IN THE END, IT was a raging calm that consumed him. Functionally, there was nothing at the moment he could do, and his body sought to hold every slight movement in reserve, to unleash when he needed it. John Little warned the group not to bother him, and they didn’t. Robin found himself at the edge of camp, his feet luring him away from them, trying to trick his body into leaving now. But Robin tempered himself. He slowly made wide large circles around the camp, keeping the clearing just within eyesight. On the edge of the treeline, on the edge of reason, dipping in and out like a man falling asleep. If forced to, he would guess an hour had passed. The air was wetter now, just enough to call rain, and it was dark within and without. Robin was cold and like to get sick from it, and didn’t care in the least.

When his emotions cooled enough to form sentences, it hurt anew. Every level of it was more painful than the last. Marion being abducted, threatened. William’s decision to use her to get to Robin. The escalation, the attempt to draw Robin out of the woods, to show his hand too early. The coldness of William’s strategy.

The fact that it would work.

Someone, of course, eventually came for him. They must have drawn straws again since it was Alan, and he was ever so good at losing. With two steaming cups in his hands, probably the last batch of awful cider Tuck would make for some time, he came aimlessly searching. The cups were decorative, ornamental things taken from someone or other they’d stopped on the road. Back when pretty trinkets were things worth getting excited about. Alan stomped his way through the trees, lost, missing Robin entirely, his head ducked down as if the rain would ignore him that way.

Robin spoke Alan’s name out of some long-lost pity, before the man wandered too far away and hurt himself. But Robin did not move to retrieve him, keeping his seat on what once was a dry stump. His own hood was over his head to protect him from the wetness, a strategy that had clearly eluded Alan.

“I brought one for you.” Alan held the cup out.

Robin didn’t take it. “No thank you. I won’t sleep well.”

“Two for me, then.” He looked around for something to sit on, but it was all too wet, so he just kept standing.

“You’d best get some sleep for tomorrow,” Robin said quietly.

“What’s tomorrow?”

He almost couldn’t believe the man had forgotten. “We’re packing.”

“Right.”

Alan took a long sip from the cup, then another, having nothing else to do or say.