I would miss Darling. And I would spend the rest of my days frightened for her. She was precious, perfect, always happy. The thing in that village was behind her, But ahead lay the most terrible enemy imaginable. None of us wanted that for her.
I rose, erased the evidence of tears, took Raven aside. “I don’t know your plans. I don’t want to know. But just in case. When the Lady and I caught up with Soulcatcher the other day, he had a whole bale of those papers we dug up in Whisper’s camp. He never turned them over to her. She doesn’t know they exist.” I told him where they could be found. “I’ll ride out that way in a couple weeks. If they’re still there, I’ll see what I can find in them myself.”
He looked at me with a cool, expressionless face. He was thinking my death warrant was signed if I came under the Eye again. But he did not say it. “Thanks, Croaker. If I’m ever up that way, I’ll check into it.”
“Yeah. You ready to go, Silent?”
Silent nodded.
“Darling, come here.” I squeezed her in a long, tight hug. “You be good for Raven.” I unfastened the amulet One-Eye had given me, fixed it on her wrist, told Raven, “That’ll let her know if any unfriendly Taken comes around. Don’t ask me how, but it works. Luck.”
“Yeah.” He stood there looking at us as we mounted, still baffled. He raised a hand tentatively, dropped it.
I told Silent, “Let’s go home.” And we rode away.
Neither of us looked back.
It was an incident that never happened. After all, hadn’t Raven and his orphan died at the gates of Charm?
Back to the Company. Back to business. Back to the parade of years. Back to these Annals. Back to fear.
Thirty-seven years before the comet returns. The vision has to be false. I’ll never survive that long. Will I?