"I might be able to catch some fish," Naji said after we'd finished. "I think that may be the reason I'm not healing as quickly as I expected. I don't have enough strength just eating berries."
"We'll need a line. I guess I could make one out of that net Marjani gave us–"
"That won't be necessary." He paused, and the wind blustered in off the beach and knocked the pine trees around. "The island casts enough of a shadow over the sea that I can move through the water that way. I've done it before, in the Qilari swamps."
"How long you been well enough to do that?" I didn't have my usual strength, neither, although I'd thought it was cause of the island, or that I was spending energy on glowing.
"A few days."
"What! Then why haven't you done it already?"
"I don't like leaving you alone."
"You've done it before."
He frowned out at the ocean line. "Things were different."
I thought about the whispers on the wind.
"I got my charm," I said.
"I know you do."
"If I don't get us some fish we'll probably both starve to death and then it won't matter if the Mists show up. That's what you're worried about, isn't it? The Mists?"
He didn't answer.
"Hell and sea salt! Naji, you promised me that you'd start telling me things."
"I'm telling you now." He unfolded himself and the wind pushed his hair away from his face. It was cloudy and a bit of his glow peeked through his skin, his scar shining a pale soft white. "While I'm gone, you must promise to stay in the shack."
"Fine. I just hope it won't turn into a tree."
"It won't." Naji frowned, and then glanced over his shoulder at the woods. "Come."
"Into the woods? Why?"
"I need to gather up something." He plodded over to the treeline and then ran his fingers over the greenery spilling onto the sand. He plucked three narrow, shiny fern leaves, twisted them together, and muttered in his language. His glow dimmed for a few seconds, and then he handed me the bundle of ferns.
"Hang this above the door," he said.
I turned the ferns over and over in my hand. They were much heavier than three twisted-up leaves should be.
"Go on," he said. "You have to do it."
"What's this to protect me from?" I asked as we made our way back over to the shack. "The Mists or the Isles?"
"They're practically the same thing," he said.
A chill went down my spine.
I jammed the ferns into a crack above the door, and Naji slipped off his sword and scabbard and handed it to me.
"Stay inside," he said.
"Go," I said. "I'm starving."
He nodded, stepped into the shack's shadow, and disappeared.
He was gone for longer than I expected, not that I knew how long it took to sneak up on fish and catch 'em that way. I got bored and started tossing leaves that had fallen through the hole in the roof into the fire to watch 'em smolder and curl in on themselves. When I ran out of leaves, I stood in the doorway, Naji's sword and scabbard looped around my hips, and stared out at the shadowline along the trees. Nothing. I drummed my fingers against the doorway. Glanced up at the bundle of fern leaves. Thought about Naji telling me to stay put.
Something flashed out of the corner of my eye.
I had the sword out even though my brain was telling me it was only Naji. Except it wasn't Naji. It wasn't nobody at all, just a gray mist that was slinking out of the woods, shrouding my view of the forest, of the beach, of everything–
"Darkest night! Get inside!"
Naji looped his arm around my chest and pulled me backward into the shack. I cried out and dropped the sword in a clatter on the floor. The door to the shack slammed shut with a force that rattled the stones in the walls. I could hear Naji breathing in my ear. He smelled like the sea and like the cold nights of the ice-islands.
"What the hell!" I shouted. "Where did you come from?"
"The water." Naji let me go, and I whirled around to face him. He was as dry as when he left, but he had a big silver-striped fish in one hand, and he didn't look furious the way I expected him to, only tired. "I felt you about to do something stupid. I told you not to go outside."
I slumped down on the floor, my heart pounding. "I was just bored," I muttered.
"Fortunately, they didn't see you," he said, laying the fish out on a slab of stone that was next to the hearth. "They'll only get stronger, though. You need to be more careful." He leaned in close to me, and I stared up at him, dizzy with the rush of my fear, and with something else I couldn't identify. "Promise you won't go out alone."
"You're the one that left me be–"
"Promise."
"I promise. Kaol. I'm sorry I stood in the damn door."
He slid away from me and pulled out his knife. "Midnight's claws, I wish I could heal faster. If only I knew how long I had to keep them from you–"
"Me! You're the one they're after."
He slid the knife up under the fish's scales, his movements quick and assured. If I hadn't been annoyed with him, I might've been impressed. "I'm currently far more protected than you are," he said. "I have the strength of the Order behind me."
I scowled. "Don't cut that fish too thin. It'll burn up in the fire."
He stopped cutting and looked at me. "Would you rather do it?"
"I can do it better than you can."
He pulled out the knife and handed it over like it was a peace offering. Cleaning the fish calmed me down a little. It helped that Naji didn't nag me about the Mists no more, and by the time we had the fish cooking on the fire, I had forgotten about the mist curling through the woods outside the shack. I was inside, I was surrounded by warmth and the smells of real food, I was safe.
The two of us finished off the entire fish. Its flesh was flaky and almost sweet-tasting, and it snapped clean and bright inside my mouth. The best meal I'd had in ages.