Many went back toward their interrupted lunch, others returned to the irrigation barrel, others to their rooms. Soon only Jared, Ian, and Jamie were left beside me. Jeb looked at these three with a cross expression; his mouth opened, but before he could order them away again, Ian took my hand, and then Jamie grabbed the other. I felt another hand on my wrist, just above Jamie’s. Jared.

Jeb rolled his eyes at the way they’d tethered themselves to me to avoid expulsion, and then turned his back on us.

“Thanks, Jeb,” Kyle said.

“Shut the hell up, Kyle. Just keep your fat mouth shut. I’m dead serious about shooting you, you worthless maggot.”

There was a weak whimper from behind Kyle.

“Okay, Jeb. But could you save the death threats till we’re alone? She’s terrified enough. You remember how that kind of stuff freaks Wanda out.” Kyle smiled at me—I felt shock cross my face in reaction—and then he turned to the girl hiding behind him with the gentlest expression I’d ever seen on his face. “See, Sunny? This is Wanda, the one I told you about. She’ll help us—she won’t let anyone hurt you, just like me.”

The girl—or was she a woman? She was tiny, but there was a subtle curviness to her shape that suggested more maturity than her size—stared at me, her eyes huge with fright. Kyle put his arms around her waist, and she let him pull her into his side. She clung there, as if he were an anchor, her pillar of safety.

“Kyle’s right.” Never thought I’d say that. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Your name is Sunny?” I asked softly.

The woman’s eyes flashed up to Kyle’s face.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of Wanda. She’s just like you.” He turned to me. “Her real name is longer—something about ice.”

“Sunlight Passing Through the Ice,” she whispered to me.

I saw Jeb’s eyes brighten with his unquenchable curiosity.

“She doesn’t mind being called just Sunny, though. She said it was fine,” Kyle assured me.

Sunny nodded. Her eyes flickered from my face to Kyle’s and back again. The other men were totally silent and totally motionless. The little circle of calm soothed her a bit, I could see. She must have been able to feel the change in the atmosphere. There was no hostility toward her, none at all.

“I was a Bear, too, Sunny,” I told her, trying to make her feel just a little more comfortable. “They called me Lives in the Stars, then. Wanderer, here.”

“Lives in the Stars,” she whispered, her eyes somehow, impossibly, getting wider. “Rides the Beast.”

I suppressed a groan. “You lived in the second crystal city, I guess.”

“Yes. I heard the story so many times…”