“Don’t tell Tamsin that—she’s always trying to hide hers. And my grandmother would faint if she could see me.” I’d started off flippant but felt my heart sink as I thought of Grandmama. “You know, when I heard she was looking for me, I first worried because of the obvious trouble I could get in. But what really bothers me about it now is knowing that she’s still searching. She doesn’t know what happened to me but still wants me. She hasn’t given up.”
“Of course she hasn’t. It isn’t in the Witmore blood. Er, I mean Bailey blood. At least I assume it isn’t in the Bailey blood to give up.”
I thought about my former maid. “Well, Ada kind of gave up . . . or did she? If she’s at the dairy farm she wanted, I suppose it all worked out for her.”
Cedric put his arm around my shoulder, letting me lean against him. “Once we’re married and everything is stable, you can send word back to your grandmother. Let her know you’re all right.”
Afternoon sunlight shone down on us through the branches of the great maple behind our backs. If I weren’t feeling so melancholy about Grandmama, I could have thought of it as an idyllic setting. “I just hope she can forgive me for—”
“There you two are,” snapped a harsh voice. We both looked up to see Elias Carter, Warren’s chief assistant in Hadisen, striding toward us. “The party’s getting packed up and nearly ready to move again. I should’ve known I’d find you two off here doing immoral things.”
“Eating lunch?” I asked.
Elias fixed me with a beady glare. He’d made it clear many times on this trip that he disapproved of us. “Don’t be impertinent with me, Miss Bailey. How the governor ever found it in his magnanimous heart to forgive you and offer you this chance is beyond me. I wouldn’t have. But then, he is a great man. I am not.”
“That’s certainly true,” said Cedric, deadpan.
Elias’s brow furrowed, as he seemed to realize he’d inadvertently insulted himself. Before he could respond, we heard a scream coming from the direction of the main camp. Without a backward glance at us, Elias ran off toward it. We followed close behind.
The first thing I saw was that the party hadn’t been “nearly ready to move again,” as Elias had told us. There were signs all around that others had been in the middle of their lunches too. But no one was eating now. Everyone was on their feet. Some people, particularly those with children, were rushing toward the back of the camp with their little ones. Others—mostly men—were stalking toward the front. Until now, I hadn’t realized how many weapons were in this caravan. Guns and knives abounded.
“What’s going on?” I asked one woman.
“Icori,” she said. “Best hide with us.”
Cedric and I looked at each other in disbelief. “Icori haven’t been in Denham in nearly two years,” he said. He put out an arm to stop me when I started to move forward. “You don’t have to hide, but we probably shouldn’t go bursting into the middle of this until we know what’s going on.”
“I just want to see.”
Cedric reluctantly moved through the crowd with me. He wasn’t the type to try to tell me what I could or couldn’t do. But I had a feeling that if there was any sign of danger, he’d toss me over his shoulder and carry me away kicking and screaming.
We stopped near the edge of a group of would-be prospectors, all with guns drawn. It gave us a clear vantage down the dusty trail through the woods. There, Warren and several other armed men stood in front of two men on horseback who met every description of the Icori I’d ever read or heard. Well, except for the part about them being bloodthirsty demons.
Dress and styling aside, these two looked pretty human to me. One was an older man, late fifties perhaps, with a bushy red beard and a tunic of green plaid. He was the size of a bull, and despite his age, something told me he could hold his own against a younger man in a fight. Probably a dozen younger men. The rider beside him didn’t look much older than Cedric. His bare, muscled chest was painted with designs of blue woad. A tartan in that same green plaid was draped over one shoulder and held with a copper pin. White-blond hair hanging loosely to his shoulders contrasted with his skin. He was the one Warren seemed focused on while speaking.
“And I told you, you have no business here. Icori are not welcome on Denham lands—or any civilized Osfridian lands. Go back to the territories you were ceded.”
“I would gladly do that,” the blond man replied, “if your people would stop trespassing onto our lands.” There were two notable things about the way he spoke. One was that he was remarkably calm, given all the guns pointed at him. Second, his Osfridian was nearly perfect.
“No one wants your lands,” said Warren, which seemed slightly inaccurate given all that Osfrid and other countries across the sea had taken. “If anything, I’ve heard rumors of your people harassing our lands up north. Should that be true, you’ll have real visitors in your lands in the form of our soldiers. A little more serious than these delusions you’re prattling on about.”
“The burned villages I’ve seen aren’t delusions. We demand answers.”
Warren scoffed. “Forgive me if I don’t really feel the two of you can make demands. There’s a lot more of us than there are of you.”
“Shoot ’em!” someone called from the crowd. “Shoot the savages!”
The Icori man remained unfazed and never looked away from Warren. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t need shows of force to open a dialogue on protecting innocents. I’d think that’s what civilized men do.”