from her lips. He gave an exaggerated sigh of his own.
"It's better this way. You don't want to wake the caretakers up in the middle of the night." He paused, waiting for acknowledgment or rebuke, but Magiere remained silent. "What if the place looks bleak and depressing in the dark? No, we'll arrive like true shop-folk at midday or so and assess the place in broad daylight."
She looked back at him for a moment, then nodded. "I just wanted to… something pulls me like a puppet."
"Don't talk like a poet. It's annoying," he retorted.
She fell silent, and once again they took up their familiar routine of setting up camp. Chap continued to sniff at and dig in the sand, thrilled to be released from his rolling prison.
Leesil occasionally glanced over at the sun. Perhaps they had been in the gray, damp world of Stravina too long. There was a definite difference between wet and damp. Wet was thin salt spray blowing inland from a fresh sea, with an offshore breeze to gently dry you off. Damp was shivering in blankets that brought no warmth in some mountainside hut and watching the walls mold.
"Will we see this every night in Miiska?" he asked.
"See what?"
"The sunset… light spreading across the horizon, fire and water."
For a moment, her forehead wrinkled as if he spoke a foreign language, then his question registered. She, too, turned toward the sea. "I expect."
He snorted. "I stand corrected. You are no poet."
"Find some firewood, you lazy half-blood."
They made camp on the far side of the road that divided them from the shoreline. In reality, it was quite a distance down to the water, but the enormity of the ocean created an illusion of closeness. The last hint of daylight dropped below the horizon, and thick, wind-worn trees provided cover from the evening breeze. Leesil was digging through burlap bags in the cart for leftover apples and jerky when Chap stopped sniffing playfully about and froze into a stance of attention. He growled at the forest in a tone that Leesil had never heard before.
"What's wrong, boy?"
The dog's stance was rigid, still and watchful, as if he were a wolf eyeing prey from a distance. His silver-blue eyes seemed to lose color and turned clear gray. His lips rose slightly over his teeth.
"Magiere," Leesil said quietly.
But his partner was already staring at the dog, and then at the forest in equal intervals.
"This is like what he did that night," she whispered, "back in Stravina near the river."
They'd spent a number of nights in Stravina near a river, but Leesil knew which night she meant. He pulled his hands out of the cart and put them up his opposing sleeves until he grabbed both hilts of the stilettos sheathed on his forearms.
"Where's your sword?" he asked, keeping his gaze fixed on the trees.
"In my hand."
* * *
Ratboy's eyes flicked open, and the black, damp walls of his tiny cave disoriented him for a moment. Then he remembered his mission. The hunter. Time to backtrack.
As he emerged into the cool night air, he rejoiced in the feeling of freedom the open land offered. This was a good night. Yet part of him already missed Teesha and the odd comfort she created in their warehouse. "Home" she called it, though he couldn't remember why any of their kind needed to make a home. It was her idea, with Rashed to back her up. Still, no matter how much he liked the open, he'd grown accustomed to the world they'd built in Miiska. Best find the hunter quickly so he could take his time killing, draining her, and then return home before dawn.
Below the cliff, the white sandy beach stretched in both directions, but he quickly turned away and scaled upward to the cliff's top, fingers gripping the rough wall of earth and rock effortlessly. The beach might be faster traveling, but it was too open. Reaching the top edge, he swung himself up and was about to gauge his bearings when the scent of a campfire drifted to his nostrils.
His slightly tapered head swiveled, and at the same moment, he smelled a woman, a man, and a donkey. Then his nose picked up something else. A dog? Edwan had made some ridiculous comment about a dog. Ratboy hated Edwan almost more than he hated Rashed. At least Rashed offered valuable necessities—a place to sleep, a steady income, and the shielding disguise of normality. Edwan merely sponged up Teesha's time and gave nothing