It was really more a small house, than a cottage. The stone facade was half-crumbled and charred black in the left corner, where a long-ago fire had taken most of that room. The walls still stood, but there was a gaping hole in the ceiling. Rannok rubbed his fingers in the charcoal, then opened the door and led Erean through. He took a quick glance back at Sasha, who busied herself taking the tack off the horses.

"The storm won't kill them," she said as she came inside after him, a saddle in each arm. She propped them up against the wall on the side where the roof still stood, so they wouldn't get rained on, then opened up the inner door. 

The smell of mold hung in the air. Each footfall kicked up a cloud of dust. A rotting bear hide sprawled across the floor. A spiral staircase curled up the side of the room to a narrow hallway. Rannok got a funny feeling in his stomach as he glanced up there.

"Relax, this place has been abandoned a long time." Erean picked up a piece of wood out of the fireplace and snapped it in his hands. A cloud of dust emitted up from it. The crow flew in through the cracked window and landed on the railing. 

"It seems to be structurally sound," he said. The room got very bright for a moment, and another rumble shook the sky. Rannok swallowed hard. The hair on the back of his neck rose with the static.

"I'm going upstairs," he said, probably too quickly. 

"Be careful not to fall through the floor," Erean said. Rannok grabbed both railings as he went up, as if he were afraid they'd crumble and fall. 

The first door led to outside, and the hole in the ceiling where the kitchen used to be. A few drops of water fell from the sky. Rannok shut it again. His stomach did somersaults as he proceeded down the hallway. The only other door was about half his height, and secured with a small wooden string.

He coughed as his eyes adjusted to the light. The ceiling sloped downward into the corners, and a few dusty crates sat to the far side. Just a crawlspace, but he didn't care. He squeezed into the back, folding his wings in beside the boxes. The weight of his knees pressing into his eye sockets comforted him. It blocked out the flashes of light and made it easier to forget the rumble of the approaching storm, like a stampede he couldn't stop.

He could forget about Agatine, if he tried hard enough. He could forget about the caravan and his friends. He could forget about Ittra and her hard glare and Elyn and his quiet, and Wren and her anger, so fierce he sometimes worried it would swallow her whole. But he would forget. He had to, because there was no going back. Forgetting was easier.

The door creaked open and the noises got louder. Rannok lifted his head and tried to make as if he'd been asleep. Sasha's hair made a frizzy halo around her head, framed in the light of the fire that spilled up from downstairs. She frowned at him, then crept into the crawlspace on her knees.

"Why are you hiding up here?"

"I was tired," he said. Her frown deepened. She crept a bit closer to him and shut the door behind her, so they were engulfed in darkness, except for a small sliver of light that spilled out through a crack in the far wall and fell across her face. The boxes rustled as she rested her back against them.

"You're hiding from the storm."

He pursed his lips and stifled the irritated groan that wanted to seep from his mouth. Of course he was hiding from the storm. He was hiding from the storm and he was hiding from the questions he knew she was going to ask, because they were none of her business.

"You're running from your dad," he said.

"That's none of your business." The boxes moved again as she stiffened, moving away from him a half inch. One of the lids clattered to the floor. She yanked the contents out. The smell of dust and moth-eaten fabric reached Rannok's nose. He coughed. She tossed him a blanket. He grudgingly wrapped it around his shoulders.

"Neither is why I'm hiding from the storm."

"That's different," she said.

"You almost got us killed twice." He'd thought Erean was going to kill her when they got caught up to him. Fortunately they did before Sasha's father and his dogs caught them. Rannok had a feeling he was not the type to take well to horse thieves and kidnappers.

Sasha mulled this over for a second, head tilted up toward the ceiling. "No, maybe it isn't. But it's terrible to see you do it." Her voice got quiet and low. The sky rumbled again, making Rannok jump.

"It's terrible to get chased by some guy with dogs who probably wants to kill you, too," Rannok snapped, heat rising in his chest, face flushed. His teeth clicked together and he stared at her in the dark. Her face crumpled and she bit her lip. 

"I didn't mean--"

"You don't know what you're talking about." The shadows of her face softened, and she curled in on herself and hid her face on top of her knees. Her voice was just a whisper, barely loud enough for him to hear. "There's no one there that can stop him, now." 

"What do you mean--"

"He comes home from his trips." Sasha paused for a very long time, so long that Rannok worried she wouldn't come up for air. Bile rose in his stomach, like somehow he knew he was about to learn something truly terrible.

"He's always done it. Since we were little. He screams and hits and...worse. Except Damien's not there. Three years Damien hasn't been there to keep him away from me anymore." 

Rannok opened his mouth to say something back. Something, anything, that might make her feel better, or that might explain why he acted the way he did. Why he was so afraid of thunder, why the horses made him shake. Why he didn't want to talk to her about Terres. But the words wouldn't come. They stuck in his throat as if he'd swallowed cotton balls. Like if he talked about them, the feelings would come flooding back. 

"I'm sorry," he said, not just because she was crying.

"I can't go back," she said. He opened his mouth to respond, but thunder rolled so close to them it made the building shake. Rannok's heart jumped in his ribcage. He let her take his hand again as the sky crashed down around them.