“No idea. It has to be somewhere in the City though. Sister Eva has people working on that part. Some other priests feel the same way she does.”
“And then what?” Hen asked.
She shook her head. “There has to be a way to stop it. The whole City is just—it’s a farm for this thing. Everything we do, everything we’re taught, it’s all so it can have this one particular bloodline for breakfast. Everything, Hendrik.”
Hendrik’s stomach knotted up tight. He glanced over the chattering company, most of whom had a drink in hand regardless of the semi-official and heavy nature of the gathering. The mood was oddly excited, considering the theories floating around the hall.
The Heart Wood was so green, so vital, so alive. It was as evident here, in one of their wooden halls, as it had been in the thick of the forest with the bears and the scratchy trees. He wanted, more than anything else, to hide in it. To scoop up Kajja and Piret and put them somewhere safe and lovely. To return to the little house with Dagan and retreat under his blanket.
Dagan looked up, across the crowd, and caught his gaze. He smiled, that slow, knowing smile that on anyone else’s face might’ve looked intolerably smirky. But his eyes, the golden color of sunshine through honey, crinkled gently, expressive as always. I’ve got you.
The Heart Wood had Dagan, and Dagan had Hendrik. But none of it would matter, when the Heart Wood had its throat ripped out in the service of something bigger and more evil than any of them could understand.
Like Kass had.
It still hurt to think of him. To picture his pretty, dark face gone chalky, his gaping wound, and his box on preternatural fire. But it hurt in a different way than it had when he’d wandered down the beach to wait for death—what felt like an eternity ago. Then, it had been pure disorder, an inability to think or feel anything but pain and howling loss.
Now, it was a kind of burning inside Hendrik’s belly. Not so much for himself, though he’d still give anything to bring Kass back. Now his sadness and rage were for Kass and everything he never got to see or feel or do. The person he never got to become. If a few moons out of the Stone City could change Hendrik so much, what could they have done for someone as sensitive and curious as Kaspar? It would’ve been a thing of beauty.
Hendrik told himself that the thing burning within him was a need for justice. But in his heart, he knew he’d be just as satisfied with revenge.
*
“No, really, I’m exhausted,” Kajja insisted.
“We have an extra room,” Dagan said.
She shook her head. “I’ll stay in the winery; I like being at the center of things, anyhow. You two look as tired as I feel. You should go sleep.”
Hendrik surprised himself by putting an arm over her shoulders, and she curled around for a hug, throwing her arms around his neck again. “I missed you,” he told her.
“I missed you, too.” She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek before pulling back to look at him. “I didn’t even let myself hope you made it out alive. It was just this big hole. In everything.”
“I know what you mean,” he told her with a faint smile.
“I’m so sorry. About Kass.” Her eyes grew wet suddenly, threatening to overflow. “About all of them, but especially Kass. We won’t let him die in vain though, okay?”
Hendrik smiled. “When did you become a fighter, Kajja?”
“I’m full of surprises, big brother.” She pulled away, then nodded at Dagan, who was nearby chatting with Gareth. “Also, how do you keep finding the prettiest ones? Jak, too. I mean, really?”
“How could you tell?” Hen asked, more amused than anything else. And perhaps a little relieved that she didn’t accuse him of being unfaithful or careless of Kass’s memory. Despite everything, Hen had been worried it might feel like that, if he and Dagan ever kissed. Then they had. And it hadn’t.
“I know you, Hen.” She turned to follow Piret, who was halfway back to the winery.
*
“You must be spinning,” Dagan said as he closed the door behind them.
“I keep wondering if I’m having some strange dream,” Hendrik admitted. “I’m almost afraid to go to sleep.”
“In case when you wake up, your friends aren’t here after all? That would be horrific, yes.” Dagan took him by both hands and pulled him close, so he had to look up to meet Hen’s eyes. “Do I feel real?”
“No,” Hendrik said with a laugh. He gathered Dagan into his arms, like he’d been dying to for what felt like an age, and rested his head against his lavender-scented hair. It was pulled back into its braid, glossy and thick and rich brown-black. Against his cheek, it felt like the finest silk.
Dagan hummed and leaned into him, tucking his head against Hen’s chest and sliding his arms around his waist. Such a big personality in such a deceptively small body, strung tight like his bow and as graceful as the curve of his knife. The urge to strip Dagan bare and just touch him, run his hands all over his warm skin, explore every inch of him, was so overwhelming Hendrik almost shivered with it.
Dagan pulled back just enough to look up. “You okay?”
“No idea,” Hen said with a helpless sort of laugh.
Dagan pulled away but kept one of his hands to tug him along. “Come to bed. We don’t have to do anything. I just want to be with you, if that’s okay.”
“Please.” Sometimes he said desperate things like that, with Dagan, and it never failed to send a jolt of embarrassment through him.
But Dagan always smiled and took it in stride. No fear, just affection—first friendly, now promising something more.
What, exactly? Dagan’s charm was one of his finest qualities, and yet Hendrik had swung wildly from finding it amusing to being jealous of anyone else who was its focus, and then back again. He’d never been jealous before. Protective, certainly, but that would’ve been true even if he and Kass hadn’t, as Piret once put it, let it go too far.
But Hendrik had never been a lot of things. And now he could.
The little bedroom had large windows that let the moonlight filter through but shielded the occupants from prying eyes. The big, square bed with its light coverlet and canopy was like something out of a High City mansion, but somehow grander, carved from dark wood and shining in the silver light. Dagan led him to it and sat to take off his boots, and Hendrik followed suit.
“We can finally order you a pair of good boots, while we’re here,” Dagan said after a moment. “We didn’t have time anywhere else, but I think we’ll be here a week at least, with all this excitement.”
“My feet would be grateful.” After kicking off both of his boots, Hendrik stretched out his calves and feet, then unlaced his pants. His body had ached in strange, unfamiliar ways for the first week or two on the paths of the Heart Wood. He had been woefully out of shape and weakened by bad food and worse company. He almost felt like himself again, now, and there was something reassuring in the return of his physical strength.
Dagan pulled off his shirt, then undid his hair. It fell in dark waves almost to his waist, and for once, Hendrik gave into the impulse to touch it. His hand seemed rough against its softness, but it was the most gorgeous sensation to let it fall through his fingers. “Can you keep it down?” Hendrik asked quietly.
