Mishtaw relented even more after I finished my tenth lap around the Rookery. I wasn’t sure if Ressia put her foot down again or if she changed her mind on her own. All I could focus on at that point was putting one foot in front of the other because if I stopped I’d collapse and I refused to do that in front of anyone.

Mishtaw took me by the shoulders and subtly held me up while I tried to process why I wasn’t moving forward anymore. “You’re determination and lack of complaint have been noted. Go rest and you’ll complete your punishment later.”

Which somehow turned into her taking me to my bedroll despite my protests and nearly a week of rest as my bruises slowly faded. Mishtaw didn’t stay at the Rookery. After my first day of punishment she reminded me that she’d be returning to collect me during the Dark Night celebrations before she disappeared back into the shadows to either go after the kidnapper again or return to whatever she’d been doing before she got summoned to the Rookery. It would have been nice to know for sure what kept her so busy but that wasn’t something she ever seemed to remember to share.

Training slowly resumed even as I recovered. Tufani had us focus on our less physical lessons at first before gradually reintroducing flying lessons. From what I could tell she used the extra time trying to convince Juniper that going up in the air wasn’t the worst thing ever. She also seemed to keep an extra close eye on Barra.

The whisper woman was still infuriatingly difficult to read, but it didn’t take a genius to see the way the rest of the Rookery watched her now. She kept a gentle smile on her lips like she didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt for the initial burst of music, but then she would bring food to those who were recovering or use her blessing for anyone who asked without complaint. Small tasks, small favors. Just enough to make you wonder if Barra was hiding stronger emotions behind her smile.

I overheard others make the argument that we wouldn’t have even known the harp was gone if she hadn’t went to the statue, but since the kidnapper had taken Juniper too I thought that was a moot point. I probably wouldn’t have even had the chance to take the search for Juniper into my own hands if the kidnapper hadn’t felt the need to use the harp to put her to sleep and caused secondhand chaos throughout the Rookery. Tufani would have been to on top of everything.

I did know that we were lucky that the kidnapper didn’t seem to have full control over the harp or Juniper would likely still be kidnapped and Mishtaw might be dead, depending on how thorough the kidnapper decided to be if he had been able to put us asleep without putting himself under at the same time. I doubted he meant to signal his presence by making the harp cover a large section of the woodland the first time. If he had been able to just put Barra to sleep, there might have been less urgency and more mystery while he got further and further away with the harp and Juniper.

Ressia stayed at the Rookery with the other black handed healers the Seedling Palace had sent for two whole weeks. They helped to keep the care level manageable for the Rookery’s resident healer until those with more minor injuries healed up enough to manage on their own. Really, they probably didn’t need to be around for two whole weeks when it came to human injuries, but they also did what they could for the storm birds who had been hurt and each bird took multiple people to set wings or treat other injuries. The Rookery had their own code for what counted as first aid or not when it came to bird care, so the caretakers helped their birds too, but everyone preferred the healers doing the healing adjacent things while they were there, just in case.

All of which meant that Ressia was there to bother me as much as she liked. Suspiciously, she and Prevna arrived together when they came to check on me sometimes. I wanted to press Prevna about what they could possibly be talking about, but I wasn’t willing to press her on much of anything since I left her in the woods. And I couldn’t ask Ressia in case she decided to gossip about it later.

So, instead I’d glare a bit and grumble, and they’d tease me about that instead. It wasn’t really better, but it didn’t feel like I’d ruin things completely as long as they continued like that. As long Prevna kept up some her old habits even if she didn’t bump shoulders with me or lean against me for comfort anymore. Even if I knew that meant she hadn’t completely forgiven me yet.

Prevna found me resting against the back of the hut one night while I watched the stars. She leaned back against the hut as well but stayed on her feet. A silence settled over us, not wholly comfortable or tense, but some unsettling mix of the two that seemed to have characterized our interactions lately.

After it became clear that she wasn’t going to start whatever conversation she wanted to have I searched for something to say. Something that would make her go back to being exasperated and amused by me, full of good humor. Something to make her understand.

“If…if I could have taken you through the shadow paths with me I would have.”

She tilted her head to the side so she could look down at me. “But you would leave on your own again if you had to.”

“I couldn’t leave it unfinished.” My teeth ground together. This was already going wrong. “I can’t die.”

She pretended to be shocked. “What?”

“So it’s better for me to go if I can.”

“But you can still be hurt,” Prevna said. I stiffened at the frustrated conviction coating her voice. “So hurt that you can barely move without flinching for days. Hurt enough that you can’t walk and you do it over and over again.”

“I—” I tried to defend myself but Prevna had decided on what she wanted to say and she wasn’t stopping now.

