She’s not here.
Her bag and her bedroll are gone, as is Tess and her tack. Everything cleared so efficiently that it might have looked like she’d never been here at all had it not been for the remaining tidy pile of her new clothes and her knife. Left beside Aiden’s coat on the wagon bench. Very likely intentional. Also likely not a great sign.
“Cypress,” Aiden shouts as he comes around the other side of the wagon. “Do you see signs that she was taken? Signs of anyone else being here?”
He hasn’t noticed the clothes yet, and I’m hesitant to mention them until I can make sense of it myself. A few hours ago, she shot a man for trying to make her leave…only to leave now of her own volition?
Aiden is already moving to tack up Helios with a determined set to his expression, and I’m only a step behind him as I ask, “Did she say anything to you before you left?”
He shakes his head. “She was content. Happy. Someone else must have come. Someone—”
“Aiden.” I place a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him even though I feel close to chaos myself. “Her things are on the wagon bench. I think she left.”
“No.” He looks at me, shakes his head again, before going over to check himself, climbing up to inspect her belongings before he goes alarmingly still.
“Wolf?”
Slowly, he reaches down and picks up the knife, holding it loosely in his left hand while his right grabs a small piece of paper I hadn’t seen beneath it. When he only continues to stare at it after several moments, his worry worsening to obvious distress, I reach up and take both from him. “What is this?”
He doesn’t look at me. “It’s a ticket.”
“I can see it’s a ticket.” I turn it over and note the destination as I tuck Cora’s knife into my boot. “Why is it here?”
“It was hers,” he says quickly. “I kept it.” Regret stings his tone. “It was on the floor of the stable that night we took her, and I picked it up. I…I gave her my coat before I left. She must have found it in my pocket.”
Understanding seeps in, then sadness. “And she must’ve thought…”
“Fuck.” Aiden smacks his hat against his leg, his fingers tugging at his hair. “Fuck, I should have given it to her sooner. Gotten rid of it.Something. I was just—I was half out of my mind trying not to want her, and every time I thought to return it to her…”
“She’ll understand,” I say, trying to reassure him even as a pit widens in my stomach. “You’ll explain things when we find her.”
He nods, a quick jerk of his head, and I already know he’s being harder on himself than I could ever be.
“Aiden,” I call after him when he gets down from the wagonand walks away to collect a couple lanterns set nearby. “Wewillfind her.”
He says nothing, just goes back to tacking up Helios as I do the same with Cerberus, although both of us opt to keep our feet on the ground as we head out of camp, only able to pick up a set of hoofprints headed south after about a half hour of searching in the dark.
We follow it for longer, eventually moving in the direction of that same stream we just left with lighter spirits. Based on her trail, she made a wide curve from camp to farther upstream, not daring to approach the water until she would have no risk of running into us by mistake.
“She could get lost out here,” Aiden mutters after well over another hour has passed with barely any progress. “She could get hurt or even…”
He can’t say it. Neither can I. But the knowledge of it is what keeps both of us searching into the night.
Finally, the water and her trail intersect, the current louder here. Faster, too, but not terribly deep. An easy crossing to make on horseback, and it appears Cora thought so as well.
Her horse’s tracks disappear into the water only to…notappear on the other side.
Aiden lets loose a string of profanities, but something about her giving us the slip makes me grin. Perhaps it’s seeing the way she had known to cover her tracks this time. Or perhaps it’s that covering them at all shows that, despite the misunderstanding, part of her still believes we’ll come after her.
How right she is.
I had actually believed… It doesn’t matter what I’d believed. The truth had been hidden in the pocket of a coat.
Have they gotten back to camp yet? Have they noticed I’m gone? Do they care? It had felt…God, it hadfeltlike they cared. But maybe they’d only been pretending until the moment came when they could hand me that ticket and send me on my way.
They have each other. Why would they need me?
The even sound of Tess’s hooves clomping over the ground is hardly enough to cover the crying I try to keep at bay, just as the burn in my chest is hardly enough to stave off the chill in the night air.