“It was night when I came runnin’ here, few days ago,” she said. “Demons would’ve got me, Jeph hadn’t crossed the wards and hit one with his axe.”

“Honest word?” the Painted Man asked, and felt a lump in his throat when she nodded.

“You’re not going to tell him, are you?” she asked.

“Tell him what?” the Painted Man asked.

“That you’re his son,” Renna said. “That you’re alive and well and you forgive him. He’s waited so long. Why are you still punishing him when I can see forgiveness in your eyes?”

“You know who I am?” he asked, surprised.

“Course I know!” Renna snapped. “Ent stupid, no matter what everyone thinks. How would you’ve known about my da and what he done, you weren’t Arlen Bales? How would you know Cobie was a bully, or which farm was Jeph’s? Night, you strolled around the cupboards like it was still your house!”

“Din’t mean for anyone to know,” the Painted Man said, suddenly realizing that his Brook accent, which he ’d dropped while living in Miln, had returned. It was an old Messenger’s trick to put folk in the hamlets at ease, shifting accent to match theirs. He had done it a hundred times, but this time was different, like he ’d been doing the trick since he left and was finally speaking in his own voice again.

Renna kicked him hard in the shin. He yelped in pain.

“That’s for thinkin’ I din’t know, and not sayin’ anythin’!” she shouted, shoving him so hard he fell into the pile of hay at the back of the stall. “Fourteen summers I waited for you! Always thought you’d come back for me. We was promised. But you din’t come back for me at all, did you? Not even now! You was gonna just stop in and leave thinkin’ no one knew!” She kicked at him again, and he scrambled quickly to his feet, moving to put Twilight Dancer between them.

She was right, of course. The same as his visit to Miln, he had thought he could look in on his old life without touching it, like removing a bandage to see if the wound underneath had healed. But truer was he had left those wounds to fester, and it was time they were bled.

“Five minutes’ talk between our das don’t make us promised, Ren,” he said.

“I asked my da to talk to Jeph,” Renna said. “I told you we was promised then, and I said the words on the porch at sunset the day you left. That makes it so.”

But the Painted Man shook his head. “Sayin’ something at sunset doesn’t make it so. I never promised to you, Renna. Everyone got a say that night but me.”

Renna looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “Maybe you din’t,” she conceded, “but I did. It was the only thing I ever done that was really mine, and I ent gonna take it back. I knew it when we kissed, that we was meant to be.”

“But you’d have married Cobie Fisher,” he said, failing to keep some bitterness from his voice, “who used to beat on me with his friends.”

“You fixed ’em for that,” Renna said. “Cobie was always nice to me…” She sniffed, touching the necklace she wore. “Din’t even know you were alive, and I needed to get away…”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “I know, Ren. Din’t mean it like that. Don’t blame you for doing what you did. Just meant that nothing’s ‘meant to be.’ We all just go through life doing what we think’s best.”

She looked at him. “I want to go with you when you leave. That’s what I think’s best.”

“You know what that means, Ren?” the Painted Man asked. “I don’t just hide behind a circle when the sun sets. Ent a safe life.”

“Like I’m safe here?” Renna asked. “Even if they don’t stake me again soon as you leave, who I got to turn to now? Who, that wern’t willing to stand by and watch me get cored?”

He looked at her a long time, trying to find the words to refuse her. The Fishers were no different from any bullies—he would cow them come nightfall, if he hadn’t already. Renna would be safe in the Brook. She deserved to be safe.

But was simple safety enough? It wasn’t for him, so who was he to say it was for her? He ’d always looked with derision on those who spent their lives in fear of the night.

Being around Renna was like salt in the wound, a reminder of everything he had given up when he began warding his flesh. It was hard enough around those who never knew him before. Renna made him feel like he was still eleven years old.

But she needed him, and that kept the call of the Core away. Today was the first dawn he had looked forward to since Miln. In his heart, the Painted Man knew he would never survive if he tried to enter the demon world, but seeing his own people put Renna out at night made him want to leave humanity behind forever. If he left Tibbet’s Brook alone, he might.

“All right,” he said at last, “so long as you keep the pace. You slow me down, and I’ll leave you at the first town we come to.”

Renna looked around the barn, spotting a beam of sunlight streaming in through the hayloft doors above. She stepped carefully into the sunlight and met his eyes. “I ent gonna slow you,” she promised, drawing Harl’s knife, “sun as my witness.”

“You clutch that knife like it could help you against a coreling,” the Painted Man said. “Let me ward it for you.” Renna blinked, looking at the knife, then held it out. He reached for it, but she drew it back suddenly, clutching it protectively.

“Knife’s one of the only things in the world that’s mine,” she said. “Like to ward it myself, if you’ll teach me.”

The Painted Man looked at her doubtfully, remembering her poor warding when they were children. Renna noted the look and scowled.

“I ent nine years old anymore, Arlen Bales,” she snapped. “Been warding my property nigh ten years now and ent no demon ever got past, so you quit looking down. Reckon I can draw a ripping circle or a heat ward good as you.”

Shocked, the Painted Man shook his head to clear it. “Sorry. The Warders in the Free Cities treated me the same way when I left the Brook. Forgot how insulting it was.”

Renna went over to where his gear was stored, pulling a warded knife from a sheath on his saddle. “Here,” she said, coming over to him. “What’s this’un do?” She pointed to the single ward at the tip. “And why’s the rest of the edge just a repeat of this other ward, only rotated? How’s it form a net without connectors?” She turned the weapon over in her hands, running her finger over the dozens of wards on the flat.

The Painted Man pointed to the tip. “This is a piercing ward, to break the armor. Those on the side are cutting wards, to let the blade slide in once the armor is broken. Cutting wards are self-linking, if you rotate them proper.”

Renna nodded, her eyes dancing along the lines. “And these?” She pointed to the symbols inside the cutting edge.

After supper, Jeph hitched his cart, and the whole family climbed in to head to Town Square. Renna rode with the Painted Man, seated behind him on Twilight Dancer.

They arrived scant minutes before sunset. If the square had been packed the day before, it was near bursting now. Every borough of Tibbet’s Brook was represented in full, man, woman, and child. They filled the street and most of the square, more than a thousand souls in all, succored only by hastily hauled and painted wardstones.

Everyone looked up when they rode in, ignoring Jeph’s family entirely as they stared at the hooded stranger on his enormous warded stallion, and the girl who rode behind him. The crowd parted as the Painted Man rode through to the center of the square, turning Twilight Dancer back and forth a few times so all could see them. He reached up and pulled his hood down, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd.

“I came from the Free Cities to teach the good people of Tibbet’s Brook to kill demons!” he shouted. “But so far, I’ve seen no ‘good people.’ Good people do not feed helpless girls to the corelings! Good people do not stand by while someone is cored!” As he spoke, he continued to turn his horse back and forth, meeting as many eyes as possible.