Riley
I woke up with a bruised rib, a black eye that Corbin was too polite to mention and Finn was too honest not to, and the particular clarity of mind that comes from a night of bad sleep spent thinking about the same things over and over until they rearrange themselves into something that looks almost like sense.
I came downstairs to find Donal already at a table with a lump of hard bread, weak ale and the expression of a man who had been up for some time.
“Upstream,” I said, before he could speak.
He looked at me.
“The creek,” I said. “They went upstream. Not down.”
Donal picked up his ale and said nothing, which meant I was right and he had already reached the same conclusion and was prepared to let me have it.
Corbin looked up from his breakfast with the bright attentiveness o
