Marcus smiled back at her, trying to be reassuring, but he didn’t make any promises. The shoreline was receding, though not as rapidly as he would have wished. Marcus expected to see the monks come swarming out of the forest to give chase. They would have a difficult time of it. After Evelina had plundered the boats for anything useful, Marcus had pushed each boat, one by one, out into the river, where the current caught them and carried them downstream.

He would have liked to have destroyed the boats, perhaps set them ablaze, but he lacked the strength to use any more magic. He had tried staving in the bottom of one of the boats by kicking it with his foot, but the planks were too strong and wouldn’t give way. The current was slow here. The boats bobbed in the water, meandering lazily downstream. Any energetic monk could plunge in and recover them.

Marcus waited for that to happen, but no monk—energetic or otherwise—appeared.

The boat tent carrying him and Evelina rounded a bend in the river and he lost sight of the shoreline and the bobbing boats. The river was narrow at this point, the shore lined with trees, whose overhanging boughs, thickly intertwined, cut off the bright sun and made it seem as if he were rowing into a green and leafy cavern. Sparse patches of sunlight slid over his knees. The sun was directly overhead. Midday. Only noon. Presumably noon of the same day.

So much had happened, it seemed as if it should be noon of some day next year.

“I don’t like this.” Evelina hugged herself. “It’s like a cave. Anyone could be hiding in those trees.” An alarming thought occurred to her. “Speaking of caves, we’re not going back there, are we, Your Highness? Back to that horrible cave beneath the water? This is the way. I remember it. I don’t want to go back there. We should turn around. Travel downstream.”

The sunken cave. Marcus remembered gliding through it silently, careful not to make a sound, lest Grald and the monks should hear him and Bellona. He didn’t much like the idea of going back through that cave himself.

Perhaps that’s why the monks didn’t follow us to the shore. Perhaps they’re waiting for me there. Maybe I should turn around and travel downriver, as Evelina says.

Marcus kept rowing upriver, pulling steadily for the sunken cavern.

“They’re not chasing us, are they, Your Highness?” Evelina asked, peering over her shoulder. “They’d be here by now, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Marcus replied. No use frightening her with his dark conjectures. “You must call me Marcus.” He smiled at her. “We’ve been through too much for formalities.”