Good thing I don’t give a fuck what he thinks.
Oliver needed Frost with him. He’d witnessed firsthand how devastating the winter man could be in a fight. And as bitter as he felt toward Frost, they had been companions before. They’d fought side by side. Frost wasn’t going to cut and run.
A shape streaked across the blue sky, high enough above the battlefield that they could see it, even on this side of the ridge. Oliver tensed at the sight of the green-feathered wings and the rack of antlers on the Peryton’s head. He remembered Collette’s tales of her captivity in the sandcastle and the eerie presence of the Perytons then.
He gripped his sword, prepared to unsheathe it.
Even as he did, a dark wind twisted into a funnel, reached up into the sky, and dragged the Peryton from the air. The Atlantean Hunter hurtled toward the ground, driven by the wind. It landed beyond their line of sight, but Oliver thought that the force of that wind and the impact must have broken every bone in the Peryton’s body. A grim satisfaction gripped him.
He glanced around to discover that none of the others had moved, or even seemed to have noticed.
This is what I chose? Oliver thought. The broken ones? That’s my team, the scarred and haunted and mad. Way to go, Bascombe.
But he’d chosen them each for a reason. He knew them-understood them-and felt confident that not one of them had any illusions about the task that had been set before them. They could very easily be killed. Oliver did not think any of these Borderkind wanted to die, but he figured none of them was all that troubled by the idea. Not anymore.
Other than Oliver, only Blue Jay had a reason to come back.
As if summoned by the thought, the trickster crested the ridge at that moment.
“All right, here we go!” Oliver called to the others.
Cheval sat up and looked toward the top of the hill. Grin reached down to help her up, and together they watched Blue Jay join Frost under the trees for a moment. Then the trickster and the winter man started down the hill toward them, followed by five Nagas. The serpent-men slithered along the ground, bows and quivers slung across their backs, daggers held in sheaths strapped to their bodies.
“Well done, Jay. I thought Damia only had two Nagas left from her Borderkind platoon.”
The trickster nodded. “She did. The others had come earlier and were fighting with a different battalion. When they heard it was for you, they all wanted to come. More as well. I had to turn some away.”
Oliver clapped hands with Blue Jay. He had done the right thing. Even this number had begun to grow too large to sneak into Atlantis. They certainly didn’t need an army. Still, the Nagas would be welcome and probably prove indispensable.
“Hello, brother,” said the first of the serpent-men. “It lifts our hearts to see that you still live.”
“Mine too.” Oliver smiled. He thought he recognized this Naga from Twillig’s Gorge, but couldn’t be sure. If he’d spent more time with them, it might become easier to tell them apart.
But before he could say any more, he saw another figure trailing behind the Nagas, coming down the hill toward him. A frown creased his brow.
“Why’d you bring her?” he asked Blue Jay.
The trickster turned and studied Julianna. Her long hair flew around her face in the wind and she brushed it away. For a moment Oliver was taken back to that moment in their childhood-not the first time he had seen her, but the first time he had really noticed her in the way that boys notice girls. She had looked so regal, then. Imperious. Fearless.
Once again, the sight of her took his breath away.
But he could not let that cloud his judgment or weaken his resolve. He excused himself and strode up the hill to meet her. Just her presence did something to him. As he walked to her, without even touching her he felt the comfort of her strength. Oliver knew Julianna had been angry with him. Now she looked at him with those eyes-the way only lovers who’d had their whole lives to learn every facet of each other could share a look-and he knew she had put her anger aside.
“What is it, Jules?”
She gave him a sweet, sad smile. “You’re leaving soon?”
“As soon as Smith is ready.”
Julianna nodded. “I need a minute.”
Oliver took a breath. He ran a hand over the beard that had become thick with the months he had spent beyond the Veil.
“I have to do this.”
“I know. That’s not what this is about.”
“Okay. And not just a minute. You know I want to spend all my minutes with you.”
“When destiny no longer decides for us,” Julianna said.
Oliver wanted to laugh, to make a joke out of her words. Destiny. It sounded so foolish when spoken aloud like that. But Julianna was deadly serious, and he found that there was nothing funny about any of it.
He reached out and took her hands in his. The temptation to kiss her was powerful, but she’d come to say something, and he did not want to diminish that.
“What is it, Jules?”
“I want you to take Kitsune with you.”
Of all the things she might have said, this must have been the most improbable. He stared at her.
“Why would you say that?”
“She’s still here. She hasn’t gone down to fight, yet. Neither has Coyote. The two of them are talking, not far from King Hunyadi’s tent. Kitsune seems lost, to tell the truth. She talked gods up from their old temples and the Harvest spirits out of the fields, but she doesn’t know what to do with herself, now. I think she did all of that to prove something to herself, Oliver. I think maybe she was trying to find a way to forgive herself.”
He took a breath and glanced away. “All Kit ever wanted was to stop the Hunters from killing her kin, but she put all that aside to help keep me alive. I owe her for that, Jules. But I can’t just forget what she did to us. What she did to you.”
Oliver lifted his gaze, looking into the eyes that knew him so well. The eyes he knew so well. Julianna had always been the more logical of the two of them, the more reasonable.
“I want you to take her with you, Oliver.”
He studied her. “Are you sure?”
“I can’t blame her for loving you. How could I? And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve seen her, I realize I can’t blame you for being enchanted by her. She’s magic, isn’t she? That’s what enchantment is all about.”
Oliver pulled her closer. “I won’t say she isn’t fascinating. She is. But you’re the only magic I’ve ever needed.”
Julianna smiled. “Silly boy. Take her with you.”
“If she’ll go.”
“She’ll go,” Julianna said. “She won’t be right inside if she doesn’t.”
“Have you always been this smart?” Oliver asked.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
The kiss happened, then, sweet and fine.
Afterward, Oliver could still feel it on his lips for a while. But the feeling did not linger forever, and when everything went to shit and his friends started dying, he wished he could remember how it felt.
In a spot almost hidden by the three tents pitched around it-including the tent of King Hunyadi-Kitsune stood absolutely still. The southern sun beat down upon her, but she had her hood raised nevertheless, lost in the shadows of her copper-red fur. For months she had practically hibernated, nursing her guilt and sadness, then she had emerged in search of purpose-and possibly forgiveness. But Oliver had made it clear that there’d be no redemption. He might forgive her, but he wouldn’t help her alleviate her guilt. Kitsune had turned down a path from which she could not retrace her steps. No trail of bread crumbs would lead her back to the moment when she had let her inner fox get the better of her.