We were both jumping out of our skin with excitement and a giddy, overflow of love; we were drenched in it. But there wasn’t time, yet, to enjoy each other. ‘He’s going to kill me when I tell him he missed it,’ Finn muttered. ‘Ma too,’ I agreed. ‘We’ll do it again, when all of this is over.’ ‘Deal.’ Isadora and Penn were still sitting with Jonah, who’d not yet regained consciousness. ‘Sorry,’ Finn breathed as we entered. ‘We had to deal with something that couldn’t wait. What happened?’ Penn hugged her for a long time. ‘What are you wearing?’ he asked her. Finn shot me a guilty look. ‘We were captured on the road,’ Isadora explained darkly. ‘Warders. They gave us to half a dozen Pirenti soldiers, who brought us north in a cage.’ ‘How did you escape?’ Isadora’s eyes were a deeper red than usual as she said, ‘I killed them.’ There was silence in the room. ‘All of them,’ Penn murmured. ‘All of them.’ ‘What did they want with you?’ Finn asked.
