Elayra snorted when Ghent asked about a weapon. She watched him impatiently as he struggled to put his backpack in hers. She gripped the bridge of her nose and took a few deep breaths, as she had seen Drust do to try calming himself, to reassure herself the negative voices in her head were wrong.
	“It’s not a matter of him remembering.” Her voice came out strained from the effort to keep it even. “He wakes up outside a Safe Zone, and I guarantee it’ll be the Curse in control from the get-go. Not him. No ifs, ands, or buts.” She looked back up at him as he shifted the items around inside his pack to reshape it, wasting precious time. She glanced nervously to Drust, his back slumped once more against the tree, but he remained stationary.
	Her gaze fell to Ghent’s shaking hands. To his open, uncontrolled fear. She took another deep breath.
	[i]This isn’t his world,[/i] she reminded herself, trying to ignore the quiet, [i]He’s going to get us killed,[/i] that crept into the back of her mind.
	“Hurry up!” she barked, harsher than necessary, her own anxiety ever rising with her doubts.
	At long last, Ghent managed to combine the packs. With his inside, it weighed a little under a pound more than it had before.
	“No!” she snapped, her lips curling up in anger at Ghent’s last question. “No magic! Not on him. Knights are weak against it, and a stink worm’s better at controlling it than you.”
	Her back stiffened and her attention snapped behind her, sure she had heard a rustle, her hand instinctively moving to her sword. But there was nothing there. Nothing your average human could see, at least. All the same, the hair on the back of her neck prickled, sensing eyes on them that her other senses could not find.
	“Grab his legs.” She nodded jerkily toward Drust’s legs as she moved his upper body so she could wrap her arms under his armpits. His hooded cowl bunched beneath her grasp, and his head lulled near her shoulder.
	She shuddered, hating how lifeless he felt. The reassuring rise and fall of his chest was the only indication he still lived. Fourteen years of fighting against the Sorceress’ men and magic, and it took one day, one attack from an inexperienced boy to knock him down.
	She grit her teeth, her grip on him unintentionally tightening. “And keep an eye out for the tichari. Ghost foxes. They’re our only chance at finding a Safe Zone.”