“That was Darrow.”
“No!” she shouted. “No, I see the memory in my mind, as if it happened only yesterday! Don’t tell me that the things I see, the things I feel and remember and know as well as my own name, are not true!”
Silence fell heavy in the room until Gabe smiled sardonically. “You already tried to kill Simon. Must you yell at him too?”
She drew in a couple of harsh breaths, then folded her arms and sat down again.
I decided to try a different tactic. “After you and Gabe brought me back to our camp, I wasn’t always unconscious, even if I couldn’t respond. You went through my saddlebag.”
“Yes.”
“She stole your saddlebag,” Gabe said.
“I didn’t!” she protested. “Gabe sent me away from the camp, and I was so upset, I didn’t realize I had it with me. But I returned it the next morning.”
I smiled, glad to see the fire in her. Then asked, “Why did you return it?”
She hesitated and pressed her mouth shut. She had her reasons but didn’t want to share them. Maybe not with Gabe here. Maybe not with me.
“He’s getting tired again,” Gabe said. “We should let him sleep.”
I hadn’t realized that my eyes were closed, but Gabe was right. I was exhausted.
“Let me stay with him,” Kestra said. “If he needs anything, I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t trust you,” Gabe said.
“But I do,” I mumbled. “Leave us alone, Gabe.”
He stood, and I had no doubt that he’d check in on us several times during the night, but he did leave the room.
Kestra started to say something to me about her necklace, but I fe
ll asleep without registering what her words had been. Which was too bad. They sounded important.
Sometime during the night, I sat up straight, struggling to catch my breath and with tears streaming down my face.
“It was only a dream,” I whispered in an attempt to comfort myself, but that didn’t work because I knew otherwise.
In the dream, I was back in All Spirits Forest, drowning in the river again. A handsome man about twenty years older than me appeared and said help was coming. Then, suddenly, he was injured and pulled away by some unseen force. When I found him again, I promised to save his life. But before I could, he was caught in the explosion of a building.
It was Darrow. I remembered Darrow.
My father.
A sob rose within my chest. In a single memory, I had found my father, loved him, and lost him again.
I clamped a hand over my mouth, hoping to keep myself from crying out loud, but that choked me, and I soon heard Simon’s voice pierce the darkness.
“Kes? Are you all right?”
The lone candle in the room had burned out while I was asleep, and I was glad for it now. I steadied my voice the best I could and said, “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
“You’re not. I can hear—”
“I’m fine.”
He said nothing more, but his hand reached out and found mine. He gave my fingers a squeeze and then kept his hand there, even after he fell asleep again. I brushed my thumb across his palm, slowly folding my hand in tighter with his.