I want to scream. How dare he pretend to be charming and friendly now, after I had to deal with difficult and antagonistic the entire ride here?

It’s been too long since I last ate.

“What took you so long?” Olani complains, before he’s even set the tray down. “We have things to do, Raze. We can’t all come to a grinding halt for every pretty face that turns your head.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” he replies lightly, snagging a cup from the tray. I take one, too, and sniff. Apple cider, slightly warm and spiced. I sip tentatively and am relieved to find that it doesn’t have the bitter sting of something harder.

All the food is served in large bowls and vessels to be shared between all of us—fragrant, buttery flatbread, fried sausage, apples from the outskirts of town, and some kind of vegetable medley that’s been mashed beyond recognition.

Obviously, I start on the bread first.

We eat in silence. It feels like I’ve been to the edge of the world and back since the bite of lunch I had at midday, so I could probably eat sand and be satisfied.

At least, that’s what I think until I put a spoonful of the vegetable mash in my mouth.

My entire body revolts. It’s like cold glue sticking to my throat. I panic. It takes all my willpower, and a huge gulp of cider, to keep from spitting it out. Even as I manage to swallow, a shudder crawls over my skin.

The dragon at the next table is the only one who seems to notice, looking up at me with curious, liquid-mercury eyes. It lifts its head and sniffs.

“So,” Raze says eventually, glaring down into his cup like he’s trying to gather the courage to drink it. “We know the wagon went this way...but it could have turned or changed directions. Do you have any way of tracking it?”

I take my time, chewing and swallowing very intentionally. “No.” Tracking spells are a precise, formulated magic, not something you can just do off the cuff. I’ve never seen the need to study them, a fact that I’m only now starting to regret.

“Oh.”

I reach for one of the apples. “If you know any tracking spells...”

“I trust you.” He says it loftily, then attempts a smile at me like we’re just enjoying a bit of friendly banter. What is he doing, trying to get along now? I look away.

“Hey!” Raze’s sudden protest makes me jump. “That’s mine!”

Isolde pauses, flask halfway to her lips. It’s the one from last night, the one I thought nothing of at the time but which she must have snatched from Raze while they were wrestling for the compass, for no reason other than she’s absolutely incorrigible. She makes a big show of examining it. “Oh, is it? I don’t see your name...”

He scowls, and I wonder if this is what it’ll take to make him finally show off his magic. “You stole it from me!”