Summer has been to the ruins before, but never at night. Darkness changes the familiar path, playing tricks that make things seem out of shape and place. The torch Bevil carries at her back only causes further distortion, stirring the shadows into living things.

Scuffling and curses rise again from behind. Summer sighs and waits for Bevil to draw even, squinting past the torch's light. "Can't you move more quietly? All this noise is bound to attract something."

Bevil glances around uneasily. "Believe me, I'm trying."

"You might do better without the torch. The way it's flickering like that, it's no wonder you keep tripping."

"Don't remind me. But I'd stumble even more without it. We don't all have yellow eyes that can see in the dark."

"Golden," Summer corrects him automatically. "Amie says they're-" Her throat tightens suddenly. Amie won't be around to correct him anymore.

Bevil stops as if struck. "This is all too much, Summer. The village is in flames, we're trudging through the swamp in the middle of the night, and Amie..."

"I know." Most times it felt like Amie was the only person in the village who understood. Whether it was because they'd both lost parents, or just a general sense of being considered outsiders, they had something in common. Unlike most of the village, Amie never felt the need to drop little comments about Daeghun to her. She was Summer's closest friend.

But Bevil... Bevil's been in love with Amie since he was five years old. Something readily apparent to everyone, except perhaps Amie herself.

"That's all you can say?" he demands, suddenly angry at Summer for some reason she can't fathom.

No words can make this better, so Summer merely echoes Daeghun's earlier advice to her. "Dwelling on our losses serves no purpose. We have to focus on the task at hand."

It's hard to tell if Bevil looks more shocked or angry. The way he gestures with his torch-bearing hand makes the surrounding shadows appear to close ranks. "How can you say that? Don't you even care that Amie's gone? Or has Daeghun finally turned you into some kind of unfeeling monster?"

Summer holds her breath, reining in an instinctive urge to snap back at him. "Of course I care. But we can't do anything about it right now."

"I thought she was your friend," Bevil continues bitterly, each word hammering at her tenuous control. "I suppose it'd be different if it was that stupid wolf of yours."

"I- What?"

"At my house. You didn't even check to see if the children were alright. Just ran to the dogs..."

"What does that-?" Summer's lips tighten; it gets harder by the moment to remember that Bevil is grieving too. "Muttonchop almost died saving the children. Locke and Nasher didn't escape injury either. You're saying I should've ignored their wounds? Wounds received protecting your family..."

"Well, at least the dogs were concerned for my family..." The torch makes an angry slash of light. "Do you even know their names? The children, I mean. You obviously know the dogs' names."

Summer knows their names - of course she does, he mentions them all the time - but her mind goes stubbornly blank. Flustered, she grasps at them until Bevil grunts in disgust.

"Wait, Bevil. Of course I know their names." They finally relent and come to mind, but he's already moving forward. "Danan-"

"Forget it! Let's just get this lousy shard for your rotten father."

Nails digging trenches into her palms, Summer struggles for a tone Daeghun would approve of. "He's trying to protect the village... something I thought was important to you as well."

Shadows stutter and spin as Bevil turns again. "Little late now, isn't it? If he'd cared for any of us, he'd have taken this thing they're after far away and none of this would have happened!"

"That's enough!" Perhaps there were times when she questioned Daeghun's affection, but he's never given anyone cause to doubt his sense of responsibility. Bevil can find someone else to blame. "Enough, Bevil."

"Run out of superior remarks? I'm sure your father could give you some."

"One more word about him and I'll leave you here for the beetles to gnaw on."

"How can you defend him?" Bevil demands anyway, either not believing her threat or too frustrated to care.

"Have it your way." Summer picks out a path with ease and tries to tune out the less graceful movements of Bevil following behind her. The torchlight recedes as she quickly widens the gap.

"Go ahead," Bevil shouts after her. "Run off into the dangerous swamp!"

"Dangerous for you perhaps," Summer calls over her shoulder without missing a step

"You're acting like a-" Bevil's reply is cut short by a scuffling noise that transitions into a soggy splash. Summer turns back to find he's tripped and stumbled into a stretch where the water is significantly deeper than it looks. The torch hisses, flame fluttering wildly as the water soaks in, only to dwindle to smoke. Up to his chest in murky water, Bevil tosses it aside to better fight a losing battle with the muddy ground. "Um... I may be a little stuck."

"I told you that heavy armor was a bad idea out here," Summer complains, backtracking to help fish him out of the hole.

He's halfway out when the beetles find them.

As Summer walks away from West Harbor the sun slowly creeps above the horizon, like it's as reluctant to start its journey as the girl whose path it lights.

She wants to retrace her steps, return to West Harbor and beg someone, anyone, to tell her what she did wrong and why she has to be sent away. And what she can do to fix it, so she doesn't have to leave. She wants to talk to Bevil, to smooth things over between them. To not just leave with their argument unresolved.

But she can't. And though there's been tragedy in her past, she was too young to feel its impact. This time, she feels it. Both the loss and the unwelcome discovery that stuff just happens.

The hair on the back of her neck rises and Summer stops to check her surroundings, trying to shake the nagging sensation of being watched. It's become a familiar feeling, intermittently over the years, though she's yet to find a source for it. She brushes it off as something imagined, like the way shadows seem to be growing longer and thicker in the Mere of late.

A strand of grasses on the other side of the path rustles and a reddish brown wolf with a slight limp bursts out. "Sorrel, what are you doing here?" Before she left West Harbor, Daeghun warned that it would be impractical to bring a young wolf on this journey. Ship captains don't usually appreciate wild animals onboard - Flinn being no exception to this rule. But as Sorrel falls in beside her, Summer finds herself unable to bear the thought of sending the wolf away.

"We'll worry about it when we get there."