Llew stood and sidled out from the table, looking around at each of her companions. “Jonas and I can’t run. Nowhere’s safer for us than right here.” All the pain of losing Merrid and Ard, and her anger at Braph’s violation of their sanctuary, settled into cool resolve. “We’re backed into a corner. We’ve no choice but to fight. We need you. All of you.” She made a point to look at Alvaro. He was no Jonas, but at least he could fight. “But I can’t ask any of you to give your lives for something you don’t believe in. If you go now, you should be free to do so. Turhmos has no reason to hurt any of you.”

  Rowan, Elka, and Alvaro stood impassive, unmoved by Llew’s words. Anya opened her mouth to speak, but, surrounded by silence, she retreated.

  “We’re in.” Rowan glanced at Elka, who nodded. “I mean, if that wasn’t obvious from, you know, racing out of our ma’s house with you.” Rowan flashed a smile and looked at his sister for confirmation. Elka nodded again. “Anything you need,” Rowan finished.

  “Thanks. We could definitely use your practical skills, and Elka’s medical knowledge. We need Alvaro’s sword, if you’ll lend it. And Anya …”

  “You need a friend. Someone who will root for you every step of the way; make sure you’ve eaten and can focus on what’s important,” Anya said. “I’m here for you.”

  Llew was overwhelmed by the love in the room, and the sense of dread. Alone, she’d needed no one. Now, she didn’t know how she could ever go back to that. She used to think that needing others signified weakness, but here, now, basking in the support of her friends, she didn’t think she’d ever felt stronger. Still, she couldn’t deny an uneasiness that she didn’t know what she might end up leading them all into. The bodies hanging outside were a powerful indicator, along with a source of pain that cut so deep Llew had to fight the urge to curl up in a corner just to remain standing and take up the mantle of leadership the situation demanded.

  Her gaze rested on Jonas slumped across the table. One step at a time. First: Save Jonas.

  “Help me get him out to the tree.”

  Rowan moved immediately to help, scooping Jonas from the bench seat, while Llew collected Jonas’s crutch, and they ran to the nearest Ajnai that wasn’t dead from Llew’s efforts to revive Ard a couple of weeks earlier. Rowan did his best to lean Jonas against a trunk. The wait for Elka to hobble across the cartway was almost unbearable. Anya walked beside her.

  Alvaro placed himself just off to the side, a scowl darkening his face. “This is one of those trees.”

  “That’s right.” Llew murmured.

  Alvaro’s eyes darted from Jonas slumped at the base of the tree to Llew to Elka and Anya. “Well, don’t you just touch him now? And it works?”

  “He’s Karan. We have to do it differently.”

  Elka placed her satchel down and dug around inside for a syringe, her hands covered in leather gloves.

  Alvaro’s scowl turned perplexed. “But last time— I mean, didn’t you just—” He vaguely mimicked Llew grasping Cassidy and Jonas’s wrists, as she had to keep them alive long enough to get them to the Ajnai, while trying not to destroy too much of the Turhmosian landscape.

  “It’s different now.” Llew loosened her sleeve, rolling it to expose her inner elbow where Braph had always extracted her blood from previously. Elka approached with the syringe. She couldn’t balance in a crouch, but she managed to sit herself down beside Llew and arrange her legs in a way that was comfortable for her.

  “Pump your fist, like this.” Elka demonstrated opening and closing her hand and Llew copied. “There,” Elka said after a few squeezes, and pointed with the needle to a blue line beneath Llew’s skin. Llew took a deep breath, preparing herself for the bite. “Ready?” Elka looked up at Llew. Llew nodded and turned her head, hoping to reduce her experience of the minor pain if she didn’t see the needle pierce her.

  A moment later, she felt it and was then able to watch Elka suction the blood into the vial.

  “What is this?” Alvaro stood over them. “You never had to do that before.”

  “This is how Kara can use Aenuk blood to heal themselves.”

  Vial full, Elka withdrew the needle, paused, and looked at Llew. “Does it matter where it goes?”

