No member of the Forest Guard wandered farther than a hundred paces from his horse—one of Thomas’s standing rules in case of a sudden attack. They had tethered their horses to a feeding trough three houses south of Johnis’s. No sign of pursuit. With any luck, Johnis and Silvie still didn’t know she’d left them. But they would, sooner rather than later.

She grabbed a bridle from a rack next to the trough, swung onto the saddled—always saddled—steed, and urged the beast through the gate. Several passersby gave her a casual glance, but she didn’t care if they saw her go, as long as they didn’t follow. That she had gone would be—maybe already was—obvious. Where she’d gone would be less so.

Darsal kicked the mount and galloped down the street, took a sharp left off the main road, and entered the forest.

A hundred thoughts crowded her mind, and only one, no matter how ludicrous it seemed, felt compelling. What was slow in coming through patience could be gotten much faster through force.

She had to make up for these last few hours of wasted time. Billos had gotten himself into terrible trouble, of that she was sure. The fact that he hadn’t returned meant one of two things: Either he couldn’t come back because he was dead, Elyon forbid, or hurt, or in some other way incapacitated. Or he didn’t want to come back.

She moved fast, cutting back and forth every two hundred meters to slow the pursuit of even the best trackers. Not until she was a mile south and at least as far west of the village did she begin to call out for the Roush.

“Hunter!” The name of the one who’d led Silvie and Johnis to the Roush village a week earlier.

“Hunter!” She thought she heard a rustle, but no fuzzy, white, batlike creature flew in. “Hunter. Any Roush, I need you!”

The words felt stupid, not unlike those who cried out for Elyon’s salvation after a bloody battle. Save us, save us, O Elyon! And always Elyon seemed to maintain his silence.

Now she was yelling at the sky for a white creature that no one other than she, Johnis, and Silvie could see. And Billos, though Billos wasn’t here to see.

“Hunter!”

“You’re trying to wake the dead?”

Darsal pulled hard on the reins and spun back. A white Roush, roughly two feet in height, with wide wings and a furry, round body, perched on a branch, watching her without concern.

It had been a few days since Darsal had actually seen one of the creatures. And never before then. No one had seen the Roush since the Great Deception. Seeing a Roush now, so close, so real, still sent butterflies through her belly.

“You’re alone,” the Roush said.

“Are you Hunter?”