Page 37 of Resisting the Alien Rider

I hoped he felt more than a little silly for waking up an idra over something that was so quick and painless he barely even registered when it was over.

Afterwards, I took some time at the creek to wash the blood and idra guts off. I finally let myself use a little bit of Magnolia’s soap, rationing it like a man who knew that he’d be starving soon. I sheered the smallest slice of it away with my claw and used the suds to clean the torn skin of my chest and tail. It stung as much as it soothed, and I found I liked the contrast.I used some on the rest of my body and in my hair as well.

I smelled her all around me even though she was not there.

When I returned to the camp, Killian was not in sight. Magnolia, however, was. She was standing outside of her tent, holding my bedroll in her hands.

“Oh!” she said when she saw me. “There you are.” She gave me another one of her little, devastating smiles.

Devastating, that she might be happy merely to see me.

“Where’s Killian?” I asked, exhausted but already prepared to go track him down.

“In his tent. I think he’s already asleep, otherwise I would have gone in there.” She lifted the bedroll up between us to draw my attention to it. “I think he put his bedroll in the wrong tent.”

I scratched at my jaw, wondering if I should bother telling her the truth. But something told me if Magnolia had been reluctant about accepting my tent before, then she certainly wouldn’t be willing to use a child’s bedroll and let him go without.

“It’s not Killian’s bedroll,” I told her, my voice gruff. “It’s mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. I told Killian to put it in there.”

“But if this one’s yours,” she said slowly, her brow wrinkling, “then what’s that one?”

I turned to follow the line of her gaze. In a chaoticheap of hides, not-so-subtly placed against my pack, was a bedroll.

Killian’s bedroll.

“It must be a peace offering,” Magnolia said quietly. “He wanted you to have it.”

I did not doubt that she was right. His bedroll had not been there before. And yet, there it was now. Clumsily placed, messy, with an ominously mysterious set of stains that hadn’t been there when I’d first given it to him, it was perhaps the purest thing he could have offered me.

But, like Magnolia, I did not have it in me to let him spend the night without it.

“You said that he’s asleep?” I asked her, picking up Killian’s dusty, wrinkled bedroll.

“I think so. At least, I haven’t heard anything since he went in there.”

“He probably is asleep after everything that happened tonight. If you haven’t heard anything, that means he hasn’t started tossing and turning yet and I can at least hopefully avoid getting a foot to the face.”

I tucked Killian’s bedroll under my arm, then pried mine out of Magnolia’s small hands. Before she could object, I tossed my bedroll back into her tent and then opened the flap of Killian’s.

I glanced back to see that she was right behind me.

Wordlessly, we entered Killian’s tent together, barely fitting on either side of his sprawled and sleeping form. He was flat on his back, arms, legs, and tail akimbo, his mouth wide open and his eyes shut.Every time he breathed, I could see the shadowy outline of his ribs. I would have worried about him not eating enough if it weren’t for the fact that child already ate more than I did most days.

Magnolia obviously already knew what I had planned without needing any instruction. She took the bedroll from me as I gingerly lifted Killian into my arms. I cradled him against my chest. He’d felt heavy when I’d caught him falling with my tail, but like this, he barely seemed to weigh anything at all. His head lolled awkwardly, and I shifted him so that it could rest against my shoulder.

As I held him, I watched Magnolia shake out the bedroll and arrange it on the ground. She did it the same way she’d given Killian his eardrops – with efficient, crisp command of every movement. I remembered Fallon’s wife Darcy cornering me before we’d left on this journey. She’d told me that Magnolia was competent, that she was clever, that she was good.

As if I needed to be told. As if all those good things did not shine out of Magnolia every moment. As if they did not shape everything she did.

She mouthed something at me, but the word was not loud enough for my translator. I guessed it was something like, “finished,” or “there,” because the bedroll was open and ready for Killian. I lowered myself slowly into a crouch, and, being careful not to jostle Killian awake, I gently placed him down. I pulled the bedroll closed over him, securing it so that he would be comfortable and warm – at least until he kicked it all off in his sleep. Magnolia was on theground beside me. She brushed a fluffy white lock of hair out of his face.

For the first time since I’d come here as a child, perhaps for the first time in my life, things felt suddenly right. Having Magnolia with me, helping me get Killian into bed for the night. It was so mundane, something I’d done on my own countless times before when I’d found Killian asleep in the kitchen or the shuldu stalls or outside.

But with Magnolia here, it all felt just a little bit less…

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