Marcus came to a sudden, stark understanding. There was something secret and unspoken between Ven and Evelina, a truth that neither of them had shared with him. He’d heard her side of the story He wanted, very much, to hear Ven’s. His brother had tried to tell him. Marcus had jumped to conclusions and rebuffed him.

And now it was too late. Whatever had happened, Evelina wouldn’t tell him and Ven couldn’t, at least not now. Perhaps, in time, Marcus would be able to contact his brother, speak mind-to-mind, touch hand-to-hand, as they had done when they were little. Now he didn’t dare go into the room inside his mind, the room where he could eavesdrop on dragons’ thoughts and dreams. The room where he had first met his brother long, long ago.

The dragon was waiting for him in that little room.

And probably in the cavern, as well.

“I told you,” Evelina was saying sharply, “I don’t want to end up in that horrible cave.”

Marcus gave a start. She had plucked the thoughts out of his head and spoken them aloud. “I saw him there, that man they called Grald. I didn’t like the way he looked at me. Please turn around, Marcus! Go the other way! I don’t want him to find me.”

“I don’t think that Grald will be in the cave. That explosion we heard—”

“You don’t know for certain he won’t be there,” Evelina pointed out, and her lower lip quivered. “If we traveled south, we could spend a few days resting at a fine inn . . .”

“We’re not going south.”

Marcus smiled at her, to take the sting out of his refusal, and shook his head, and kept rowing, though he was aching and hurting and almost sick with fatigue.

And there it was—the argument come around to where it began. Evelina heaved a disappointed sigh, loud enough for him to hear.

If he did, he didn’t let on, and Evelina ground her teeth in frustration. She needed to hide her ire from him, however, and so she bent over the side of the boat and cupped her hand for a drink of water. She caught a glimpse of her reflection. Evelina drew back, horrified. She looked a fright!

Her hair was tangled and matted with bits of twigs and leaves. Her face was covered with dirt and streaked with tears. Her nose had swelled and her eyes were red as a rat’s.

“No wonder he won’t have anything to do with me,” she said to herself, appalled.

Not to mention those accursed red-brown splotches on her bodice and her skirt.

She couldn’t do anything about her appearance now. When they stopped for the night, she’d take a bath (modestly provocative) and she would scrub those horrid spots out of her chemise and her skirt.