“Do you remember what you said?” Riley prompted.

“Yes, and what I saw. A cave, but it’s not clear. It changed. Maybe it was the light. Your light, at first, so clean, so white,” she said as she reached down for Bran’s hand. “But then the shadows. Not shadows. And she came. Nerezza. But not her. Not exactly. I’m not making any sense.”

“Let’s go inside,” Sawyer suggested. “You can sit down, take a minute.”

“No, actually, the air feels good. It got so cold. A cave, but not underwater. I’m sure of that. It seemed big at first—then small. But big enough for us all to stand. It’s a bad place. A very bad place.” Her fingers whitened on Bran’s. “Terrible things there, old and terrible. Just what she wants and needs. But . . . God, then it’s just the opposite. It’s happy and quiet.”

“Maybe we take out what’s old and terrible, and that changes things.”

Sasha nodded at Riley. “Maybe. I just don’t know. I only know we have to go there.” Now she turned to Doyle. “I’m so sorry. We have to go there. To where you lost your brother.”

“I know it. I spoke to Bran about it.”

“Making plans without the whole class?” Riley snapped.

“To start. I know the cave, and how to find it. It’s less than fifty kilometers from here.”

“You can show me on the map,” Sawyer said, “so I’ve got it logged. In case.”

“We’ll map it out.” Bran rubbed Sasha’s shoulder. “Steady now?”

“Yes.”

“I’d say some food would be in order. And wine.”

“Won’t argue with either.”

“Soup’s on. Anni, why don’t you check on that? I’ll get the map.” Sawyer gave her hand a tug, and left Doyle alone with Riley.

“I don’t like explaining myself,” he began.

“Then don’t.” She started to walk away; he gripped her arm.

“I wanted to talk to a brother, and a witch, because I’d be talking about going back where I lost a brother, and killed the witch who cursed me.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“Jesus, Doyle, buy a clue. We all know it sucks, we all know it’s brutal. So you needed to lay it out to Bran first. Fine. I— We’re with you.”

“I’d have spoken to Sawyer before you.”

“Now you’re pissing me off again.”

“Why did you come out here with the other women?”

“I wanted some practice. Sasha needs the practice.” Then she mumbled a curse. “And okay, I wanted the female for a while. I get it.”

He hesitated, then gentled his hold on her arm. “If I had a life to lose, I’d put it in your hands. That’s trust and respect.”

“I could be an asshole, claim that’s easy for you to say. But I’m not an asshole, and I know it’s not. We’re cool.” She held out a hand to shake on it.

He gripped her elbows, hauled her up, kissed her. “You’re not a sister to me.”

“Good thing.”

“But you are . . . essential. Going where we’re going tomorrow, I want you with me.”

Struck, touched, she laid a hand on his cheek. “I will be.”

He dropped her to her feet, considered a moment, then took her hand. Rather than shake it, he held it as they walked back to the house.

• • •

Well armed, they set out early in the morning. Riley rode with Doyle on his bike as they traveled away from the coast, wound through land where the hills rolled green and serene into a sky that held in a sweet summer blue.

She imagined Doyle taking a similar route on that very hard day, on horseback. Hooves striking the ground, Doyle’s cloak flying as he pressed for speed. A faster trip now, she thought as they whizzed around curves where wild lilies sprang yellow as the sunlight they danced in. But a harder one for him. Before he’d believed he’d save his brother, bring him home to family.

Now he knew he never would.

But if they found the star . . .

Did that place that had once held such evil now serve as the resting place for the Ice Star?

Either way, they rode toward a fight. And she was more than ready for one.

Essential. He’d said that to her. She tried not to think too much of it, just as she tried not to probe too deeply into her own feelings. Far from the priority right now, she reminded herself. Whatever she felt, whatever he felt, didn’t rise up to the fate of worlds.

He slowed, veered off onto a narrow, bumpy track.

“We walk from here,” he told her. “Bran’s car can’t handle this.”

She swung off. “How far?”

“A little more than a kilometer.”

He paused, looked left over a stone wall to a small farm where a spotted dog napped in the sun and cows grazed in a field beyond.

As he stood, the farmhouse with its blue trim, the outbuildings, an old tractor, even the spotted dog faded away.

There on the field and up the rising hill sheep cropped. A shepherd boy sat dozing, propped against a rock. He opened his eyes, pale blue, and looked back at Doyle.

“Do you see him there?”

“The dog?”

“The boy. He watched me that day. He watches me now.”

“There’s no boy.” Riley kept a hand on his arm, looked back as Bran walked up with the others.