Chapter 35
After the freepeople left, Isika rounded up the rest of the company. She smiled as she looked at them—they were a scraggly, raggedy, ship-wrecked bunch. Jabari stood close to her, hair a mess, a few inches taller than everyone other than Abbas, who wore his long hair tied back with a strip of cloth he had torn from his shredded shirt. Nat stood beside Isika on the other side, alert as always. Isika had grown to know the older woman on the journey, and even if no one else could tell that she was more relaxed than she had been the previous day, Isika could. Nat clutched her spear with a little less intensity than the day before. Ivy was more stork-like than ever, and Brigid looked fierce with the black eye she had earned the day before. Gavi stood gazing back at Isika with shadow
