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sure what had gone on between these two, but in Vance’s early days in the Obsidian guild, their arguments had been at least as bad as Aika’s and Misha’s.
    “He’s usually less obscure,” I pointed out. “Would you excuse me a moment?”
    I didn’t wait for permission before I stood almost as abruptly as Malachi had.
    Farrell was deep in conversation with Aika as I approached. I overheard her saying, “Sometimes I think she
misses
Midnight, with the way she goes on. Are you sure she’s not going so she can find an excuse to sell herself back?”
    “I can only pray she is not,” Farrell said, each word precise.
    “And watch your own back. She—” Aika broke off when she noticed me. “Kadee, it looks like Vance will be in charge of the blacksmith trip. I’m staying here after all. Did you still want me to help you with your staff-work?”
    I was a fair shot with the bow I carried, and I could throw a knife with reasonable accuracy—at least, before I stupidly lost my favorite in the flank of a deer that fled before I could try for a better shot—but Aika was determined to teach me more defensive fighting skills.
    “Actually,” I said, looking from Aika to Farrell, “I was thinking I might join the group going to the market.”
    I expected him to object, even though he believed absolutely that a child of Obsidian was subject only to her own will. Farrell guided but did not rule, and the rest of us often listened but were expected to make our own decisions.
    Instead, he raised his brows with surprise. “First Vance, then Misha, and now you?”
    “Misha’s coming?” That explained why Aika
wasn’t
, and what they had been talking about when I approached. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
    If Misha lashed out at someone in the market, she would be arrested by Midnight’s guards and end up back where she had been, back where her night terrors made it clear a part of her was still trapped. It would be passive suicide.
    Like Aika, I suspected it had crossed Misha’s mind at least once that it was easier to give up than it was to be a prophesied savior.
    “No, I’m not,” Farrell answered.
But it isn’t our place to tell her no
.
    I swallowed, wondering if I dared go and risk being near her—
    No
, I told myself.
She has nightmares, and she’s on edge, but she isn’t suicidal. She is supposed to be the one who will rescue us from Midnight. How can she do that if she is too afraid to even face the market?
    I had to believe that.
    “Do you still want to come with us?” Farrell asked.
    I nodded. “Malachi said something to me about Shane and the Shantel.”
    “You still have an open invitation to visit Shantel land, don’t you?” he asked. “You don’t need to look for them in the market.”
    I bit my lip. As absurd as it sounded, I felt safer in Midnight’s market than I did in the Shantel forest. My “open invitation,” as Farrell put it, was left over from when I had been a child. The Shantel were not normally so welcoming of outsiders, but they were the ones who had stolen me from my human kin and brought me to this world of shapeshifters, and it was their magic that had taught me to shapeshift before the seizures killed me. Because they had taken responsibility for me once, they claimed they had a responsibility to me in the future as well.
    Despite that noble notion, I wasn’t sure my invitation would still be valid. If the Shantel had heard the same rumors as the serpiente, and thought the Obsidian guild might be responsible for turning them in, they might conveniently forget I had once been a child in their care.
    “Malachi said I should go,” I said, feigning indifference that Farrell was sure to see through.
    “As you wish,” he answered. “We’ll leave in an hour.”
    The next hour was occupied with frantic packing and rapid conversations about value, and which supplies were most needed and which we should only get if we could afford them. Aika didn’t trust anyone