"What happened back there?" Kai asked quietly. "What..." He hugged his bag to his chest. The three of them sat in a small clearing in the grass outside of Blandmanch. The grass rose over their heads and smoke hung on the air. "What was that? How did they get through the hedge? Why were they there?"

Hina shook her head, a dim shadow in the moonlight. "I don't know. I don't know." The pain in her hand had faded to a dull ache—something Olivia had done that had brought a strange numb sensation to her remembered wounds—but her head was still pounding. She dreaded the thought of what she would see when she looked at it in the morning.

Her fingers were still there, she could feel them at least, but something felt wrong. She didn't want to think about it.

She looked at Olivia, who had joined Kai on the dirt with her legs folded underneath her, her dress bright against the tall grass behind.

"Olivia, what was that?" Kai asked.

"They like practitioners." Olivia sounded exhausted. "More than anything else. And they like people too. The two of us walking past so many of them must have been enough to get their attention. When we escaped the smaller group, they must have gone back for reinforcements."

"But the hedge—" Kai started.

"You saw how big they were," Olivia said. "Huld are smart, and a hedge can only do so much. One of the big ones must have made a path for the others."

"Are they all dead? Really?" Kai asked. "All of those people?"

"I don't know. Some of the others must have gotten away. They must have."

Kai's face was wet and he hugged his bag tighter. Bean had hopped onto his pack, leaning against the boy's shoulder. "Why didn't they listen to us?" Kai asked. "And what about Humphrey? Why didn't he—"

Olivia sighed. She looked at Hina and shrugged helplessly. “I don't know. I really don't know.”

"We need to rest," Hina said. "We— We can talk about it later."

* * *

Hina didn't sleep much that night.

She lay still in her small space on the hard dirt inside the barrier. The pain of touching her well of power had faded to a dull ache by the time they'd found a place to camp, and she'd managed to struggle through the working. It had been a risk, but they'd needed it. Needed safety. Somewhere the huld wouldn't stumble across them in the night.

But even within a safe space of her own making, Hina couldn't relax. Whenever she closed her eyes, she could hear Lonnie's sobbing. Or Deyn's accusations. The echoes of screams.

Her throat hurt, like a stone was lodged in the back of it. The twisting in her guts hadn't gone away.

The line in the dirt was barely a hands-width away. And beyond that, the road to Blandmanch. The city gates would be closed until dawn, which was at least a few hours away.

Olivia lay next to her, close enough that Hina couldn't move without bumping into her. Kai was on the other side, snoring faintly.

The flames in the distance were no longer visible, but the smell of smoke hung in the air.

Hina had put up a barrier and the three of them lay down together in the tiny space like this was normal, like it was something they did every night.

Like that's just what you do—leave everyone to their own thoughts after a disaster, just keep moving forward and don't think about it. Don't think too hard at all.

And maybe it was. Hina hadn't wanted to talk about it. But she couldn't sleep, either.

She lay there under the light of the stars while a trickle of sweat dripped down the side of her face, too close to Olivia, not moving, listening to the others' slow breathing.

Of course Deyn was wrong, they hadn't killed anyone. All they had done was run away. They were the victims here. Maybe not as much as the farmers—an image of the screaming farmers running while the huld cut through them flashed into Hina's mind.

No, not that much.

But they were still victims. The beasts of the wild are a force of nature. You can't blame anyone else for them, you just have to do the best you can.

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Still. Hina's decision had led to the deaths of all of those people. If they'd run in any other direction, all of those farmers would still be alive right now. How could that be anything but her fault?

She wiped sweat from her forehead. Olivia shifted slightly beside her in the dark, snoring gently.

They'd warned them, or at least they'd tried. The woman, Pettie–they had told her about the huld, and she had decided not to do anything. Their walls and their hedge were enough to keep out a handful of huld, she'd said. Why hadn't she listened? If she had listened—

But they'd warned them. And Humphrey too. He'd told her that they were safe, and she'd believed him.

No matter what Deyn said, it wasn't Hina's fault.

That was how it worked, wasn't it? They'd done the right thing by telling the people who rescued them about the danger, so they could make their own decisions.

What they did with that was their own responsibility. Wasn't it?

Even if the huld were only there because they were following Hina, Kai and Olivia, the farmers had had a chance to do something about it. To call for help, to run away, to do something. And they'd chosen not to. And that wasn't Hina's fault, any more than it was her fault that the huld had been trying to kill and eat them.

