The Poison Season(47)

“But we have each other, Sage.”

She shrugged. “We do for now. But we won’t always be together. And if I ever come across an outsider, I want to be ready.”

A chill ran down Leelo’s spine. “Ready?”

“I swear, when we arrived for our Watch and the boat was there, I was praying an outsider had come. Praying for my chance to protect Endla.”

“Wouldn’t you be scared to meet an outsider?”

Sage laughed and nodded toward the far shore. “Scared? Of one of those pathetic villagers? I’d welcome it.”

Leelo swallowed, her mouth dry. “What if they snuck up on you? What if they caught you by surprise?”

She shook her head. “Impossible. How can I be surprised, when I’m the one doing all the sneaking?”

Leelo was quiet for a moment. “What if...what if they weren’t a monster, like you thought? What if they were good?”

Sage looked at Leelo like she’d grown an extra pair of hands. “Good? Don’t be a fool, Leelo. Your mother has put some ridiculous notions into your head, but that one is just plain dangerous.” She shook her head again, this time in disgust. “You’re lucky you have me, you know. Left to your own devices, you’d probably bring an outsider home for dinner.”

Leelo paced near the hidden cottage, wasting precious time as the sun sank below the treetops. Her conversation with Sage had renewed her fear of Jaren, or at least of being caught. Saints, if Sage knew the mess she’d gotten herself into, she’d never let Leelo out of the house again.

But every time she thought about telling her mother, or worse, leaving Jaren to starve, she kept coming back to this: it wasn’t his fault. She’d been singing when she shouldn’t have been. She knew there were consequences, and though she’d told herself it was worth the cost if it meant Tate could stay, she had been wrong. Whatever other outsiders were like, she didn’t sense that this one was dangerous, even if that did make her a fool. Even if it was simply because she wanted to believe that Tate stood a chance among people like Jaren, not the monsters Sage and Ketty said they were.

Finally, she knocked on the door and entered. Jaren was lying on his blanket, staring up at the ceiling, his head resting on her father’s sweater. He scrambled upright at the sight of her, straightening his mussed hair with a sheepish grin.

“Are you busy?” Leelo asked with mock concern. “I can come back another time...”

“No!” he shouted, so loud she glanced around to be sure no one had heard. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Sorry. I’m just bored to tears. I always thought I’d enjoy a break from my noisy family, but it turns out, I need human interaction as much as I need water.”

“Speaking of which.” Leelo entered the cottage and closed the door, taking her usual seat with her back against it. She pulled out fresh waterskins and food. “Here you go. Oh, I almost forgot.” She reached deeper into her pack and pulled out a piece of parchment and a bit of charcoal. “So you can draw those instruments for me.”

“Thank you. I wasn’t sure if you were coming today.”

“Neither was I.”

Worry flickered over his brow as he drained a waterskin. “Oh?”

She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. She had thought she could keep up the charade that Jaren was entirely dependent on her, without telling him the truth about her own vulnerability. But she needed him to know that there were stakes for her as well. That coming to see him wasn’t simply a matter of inconvenience.

It was a matter of life or death.

“What’s wrong?” Jaren asked, with what sounded like genuine concern. “Anything I can help with?”

She puffed out a rueful laugh. “Not unless you can turn back time and stay far away from Endla.”

“Sadly, I haven’t figured that out just yet.”

“Pity.” She took a deep breath, praying she wasn’t about to make a huge mistake. “The thing is, Jaren, I was supposed to kill you.”

“I surmised that when you mentioned not killing me yet the other day.”

She pushed her hair out of her face. “It’s not just that I was supposed to kill you. It was my sworn duty to kill you, to protect Endla from outsiders. That’s the whole purpose of the Watchers.”

“And I take it not killing me means you could get into a lot of trouble.”

“Not just trouble. I could be exiled.”

“Leelo—”

She cut him off, wanting to get this out and be done with it. “I know Endla must seem like a frightening place to you, but you have to understand that it’s your world that is frightening to me. We have good reason to distrust outsiders, and I could be sent away from Endla forever for helping you. The villagers across the water would kill me the moment I stepped foot on the mainland. Not that you would care, but—”

He shook his head. “That’s not true, Leelo.”

“My mother is ill, Jaren. And if I can’t take care of her, she could die. It was bad enough when my brother left, but if I went, too—”

“Your brother is incantu, isn’t he?”

Leelo’s breath caught. She hadn’t meant to bring Tate into this. She wasn’t sure she was ready to lay her soul that bare. But it was too late to turn back now. She nodded, and the next thing she knew, she was sobbing.