  Llew was struck by the question from her medical expert, but of course Elka had never taken part in this particular remedy before. For a moment, Llew even doubted her own knowledge, but she thought back to what she knew of Braph’s devices, and the few times they’d used the needles themselves. “Into his bloodstream. A vein …”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Elka shuffled closer to Jonas, syringe held aloft, while Llew pressed her hand to the tree, closing her tiny wound and refilling her blood vessels. The tingling lasted little more than an instant. She pushed off the tree and crawled to Jonas’s side as Elka slid the needle into a prominent vein on the back of his hand. Llew spared a glance for their audience. Rowan watched with intense fascination. Anya looked vaguely horrified. Alvaro watched with a stern expression that didn’t entirely give away what he was thinking, but Llew could guess. And he wasn’t going to like her answer.

  Elka depressed the plunger slightly, then paused.

  “What are you doing?” Llew asked.

  “If it bruises, I got it wrong.”

  Llew studied the spot where the needle disappeared under Jonas’s skin. She could see nothing. She looked up. The day’s shadows were muted under an overcast sky. She had no idea how much blood Jonas would require to be merely normal again, and get him through the night.

  Elka continued to depress the plunger and withdrew the needle. Llew presented her arm again and, once Elka had refilled the vial, pressed her hand to the tree again.

  “No. There’s something you’re not telling me,” Alvaro said. “Why do you need to do that? It worked differently last time.”

  Anya reached a hand in his direction, but didn’t touch him.

  “It’s because I’m not pregnant anymore. Okay?” Llew’s heart ached to have to say it, the loss still raw, but she didn’t have the energy to say anything but the truth.

  Alvaro stared at her for a few moments, then turned and stormed off.

  “I could … talk to him …” Anya said.

  “Let him go.” Llew presented her arm for Elka again.

  They injected two more vials before Llew clung to the tree a little longer, willing it to be sure she held no injury, then moved to Jonas’s side and took up his hand and stroked the thumb of her other across his forehead. “Come on. You can do this.”

  He looked back at her, listless.

  “Don’t worry about your leg, yet. Let’s get some energy back.”

  “I don’t—” He stopped to swallow and take a deep breath. “I don’t know what n— needs fixin’.”

  “What did Braph tell you the first time?” Llew hated to turn to Braph for wisdom, and yet, if it hadn’t been for him, they wouldn’t know how to help Jonas or any other Karan. “You just need to feel better. Maybe that’s all you need to do. Think about how you want to feel.”

  Jonas puffed out a frustrated breath. “It’s too much, Llew. I’m tired.”

  Llew wasn’t about to admit to everyone the terror screaming through her at the thought Jonas might be too weak to heal himself. He had to heal himself. He was Karan. There was no other option.

  “More blood.” She nodded to Elka and extended her arm.

  A couple more vials of blood and Llew was almost certain Jonas’s eyes looked more alive. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” she urged, then moved around him, and knelt by his shortened limb, unpinned the cut end of his trouser leg, slid it up over the bandage and set about unwrapping his stump. “Let’s see if we can’t fix this, hey?”

  The end of the bandage slipped away from his stump. Anya gasped, but otherwise kept her reaction in check. And Llew presented her arm again.

  “Think,” she said to Jonas. “Remember at the Ajnai how you healed a bone, and all those cuts and grazes. This is partly done already. You just need to finish it.”

  Jonas nodded and kept concentrating. When Llew pressed her hand to the tree again she sensed fear alongside the healing tingle and closed her eyes in acknowledgment. This tree had done all it could. She presented her arm again for Elka, then moved to the next tree in line to close the hole and replace the blood.

  “Rowan, time to put your thinking hat on.”

  “My—?” He rolled his eyes as if trying to see the top of his own head and patted it with a hand.

  Llew laughed, even as Elka jabbed the needle home again and Jonas’s lack of progress filled her stomach with dread. She lunged back to the new tree, healed, and scurried back to Jonas. She raised his stump, inspecting the wounds where Raena had stitched the skin flaps closed, and she thought— Yes … She brushed fingers over some of the stitching, and it fell away, pushed through and out of his skin. “It’s working!” She cared little if her manic joy showed.