Curran picked me up and kissed me, his lips burning mine.

“I killed Hibla,” I told him.

“I saw,” he said. “Do you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to have a nice dinner with Martina when we get back,” he said. “I think that would be a really good idea.”

Ahead a steady pounding of hooves announced an approaching horse. A cart rolled into view, pulled by a roan horse. Naeemah held the reins. I sped up.

“Get in!” she called.

Shit. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come.”

“I went to get a cart.”

Oh no. I turned back to look at the palace. “She didn’t know she couldn’t come with us.”

Silence reigned.

“She didn’t know.”

No answer. Somehow I didn’t think it would matter.

“Get in,” Naeemah called.

“Climb in,” I told Christopher and Robert. The two men didn’t move.

Curran picked them up and set them into the cart one by one. Naeemah pulled a blanket out and threw it at me. “Here. Come before Roland changes his mind.”

Curran climbed up next to her. I sat in the cart with the two men. They lay stiff like two wooden statues. Naeemah turned the cart and the horse clopped its way down the road, heading out of Jester Park.

“Well?” she asked. “How did it go?”

“I had a shot and I didn’t take it.”

“You chose to live. Smart choice. Life, it should mean something. A death is just a death. If you died there, what would your death mean? Nothing. You would stop nothing. You would change nothing.” She blew on her fingers and waved them at the road. “A bug under a shoe. But you lived. And now they live, too.”

“Damn right,” Curran said.

“I killed Hibla,” I said.

“Did she need killing?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t exactly a killing,” Curran said. “It was more like punishment piece by piece.”

Naeemah looked at him. “And you? Did you roar at the wizard?”

“No,” Curran said. “I’ll roar at him if he comes to Atlanta.”

“See, you both did good. You accomplished things and got out alive. Best behavior.”

The laughter finally broke free and I laughed, gulping in the cold air.

• • •

THE MAGIC WAVE receded three hours after we had left the Swan Palace. Twenty minutes later a lone figure dotted the field ahead of us.

“God damn it,” Curran swore.

The dot grew at an alarming rate until it finally became Thomas, running full speed over the snow. He sprinted to us, leaped into the cart, and hugged Robert to him.

“It will wear off,” I told him before he could freak out over Robert’s stasis. “The more distance between us and Roland, the better.”

Thomas turned to me. “Make her go faster, Consort.”

We found the rest of our people waiting where we had left them. We loaded up our gear and headed toward Atlanta.