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Kitsune s him toward the river

Then Oliver understood He stopped, trying to pull her back "Kit, no It’s freezing"

"Public space, reh to find us a place to cross through the Veil before dawn, before the police catch up with us?"

Oliver sighed "You know I don’t"

Kitsune raised her hood, jade eyes gleaether, they leaped into the Danube, and through the Veil

Oliver lay in a shallow creek, barelyinto the Danube Back on the ht of less and less as his oorld--it had still been dark, the sky that pure indigo of the hour before dawn But in the real rich colors out of the landscape Trees seereen, the sky extraordinarily blue, and the coppery fur of Kitsune’s cloak a brighter red than ever before

It occurred to Oliver that perhaps this sharpness of color, the vividness of the world around hi of escaping with his life If so, he appreciated that there was at least one benefit to their circuht cold, yet he lay there and shivered, feeling the stones beneath hih his clothes, and the little rivulets that strealanced at Kitsune She shook herself, water spraying from her fur cloak The absurdity of it and the exultation of their escape h

"That…was a close one," Oliver hed, corners of her lips still turned up in a broad smile The sun lit her features so that it seemed she had her own internal luet all of your troubles sorted out and go ho yourself"

Oliver’s laughter died Thoughts of hohts of Julianna, and he stared at Kitsune--her beauty painful to regard--and any trace of hu there beside him in the small brook

"I’ himself with the honesty of his answer "After all of this, I don’t knohat’ll be left to go back to If Julianna’s gone…"

His time with the Borderkind had irrevocably altered hi that And with all that had happened, there were a great many people who had questions for him that he would find impossible to answer Trouble waited for him back in his world But his house, his childhood home, that waited as well And his job His friends

But without Julianna, none of that razed his, the water rushing over their hands "Then don’t go back"

Oliver stared at her, letting her fingers play against his

"I love her, you know," he said softly

Her eyes narrowed and she pulled away Tendrils of her hair streamed in the brook, and as she lifted her head, water dripped and ran down her cloak, which glistened with droplets

"Yes," she said "I know"

"And I’ll find her"

Kitsune ue as though using it to test the wind--or taste the wind Oliver watched the stiffness in her manner, the foresture, and he rose froret

He had survived this long partly due to Kitsune’s help Had she not acco since dead But for the first tian to think that it would be best if he and Kit parted ways Traveling with her clouded his mind, when he desperately needed focus

To think he didn’t have a hoo back to--that was pure foolishness When Collette had been in the ly, both financially and personally, she’d called the process triage In catastrophic circu first on the patients ere horribly injured, but not so far gone that they were likely to die even with treatment

You saved what you could, one proble would be problematic when the tie Save Collette Save hiet himself home to Julianna and whatever else awaited him

So, much as he hated the chill that had just descended between himself and Kitsune, Oliver only followed as she walked away

For nearly an hour they wandered across fields and along cart paths lined with delicate-looking trees and low shrubs with tiny leaves Kitsune seemed unsure of their direction, but Oliver dared not question At length they cah even to warrant the word village Most of the dwellings appeared to be terazed freely on the surrounding hills, not penned but guarded by shepherds with a distinctly eastern aspect They ool vests against the chill, and soear fashioned fro so much as warriors ould have bowed to the commands of a sultan

As they made their way into the settlement, men and women alike watched theing at his hip gave hih she were his ht have been sohty Borderkind keeping the ordinary man in his place, but Oliver did not think so The hood of her cloak fra her features in shadow so that for once he could not even see the jade gleam of her eyes He was quite sure this was precisely the effect she desired

Oliver rested his palm upon the handle of his sword If she wished for hiuard, he would Thea pantoiant Yet Oliver knew that shadoere only strange contortions of the truth

After they had passed through the entire encaht for a ed froan to shamble toward them, accompanied by a pair of men in horned fur caps These two carried spears, the first weapons he’d seen

Kitsune and the old woe Oliver did not understand The nomadic matriarch studied Kit warily as they spoke, and after a few ratitude and then started off again, this tile that would take them past a herd of sheep and into the sunless shade of those delicate, unfamiliar trees