doesn’t have to be super deep in. Make sure they’re far enough away from the mouth of the cave but set them inside and all together.”

He nodded, and with more gentleness than I’d ever seen from him before, he cradled Seppo’s body as he turned away.

Why is everyone so much bigger than me, I thought as I began to work on Rosamund with gentle fingers, terrified of breaking anything after he got slammed into the rocks. Soren was there to take his body, and I went down next to Lydian, managing to pull him out with a little less gentle of a grip because out of the four of them, he was easily the least injured.