Hina didn't have the power to control the huld. Or to kill them. Or to make them go away.

Even if it had been her mistake with the game bird that had attracted the beasts in the first place, she wasn't responsible for what had happened after. She wasn't responsible for the actions of monsters, or farmers who didn't take warnings seriously.

She didn't quite convince herself, but it was something. It didn't feel like enough, but it was something. Enough for her whirling thoughts to hold onto.

Hina lay on the hard ground, not sleeping, for a long time.

* * *

When Hina blinked her eyes awake, the sky was beginning to lighten. The air was cool and a bird called somewhere in the distance. A hint of ash hung on the breeze.

A rock dug into Hina's side, and she rolled over slightly to push it out from under her. From atop of one of the packs, Bean gave a low croak. Olivia's gentle snores were almost comforting.

Hina looked around. Her hand was—she lifted it up into the light. It was still there. Bruised and swollen, but the fingers wiggled, dried blood flaking off. The scratches on her wrist and fingers looked shallow—they'd stopped bleeding. And the pain had faded to a dull ache.

She'd gotten off lucky. It was a relief.

Hina's thoughts churned, but she felt a little better. They'd— She needed to be prepared for what was coming next. They were safe from the huld, for now. Probably.

The next challenge was different.

In the morning, in an hour or two, the gates of Blandmanch would open, and they would go inside. And Hina didn't know what that would look like.

She knew that some cities had complicated processes before you were allowed in, sometimes involving paperwork and fees or even interviews if you were foreign. And Hina had never been to Blandmanch.

She didn't look anything like Olivia, or any of the farmers. Almost everybody around here was of Ortinian descent, even the farmers with skin so pale it seemed almost bloodless. Hina and Kai would stand out.

Would they be in trouble with the townspeople about the huld, and the farm, and all those people?

Hina had a vision of being arrested. Having to stand trial for leading beasts of the wild back into civilisation. And in the investigation, they'd find out about Grambe, and that would be that.

She shook her head. That was ridiculous. Nobody in their right minds would blame them for being pursued by huld, and seeking help wherever they could find it.

They'd warned them. They'd done the right thing. She'd—

Hina shut her thoughts down and focused on the next hurdles. The other risk was that there were people in Blandmanch who were looking for her. A young Leli woman from Grambe travelling alone with her brother, wanted on suspicion of murder–news must have reached Blandmanch by now.

If there were forms, paperwork, they would have to lie about their names and where they came from. They'd have to convince Olivia to lie too. Hina wondered if she'd do it, or if it was even fair to ask her.

When they had decided to travel together, they had only agreed to travel together as far as Blandmanch, and then they would reconsider.

Maybe it would be better to separate now.

If Olivia arrived alone, she wouldn't have to lie about them—who would even give her a second glance, a well-dressed Ortinian girl? But if they arrived together and the gate guards decided to interview them separately, that could go poorly.

It had been nice to have someone else to share the journey with, someone who knew more than Hina did about so many of the things that she needed to know. She knew about trinkets, and workings, and what awaited them at the Academy. And more than that, Olivia was … nice. Friendly and kind in a way that Hina could get used to, even if she was a little naive sometimes.

Hina wondered how she was doing, if Olivia's mind was replaying the same scenes as hers was whenever she stopped thinking of the future.

They would need to talk about it when the sun came up. About their next steps.

Even if Hina and Kai parted ways with Olivia here, they didn't have any good options other than to continue on into Blandmanch. They were too low on supplies to continue on to some other town. And somewhere smaller, like one of the farms, would be unlikely to have everything they needed. Visions of screaming, running people—

No, they'd have to try to enter Blandmanch in the morning, with or without Olivia. They could purchase supplies for the next leg of their journey, and hopefully find a caravan heading in the right direction to travel with.

A break from walking would be nice.

Hina could spend her days practising. She was excited to see what kind of progress she could make with enough time to dedicate to practice.

So long as they could find one that was going the right way. And they could afford it.

They had a little silver, and a few treasures that they might be able to sell in the market. They could sell the bell, and the salt shaker too if they needed to, though Hina would prefer to hold on to those if she could.

Getting to the academy would solve all of her other problems, so that was the only thing Hina had to focus on. She would do what she had to do to get there in one piece. She'd sell the sandals off her feet if that's what it took.

Hina was going to the academy. She had to.

And she couldn't risk anything interfering with that.

"Are you awake?" she whispered to Olivia.