I’m worried about you. Are you sure I—”
“Come on, let’s go get that cocoa,” she said, as if I hadn’t been speaking.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t drag the words out of her if she didn’t want to tell me. Especially not when she looked like she was about to run away if I didn’t stop with the questions, even if it were just in the direction of the Sweet Shop.
I followed her, letting the subject drop simply because I was too inept at figuring out a better approach. I’d grown up avoiding subjects. I had no experience in forcing issues. Maybe there was a book on how to do that on the shelves in the office. Until I could get some counsel on it, it might not happen successfully.
I fell into step beside Rabbit, in the direction I’d been avoiding since we’d left the shop. In order to get cocoa, I had to get past the bloody proof of my attack.
“What’s Salem like?” Rabbit asked, as if sensing my unease and completely disregarding her own a few minutes ago.
I wasn’t going to complain about a distraction.
“Calm and peaceful, quirky and flavorful. Most of all, homey, at least to me. Pretty much the best place ever. My main complaint used to be the cold, but that was before I experienced the fifth wind.” The wind took that opportunity to kick up, and I pulled the collar of my jacket up. “It’s like it’s coming from every single direction all at once. Is there even a summer here?” I hoped I wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.
“What’s summer?”
“Does it ever get hot?” Maybe they had a different name for it, but that didn’t bode well. Please let them have a different name for it. If this was their summer, I’d freeze before I made it back to Salem.
“Oh.” She clucked her tongue a couple of times, clearly stalling. “What would you consider hot, exactly? It gets a little less cold, I guess, but only a few days here and there. Does that count as summer?”
Not even close.
“You know, not important.” I shook my head and kept looking forward, avoiding the stares directed my way. My attention was focused on one spot—or where the spot should’ve been.
“It’s gone.” I slowed down, trying to find the big blood bullseye in the snow.
“What is?” Rabbit asked.
“Where’s the blood spot?”
She looked around, as if trying to figure out what I was talking about. “Oh, that. Yeah, Zab was telling Musso that Hawk got rid of it,” she said casually.
Why would Hawk have gone to the trouble of doing that? He must not have wanted to draw anyone’s attention to it. Only plausible reason. He couldn’t have realized how much I’d dislike seeing it. Even if he did guess, I doubt he’d care enough to do anything about it.
“Tippi!” Raydam’s voice rang from somewhere behind us.
“Oh, shit. Keep walking and don’t look back.” I pushed stiff legs to a pace that strained my raw muscles. We walked past the Sweet Shop. Cocoa would have to wait. The sugar sculptures and wall of candies would make a perfect trap.
“What’s wrong? Are we avoiding him now?” she asked, forcing herself to keep up to my quicker stride.
“I think he had something to do with the attack,” I whispered. The people who’d been staring earlier were now attempting to listen as well. Raydam chasing us down the street wasn’t helping.
“But you said Hawk didn’t think he did it.”
I’d given her a full rundown this morning. I didn’t know why she thought I’d adopted Hawk’s opinion. Hawk didn’t know everything Raydam was up to.
“I don’t care what Hawk thinks. He’s wrong.”
“I just figured since Hawk was so strong, he might know.”
“Tippi!” Raydam called again, closing the gap.
I grabbed Rabbit’s arm and kept her moving when she slowed.
“Oh, uhm.” She kept looking over her shoulder. It was clear that ignoring someone with more magic went against the grain for her. I was going to break her habit if it killed us both.
“Hawk doesn’t know everything, and you need to stop thinking that people who have more magic know better. They don’t. They lucked out with some genetics, or whatever it is that makes them that way. But it doesn’t make them smarter.”
“Are you sure?”
I gave her a stern look.
“Okay, I mean, I guess…”
I walked faster, urging Rabbit to keep up. My initial impression of Raydam was that he’d never run after someone on the street. It was