As there was no urgent need to get back quickly, and both Reed and Lark agreed that I should take a rest from using my powers, we walked back to the farm. By the time we arrived, the sun had begun to rise. I remembered the sunset Lark had shown me yesterday and couldn't help a small chuckle. So much had changed in so little time.

Boldly, we marched right up to the farmhouse and knocked on the back door, hoping they'd let us sleep in the safety of their home until Elder Brona arrived. Footsteps sounded from inside the house. A small child asked a question and was promptly shushed. The door cracked slightly, a sliver of face visible through the small opening, eye wide with surprise.

"Can we come in?" Reed asked. "We've been up all night, and we'd like to get some rest while we wait for the Elder."

There was a short silence. Then a man's deep voice said, "Did you do it? Did you destroy the ghosts?"

Reed and Lark exchanged a glance.

"Maybe," she said.

The bit of face frowned, and the man harrumphed. "You can rest outside."

The door closed with a slam.

"That was friendly," said Bran, his voice full of resentment. He sat on the porch stairs and stared at the ground in disgust.

"Maybe they don't have room for us?" Lark suggested uncertainly.

Reed shook his head. "It's a huge house. Unless it's packed with bags of wheat or bits of furniture, they've got room. They're probably just afraid of us."

"What's new?" said Bran.

"They might just be-" Lark started.

"No," snapped Bran. "Whatever you're about to say, it's wrong. They aren't just doing anything, other than shunning the people who risked themselves to help them. There is no explanation. There is no way to make it okay."

His eyes caught Lark's, and she quickly looked away, her hands curling into tight fists at her sides.

Reed gave Bran an annoyed look. "Calm down. She was just being nice. There's no need to be so angry—at them or us. I'd think you'd be used to it by now, after all you've said. I'd think you'd understand how it is for them."

"Them," said Bran scornfully. "I can be angry at whoever I want to be."

Lark mumbled something.

"What was that?" Bran asked.

This time, she met his gaze. "You can't stay angry forever."

"Can't I?"

"No. No one can."

"I guess I'm just different."

An enormous amount of disgust was layered into that last word, and it was impossible to tell whether he meant it within the context of the sentence, or as a reference to his being Blessed. Perhaps it was both.

He and Lark stared at each other, more tension growing between them by the second. Bran was the first to look away.

An hour or so later, Elder Brona arrived. Rather than coming to the back porch, where the four of us sat in silence, she marched up to the front door, announcing her presence with a crisp knock. I wondered what she would say to the farmers when she discovered that we had not been allowed inside.

The front door creaked loudly as it opened. Though we couldn't see that side of the house, the morning was quiet, and hurried whispers were audible. All I could make out was, "They're at the back." There was another squeal of protest as the door closed again. The grass rustled beneath feet, and Elder Brona appeared around the corner. Her eyes widened as she saw us.

"Did you do it?" she asked.

"Maybe," said Reed. "At the very least, we destroyed all the ghosts that attacked us."

Elder Brona seemed to regain some of her composure. She frowned. "So they're gone? Or they aren't gone?"

"We don't know for sure."

"We destroyed a lot of them," I added. "At least forty."

"But there might be more?"

I looked at Reed, who shrugged.

"We were hoping you might still be willing to reward us for what we did," he said.

"But if there are still ghosts left, then you accomplished nothing." She crossed her arms and tilted her head in a way that was extraordinarily patronizing. "You did understand the deal we had, yes? That you would get rid of all of the ghosts in exchange for the supplies you needed?"

Bran's head snapped up. Until now, he'd been staring blankly at the ground, but now he gave her a full-force glare. "We understood perfectly well. We did our best."

"It wasn't good enough."

Her voice was hard, edged with anger—but looking at her eyes, at her face, I didn't believe it was real. She wanted to sound angry. She needed to sound angry. She was afraid of us, and this was the one way she could think of to keep control of the situation.

Afraid of us.

The thought made me feel slightly sick. I didn't want to be fearsome—something to hide from, and defend against. I just wanted to be me, Fyra, a girl who happened to be able to talk with the birds. For a moment, I understood Bran's searing anger.

Elder Brona said, "If you want, you can come back tonight. You can try again."

Bran stood abruptly. Lark moved as though to intercept him as he walked toward Elder Brona, but Reed held her back. Bran stopped right in front of the elder. Their eyes were at the same height, and the look they shared between them was a complicated mess of loathing and anger, identical on both sides, save for the fear that pulsed beneath Elder Brona's calm facade.

"I'm done helping you," said Bran, in a surprisingly quiet tone of voice. His anger seemed to sizzle in the air around them. I felt a buzzing sensation as the hairs in my arms stood up. Lark jumped; Reed frowned.

"I'm done," Bran repeated. "People like you never change. So give us our supplies, and we'll be on our way."

Elder Brona shook her head. "No."

Something was about to happen. I knew it. Bran would lose his temper, or Elder Brona would lose hers, and quickly enough, everything would go wrong. I took a step forward. Then another. It felt like I was wading through the air, moving much too slowly. I pushed harder.

"Bran, don't," I said, although I wasn't quite sure what I meant. "We can get food some other way. We're obviously not wanted here."

Bran turned on me and shouted, "We're not wanted anywhere!"

The grass began to curl, turning brown beneath his feet. A thrill of fear went through me. I took a step backward. So did Elder Brona, and Bran turned back to her, his lip curling in disgust.

"What, are you afraid?"

"No," she said, but her voice trembled. It was more of a plea than a denial.

I stepped between her and Bran. "I don't know what you're doing, but quit it. This isn't funny."

"No, it's not. It's injustice."

"You know what I mean. Threats won't help anything."

He tried to step around me, but I followed him, stepping forward, narrowing the distance between us.

"You're better than this," I said. "Come on. Let's get out of here before you do something rash."

Lark walked over to stand beside me. "She's right, Bran. This is what we agreed on."

"Listen to her," said Elder Brona. "She knows how real justice works."

With a growl of anger, Bran lunged at her. I grabbed his arm, pulling him back, and a bolt of pure power surged through me. This was why the air was thick with tangible tension. This was why the grass turned brown beneath his feet.

The world went white. I was on fire, burning, burning, burning.

I called my birds to me. All of them. Not half of them, or most of them. All the birds I could reach with my senses, I called to me. And my senses were everywhere, stretching miles away, past the forest, to the borders of an unknown sea.

My common sense suddenly flooded back. What was I doing? I had no need of all these birds, no reason to call them here. I reached out to them again and told them it was all right. They didn't need to come. The message had reached three-quarters of them when my power fizzled out. The brilliant white faded from my eyes. I fell to the ground.

For every vote this chapter gets, you can assume Elder Brona got attacked by one of the deathbirds Fyra just called.