I placed the flute back into his hands.

  “Um… thanks,” he said.

  He didn’t lift it straight away. His fingers shifted on the wood, grip tightening, then loosening again, like his thoughts were turning over faster than they could settle.

  I’d been reckless again. Sloppy. There was no explaining this now. Too much had already been seen.

  “You… wait.” He froze, then looked up sharply. “Oh, spirits.” His eyes locked onto mine. “That was you? The trolls.”

  I crooked an eyebrow. “Catch on quick, don’t we?”

  His gaze narrowed. Then the tension drained out of him in a slow, defeated breath. “I have been stupid.”

  I nodded. Since he was being honest, I figured I might as well be too.

  “We both have,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you just… tell me?” he asked.

  I didn’t look at him. “Because I didn’t trust you.” I shrugged. “Simple.”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Okay.”

  He glanced down as a dark red drop fell from my hand, splashing into the slick muck between us.

  “The old ones…” His voice faltered. “Your hands.”

  I followed his gaze. Even if my blade was already sealing the worst of it. It still looked horrific and stung like hell. Yet, the pain was nothing compared to what the blade had just pulled from me.

  At that moment my skin looked wrong. Too pale. And the contract rune failed.

  I shivered. “I’ll be alright,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. Just watched me, scepticism plain on his face. Then he crouched and dug into his rune pouch, shoving mud aside until his fingers closed around something buried deep.

  After a moment, he straightened and held out a small ball. I’d seen them use them before.

  “Chew this,” he said.

  I took it from his hand with unsteady fingers and turned it over. About the size of a small chocolate. Perfectly round. Wrapped tight in a hard, vine like shell.

  “What is it?”

  “Druid medicine,” he said. “Trust me. It works.”

  I lifted it to my nose and immediately regretted it. The scent hit hard. A dozen herbs at once, sharp and green, tearing straight through my sinuses. I had to pause and breathe it out slowly.

  I looked at him, sceptical.

  But I guess, Poisoning the idiot who’d just dragged him out of a bog didn’t seem likely. So, I popped it into my mouth.

  The shell dissolved in my mouth.

  A chill exploded across my tongue. Bitter herbs I didn’t think had any business being mixed together burst open, the inside flooding my throat like a raw egg. It tasted like crushed leaves and soil and something sharp I couldn’t place. Awful. But it slid down easily, almost too easily, like it was meant to.

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  “Tastes…” I swallowed. “Weird.”

  He shrugged. “It’s medicine.”

  I waited.

  Nothing happened.

  I glanced down at myself. Still pale. Still shaking. The ache in my hands hadn’t eased.

  “So,” I said. “What’s it supposed to do?”

  “Stops infection,” he said. “Lets the wound heal on its own.”

  I glanced at my hand. “So… no instant fix or anything?”

  He gave me a look. “And rob your body of knowledge?”

  I waited for the punchline. None came.

  I snorted. “Okay then...”

  I wasn’t in the mood for lessons delivered through pain. I dug into my own battered pouch instead, fingers scraping past loose object until I found one of the foul-tasting vials Brent had handed out earlier. I pulled the stopper and swallowed it in one go.

  The taste was awful. Sharp. Metallic. The exact opposite of the druid ball.

  I opened and closed my hand, watching the torn skin draw together slowly, not sealing clean, just knitting enough to hold.

  Calum watched it happen, eyes fixed.

  “Your fingers…” he said.

  “Yeah?” I flexed them again.

  “You’ve got calluses.”

  I rubbed my fingers together. Rick’s hands. Callused, same as mine. A small overlap between the disguise and the truth, one I’d never really thought about.

  “They’re faded,” I said. “Haven’t picked up a guitar in a long while.”

  “Guitar?” He smiled slightly. “So, you are from the other side.” He tilted his head. “You play, then?”

  I nodded. “Did.” I glanced down at my hands. “Don’t have one here. Left my old one back home.”

  “Where’s home?” he asked.

  I stopped myself just in time. If I said Morganvale, he’d know. Too close to his sister. Too many questions after that.

  “Um…” I let the word hang, then fell quiet.

  He caught it. And didn’t push.

  Instead, he shifted, eyes dropping to the mud-caked ground. “Well, since I need a new stringed instrument anyway…”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Your lyre looked bent out of shape.”

  “It is.” He let out a short huff. “So maybe when I go to replace it…” He glanced at me, cautious. “I could see if there’s something like a guitar. Or close enough.”

  He shrugged. “Since you lot can’t enter the city.”

  I looked at him, surprised, then grinned despite myself. “Yeah, and maybe we could… I dunno. Jam. That’d be sick.”

  “Sick?” He frowned slightly.

  “Cool,” I corrected. “I mean… good. Great.”

  He considered it, rolling the word around like it didn’t quite fit. “Ah. I see.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Yes. It would be… sick then.”

  A chill wind swept through us, carrying damp air with it. The moment it passed we both shivered.

  “We should probably…” I gestured ahead. “Keep scouting.”

  He nodded, and we moved on.

  Ahead of us, a stone structure slowly came into view. Not a tower. Not a wall. Just the top of something old. Grey blocks slumped inward, as if the land itself were trying to swallow it. Water pooled around the base, a shallow basin glinting dull brown, reeds bending in the breeze.

  Calum wrinkled his nose. “What’s that… stench?”

  I drew in a breath. “I can’t smell anything.” I scanned the ground, the air. Something felt off.

  We moved closer. The soil darkened underfoot.

  Then the smell hit me.

  Blood.

  My sword was back in my hand as we approached.

  There was a body.

  This wasn’t pixie work.

  As we moved around the structure and found it lying in a shallow dip, half-hidden by thick, needle-like grass pressed flat around it. I took a step toward it, boot sliding close to a puddle.

  “Careful,” Calum said.

  I drew my foot back and edged around the water instead, keeping my weight light as I closed the distance.

  The body came into focus.

  A small boar. About the size of a medium dog. Long dead. Blood had soaked deep into the mud beneath it, staining the earth black and slick. I crouched and leaned closer.

  The wounds were wrong.

  Not tearing. Not bites. Dozens of narrow cuts, two or three inches across, punched straight in. Over and over again. I counted without meaning to. Twenty. Thirty. Maybe more.

  Someone hadn’t just killed it.

  They’d savaged it.

  “It’s just a pig,” I said quietly. “A boar or something.”

  The words didn’t sit right, even as I said them.

  Another chill rolled through the field. I looked up. The sky had darkened while I wasn’t watching. Heavy grey clouds pressed low overhead, smothering what little light there had been.

  The temperature dropped hard. Too fast. In the space of minutes, breath misted in front of us. A thin sheet of fog crept across the ground, swallowing the grass. I glanced down and could barely see my own boots.

  I swallowed.

  “We should…” I hesitated, scanning the stone, the reeds, the dark mud. “We should head back. I don’t like this.”