Witch Born(33)
Her gaze snapped to his. He knew her so well, perhaps too well. “Maybe.”
“Senna, we’ve talked about this!” Joshen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tarten has a standing order to shoot any witch on sight. It’s too dangerous. I want you to swear you’ll give this insanity up.”
She slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”
“At least promise you’ll tell me before you do anything foolish.”
So he could try to stop her? Not really meaning it, she nodded.
He took a step closer. “Say it, Senna.”
She stood her ground. “What about your promises? The ones you made as my Guardian—to always protect me and support me? What about those promises?”
“That’s what I’m trying to do! You’re my Witch, and—”
Anger flushed through Senna. “I’m not anyone’s Witch but my own!”
He took a deep breath. “Sometimes you need to trust me, trust I’m only looking after you.”
She stood completely still. “And I’m looking after the world.”
His face was hard. “I won’t let you walk into that kind of danger again. You wouldn’t make it out alive.”
Guilt warred with the anger charring her insides. “Something’s coming, Joshen, and we all have a part to play. It’s taken me a long time to accept that, but I have. Now you have to accept your part—accept it or reject it. Because supporting me and protecting me are not always the same thing.”
“Accept it? I don’t accept it! I won’t.” He started pacing back and forth, his hands buried in his hair.
Senna backed away. Joshen had been through so much for her, but that didn’t give him the right to demand she obey him. She turned and pulled open the door to her house, then stepped in and shut it firmly behind her.
Breathing hard, Senna stood with her back to the wall and peeked out at him. He stood considering her closed door, frustration creasing his brow.
Maybe if Joshen hadn’t been so tired, he would have come inside and insisted on personally keeping her out of trouble. But he didn’t.
Senna waited until he was long gone before making sure her pistol was loaded. She slipped back out again.
She crossed the island and marched up to the Guardian standing at the elaborately arched cave entrance. It was the man Joshen had been sparring with the day before—Collum. On closer inspection, she saw he wasn’t much older than her. His skin was the color of rich earth, his hair divided into little, beaded braids. She found she couldn’t look at him. He reminded her too much of Leary—of the fact that she’d gotten Joshen’s best friend killed.
Collum raised an eyebrow at the sight of her. “Apprentice Senna, you know you can’t come inside unless you’ve permission.”
His soft, rolling accent was like Leary’s, too. She tried to swallow around the stone lodged in her throat. “I’m looking for Pogg. Has he finished fishing yet?”
The man’s beads clinked as he nodded. “He went to sun himself on the rocks. You might try there.”
Senna glanced up at the sky. They still had a few hours before dark. “Thank you.”
“Apprentice Senna?”
She stopped but couldn’t bring herself to face him.
“My name is Collum. Has Joshen told you that you sailed with my cousin, Leary?”
The world seemed to expand, pressing in on her and robbing her of her air. Collum reached out to steady her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. “Leary saved my life,” she said, shaking her head. She would not cry. “I’m sorry.”
She pulled away from Collum and stumbled in the direction the Guardian had indicated. Here, part of the cliff had collapsed, taking a good portion of the staircase with it. She scrambled up the rock-fall until she found Pogg. The mottled green creature reminded her of a frog. He had a wide face with even wider cheeks. Instead of a nose, there were only dark slits that closed when he was swimming.
She collapsed beside him. “I need your help.”
Pogg turned slowly toward her. There was no white around his irises, only the cloudy blue-brown that reminded her of the ambiguous color of an infant’s eyes. “Seennnaaa?”
He was always slow when he grew overcold. “Do you still have keys to the island’s tree houses?” Pogg was a bit like a raccoon in collecting discarded and lost things. His fascination with keys was why Senna had been able to move so freely from one tree house to another during her time alone on the island.
Pogg’s clear inner lids slid over his eyes. It took him a long time to answer. “Pogg gets Senna fresh fishes?”