But much as she did not want to lead him on, part of her wanted him to know that she’d seen him, that she’d admired him, or at least wanted him to wonder if she had. Just as she’d waited for him to rouse and ask for his clothes on that first day before giving them to him, she wanted to be near him and just once more feel the tension between them, like electricity in the air.

She dropped all attempts at hiding while cursing her foolishness. He had put his pants on now and seemed to be planning to let the rest of him dry as he walked. He started up the path.

She stepped out from behind the tree and started down the path as if she’d never been hiding. He jumped, and then so did she as if she’d just seen him.

“Mara!” he called brightly, as if nothing had happened between them. “Good morning!”

She smiled back. When they reached each other, they stopped. There was a tension in the air, strange and different, that she didn’t understand.

She had to prolong the moment, study it.

“How was the water? Cold?” she asked him.

He nodded, grinning. “But it will wake you up, all right.”

A long, almost comfortable silence ensued that neither seemed to want to break. Odd. Shouldn’t it be more awkward between them?

Finally, she said, “Did you sleep well?”

He nodded. “Feeling fully recovered?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “At least as much as I can this early in the morning.”

He smiled, shifting his weight. “I saw the boy we healed at the fire after you… retired,” he said, faltering for the first time. “He was just fine. Thankful. He wondered if you can heal other things. Dogs, horses…”

“Anything,” she replied, with a slight smile.

He laughed. “Anything? Is that so? I mean, really. It’s against my Code to lie to little boys, you know.”

“It’s true. At least theoretically, with enough energy. A lone creature mage would not usually have enough energy—we’d kill everything in the vicinity trying to suck up enough. So I couldn’t have healed him without you.”

Now he seemed to blush. How silly this was! After the things they’d said last night? Now they were all niceties and compliments? Why were they acting like this?

“What about maladies of the mind? You know, like a madman?”

She raised her eyebrows. He thinks he’s crazy for loving me, she thought with a smirk.

“His question, not mine.” He shrugged, grinning.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have never tried. At home, I was a healer of animals.”

“Ah,” he said. Silence stretched on. “So there were two types of healers, then?” He seemed to speak more to end the awkwardness than to really find out anything.

“Three—human, animal, and plant. But the plant healers consider themselves gardeners.”

“Do they all use the same techniques?”

“Mostly, yes. Some systems want to heal themselves but can’t. Those you can brute force and pour energy in, and the system will do what it has been trying to do all along. Other systems, you have to coax into behaving.”

He looked thoughtful at her words. His chest was still bare. Her eyes darted from his pensive frown, across the skin of his chest, his stomach, downward, and then back again. She hoped he hadn’t noticed. Again, the silence stretched on, although slightly less awkward this time.

“Well,” she said, “the water calls. Wouldn’t want it to warm up too much, now would I?”

He smiled. “No, of course not. I’ll see you back at the camp. Do you think we will head out today?”

“Most likely. If we can find the horses.”

He nodded and turned back up the path, wheels still whirring.

She headed straight for the water. It was going to be freezing and if she thought about it too much, she’d lose her nerve. She stripped her clothes off without waiting to be sure he was gone and plunged into the water without looking back. She did not want to know if he hadn’t thought to catch a glimpse of her, and she didn’t want to meet his eyes if he had.

Back in the camp, Miara set to trying to find the horses. Last time, they had seemed relatively close and running free, so why were they still gone? They should’ve arrived by now.

She sat cross-legged outside her tent near the fire and put her hands to the earth, fingers spread wide. She could not move her mind through the earth, but she could run from tree to tree, through the roots entwined beneath her. She reached in deeper until she felt the tendrils of life beneath the soil, the tangling systems silently drawing nourishment. She whispered into the trees, sang the softest of songs to their roots, and glided her mind among them, looking for one that had word of Kres and Cora.

Not far off, an elm led her to a maple, and there they were. The horses were not far away, but they were under someone’s control. Someone was with them, riding a third horse and headed her way. She moved up the roots and into the maple’s branches and leaves. And she could sense the rider, a familiar creature—

Sorin.

They’ll wait a turning of the moon, my ass, she thought. Sorin had been sent to hurry her, and he’d probably followed the roads they’d charted together. Only, this detour the Devoted had taken them on had likely slowed him down. Well, at least he had the horses, as little help as that was. But why him? How had he manipulated his way to follow her on this mission?

She released her hold on the trees and let her mind return to her body. Too quickly, too, for the speed of the movement left her reeling for a moment. She scrambled to her feet anyway. She had to find Aven—she had to warn him—but of what? What could she tell him? Sorin was a friend—or at least not an enemy. Wasn’t he? But she just knew, somewhere in her heart, that this would not go well.

She found Aven in his tent. Not thinking, she burst in without a word, causing him to jump. She shut the flap, tied it, and turned back to him. His chest was still bare, sprinkled with water droplets from the river. The tent’s heat pressed around them, and she was suddenly keenly aware they were alone and very close to each other.

“What is it?” he said when she didn’t speak.

“Another mage is coming. To supposedly help me. To hurry me on my mission.”

Aven nodded. “What does that mean? Do you know them?”