Moria pushed to her feet and padded toward him. Daigo followed, equally silent. By the time they arrived, the blaze was devouring the dried wood.

“You started the fire,” she said.

He jumped. “That was my task, wasn’t it?”

She nodded and crouched beside it, warming her hands. Without looking his way, she said, “I saw you start it.”

Silence. Then, belatedly, “So?”

She looked over. “I saw how you started it. Not with tools. With sorcery.”

Panic lit his green eyes, but only for a moment before his face set. “Watch your words, Keeper. If you were a man, that accusation could earn you a blade between the ribs.”

“It’s not an accusation. It’s a statement. I wondered how you started the fire in the woods. Now I know.”

“You know nothing,” he said.

She straightened. “Your father was rumored to be a sorcerer. Apparently, it was more than rumor. I care not whether you are one or not. Whatever you may think of me, I’m not an ignorant village girl. I am the Keeper. My world—”

“—is filled with childish nonsense,” he said. “I’ve heard your stories. You fill your head with monsters and magic and—”

“I saw monsters,” she said. “And now I’ve seen magic.”

“You saw nothing.” He stepped closer, towering over her. “If you claim otherwise again, Keeper, you’ll wish you’d held your tongue.”

“Are you threatening me?” Her voice was edged with a growl that he seemed not to notice.

“I am warning you against spreading lies about me. I am suggesting you hold that tongue of yours or—”

Before he could finish the sentence, her blade tip was digging into the bottom of his jaw.

“I am the Keeper of the Forest, boy,” she said. “Do you think those pretty patterns on your arms give you the right to threaten me? They do not. Even if your father was still marshal, they would not. I will take your glowers. I will take your insults. I will take your warnings that you’ll abandon me by the roadside if I do not keep pace. But you will not call me a liar. And you will not threaten me.”

He’d gone still, his expression unreadable. She tensed, ready to defend herself if he reached for his sword. Even the spirits would not know if he left her here, gutted, in the sand. So she waited. But after a moment, he dropped his gaze.

“My apologies, Keeper.” His voice was low, his tone hard to read. It was not obviously mocking. Perhaps it was even genuinely contrite, though she doubted it.

She lowered her blade and stepped back. Gavril reached as if to rub his throat, before stopping himself. A bright red drop of blood fell on his tunic, but he didn’t look down at it.