“You . . . followed someone? A human?”
“I didn’t have a choice.” That much was true at least.
“The base was compromised. By a human.” She shook her head with wonder. “And you abandoned your patrol to stop it.”
He closed his eyes. Perhaps she’d think he passed out. The smell of the stew made his stomach roll.
“Very curious,” Grace said. “There was always risk of a compromise, but from within the processing center. How could a human in your sector know anything about the cleansing?”
Playing possum wasn’t going to work. He opened his eyes. The crow had not moved. The bird stared at him, and he remembered the owl on the sill and the little boy in the bed and the fear. “I’m not sure she did.”
“She?”
“Yes. It was a . . . a female.”
“Cassiopeia.”
He looked sharply at her, couldn’t help it. “How do you . . . ?”
“I’ve heard it a lot over the past three days.”
“Three days?”
His heart quickened. He had to ask. But how could he? Asking might make her more suspicious than she already was. It would be foolish to ask. So he said, “I think she might have escaped.”
Grace smiled. “Well, if she did, I’m sure we’ll find her.”
He let his breath out slowly. Grace would have no reason to lie. If she had found Cassie, she would have killed her and had no reservations in telling him. Though Grace not finding her was no proof of life: Cassie still may not have survived.
Grace reached into her rucksack again and took out a bottle of cream. “For the burns,” she explained. Gingerly, she pulled the blanket down, exposing his naked body to the freezing air. Above them, the crow cocked its polished black head and watched.
The cream was cold. Her hands were warm. Grace had brought him out of fire; he had brought Cassie out of ice. He’d carried her through the undulating sea of white to the old farmhouse, where he removed her clothes and plunged her freezing body into warm water. As Grace’s hands, slick with salve, roamed his body, his fingers had worked through the ice encrusted in Cassie’s thick hair. Removing the bullet as she floated in the water stained pink by her blood. The bullet meant for her heart. His bullet. And, after he pulled her from the water and bandaged the wound, carrying her to his sister’s bed, averting his eyes as he dressed her in his sister’s gown; Cassie would have been mortified when she realized he’d seen her unclothed.
Grace’s eyes fixed on him. His eyes fixed on the teddy bear on the pillow. He pulled the covers to Cassie’s chin. Grace pulled the blanket to his.
You’re going to live, he told Cassie. More of a prayer than a promise.
“You’re going to live,” Grace told him.
You have to live, he said to Cassie. “I have to,” he said to Grace.
The way she cocked her head as she looked at him, like the crow in the tree, the owl on the sill.
“We all have to,” Grace said, nodding slowly. “It’s why we came.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. Warm breath, cool lips, and the faint odor of wood smoke. Her lips slid from his cheek toward his mouth. He turned his head.
“How did you know her name?” she whispered in his ear. “Cassiopeia. How did you know Cassiopeia?”