The journey through the woods was made at speed and Gabriel’s legs were at a steady jog, forcing Seraphim to do the same now that her leg was up to it again. “Why are we going this way?” She asked him when she noticed the course was different than the one they took to get to shelter in the first place.

“Because they took this path, Theresans always have a drop point. From there, their hunters go out looking and report in. Their base camp is always somewhere set up for air travel, helicopter, airplane, even gliders. None of that is really ideal here, that’s why our hideout was set up where it was.” Gabriel answered as he rushed over the flattened grass, stepping only where steps had been made before, his long legs carrying him effortlessly over the well worn path.

Seraphim frowned a little and watched his broad back as it swayed with every long jogging step. “How do you know so much about how they work? Were you and your brother both-”

“No!” Gabriel half growled, half whispered and continued on.

Before, Seraphim would have let that go.

But this was too much.

“Then how-” She never got the question out.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” He raised his voice when he answered, and Seraphim shut her mouth tight until they came to the river.

The water babbled and flowed over stone, a steady stream of blue tainted by the occasional bit of waste that floated onward to who knew where.

“This way.” Gabriel said and jumping into the water with a splash that soaked his boots up to the ankles, he held up a hand and waved her forward. “Come on, Sarah.” He said, using the name he came up with for her.

Seraphim nearly protested, but seeing his eyes darting left and right and out into the woods as if he were worried about being seen out in the open, she nodded and hopped in.

“If they do bring hellhounds, which they will when they have some evidence of where we went, the water will have killed their ability to track us. Thankfully they have a real hard on for mysticism, so much so that they don’t even think of ordinary things like bloodhounds.” He snorted with contemptuous derision and began to jog along the river’s shallow portion, splashing the chill water around as Seraphim hastened behind him.

They went on for over an hour before Gabriel stopped and pointed to a tree. The tree he pointed to was on an overhanging part of the embankment, and its roots grew down from the overhang all the way into the ground again on three sides. The red earth was muddy and soft, that much was clear even from where they stood, and the towering tree stretched up higher than all the others around it, several of which had fallen down and stuck out over the edge of the riverbank, their rotting bodies coated in moss, a fox stood atop one and stared back at Gabriel and Seraphim as though it thought it was what was being pointed at. Its tail batted about, then it cocked his head to one side before turning and running back into the woods where it vanished again.

“Right there. This was actually my asshole brother’s idea.” Gabriel explained, she couldn’t see his face when he said it, but she got the distinct feeling he was smiling.

He stood a little straighter, and his pointed finger was steady, but casual. When he jogged out of the water and toward his destination, there was more of a spring in his step. For a moment, when he dove headlong toward the muck and began to fling his hands into it, throwing the red earth aside left and right, and for just a moment Seraphim could have sworn…

‘He laughed? Was that a laugh just now?’ It seemed so uncharacteristic of him in their brief association that she doubted it, but he certainly dug at the dirt the way a happy child or playful pup might have done.

The scattered red earth splashed into the nearby water and over the white and gray rocks that made up the riverbank until he found what he sought. “My jackass of a brother,” he grunted and gave it a fierce tug, Seraphim couldn’t quite see what it was, “might have been a lot of things,” Gabriel went on with a steady grunt to punctuate his words, “but stupid and conventional weren’t among them.” He finally hauled the box free and fell backward onto the rocks, landing just at Seraphim’s feet with his legs splayed out. Landing between them was a broken wooden box that was black and rotted, but between the broken gaps she could see a smoother, more intact metal box. It wasn’t large, no longer than her arm, no higher than her knee.

“Roots must have grown through the wood.” Gabriel said when he got to his feet and began to tear the old boards apart and cast them behind his back to the river.

They splashed into the water and disappeared even from Seraphim’s view after mere moments. Gabriel slapped the top of the case open with one underhanded swipe and pulled out what appeared to Seraphim to be a bunched up black bag.

“How-?” She didn’t finish the question of how they were to ride in the bag.

Gabriel yanked a loose white cord and it exploded out into the shape of a small boat.

“How?” She asked, pale eyes wide with awe at what looked like a miracle but which had no sign of blessing or curse on it anywhere.

“Technology. Don’t ask me, I just use the stuff, it just inflates really fast.” Gabriel answered and put the metal container into the center of the raft, “We have to take this with us, Cernunous does not like it when humans leave debris just lying around.” Gabriel added and then grabbing the end, he waded into the water ankle deep. He then swung it around so that the rectangular raft was floating in the water. “In.” He ordered.

