Chapter 65. The River That Eats

The return trip carried that peculiar tension good luck breeds—no talk, no detours, ears tuned to nothing and everything. We moved quickly.

The Spine rode wrapped and slung against my back. I could feel it through oilcloth and linen—patient, alert, the way a hawk wears a hood and pretends to sleep.

Whitefall’s spray thinned as the sun climbed. At the top of the path, Leaf darted ahead, then froze so abruptly he skidded. His hackles rose. He made no sound.

Neris’s hand touched my arm. Her other hand flattened in the air: down.

We went to our knees as a shape slid over the lip of the path above us. Not wolves. Not Court. River-boned men with eel-slick hair and eyes too wide for day—Slickers, the kind that make a living taking what the river returns and what it doesn’t.

Six. No, eight. Their leader wore a necklace of rusted hooks.

“Pretty,” he said, eyeing our oil-wrapped bundle with a greed that didn’t know how to hide in civilized spe