“You cannot go with Bird.” She rammed the pestle into the mortar as if to emphasize her words.

He blinked at her. Willo’d always been good at reading people, but he’d thought he and Bird had been discreet. Was it possible everyone knew they were seeing each other?

“I wouldn’t have to travel with her. I could go on my own,” he said. “Or travel with one of the pack trains.”

“It won’t work,” she said, finally setting aside her mortar and dropping her hands into her lap. “You and Digging Bird, I mean.”

“What do you mean? We aren’t…” he began, but the look on her face shut off the lie. “Why wouldn’t it work?”

“You’re not right for each other,” she said.

“How can you say that?” he said. “We’ve been friends forever.”

“You were friends as children. Now Bird has been named a Demonai warrior. She must follow that path. You must go another way.”

“I don’t understand,” Han said, and he didn’t. “She’s not allowed to have friends? Or is it because I’m not clan?”

Willo didn’t look as if she was enjoying this conversation any more than he was. “It’s a calling, the Demonais. You must accept it. It’s not easy for any of us. There’s a barrier between Bird and Dancer too, that wasn’t there before. Because of who and what they are.”

“That’s Reid Demonai’s fault,” Han said. He stood, towering over Willo, and that should have made him feel powerful, but it didn’t. “I think the real war with wizards was over a thousand years ago,” he said. “Since then, the Demonai have been living off their reputations. They’re all saber-rattling and stories.”

“It is not Reid Demonai’s fault,” Willo said, her voice like silk plied with steel. “It’s tradition built on more than a thousand years of conflict between wizards and the clan. It’s the role of the Demonai to keep wizards in check—by force, if necessary.”

“So they’re fighting Dancer? They can’t find anything better to do? Or is it because he’s an easy target?”

It was a long time before Willo answered, and Han found himself shifting from one foot to the other.

“He is an easy target,” she said finally, looking up at him, her dark eyes swimming with pain. “Why do you think I’m sending him to Oden’s Ford? They’ll kill him otherwise.”

Han quit shifting and settled his weight squarely. “Then you can’t let Bird join the Demonai,” he said. “Make her stay here.”