She smiled and shook her head. “I have a failed marriage, no family, no future, a ghost wolf living inside me, and a house full of trouble.” She held his steady gaze with her own. “I don’t have time for pride.”
He nodded. “Maybe you never did.” His eyes shifted to Pick. “Still have your shy little friend, I see. Mr. Pick, the park looks tended and sound, the magic in balance. You are a skilled caretaker.”
Pick frowned and gave a small humph, then nodded grudgingly. “I could use a little help.”
Two Bears smiled faintly. “Some things never change.” His eyes shifted back to Nest. “Walk with me. We can talk better down by the river.”
He started away without waiting for her response, and she found herself following. They moved beyond the slide and down into the trees, edging slowly toward the icy skin of the bayou. The temperature was dropping quickly as the afternoon lengthened and the skies darkened further, and their breath formed white clouds in the air before them. Nest was tempted to speak first, to ask the obvious, but Two Bears had asked to speak with her, so she thought it best to wait on him.
“It feels good to hear you speak my name, to know that you have not forgotten it,” he said, looking off into the distance.
As if she could, she thought without saying so. As if it were possible. She had encountered Two Bears only twice, but both times her life had been changed forever. O’olish Amaneh and John Ross, harbingers of change: she wondered if they ever thought of themselves that way. Both served the Word, but in different ways, and their relationship was something of a mystery. Two Bears had given Ross the rune-carved staff that was both the talisman of his power and the chain that bound him to his fate. Ross had tried at least once to give the staff back and failed. Each had come to Nest both as savior and executioner, but the roles had shifted back and forth between them, and in some ways they remained unclear. They were fond of her, but not of each other. Perhaps their roles placed restrictions on their feelings. Perhaps fondness for her was allowed, while fondness for each other was not.
She was not certain how she felt about them. She guessed she liked Ross better for having witnessed his vulnerability ten years ago in Seattle, when a demon had almost claimed him through misguided love. He had lost almost everything then, stripped of illusion and hope. In a few seconds of blinding recognition, he discovered how deeply pervasive evil was and how impossible it would be to walk away from his battle against it. He had taken up the black staff of his office once more, reclaimed his life as a Knight of the Word, and gone on because there was nothing else for him to do. She found him brave and wonderful because of that.
By the same token, she guessed, she had distanced herself from Two Bears. It wasn’t for what he had done, but for what she had discovered he might do. In Seattle, he had come to observe, to see if she could change the direction in which John Ross had drifted and by doing so enable him to escape the trap that was closing about him. Two Bears had come to watch, but if she had failed in her efforts, he had come to act as well, to make certain that whatever else happened, John Ross would not become a servant of the Void. He had made that clear to her in urging her to go to Ross, even after John had rejected her help, and it had given her an understanding of Two Bears that she would just as soon not have.
But that was long ago, she thought, walking through the park with him, and these are different times.
“I’m surprised you showed yourself to Bennett,” she said finally, abandoning her resolve to wait longer on him.
“She needed someone to protect her from evil spirits.” He kept his gaze directed straight ahead, and she could not determine if he was serious.