“You throw yourself into danger like you aren’t going to come back bruised and bloody, and you don’t even have the decency to wonder what that might be like to see over and over when you don’t even let me help.” Prevna paced back and forth in the snow. “You disappear all the time—which, fine, you need time alone—but ever since I found you in the tree I can’t help but wonder if I’ll find you frozen again. If you’ll be caught in a memory. If this time I won’t be able to help with whatever mess you got yourself into.”

I stared at her, not sure what to do. Part of me wanted to run away from the things she was saying while another part wanted to poke holes in what she was saying to test how much she actually cared.

“If it’s so difficult for you why don’t you just leave?” The question sounded so much more like a challenge than I wanted it to.

“No.”

I blinked. “No?”

She rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and glared down at me. “I told you: I’ll be your friend even if you won’t be mine.”

“But you are.”

I should have kept my mouth shut and just endured the awkward silence. At least then my tongue wouldn’t be saying all sorts of things I didn’t want it to. Dangerous things that would either push Prevna further away or bring her closer than I wanted or was comfortable with.

Still, my comment pulled Prevna up short as something like relief loosened her limbs. I frowned. “You had to know that already.”

Prevna dropped into a crouch, arms covering her face, and laughed in the kind of way that typically meant that if you didn’t laugh you’d be crying. “Storms.”

“But I let you lean on me. And you know everything.” My tongue had gone rogue and I found I wasn’t as upset as I should have been about admitting to it all.

“You didn’t tell me everything. I found out on my own.”

“That’s the only way that works.” As if I’d ever tell anyone about the memories. If someone found out it was probably because they suffered through enough time with me to notice when things went wrong.

“Gimley.” There it was. The exasperated amusement. The knowing smile. “Your default is pushing people away and glaring. You can’t blame me for not being sure.”

I glared at her for that assessment and she chuckled again, more genuine than before. Then she moved and collapsed next to me so that she could lean into my side. When I didn’t shift away or tell her to move, she rested her head against mine.

“Are you going to run off on your own again?”

“Probably,” I grumbled.

I felt her hold back a sigh. “Fine, but try to remember that just because you can’t die doesn’t mean you are invincible.”

“Fine.”

And that was that. It finally didn’t feel like I was one word away from pushing Prevna away forever.

- -

I finished my laps around the Rookery at the end of the week even though Mishtaw wasn’t there to watch me do it. Barra and Ressia took up the difficult role of counting how many times I passed the feathered tree instead while Tufani kept the rest of the cohort’s training going. I couldn’t decide if the pair got along well from the snatches of conversation I heard when I passed the tree or if they were enjoying a silent contest to see if they could get the other to bow out of the polite, boring conversation first. It covered everything from the weather to what accessories were the best to wear. Unsurprisingly, Barra was in favor of jewelry and Ressia supported functional pieces. I always went a bit faster as I crossed by where they were resting.

I didn’t have the stamina to run the full ten remaining laps, but I did complete them and didn’t need to be carried to my bedroll after. Instead I rested with Anore in her nest for a bit and then had the misfortune of running into Juniper and her two guards on my way to the evening meal.

Idra looked like she wanted to punch me and Ento just raised her eyebrows. Juniper…tried to look anywhere but me. She had thanked me for rescuing her while I was still recovering from my first round of laps around the Rookery, but we hadn’t interacted much since we returned to the Rookery other than that.

From what I could tell she was blaming me for being faced with our flying lessons again. She hadn’t wanted to be kidnapped but she also hadn’t really wanted to be forced back into practicing flying and shadow walking. All the things she wasn’t good at. She didn’t want to be a seedling anymore. And now she was right back where she started thanks to being rescued.

Honestly, I was a little surprised she hadn’t run away to try to rejoin her tribe yet, but being kidnapped twice in the woods might have put her off from trying to escape through them.

I debated my options and decided simple was best. They obviously didn’t want to interact with me, I didn’t want to interact with them…so after a brief stutter step, I continued walking and did my best to ignore them.

Idra had other ideas. Before I could disappear around another nest she yelled after me, “You should run away!”

I stopped to look over my shoulder at her. “I’m not the one running away.”

She crossed her arms and lifted her big nose into the air. “Sure looks like it to me.”

“Guess you can’t see past your own nose then.”

I left them with Idra gaping like a fish, Ento faintly scowling, and Juniper still doing her best not to make eye contact. Far from the confident impressions they had first left when I met them in the Seedling Palace.

All in all, not bad work for a basic insult.

Even if I knew it’d be better if Juniper was still full of determination and the others weren’t feeling like failures. All I could offer was spite.