Page 191 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
Pete’s gaze daggered back to me. “As prone to half-truths as you are, you’ll understand if I pick and choose what I tell you.” He stalked over to tighten Bob’s harness.
Burning, I stalked right after him. “Again, I tried to tell you, Pete! You told me I didn’t owe you my secrets. Remember that?”
His hands jerked Bob’s cinches. “If I recall, I said friendship doesn’t mean I’m owed your secrets. But we aren’t truly friends, are we, if I didn’t even know—?”
“You did so know my name!” I stomped for his attention. Goddess, he was being so rude, not looking at me while I was screaming at him. “You knew it before we met! You told me so yourself, you prick!”
The insult rippled through Pete’s shoulders. “I didn’t know the name that matters.”
“Amyis who I fucking am!” I shook my hands at him. “Noother name matters!”
He scoffed, in need of a good smack, it seemed. “Will you say the same to the family pursers when you collect your inheritance,princess?”
I did smack him, right on the back of his thick ass head. “I’mnota princess,” I seethed as he whirled on me, eyes flashing. “And that’s not even what this is about, is it? You’re not really pissed that I kept my goddamn last name from you. No, you’re really pissed because ofwhatthat last name is! You’re pissed at my dad!”
Pete just stared at me, black marbling his eyes.
Sedge cleared his throat. “Don’t go down that road either, highness.”
I huffed. “Don’t call me that, okay?”
“You’d prefer your majesty?” Pete snarked.
“Just—” I scraped my face, hating what the truth was doing to us. “Look, Pete, I’msosorry that my dad didn’t help you when you were in need. He should have, and I’m angry at him too for overlooking you. But you can’t take your beef with him out on me! Because I’m not him! I’m me. And I’ve always been justmewith you.”
Pete looked to Sedge. Dismissing me yet again. “We must split up. You take her old apparel—it still smells of her.”
I watched Sedge gulp, apology in his gaze when he glanced my way. “Aye, then we might confuse at least some of the others, lead them astray.”
“You head toward the Woebegone Wood, scatter her clothes within. If Dando follows, he’ll be so desperate for her bounty, he and his henchmen will charge straight in despite the perils. Then meet me in our usual spot, aye?”
Sedge grimaced. “Your effects—” He paused, unsure how to address me. He settled on, “Shorty.”
Sulking, I stomped to my book bag. I was shoving my pile of dirty clothes into Sedge’s stark arms when Pete whistled for Sionna to hop to. We were heading out.
“This doesn’t change anything, you know,” I said to both males as they bid each other a silent farewell. “I’m still going to help you kill Gentian, Pete. I don’t care if a whole army of harbingers is after me. I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it.
“I’ve seen what’s going on in this world—seen what Gentian’s doing to people—and I haven’t forgotten about Humwater Dell. I can’tnotdo something about it. We’ve got to stop him.”
Nobody answered me, and as Pete, Sionna, and I rolled back onto the sandy jungle road, I had the depressing notion that Pete wanted to forget I was even there.
Wetraveledfordaysin silence. Or at least Pete did. I tried fishing for conversations numerous times. He didn’t bite. Not that he was hostile toward me. Instead, he reminded me of the frozen section at the grocery store—that sudden chill you weren’t expecting. And his inky eyes were too aloof for my comfort.
When I noticed Pete’s remoteness extended even to Sionna, a creature he showed affection to on the reg, I became nervous that his anger had emboldened the demonic poison within him—riled it to take hold. So, I started singing more ballads to him as I rode in the back of the wagon through a thickening jungle that sometimes spooked me with its mysterious wildlife (I’d encountered a cross between a fanged spider and a scorpion multiple times, and lemur like tree huggers had thrown feces at us just before we’d made camp one harrowing night). I didn’t stop singing until Pete finally barked at me to, “Bloody shut your gob!”
But he could yell at me all he wanted. I’d take that over his frost.
On the fourth day, the jungle was so dense that our path became impassable. Pete barely deigned to explain what was happening when he drew Bob to a halt and started gathering supplies from the wagon bed.
“Stuff your sack with whatever you can fit,” he ordered, not bothering to look at me. “And put on your stockings.” My socks, he meant. “Aye, it’s hot, but we can’t afford for you to get bog foot.”
Trench foot, I translated for myself.Ugh, he wants me to walk the rest of the way.
“How much longer until we get there?” I asked after Pete had patted Bob’s rump and directed him to head back home without us.
Having fashioned his bedroll, cloak, and several other belongings into a rucksack, Pete hoisted the pack onto his shoulders. “A while.”
Once Bob had taken off with my only comfort, Pete, Sionna, and I trekked through what reminded me of the Amazon for hours, narrowly avoiding venomous lizards, flying monkeys (Briar hadn’t lied about at least that), apelike bears, and angry pterodactyl-like birds that dive-bombed us in flocks. Finally, I voiced a niggling thought.
