Harrowfen Bridge settled slowly after the running stopped.

Marra clung to her daughter as though the act of holding her tightly enough might erase the hours between losing her and getting her back. The girl—Lysa, once Marra found breath enough to say her name aloud—held on just as hard, face buried in her mother’s shoulder, small body still shaking with the aftershock of fear. Neither seemed willing to let the other out of reach, not yet. Behind a bush whose cover was ruined by the very obvious jut of an oversized hat, Jilly watched in satisfied silence before bouncing back toward the others with the simple certainty of someone who knew helping had mattered. Fredrick, breathing hard and still looking more tired than triumphant, stayed near enough to Garreth to ask the question that needed asking.

Garreth did not answer immediately.

He took the candies Jilly offered him, turned one over in his palm as if he had not expected to be given anything so small and earnest after a fight like that, then let out a faint, tired breath that might have been the beginning of a laugh. [color=00aeef]“I’ll survive this one,”[/color] he said at last, though the hand pressed to his side made plain that survival and comfort were very different matters. His eyes shifted to Marra and Lysa, and whatever little humor had touched his face gave way to something firmer. [color=00aeef]“But they won’t survive Wickerford. Not after this.”[/color]

Marra lifted her head slowly.

Garreth nodded once, more to confirm what she already knew than to tell her anything new. [color=00aeef]“You, the girl, and me—we leave. Not tomorrow if it can be helped. Now. Greybank first, then closer to the capital. Somewhere the King’s law is still law, and not whatever bargain those cowards have made with fear.”[/color] His gaze hardened when it turned back toward the village in the distance. [color=00aeef]“That place is done with silence. Let it choke on it without you.”[/color]

The bridge held quiet around that decision. The marsh whispered below. Somewhere far back along the road, whatever became of the bandits and their pursuit no longer mattered enough to reach this moment. What remained was simpler, if not cleaner: a rescued child, a wounded old guard who had finally chosen a side he would not retreat from, and a knot of unlikely adventurers who had broken the pattern Wickerford had lived under for far too long. Jilly’s grateful wave toward the distant memory of “Sir Coin-sama” hung in the air with all the sincerity in the world, and even that absurdity felt right somehow, after everything.

For now, Harrowfen Bridge was no battlefield. It was only a place where people caught their breath, looked at what had been saved, and found room enough for whatever words still needed saying.