Ren’s heart thudded painfully. He knows not. Of course. From his perspective, they’d vanished like the river fog. “Sedge—Tess is alive. She’s with me.” More beer sloshed onto the table, its sour-spiced scent perfuming the alcove. The steel of Sedge’s gaze turned brittle, the muscles of his jaw, his neck, his forearms corded with the effort not to shatter. “You’ve been together. All this time. Safe. And together.” No matter how he tried to disguise it, Ren could hear the hollowness at the core of his words. She’d had Tess. Sedge had been left to carry on alone.
