spilled from him. Thinking he was making a dying confession to a boy, no longer caring, simply wanting, no, needing to express how he felt, only to discover Tallow was a girl all along. Not that he cared anymore. You couldn’t help to whom you gave your heart.
His soared until it hurt – a joyous hurt that he didn’t want to stop. She loves me back. At least he’d managed to tell her. She would know how he felt, carry him in her heart. Just as he would her – always.
For eternity.
He thought back to some of the escapades they’d shared, all through the autumn and winter months last year, before the Morto Assiderato had struck, and shook his head. ‘I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.’ It was so obvious now – the timidity, the softness, the gleam of excitement as they dared to cross boundaries; her faith in him. Her compassion.
‘Why would you? People’s eyes deceive them all the time,’ said Katina gently. He became aware of her studying his face and coloured. ‘They saw a boy where there was a girl and a human where there was an Estrattore. You know that at least, don’t you? That she’s an Estrattore?’
Dante nodded. ‘I guessed. I just didn’t admit it to her. I was so worried that if I said I knew, she’d disappear on me. I … I challenged our friendship once. I didn’t want to do so again. She kept it a secret, so I did too. We all did – my family and, I suspect, the neighbours. Tallow didn’t know how many friends she had.’ He frowned. ‘She was beaten, you know – all her life – by Pillar’s mother, Quinn.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Katina. Something in her tone made Dante eye her cautiously.
He let out a long sigh. At least Tallow had survived. She’d escaped the crowds and the Bond Riders. He would find her; they would be together again, he’d make sure of it. But, thought Dante, why did this Bond Rider help him when the other one so clearly wanted him dead? What was going on?
Ask, he told himself. Ask her, dammit.
‘Why am I here? Why are you helping me?’ He gazed up at Katina, challenging her to contradict him.
For a second Dante thought he saw something like sympathy upon her face, but it disappeared before he could be certain.
‘We always help our own,’ Katina said almost inaudibly. ‘You’re one of us now. Those who sought to harm you can no longer hurt you. That’s why I did it. I didn’t believe that killing you was right. Not anymore. Please.’ She held up her hand to stop the questions he was about to ask. ‘I cannot say anything else, not yet. It’s just that something is wrong and I need to find out what. I also need you.’ She raised her golden eyes to his. ‘Can you trust me?’
Dante stared at her for a moment. Despite what had happened, something within him responded to Katina’s words, to her earnestness, to what lay behind it. He nodded.
She breathed a sigh of relief and, sitting beside him, appeared to relax.
They fell into silence. It was eerie, the way the woods around them made no noise. There was a slight wind, no birdsong, just the moist, heavy fog drifting listlessly through the trees. Dante shivered, but it wasn’t from cold.
Katina broke the quietness. ‘You were a good friend to her, weren’t you?’
‘Friend!’ scoffed Dante. ‘More than that, I lo – ‘Dante stopped himself. ‘Sì. Very close friends. I would do anything for her.’
Katina reached for his hand, turning it so the ugly gash was facing her. He felt sick looking at it. ‘That is what I’d hoped you would say. That is why I did what I did. For Tallow. Because of the love you bear for her.’ She lifted her own hand and, wincing, peeled off her riding glove. Slicing through an old jagged wound was a fresh one. It began to bleed again. Thick drops of red splashed onto the ground and were immediately absorbed.
Dante’s mouth dropped open. ‘You have a fresh Bond? Can you do that, make two Bonds?’
‘No. not really. But, you see, I thought –’
The crunch of leaves nearby startled Katina to her feet. She dropped the glove. Dante clambered upright beside her. Emerging from behind a copse of trees came four Bond Riders. Two were dressed in a similar fashion to Katina, the others in the traditional, long