He was here.

The hope inside me burns so fiercely I’m almost afraid to touch it.

Melkin shuts the door behind him, slides the bolt into place, and turns. His knife is still out.

“You can put that away now.”

“What if someone’s already using this place? I don’t figure on surprising anyone unless I’ve got a weapon in my hand.”

“If someone was here, they’d leave footprints in all this dust. See?” I point to the fading steps left sometime in the last few months by Dad.

Melkin grunts, but keeps his knife out as he moves further into the house, taking in the faded floral wallpaper with clusters of black mold spreading along the ceiling and the once-blue couch that has since become a muted gray. “Not if they came in through a window.”

All the windows are sealed shut. Dad saw to that when he first chose this house. I don’t bother telling Melkin, however. He needs to feel like he’s done all he can to secure our safety, so I let him prowl the house, beating at curtains and checking under furniture until he looks every bit as grimy as the house itself.

I leave him to it and move carefully along the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the front of the house, keeping far enough back from the gauzy yellowed drapes that no one approaching the edge of the property can see me.

Someone is out there. I can’t see them yet, and they might be expert enough to stay just out of range, but I know we’re being followed.

The question is, by whom?

Someone who knew to pick up our trail on the road to Rowansmark? It could be guards assigned to follow us, which would mean the Commander intends to break his word much earlier than I’d assumed. Highwaymen who think they’ve spotted easy prey? That would be the last mistake they ever made. Trackers from Rowansmark tasked to keep watch over the paths couriers take in case one of them leads straight to the package?

That’s a risk I can’t afford to take.

We’ll have to either flush our followers out into the open, or circle behind them and spring a trap. Which means Melkin is going to have to pull it together and help me.

“You’re sure it isn’t hidden here?” he asks directly behind me, and I whirl around, my hand reaching for my knife before sense overrides my instinctive panic.

“Sneak up behind me again, and I’ll gut you like a sheep.”

His eyes, black pits of something that looks like bitterness, capture mine. “Are you sure it isn’t hidden here?”

“Yes. It’s near the next safe house.”

“He could’ve moved it.”

“Really? With the Commander and Rowansmark already combing the Wasteland for him and for the package? He knew when he left Baalboden for the last time that he would be followed. He’s too smart to lead them right to it.”

He nods, a sharp movement that severs whatever line of tension he’s been teetering on since lunch, and sheaths his knife. In his other hand, he holds a scrap of yellow.

“Found this tied around the doorknob in the kitchen.”

It’s another of my mother’s ribbons. I take it from him, rub my fingers over the embroidered S. A. at the end, and tuck it into the same pocket that houses the purple one. I don’t need the signs to know I’m closing in—Logan’s tracker sees to that—but having this tangible connection to Dad soothes some of the ache within me. Having Logan by my side would go a long way toward soothing the rest.

“I saw our followers. Come up to the attic, and you can see them too. Mind the stairs, though. Half of them are rotted through.”

I follow him, skirting spots of obvious rot and doing my best not to rub up against too much dust. The attic is a stale, cluttered box of a room with two grimy windows, one at each end. We head for the front window, and I scan the grass, raise my eyes to the tree line, and find them in less than a minute.

Standing two trees in, watching the front door, and moving restlessly beneath the fading rays of the early evening sun.

Amateurs.

Which means they’re guards. Highwaymen and trackers are far too experienced to be so obvious. I say as much to Melkin.

“I thought the same. Can’t figure why the Commander thinks we need extra protection.”

“Please tell me you aren’t that stupid.”

He frowns at me.

“They aren’t here for our protection, Melkin. If they were, they would’ve traveled with us from the start. They’re here to pounce once we have the package.”

“But we’re going to bring it back. We have to. I’m not going to lose Eloise. You said you thought if I did what he asked, he’d keep his word.”

I lied. But looking into the misery on his face, I can’t find the cruelty to give him the truth. “Maybe they’re insurance in case we decide we want whatever’s in the package more than we want Eloise and Logan’s safety.”

“There’s nothing more important than her safety.”

“To you. But the Commander doesn’t place the same value on human life as you do.”

We’re silent for a moment, staring at the two guards as the day subsides and the first stars of the night glitter like shards of silver in the darkening sky.

“What if they want the package for themselves?” he asks, the darkness he harbored earlier back in his voice.

“Then they’ll try to kill us once we find it.”

“Not if we kill them first.”

Crimson. Sliding down silver blades. Covering me in guilt that won’t ever wash clean.