it?”
I hate the way she says this one, but I swallow the names I’d call her because I will make things worse.
“Enough,” Dez says. The echo of his deep voice lingers.
Sayida unspools a long black thread and cuts it with a flick of a pocket blade. Margo’s frustration turns her lips into an ugly scowl. Esteban twists the cap of his flask. I listen to the sound of a woman singing, Francis’s mother. My tear ducts sting, so I close my eyes and usher that stolen memory into the dark with the others.
“I know you’re tired,” Dez says, dragging his fingers through his hair. “But we recovered the alman stone and we’re not far from the mountain borders. We’ll be safe when we’re back in ángeles.”
“And then what?” Margo says, the last word coming out strangled. “It’s been ten months since we lost our hold of Citadela Riomar.”
Dez goes completely still. We all do. But Margo keeps throwing his biggest defeat in his face.
“If we lose more ground, if we’re pushed back any more, we’ll be going right off the cliffs and into the sea. We can send as many refugees as we want across the sea and into foreign lands, but there is no such thing as safe anymore.”
“I know exactly how long it’s been since I lost Riomar,” he says with more patience than I’ve ever summoned on my own. “I think of it every day. Every day.”
“I didn’t mean—” Margo starts.
“I know what you meant. Hear this. I will do everything I can to win this war, but I can’t do it alone. I need all of you. A unit.” His golden eyes cut to Margo, who straightens up, not at attention, but like a challenge. “And if you didn’t believe there was any hope at all, you would have left us long ago, Margo.”
She tilts her chin up and points a finger at me. “I stay to make sure she doesn’t betray us again. You’re careless with your life when she’s on missions.”
I’m used to Margo, more than Esteban, getting her digs in when I make a mistake. Across all the miles we’ve traveled, my insides have been knotted against their disdain, but this feels different. When Dez pulled me from the scavenger unit and onto his, Margo was the first to claim that I was too slow, too loud on my feet, too weak to carry a sword. I trained every day and night to prove her wrong, but it hasn’t been enough. It’s like she’s waiting for me to go running back to the justice. I hate that everything I am can be summed up in few words. Scavenger. Thief. Traitor.
Will they allow me to be more? Today I stuck my hand in a dead woman’s throat to retrieve a magic stone. I don’t have the energy to fight with Margo. But Dez does, and I wish he wouldn’t.
“Come now, Margo,” Dez says, his face set as if daring the others to contradict him. “Are you angry because I went back for her or because Ren saved a boy’s life? It wasn’t you who ran into the burning village alongside me.”
“You told us to stay behind,” Esteban bursts out. “We had to retrieve the packs.”
Dez bares teeth in a humorless smile. “You see? We all played our parts. We’re alive. Ren retrieved Celeste’s alman stone.”
“And got caught,” Margo mutters.
“When we get caught, because it does happen to the best of us, we figure out a way to keep fighting. Keep the mission alive. Destroy the Arm of Justice. Restore our kingdom and the lands of our ancestors. Or have you changed your mind?”
“I haven’t,” Esteban says.
“Good. We are all alive, and we are together. That’s more than I can say for Celeste San Marina.” We all nod, and he lets a tight moment pass before he says, “Sayida, can you stitch Ren up, please?”
“I’ll do what I can,” Sayida says. The needle and thread are on a swatch of clean cloth, and she washes her hands with a square of soap in the river.
“The rest of us will make camp,” Dez says, trying to catch my eye.
I refuse to look at him. He doesn’t understand. He can’t. I don’t want him speaking on my behalf. It only makes things worse with the others.
Above us, dark clouds move quickly across the sky, leaving a cool breeze. Perhaps the goddess is still looking after us, and perhaps this is her mercy on rebels always running from