Seraphim suppressed her urge to frown, he was all business again, and she briefly wondered, ‘Was that just an anomaly, did I imagine he was happy?’ She held onto the thought as she waded into the water and climbed into the raft. He gave it a push and for one moment panic overtook her. ‘Is he leaving me?!’ She cried inside her head, imagining trying to get by in a world she was utterly lost in.

But it wasn’t so, he hopped in before it went out of reach, the water dripped from his boots and he sat cross legged at the far end, his back to the flow of the current. “Hand me those.” He said and pointed to a package wrapped in plastic against the side of the raft.

Seraphim did as he asked, sliding them over to where he sat, he tore open the plastic and tossed it into the metal bin, then began to unfold a plastic pole that snicked together and locked into place with a series of pins until he had something that looked vaguely familiar to Seraphim. ‘An oar?’ She recalled the device from before her captivity and a sense of relief flooded her that at least something made sense.

“Sonofabitch…” Gabriel cursed. “Cheap ass…” Gabriel groused on, “He was supposed to get the one with two of these. I’ll bet that ass expected me to just do all the rowing if it came down to it…”

Seraphim looked away while Gabriel grumbled about his brother, and instead focused her attention on the waters of the river and their distant destination. “It’ll be dark soon, by then most of their teams will be scouring the woods, they’ll find the bodies and think we went out into the wilderness. That gives us days of head start at last.” Gabriel began to push against the water with a steady side to side sweeping of his only oar.

He wasn’t wrong, the darkness began to settle in, and they went unmolested and unseen. “Have some water, and some food, you’ll need to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice.” Gabriel’s rough voice didn’t have the compassion he showed when treating her injury, he was back to being more annoyed than anything, if his unwillingness to look at her directly was any indication.

Seraphim took the communion wafers and the water he blessed, but neither ate nor drank as he said, her questions wouldn’t leave her mind.

“How do you know what you know?” Seraphim demanded again. “I want to trust you, but please… you can tell me something, can’t you?”

“You’re not letting this go, are you?” Gabriel asked with a roll of his eyes.

“No. Please. I promise I won’t react badly, I just- you’re helping me and I’m grateful. But this is all strange, frightening. Iron birds in the sky that can tear open my flesh, humans commanding hellhounds and who have the power to make an angel scream to the I Am for mercy? Please… tell me something?” Seraphim pled.

Gabriel paddled harder for a solid minute, grunting with every hard push forward as the raft bobbed about in the water and the breeze picked up and carried her hair toward him, every strand billowing as if it were reaching out to grab and hold him fast.

“Eat some, drink some, and I’ll tell you.” He finally replied to her with sullen finality.

She did, throwing a handful of wafers in her mouth and chewing them up with her cheeks still stuffed, she put the water skin to her lips and began to chug.

She gulped and swallowed, and strength began to surge through her body that she’d almost forgotten that she had. ‘The curse must really be gone.’ She thought and put her hand on her previously injured leg. The feel of his warm hands on her, the care he showed in inspecting the injury, and that he took care to bring everything she would need to regain her strength, it was all at odds with his annoyance and indifference. ‘And even more so with his intimate knowledge of Theresan matters.’ She looked him over while he looked past her as if she weren’t even there.

“I’m done.” She said, sealing the water and storing the food away again. “Now, please, the truth?” She asked.

“Should’ve picked something that would take longer.” Gabriel groused as the little raft floated around a bend, it ground over rocks, buying him several moments while he leaned back and shoved his oar down to the river bottom and pushed away.

Seraphim waited, her pale eyes loomed like moons he could not escape from.

Gabriel kept his lips sealed for as long as he could, she was inching toward him, as if every moment of silence were going to rob him of one more inch of space between she and he. Finally he spoke. “I wasn’t a Theresan. That much was true, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Gabriel explained reluctantly, “But my brother and I, and others, we used to do business with them. Them and a whole lot more. I had another name. I had another life, both of us did. But, to put it in a way you would understand? I was one of the hunters. But worse. I was a charietto. Do you know what that is?”

When she shrank away, returning to him every inch of space she’d taken by drawing close, her eyes looking behind her and away from him as if she might take flight and retreat at any moment, Gabriel knew that she knew.