“I don’t know.”
“Dothey? Do you tell those girls what they’re running to?”
“Of course not. They’re already willing to forfeit their lives. They get what they want, and we do as well. It’s a perfect arrangement.” He brushed at the knees of his trousers.
“It’s barbaric.”
“It’s necessary,” he corrected flatly. “If the founders hadn’t agreed to this one little thing, we wouldn’t be here. There would be no Stones. The Bright-Eyeds would have hunted us off within a fortnight. One life every seven years for the safety of the town is a payment small indeed.”
“You think he’s dead,” she realized. “Ellis.”
Hessel weighed out his response. “You truly saw a Bright-Eyed?”
She nodded. He made a sound of disappointment, but she understood it was not for Ellis.
“Will it count? His sacrifice? If the Bright-Eyed got him before the Benevolence could?”
Her father looked at a loss for words.
“He’s not dead,” Greer decided. “I’d feel it if he were. Here.” She touched her chest and could feel the shape of the necklace beneathher fingertips. A plan began to stir, deep in the recesses of her mind. It wasn’t entirely formed yet, but the foundation was being laid, piece by piece, brick by brick.
She had the necklace.
She had her maps.
She just needed…
Greer frowned. There was so much she needed. So much she’d be unable to source stuck in this room.
A sound caught her attention then, the padding of footsteps soft and sly. They were too light to be any of the Stewards, too surreptitious. Someone had slipped into their house and was sneaking about.
Greer waited for Hessel to hear the intruder, but he just stared, mulling over her words. She wondered at his oblivious ignorance, and for the first time, instead of envy, she pitied him: how terrible to go through life so completely unaware of what was truly going on around you.
“Perhaps he’s not,” he finally allowed. “But if Beaufort is alive now, if he somehow managed to survive a night out there, it’s only a matter of time. As you said, there’s the wind and the cold, the wolves and the bears. The Bright-Eyeds.”
Greer caught a sharp intake of breath, the clap of fingers over someone’s mouth to stifle a whimper. She recognized the pitch and instantly knew the footsteps belonged to Louise.
Louise was here.
Greer’s mind raced, putting the last bit of her plan together. How could she let her friend know what she needed without giving her presence away?
“Ellis is alive,” she said firmly, more for Louise’s benefit than Hessel’s. “He’s alive, and I’m going after him.”
Her father’s laughter was short and dark. “He’s gone. You need to let him go.”
Greer shook her head, seeing a slim chance. “I just need a bag. I’ll fill it with my maps, and food and water, and then I’ll go after him. You won’t have to send anyone with me. I’ll go alone.”
“You’re not going anywhere except down the aisle of Steward House to wed Lachlan Davis,” Hessel snapped, his patience waning.“That.Thatis where you are going. Andthisis where you’ll stay till then.”
He stood up so abruptly that the wooden chair beneath him clattered over.
Greer heard Louise dart away to keep from being caught. She wanted to cheer as she heard her friend slip out the front door, undetected. She prayed Louise was on her way home, already sorting through what Greer would need.
She narrowed her eyes at Hessel. “I’d rather risk every creature in the whole of the woods than spend even one night as Lachlan’s wife.”
Cheeks burning with anger, Hessel left the room, slamming the door behind him.
18
