My foot throbbed less but my toes and ankle were still tender. What if they didn’t find Diego and the others? What if they got captured? What will I do if they don’t return? What if… The questions raced until they finally collided in my mind. I collapsed, exhausted and trembling, into a corner. But there was one question that left a knot in my stomach: What if I never get to ask Honovi about his kiss? He’d never kissed me before, not like that. I looked outside the cave, watching the sky turn as black as a river bottom. The Sky Wanderers cast a silvery veil over the forest, painting a soft glow at the entrance to the cave. Anxious, I rose and walked to the entrance. I stepped carefully onto the rock ledge and looked up at the trees that hid the cave from the clearing. I sucked back a breath when a branch snapped above me. An owl hooted. I exhaled with relief. An owl I could handle. The owl was perched on a branch somewhere above me, oblivious to my anxiety. With Honovi’s dagger clutched in my right hand, I dug it into the earth on the outside of the cave, feeling supremely useless.
