Ronan stared at the kids, who stared back up at him. Now he understood why Angelica looked frightened and exhausted. Dreamers. Little dreamers, like he had been once, but growing up in a world where a lack of ley energy was killing them. He wondered how many dreamers had died of the nightwash without knowing anyone else like them existed, or knowing that they could save themselves by moving to a place with more energy.

This was why they were doing what they were doing.

He looked down. One of the kids had his hand and was shaking it, trying to get him to follow. Another was giggling furiously as Chainsaw sat on her shoulder, working hard to be extraordinarily gentle with her talons.

Same, Chainsaw, he thought.

A third hugged his leg, and without thinking, he draped a hand over her head, his unconscious remembering both Matthew and Opal. He had forgotten what it was like to hug and be hugged during these last few weeks. It felt like ages since these small comforts.

Angelica said something in brisk Spanish and the children began to argue noisily among themselves. In English, she told them, “The children will show you where you can put your things. I’m sorry, it is bunk beds for you two boys. We don’t have much room.”

“That’s all right,” Bryde said. “It will be nice to have a shower and a meal for a night.”

Hennessy was whisked away and Bryde and Ronan left in a bedroom with the promised bunk beds. There was nothing fancy about the beds—they were just raw wood screwed together with a can-do attitude and mismatched blankets—but the entire situation was homier than any place they had stayed since leaving.

Bryde didn’t seem to care. No sooner had he silently set his bag on the lower bunk than he turned to go.

“Wait a second,” Ronan said. “Wait a damn second.”

Bryde paused and Ronan nearly lost his nerve. He hadn’t expected Bryde to listen.

“What did we do?” Ronan asked.

Narrowing his eyes, Bryde shook his head a little.

Ronan pressed on. “Haven’t we been trying? What more do you want from us? We go where you tell us to go, we do what you tell us to do. You asked me to listen, and I listened. What did I do? What did I fuck up?”

Bryde’s expression changed. “I’m not angry with you. Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I don’t, either,” Bryde said. “Why does Adam keep trying to find you in the dreams these past few days?”

Tamquam

“And why,” Bryde went on, “are you keeping him out?”